God have mercy on me

I attend a little Bible study every second Thursday. There are 6 of us. Four are long-term missionaries. All have been Christians for some time. A month ago the topic selected by the leader (not me) was "seeking God". Two weeks ago, the question was "how do we become the servants and Christ followers we’re expected to be". Each time we conclude that we really don’t have the answers, but we’re sure it has to be a work of the Holy Spirit. And we leave the study unchanged. My guess is that we are not alone and that most people after years of church going have no answer to why they are unable to become the disciples they want to be.

I must say, somewhat immodestly, that most of my previous posts respond to the issues. Hopefully I have changed because I have recognized the unpredictability of life & the need to live with focus, better understood what love requires of me, and learned that I must exercise the freedom I’ve been given to make right decisions at crucial times.

Which brings me to my friend Matthew’s letter, set out in my last post. And this blunt question. How in God’s name can we live our ordinary lives, wondering why we can’t have an extravagant relationship with God, when the opportunities for that lifestyle stare us right in the face? Opportunities such as pledging substantial support to committed native Christians as they attempt to help their desperate countrymen; supporting organizations who seek to alleviate poverty, to address injustice or to rehabilitate child soldiers; giving substantially to our friends who have given up a “normal” lifestyle to venture out in a serious mission effort; meeting people’s social and spiritual needs in the neglected areas of our communities; or to any other issue that we know God would care about?

There are I think three reasons.

First, and I’m sorry if this offends someone, but for many, including myself, the fact is we don’t really care enough. I love the things of this world, and maintaining my comfortable lifestyle and providing for my present and future security is more important than sacrificing for God’s purposes and the people He loves. I can’t imagine the shame we will have one day when we reach heaven unless we change.

Secondly, our lives for the most part have no purpose. I am convinced that if we are to live the way we were meant to, that we must live missionally. We must have a personal, articulate mission statement for what we as individuals want to accomplish - this year, and in this life. In other words we must each become missionaries – people with a mission. If we have a single minded day to day purpose, then this will become a part of our daily lives, such that we take it into account when we plan our time, when we decide how to spend our money, when we kneel to pray.

Finally, good Christian people give substantial amounts of their income to the church they attend, thinking that by doing so they are "doing their part". Now I love the church, I love going to a dynamic church, I love her people (well most of them anyhow), but I believe we have created an organization that is not the bride of Christ at all, but rather is something designed almost solely to meet our own needs, and as it does so, it consumes our funds which should be used for mission. Attending church, being involved in its activities and supporting it financially is NOT a mission. We however, think that it is, and the church has encouraged this. We need to rethink church and what it is to be.

So this is what I think. Am I right, wrong, or somewhere in-between?

I am undone.

I just received a letter from my friend Matthew, (pictured in the yellow shirt). He is a Kenyan with a an outreach ministry to children he calls Young Disciples Bible School which he runs singlehandedly. His letter seems to me almost like a holy thing; it is so convicting. It shines on me and my life is revealed for what it is. I am an affluent North American traveller. I know children are dying but I am unmoved by the knowledge to do much about it. Real people live day to day and I waste money on little luxuries. I write a blog about my petty spiritual journey, while my friend actually lives the life we are all called to live. My spiritual poverty is revealed by this letter.I am embarassed that my friend thinks highly of me.

Dear Howard and Judy,
Greetings in the most precious Name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Thank you very much for writing and God bless you REAL BIG.I Love you and think about you so often. I pray for you every time we have prayer meetings. I would be so glad to see you back in Kenya . We miss you so much.

I am doing quite well. I have been very very busy in the Ministry. I have started a new Ministry among the Children
and this is Reaching Children living with HIV/AIDS.I am not sure whether I have ever told you this. I learned that Most of my Disciples at the Young Disciples Bible were Orphans living with HIV/AIDS. Some of them died. They got it from their Mothers during birth. So God Has been directing me into this new Ministry. I could not avoid because some of my close disciples lost their lives before we really discovered the problem.
It is a real Challenge ever in my Life. My greatest concern and challenge is the taking of the ARV’s.I know you are aware
of the ARV’s.They are very complicated and dangerous drugs if tempered with the dosage.
I adopted one Boy whose name is Kasyoki; he would
have died if I never got him. he was very very sick almost to die. He has now improved and he is now very alright. I am trying to find an Orphanage to put the many Children in need. At least a place I can Monitor the taking of the ARV’s.

The Machakos General Hospital requested me to help them counsel Children living with HIV/AIDS in the Hospital. I have been doing it for the last two weeks. But I feel I will not talk about HIV/AIDS yet I will teach
them other things in Life. How they can become excel in Life and be the best. Talking about HIV/AIDS everyday is wounding them the more. I want them to know that they are capable to do great things.
My Car is nice. It has been so helpful to the Ministry. My greatest challenge is the Loan Repayment Plan*. It has been a real burden to me.A Pastor Friend of mine came to borrow Ksh.1000 Shillings (about $20.00) to travel home today and I was really unable to assist him with any money. Please pray for me that the Lord is going to open other doors for me to pay the Loan. I pay $400 every Month to the Organization*. That has not been so easy for me. The number of Children increased so greatly as we moved the Ministry to the Town and the Van has been helping in picking the kids from the Villages to the meeting centre. I now live at the Mumbuni AIC Church. At the Pastors House. It is a very good place.
May the Lord richly reward you so much for your Love and concern,
With Much Love,
Matthew Kyalo.

*(a ministry that gave him the car on credit)

lessons from "Amazing Grace"

A student and friend of mine asks me occasionally, “Are you boring?” I think he means, “Are you bored?” But since he hasn’t changed his question even though I’ve often corrected him, I’m starting to wonder!

This past week however I’ve been more than bored. There comes a time during a stay in a new country, when the things you considered “quirky”, or “interesting” start to become downright annoying. Like when you use your best Slovak to ask for “olivy zelene” (green olives) from the deli clerk, and she looks at you like you’re a 3 year old. Can’t she just smile and look helpful! I am trying you know!

Perhaps this partly explains my mood a few days ago when I returned home in the afternoon after a disappointment in worship practice. “That’s it! I’ve had enough!” was what I was thinking.

Let me tell you about our worship team. (I don’t mean any disrespect. The whole point is about how we all have our hang-ups.) The leader, B., is a lovely young lady, and a graduating classical pianist with some traditional church background. She plays the music from the the sheet music in front of her – and very beautifully. But she has no interest in or knowledge of contemporary praise and worship music. Her focus is on the music itself, not the lyrics, and so playing simple chords doesn't excite her. I am one of 2 or 3 people who sing; definitely the least talented, but able to introduce songs and offer some worship observations to encourage the congregation of 20 or so, most of whom are pretty traditional. To me, words and mood are the important part of worship music. There is however, a desire on the part of the pastor, to introduce some contemporary music into the service - which leads to a bit of tension.

So, B.(who has been busy lately) had asked me to choose the music for this Sunday, and I did, choosing among others, Chris Tomlin’s new version of Amazing Grace. It’s a slow contemplative rendition with a moving chorus:

"My sins are gone. I’ve been set free
My God, my Savior, has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy reigns
Unending love, Amazing grace."

At practice we were having a little trouble keeping to the new melody. The tendency was to slip into the version we've sung for the last 100 years or so. “Why don't we just sing it the old way?” asked the leader. I tried to explain how thatwould spoil the worship mood of the song and the chance to introduce a contemporary song to the congregation with lyrics that they know and which are meaningful to them”. But she didn't seem too happy, and thereafter (somewhat reluctantly it seemed to me), pounded out the notes from the sheet music, with little feeling for the beauty of the song. I felt the same response to some of the other choices I'd made. It seemed I’d won the battle, but not the war. And I was discouraged and just wanted to quit. Who needs this? Unfortunaely,this is my usual response to conflict of this kind.

About 3 a.m. that night I woke up. It seemed that the Holy Spirit felt this was a teachable moment. I prayed and meditated , and this is what I believed God was saying to me: “Amazing Grace”, He seemed to say , is about a gift. It's about salvation and something more - the resulting freedom (as the song says), we now have. Freedom is about being able to choose. When I face conflict, trials, life’s tests, and new ideas, I can choose to trust, to forgive, to love, to be open to new spiritual learning, to take reasonable risks and to assume responsibility. When I chose these, I embrace the freedom purchased for me. It's a step in abandoning myself to God. On the other hand, if I allow sin, tradition, fear, safety or habitual patterns of thinking to dictate my choices, I choose bondage. This holds me back from the abandoned life. It's a refusal to let God lead, and to step into His world of "what can be”.

In the past, my response to the issue with the music and the leader would be to distance myself from the problem and the person involved. But this time God was telling me that I had the freedom to choose to rid myself of that response. So I did, choosing to love, be forgiving, and keep my commitment to this church and this ministry. Thanks God! Thanks Chris Tomlin!

Now, tell me, what am I going to do about the deli clerk?

It will be hard

Thank you to those who are still with me. I had not expected these thoughts on love to take the direction they have, and I apologize now for the sermonizing. It has been an interesting, sometimes difficult journey, and I have learned so much.

I was until recently someone who liked the notion that because I accepted Jesus I was a saint. Often tarnished, but still a saint. I think now that was wrong. If we are to be people of love we must first understand deep down the extent to which God loves us in spite of what we are. We will need to understand grace, embrace it, and live a grace life. We know that grace is God’s free gift to a world of sinners, motivated by His love. But do we really get it? It was while we were sinners that Christ died for us. There was nothing intrinsically lovely about us, yet God loved us. Now that is Amazing Grace. But there is even more, because what's more amazing is that God keeps on loving sinners. This is the full wonder of grace, that even though we continue to sin, God continues to love us and bless us with grace, choosing to see us as forgiven. It is an awesome thing; Jesus loves sinners, and we qualify! Even now. Especially now! We can admit our failings, be open and honest about our sin, and rejoice!

Failing to live in the light of ongoing grace has, I think, been my failure to now. Perhaps it has been yours too. We “foolish Galatians” lose sight of continuing grace. We live our lives expecting improvement as a result of our self-denial and self-discipline. Eventually however, we become disappointed with our weakness and infidelity, and in the end we “are overcome by the ordinariness of our lives”. Then we begin to live like the world, or at least like everybody else. Afraid to admit our failure we construct our elaborate religious disguises to hide our true, needy selves. But we know inside ourselves that we are not holy, except if we compare ourselves to others, and so we do just that, excluding and vilifying those who we decide are greater sinners than we are. The horrible result is that we neither accept God’s ongoing grace, nor do we offer it. And the world sees right through our pretend-lives and our pretend-love.


The result is to badly represent our God who is love, who pours out His love on all mankind, without limits, who "so loved the world that He gave His son…” Many reject the grace that is offered them, but that does not diminish God’s character, or His continuing love for sinners. He loves Muslims, prostitutes, atheists, the self-righteous, the unrighteous, the abortionist and the right-to-lifer, the liberal and the conservative. I mean he really loves them. He “agape” loves them. And so must we.

The apostle Paul knew this. He knew the grace that saved him and the grace that kept him. He wore no disguises to hide his faults. “Oh wretched man that I am, who can save me…?” And having received God’s grace, he realized that his mission was to be a steward of grace, and so he prayed for the Ephesians that they would know love (in all His fullness).

We need to know love in its fullest sense. Not to be loving, but that we would take on the character of love. You see love is not an attitude, an expression, a feeling or a quality. Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a again! Love is who we are to be in the kingdom of God! If not, our words will not be heard as truth, our knowledge and faith will not impress, and our works will be rejected.

Understanding God’s grace will change who I am; who we are. We can drop our masks, admit our need, allow God’s grace to increase all the more and begin to let our love abound. And when this happens, love will underpin everything we do. Our church will change. It will be a “hospital for sinners” where the poor and the wretched, (a group to which we belong), will be welcomed and loved. Our discourse with the unbelieving world will change. We will disagree with those who don’t understand our God, but we will not be disagreeable. We will be like Stephen – “full of grace and the Holy Spirit”. Our lives will be beautiful. We will enrich others just with our presence.

This sounds lovely , a little romantic even. Today we're all going to start loving like Jesus. Let me put an end to that. Remember Peter. Change will be harder than we can imagine, and again, more than ever, we will need God's abundant grace. Getting rid of our disguises will be hard enough. Loving as Jesus loves will be mindblowingly hard and the flesh will not get us there. It is all Spirit.

Two days ago, as I travelled downtown on the bus, a young man sat down on a seat nearby – wearing make-up, lipstick, earrings, a ladies haircut and a ladies jacket with a fake fur collar. I felt revulsion. Yesterday, as I rode a crowded bus, two young men got on and took over the seat in front of me. They smelled. One in particular was loud and crude, dressed and looking something like a skinhead, but mostly he was an unwashed bum. Three times during the 15 minute trip, “skinhead” cleared his throat so all could hear, and spat on the low divider separating his seat from the exit. I felt hatred. Then today I went to an art gallery. Unknown to me, one exhibit was a film in which “gays” and others spoke about an art project connected to the spread of Aids in North America. I felt contempt. And so I said on behalf of us all, “Lord, how can I tolerate people like these, let alone love them and serve them”. And Jesus said in response: “You must love them. I came for them. They are like you were, although you didn’t perhaps realize it at the time. They are lost and lonely and dying. Feed these sheep of mine.” And He slipped his arm around my shoulders.

Who we are

“How are American evangelical Christians perceived by nonbelievers?” asks the author of an article I read this weekend. His response: “While nonbelievers will have to address the scandal of the cross, they should never have to address the scandal of the Christian. For many non-believers, Christians are the greatest single obstacle to Christian belief. We are genuinely offensive to them – sometimes this is because of their biases, often it is because of their experiences. Too often we are not salt and light among our non-Christian neighbors. There is little about our contact with nonbelievers that they would readily affirm as life enhancing and a beacon of goodness. Instead we are avoided at all costs...Until Christians face up to how we are perceived, and address the failures for which we alone are responsible, our neighbors will have few reasons to heed our lives and little motive to listen to our words.”*

I have no doubt that all of this applies equally to Canadian believers. The choice for nonbelievers has been between the tight-lipped fundamentalism of a Jerry Falwell, or the hypocrisy of those Christians who claim to live by a higher standard, yet live their lives accumulating the possessions of the world and the praise of man. The truth about the lies we live has been revealed with the disastrous consequences of fundamentalism applied to politics in America, and the ugliness and deceit of Ted Haggard. Christian bumper stickers, CD’s, radio, books, potlucks, attendance on Sunday and at events is not Christianity. We are the hypocrites, the Pharisees of this age.

And there is a greater tragedy I think in the legacy we have passed on to our children. They too have seen the worst of Christian witness, and so will choose to live as we have. And since we have not taught them what real Christianity is, they, like us, have no understanding or ability to confront their own unbelief or the challenge of an unbelieving world.

This is terribly pessimistic, even for me, but there is I believe an answer, which is found in the love of God. I want to discuss it in the next post.


*Preconditions of Cultural Influence, David John Seel, Jr., Ransom Fellowship, Issue #5, 2006, see www.ransomfellowship.org