Asking God for Knicks Tickets

Suggested Reading: Acts 9:32-43

My wife and I have always enjoyed watching the dramedy Castle. It is the story of Richard Castle, a wealthy novelist who works alongside several New York City police detectives, doing research for his books and helping to solve homicide cases. As the show progressed, two of the detectives, Ryan and Esposito became very comfortable with asking Castle for tremendous favors: front rows seats to the Knicks games, reservations at restaurants nobody could get into, cool gadgets for the precinct that the police budget couldn't afford. They never abused their relationship with Castle, but they certainly made the most of his resources and his willingness to do big favors.

In Acts 9, Tabitha, a Jesus-follower who had been a pillar in the Christian community in Joppa and was constantly engaged in good works and acts of charity, died. Several widows who loved Tabitha, instead of preparing her for burial, placed her in an upper room and sent the Apostle Peter a message: "Please come to us without delay" (Acts 9:38, ESV). When Peter arrived, they immediately began showing him all of the wonderful things she had provided for them and talking about the incredible person she had been. Their request was clear: our friend has died, and we want you to do something about it. This was an audacious request. As a pastor, I'm not sure how I would react if someone called me over to their house because a friend had died and they wanted me to fix it. But that is exactly what these ladies did to Peter. And then Peter did exactly what they wanted him to do.

Sometimes we forget that we serve a God who does the impossible. Or, at least, we pray like we've forgotten. We face impossible situations and simply resign ourselves to the fact that nothing can be done.  We look at a marriage that has deteriorated with no possibility for reconciliation, but we don't ask God to step in, revealing himself and miraculously restoring the relationship. A loved one faces a terminal diagnosis, but instead of anointing the person with oil and having the leaders of the church pray for their recovery (James 5:14-16), we pray for decreased pain and comfort for the family. We fail to make the most of our relationship with a God who has all the resources of the universe at his disposal and wants to move in our lives.

God may have other plans. God may be planning on using these impossible situations to shape us or to lay the groundwork for something bigger. But God may also be waiting for us to make the impossible request so that people can see exactly who God is and what God is capable of. We serve a God who answers impossible requests and solves impossible problems. Maybe it's time we start praying like it.

How Bold Is Bold Enough?

Suggested Reading: Ephesians 6:10-20

Paul, in my opinion is one of the most dynamic characters in Scripture. From requesting letters to arrest Christians to becoming one of Jesus' greatest advocates, Paul was never known for being shy and reserved. Paul stood before rioting mobs and defended both himself and the Gospel. He publicly called Peter on the carpet when he was in the wrong. He endured beatings, stonings, shipwrecks, and prison, and he never seemed to waver from his calling to preach the Gospel. He seemed unstoppable. Which is why Ephesians 6:19-20 stands out for me.

Paul writes, "Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel. For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough in Him to speak as I should" (HSCB).

I don't know all of the reasons why Paul felt the need to pray for boldness. Maybe he didn't feel bold. Maybe Paul was anticipating some of the trials he was about to face and was worried about losing his nerve. Maybe he was worried that he would succumb to the temptation to water down the message for his own safety (Paul had been shipped out of town on, at least, four different occasions by other believers trying to keep him alive).   Maybe Paul didn't take his boldness for granted. Maybe Paul was constantly aware of all of the places he could have been bolder.  Or maybe Paul knew that his boldness for Christ came from the Holy Spirit in response to prayer.

What I do know is that, if Paul could request prayers for boldness to preach the message effectively, that we should as well. Maybe if we prayed to be effective and bold we actually would be. Maybe if we prayed with Paul for boldness and a clear message we could stand with him, pressing on toward the prize, rather than just wishing we were like him. 

So, I ask you to pray with me that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the Gospel, that I may live as an ambassador for Christ, being bold enough in Him to speak as I should. And if you want, I'll pray the same with you. 

Having the Right Credentials

Suggested Reading: Acts 4:8-18

Several years ago, I graduated with a Master of Divinity degree and am currently finishing a PhD. I have spent more than a decade in higher education classrooms and I know lots of people with multiple degrees. Some of my best friends hold a PhD.  So I have both a great appreciation for and a healthy skepticism of higher learning. I appreciate the education one can gain, especially in biblical studies, but I am also keenly aware, because of so much time spent with so many people who now have higher education degrees, that academic credentials don't change who you are. In fact, academic learning and credentials typically make you much more of the kind of person you already are. With education, people are simply better at justifying what they already believe and more practiced in defending it.

Recently, however, I was reading through Acts 4 and I was reminded of an entirely different and yet more pertinent kind of credential. Peter and John had been arrested due to the public upheaval they created by healing a lame man. They had been brought before the Sanhedrin and called to account for preaching in the name of Jesus. When Peter and John responded cleverly and with conviction, the Sanhedrin's reaction to them is recorded with these words:  "When they observed the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed and recognized that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13 HCSB). Neither Peter nor John had any legitimate training or education in the eyes of the most educated Jews of the day yet they were able to make a solid case for preaching the gospel before the very people who were trying to intimidate them into stopping. The only explanation the Sanhedrin could come up with was that these men had been with Jesus.

In another example, but at the opposite extreme, we can see the Apostle Paul. Paul was a very highly educated man. He had studied under Gamaliel, a man whose counsel the Sanhedrin grudgingly yielded to just a few chapters later in Acts. Paul had all of the educational credentials that a Christian minister could hope for in the first century. Yet, at the beginning of each of his letters, when he lists his credentials for his readers, he never once mentions his education or training. Instead, he only ever mentions that he had been called by Jesus, that he was a slave of Jesus.  As far as Paul was concerned, the only legitimate credentials were those related directly to his relationship with Christ.

Now, don't get me wrong. I believe in being as educated as possible, especially for the ministry. I believe in having all of the tools available to help one rightly divide the Word of Truth. But the only credential that really matters is whether or not we have been with Jesus, whether or not we are following his call in our lives. What credentials do you tend to flash for people? Are you more impressed than you should be by other people's credentials? Or do you rely too heavily on the wrong credentials yourself? There's ultimately only one credential that matters.

Paying Taxes For Offensive Tofu

Suggested Reading: Matthew 17:24-27

While I was in college, the patriarch of a Vietnamese family that lived two doors down died, and I was invited to a series of memorial meals in the weeks following his death. At the final, most elaborate meal, the matriarch prepared her famous tofu. Now let me say clearly, I despise tofu. I can't stand it. Thinking about eating tofu makes me almost as sick as thinking about eating bananas (another long story). But she had made it especially for this occasion and would have been offended if I hadn't eaten a heaping portion. So I took some, ate it with a smile, and when I started to feel sick I left the table discreetly and came back a few minutes later. I could have simply turned her down. In America, grown adults do normally have the right to not eat foods we don't like. But in order to maintain a fledgling relationship with this lady and her family I chose not to offend them and I ate the food I couldn't stand.

In Matthew 17, the local temple tax collector came to Peter to ask if Jesus intended to pay the temple tax that all Jewish men were required to pay to maintain the temple. Jesus asked Peter a question to remind Peter that, as the Son of God, he should have been exempt from paying such a tax. But then Jesus added, "But, so we won’t offend them, go to the sea, cast in a fishhook, and take the first fish that you catch. When you open its mouth you’ll find a coin. Take it and give it to them for Me and you” (Matthew 17:27, HCSB). Jesus didn't have to pay the temple tax but he chose not to offend these people who wouldn't understand.

Now, Jesus had no problem offending people when he felt it was necessary. Repeatedly, his disciples asked him if he knew he had offended the Pharisees or the Sadducees with a parable or a teaching he had just offered. On several occasions Jesus called those two groups broods of vipers or some other name they would have found offensive because of their exalted positions in the community. But the only reason Jesus would have had for being offensive in this situation would have been insisting on his own right as God not to pay for his own temple. Jesus decided that insisting on his own rights wasn't something that was worth offending others.

If we live Christ-like lives we will have plenty of opportunities to offend people, when it will, in fact, be necessary to offend people. But we should never offend people for the sake of offending them or if there are other ways to accomplish what has to be done. If we follow Jesus' example, we must remember that maintaining our own rights is not a good enough reason to risk damaging our relationship with someone. Our reasons for offending people should always center around what is best for them, never around what is best for us.

Getting Cheated On When You're Dead

Suggested Reading: John 13:1-12

To replace the superhero fan's Smallville addiction, the CW Network introduced a new series called Arrow. Arrow was the story of Oliver Queen, a billionaire playboy who gets stranded on an island for five years and returns to become the Green Arrow. During the five years when everyone thinks he is dead, Oliver's old girlfriend and his best friend become an item. Oliver finds out about their pairing in the course of his new superhero duties, but he refuses to let on. He continues to treat them just as he did before, and never holds their coupling while he was "dead" against them, even though he is still in love with his old girlfriend.

Jesus endured a similar, but much more difficult situation. In John 13, Jesus prepares to leave his disciples for the cross and gives them a demonstration of the attitude he wants them to have with one another. He strips down to his linens, and takes on the job of the lowliest servant, washing the disciples' feet. Naturally, Peter opposes allowing Jesus to act like a lowly servant but Jesus insists, making it a requirement of following him. Brash Peter immediately changes his tune, asking Jesus to wash not only his feet but his head and hands as well. Jesus replied, "A person who has bathed all over does not need to wash, except for the feet, to be entirely clean. And you disciples are clean, but not all of you." For Jesus knew who would betray him. This is what he meant when he said, "Not all of you are clean." After washing their feet, he put on his robe again and sat down (John 13:10-12, NLT).

I want you to think about that for a minute. Jesus is on the verge of being betrayed and handed over to be tortured and murdered. Jesus knows who is going to betray him and cause him this pain, but he never lets on. A few verses later, Jesus tells one of the disciples that Judas will betray him, but Jesus says it in such even tones that none of the other disciples understand Jesus' pronouncement, thinking Jesus has simply sent Judas out on a task. Jesus knew exactly who Judas was and how Judas was going to betray him, but he never treated him any differently. Jesus washed Judas's feet just like everybody else and then served him a meal just like everybody else, even knowing the pain Judas was going to cause him.

While we want to be like Jesus, it is a whole lot easier to hold a grudge against the people who hurt us. Our natural reaction is to pull away from those people or to treat them like the scumbags we think they are. Sometimes, we even try to be nice to those people because we know we are supposed to, but we find it difficult and our kindness may come across as forced. Jesus sets a higher standard for us. Jesus treated Judas so well that even when Jesus told John that Judas would betray him, that idea simply didn't compute.

Who has hurt or mistreated you? Maybe a family member has gone behind your back. Maybe a friend has betrayed your trust. Maybe you were hurt by someone who is so focused on themselves they still haven't realized how badly they hurt you. You may or may not need to talk to the person who hurt you about the pain they've caused. But as a follower of Christ, you must treat them as well as Jesus treated Judas. How you treat your betrayer says much more about you than it says about them.

Let's All Be Superheroes

Suggested Reading: Matthew 14:22-33

My son is a massive superhero junky. It doesn't really matter which superhero - Superman, Batman, Thor, DareDevil, Spiderman. He loves pretty much all of them and would prefer to have every movie or television show ever made about every one of them. But he is really not that different from most every other guy I know. Almost all of us want to be some superhero or another. So it's really not that surprising that most Christians want to be like Peter.

Now Peter was a loud mouth who didn't know what he was saying most of the time that Jesus was around but he had moments of brilliance. There was the time that Jesus asked the disciples who they thought he was and Peter boldly declared, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16). But the time when most of us look at Peter and wish we could be him, even just for a moment, is found in Matthew 14.

Jesus had sent the disciples across the lake so he could be alone to pray. They were still crossing the lake in the middle of the night when Jesus came walking across the waves. The disciples freaked out thinking he was a ghost (which is only natural considering that normal people can't walk on water). When Jesus declared himself to them, Peter, rational thinker that he was, said, "Lord, if it is you, call me to come out to you on the water" (Matthew 14:28).

Ok.  What? Peter was crazy.  The other disciples, the ones hunkering down and cowering in fear, were the rational ones in this instance. People can't walk on water. Peter was the crazy one for believing anyone could walk on the water, much less thinking he could do it too. But Peter remembered something that we often forget: when God is involved, nothing is impossible. So Peter got to do something that none of the rest of us normally get to do. Peter got to walk on water like some superhero.

There are times when God calls us to do something that seems crazy, that seems impossible. When that moment comes, we can either take a chance, knowing that God is great enough to make up for whatever ability we don't have or we can hunker down and cower in fear, always wondering what it would have been like to walk on water. 

When your moment comes, what will you decide? Will you be bound by what is natural and possible? Or will you be crazy and step out on the water, trusting that Jesus will catch you if you fall? I don't know about you, but I want to be a little crazy.

Seeing the Messiah Through "The Mist"

Suggested Reading: Matthew 16:13-28

Rick Riordan has written a series of novels for teens called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. The premise of the books is that all of the Greek gods from mythology are real, as well as all of the monsters and half-human offspring of the gods. These beings are all supposedly still active in the modern world. The reason normal people don't notice all of these creatures from mythology and these explosive events happening all around them is that mortals' minds are blinded by "the mist." It is a force which causes human beings only to see what they think they should see and prevents them from seeing things that don't fit their preconceived notion of reality, like Cyclopes or centaurs or giant manticores. Obviously, this idea that human beings tend not to see anything beyond what fits their preconceived notion of the world is integral to the books.

Part of what allows the reader to suspend disbelief and accept "the mist" as believable is that we know human beings act like this all the time. Every day we encounter people (and sometimes are people) who miss the obvious because it doesn't fit with our notions of reality. We can even see this tendency in Jesus' disciples. In Matthew 16 Jesus begins to describe to his disciples what is going to happen to him in the days leading up to his crucifixion, that he "must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, be killed, and be raised the third day" (Matthew 16:21, HCSB). But then Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to set Jesus straight. "Oh no, Lord! This will never happen to you!" (verse 22, HSCB).

For Peter and the other disciples who had finally come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the idea that Jesus would suffer and die was inconceivable. In general, the Jews of the day had come to believe that the Messiah would be a conquering king who would sweep the Romans out of Jerusalem and then out of Judea and would restore Israel to its rightful place as the dominant power in the world.  Suffering and dying did not fit their idea of the Messiah and so they refused to believe it. Can you imagine, walking up to the man that you have just acknowledged to be the son of God (Matthew 16:16) and telling him that he is wrong?!  But Peter did exactly that because what Jesus had in store did not fit his preconceived ideas of what the Messiah was supposed to be.

How often do we do the very same thing? How often do we miss out on what God has in store for us because we are so full of our own ideas of how things are supposed to work that we miss the obvious? Sometimes, we get it in our heads that God only works a certain way, even when, like Peter, Jesus is stating in fairly clear terms that something else is going on. We decide that a particular person is a lost cause when Jesus is saying, "That man will draw the world to me." God allows us to go through difficulty in order to stretch us and teach us but we are so convinced of our own maturity that we miss the lesson entirely.

Today, instead of walking around, making assumptions about how the world works or about the ways God "always" does things, step back and try not to take anything for granted. Try to remember that our expectations can sometimes be way off and let God do what God wants to do. Let's learn from Peter's mistake and try not to convince God that God's plans are wrong.

Admitting My Wife Doesn't Exist

Suggested Reading: Acts 4:1-22

Well, I made the mistake of venturing into one of those online debates again. Fortunately, I was smart enough not to actually get drawn in and start commenting. But the conversation was a debate about the possibility of God's existence. The Christian wanted the atheist to admit to the possibility that he was wrong and the atheist wanted the Christian to admit to the possibility that he was wrong. Other people chimed in from both sides and some people from both sides opened up to the possibility that they were wrong. And the whole time I was reading this conversation I was thinking, "We're arguing about the possibility that we might be wrong instead of discussing why we think we're right? These people obviously didn't take debate class in high school."

The conversation reminded me of an instance where some people were trying to get the disciples to stop talking about Jesus. Peter and John were going to the temple when they met a lame man and healed him in the name of Jesus. This man's miraculous healing provided them an opportunity to preach about Jesus and they used it. But the preaching got them arrested and dragged before the ruling council. After a long and lengthy session, the council ordered them to stop preaching in the name of Jesus.  Peter's and John's response is profound: "We cannot stop telling about the wonderful things we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20, NLT).

Peter and John didn't get into a debate about the logical reasons for Jesus' position as Messiah and offer empirical data that would support their thesis concerning his resurrection and validate their reasons for preaching. They offered what they had seen and heard.

Not long ago I had a discussion with an old friend who has become an atheist and I asked him, "If God does not exist, do my experiences with God make me delusional?" He responded that people often have emotional experiences that don't have anything to do with the supernatural or with God but are often interpreted that way. I told him that I wasn't talking about emotional experiences (if you know me I don't have many emotional experiences), but that I was talking about times when God spoke into my life and the experience of God speaking into my life was tested and  it endured the passing of time. Did that make me delusional? My friend never responded.

I can share examples of when God spoke or moved in my own life, not where I got a mystical feeling or suddenly felt better about something, but actual examples of the voice and movement of God in my life and the consequences that flowed from them. Admitting to the possibility that I am wrong about the existence of God, for me, is like admitting to the possibility that I am wrong about the existence of my wife or my next door neighbor. If you're reading this from across the country I may not be able to prove to you that they exist, but I can introduce you to them if you are willing to go for a ride. I cannot admit to the possibility that God doesn't exist because I have met God and experienced God's direct intervention in my life, regardless of whether I have empirical data that proves God's existence to the rest of the world.

Don't get caught in philosophical and logical arguments for or against the existence of God. Share with people the wonderful things we have seen and heard. Tell them your story of encounters with God.

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If you don't have any stories of your own, find someone who does and let them introduce you to the One who was spoken into their life. If you would like to talk to me, just comment and let me know you would like to talk (the comments are hidden until I approve them) and I will contact you.  I would love the opportunity to share my stories with you.