You Are Not the Judge of Your Own Work

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Two scriptures need to be up front….

“Sow your seed in the morning, and do not be idle in the evening; for you do not know whether morning or evening sowing will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.” (Ecclesiastes 11:6)

“And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.” (Galatians 6:9)

Half the ministers I know are sitting in judgment on their own work. And it’s not looking good for them.

They decide the Kingdom work is not going very well, feel guilty because they are so ineffective, and grow discouraged. Instead of giving their all day in and day out over a long life of service and obedience, they turn inward, give less and less of themselves, while the visible results they so long for become more and more scarce.

Stop it.

You’re not the judge, just a worker in the field of the Lord.

Now, get back out there and trust that the Lord knows what He was doing when He assigned you to this corner of the Kingdom.

Jeff Christopherson could tell you.  In an article “Re-defining success,” published in the Fall 2012 edition of “On Mission” (pastors’ edition),  the publication of Southern Baptists’ North American Mission Board, Jeff talks about something that happened to his father Allan.

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We are God’s handicrafts. His artwork, even.

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“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

Think of the Creator as a Master Artist. A Craftsman superior to all others. Can anyone doubt that He is?

Look at the incredible, mind-boggling beauty across the universe. Look in the distance at the stars and galaxies. The Hubble telescope has revealed such stunning visuals which up until now, only the Heavenly Host saw and enjoyed.

David reveled in the tiny portion which his eyes could take in: “When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him?” (Ps. 8:7-8)

Look nearer home, at the planets and our own Earth. Travel the Earth and take in visuals delights like–naming some of my favorites here–the Rockies, the Smokies, the Western plains, the sugary beaches of the Gulf Coast, the Painted Desert, New England in Autumn, and San Francisco from a distance. And yes, the Holy Land, Egypt, the Italian peninsula, and Ireland. The variety is endless, the majesty awesome.

Closer still, look at the jaw-dropping beauty ot a child’s face, the stunning perfection of a winter rose, a closeup of an opal, and the heart-stopping thrill of a double rainbow after a storm.

Those whose work confines them to the laboratory see God’s handiwork under a microscope. The professor sees it in the mathematical precision by which the universe functions. The historian sees God’s hand in the movements of men and nations through the centuries. Those in the medical field see God in the healings that occur under their watchcare each day.

God, the Artist.  He is the Original Originator, the One whose craft the rest of us imitate and copy and admire.

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What Revival Does (A Plethora of Metaphors)

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“Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the Lord…. He will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth.” (Hosea 6:3)

A revival of God’s people is like a rainy season when Heaven’s blessings are poured out upon a dry and thirsty land. So said the Prophet Hosea nearly 3,000 years ago.  Nothing has happened since to challenge that image.

The result of such an outpouring of “spiritual rain” is new growth and a bountiful harvest.

As a teenager on our Alabama farm, one Spring I saw what abundant rain can do. We had planted string beans in the bottomland alongside a creek called Bunkum. This was rich soil, made all the more productive by the occasional overflow of the stream. No sooner had the seeds sprouted than several weeks of heavy rain followed. When we were finally able to get back into the bottoms, the weeds were almost waist high, but the green beans were incredible. I could reach under a plant and could not wrap my hand around all the beans. That’s what rains can do for a crop.

Hymnwriter Daniel Whittle liked this image. “There shall be showers of blessings,” he sang. “Mercy drops round us are falling; but for the showers we plead.”

Scripture abounds with metaphors for revival.

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Top Ten Thanksgiving Texts

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Giving thanks is such a beneficial activity, Scripture is saturated with reminders and encouragements and admonitions and enticements.  It is good to give thanks–to one another, yes, but in particular to the One who is the Source of it all: The Living God.

“It is good to give thanks to the Lord….”(Psalm 92:1)

We’re coming up on the Thanksgiving season, everyone’s favorite time of the year.

Wonder why we even have such a season, though.  One would think giving thanks would be like taking the next breath: something we do automatically, constantly, naturally, without needing to be prodded.

I’m reluctant to say what follows, for the simple reason that I make myself vulnerable to someone saying I’ve done the same thing. But here goes….

I have  occasionally knocked myself out for a pastor or a church or a religious group, and gone to great lengths to serve them–sometimes buying a passport and doing the multitude of things one has to do to travel internationally or driving a long distance and enduring the interstates for hundreds of miles–only to return home and never hear  a word from them again. Not a note, an email, phone call, nothing. I would assume they thought the check they handed me said everything that needed saying.

It didn’t.  In no way was my work with them a commercial transaction. We did not sign a contract.

This is a ministry. And a faith one at that.

I simply wonder why some people–not all, thankfully–cannot go to the trouble of saying “thank you; good job.”

Now, if I were insecure, I would obsess about the shouted silence from those who invited and hosted me, then sent me on my way with a check and not a word since. I would lie awake at night wondering if I failed them in some way, if they were unhappy with what I did, if their silence speaks volumes about their negative feelings.

I would, but I don’t.

Where’s the point in that?

Do you suppose God in Heaven lies awake at night wondering if He has failed you and me in some way, since He never hears a word of thanks or appreciation from our direction?

We know the answer to that one, don’t we?

God does not need anything from us. He said, “If I were hungry, I would not ask you. The cattle on a thousand hills are mine” (Psalm 50:12,10).

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Negotiating The Red Zone: Taking Your Sermon To A Successful Conclusion

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If I could say one thing to young preachers about making their sermons effective, this would be it.

A sermon which lays its points before the people without ever tying them up again at the end fails its audience in a lot of ways. Chiefly, it never lets the congregation see the bigger picture, how the message fits into the larger framework of God’s plan for the world, the Kingdom, and themselves.

With Kessler’s suggestions as our guide, I want to propose three approaches for preachers in crafting more effective closings for sermons.

via Negotiating The Red Zone: Taking Your Sermon To A Successful Conclusion | Preaching.com.

What Being Strong in the Lord Really Means

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“Now consider how great this man was…. Now, beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better.”(Hebrews 7:4,7)

I’m going to start this reflection without a clear understanding on where we will end up.  It should go without saying that nothing that follows is the last word on anything. But perhaps it will get us to thinking.

The one who blesses is greater than the one blessed.

According to the anonymous writer of Hebrews, Melchizedek was greater than Abraham since it was he who blessed the patriarch and not vice versa.  The blessor is greater than the blessee, to paraphrase 7:7.

I’ve been reading a new biography of Thomas Beckett, the archbishop of Canterbury who was martyred in the 12th century. One issue that surfaced regularly in those days was whether the king of a country had the right to “invest” the new archbishop with the symbols of his position, implying that the king himself was granting powers to the spiritual leader.  The symbolism meant a great deal. The pope, to no one’s surprise, wanted to end this practice, insisting that the church is autonomous and beholden to no earthly power. Kings fought to keep all evidence in place that the church existed under their authority and its leaders should obey them above the pope.

The dispute illustrates Hebrews 7:7 perfectly. If the one giving the blessing is greater than the one receiving it, he is then the top dog. Such symbolism meant everything in medieval times.

Scripture informs us of numerous other such truisms worth our consideration. Let’s try these on for size.

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What spiritual maturity looks like

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“And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food….” (I Corinthians 3:1-2)

Recently, I said to a group of men and women in a civic club meeting, “Do you recall when you were about 10 years old? If you walked into a room like this and looked around, you would have thought we were all adults. At that time, it seemed to you that adults were a separate species of humans. But now….”

“Now that you are grown, you know something that would have surprised you no end when you were a child: There are no grownups. We’re all kids.”

We have all had the experience of looking in the mirror and being shocked to discover an adult looking back at us. We think to yourself, “I don’t feel like I’m that old. I still feel the same as when I was a child.”

You, too? We all have.

Only, we’re at different levels of maturity. None of us–okay, we’ll reluctantly grant a few exceptions here and there–has attained anything like full adulthood.

That’s one reason we stand in awe when we come into contact with a genuine, bonafide adult.  Someone who has grown up mentally and socially, who has his impulses under control, who thinks deeply and speaks carefully and wisely, and is the very definition of integrity and responsibility.

They are rare, to be sure.

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What I do in high school assemblies

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For reasons not entirely clear, these days I seem to be getting invited to do a lot of high school assemblies. The principal will gather the several hundred youngsters into the gym (on one side only, so everyone can see my easel), introduce me as “Mr. Joe McKeever from New Orleans. He’s a cartoonist and has a message for us today on ‘lessons in self-esteem he has learned from drawing 100,000 people. Let’s welcome him.”

And that’s how we start.

But I had started 10 minutes earlier.  After setting up my easel on the floor of the gym (with cardboard under the metal feet), I began sketching teenagers as they entered the gym.  Kids love this sort of thing, and soon a crowd had gathered.  I can do one drawing per minute, so a fair number have been sketched by the time the school leader settles everyone down and gets us started.

The teens already know what I do, since they’ve seen the drawings, and are excited.

Earlier, the principal or his/her assistant has given us names of several teachers, the coach, and a couple of boys and girls to call out of the stands to be sketched.  The best students to draw are the ones who, as soon as we call their name, everyone screams. They think, “This is going to be fun.”

And it is. It’s all about fun, but with some important lessons thrown in for good measure.

For the first half of the program, I sketch these adults and youth, then for another 12-15 minutes, launch into my talk about “lessons on self-esteem I’ve learned from drawing 100,000 people.”

What are the lessons? There are five.

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What spiritual immaturity looks like

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“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.” (I Corinthians 13:11)

Yesterday, filling the pulpit for a pastorless church near my home, I told the congregation, “The best thing that can happen to your new pastor is to discover that the leadership of his new church is made up of mature and godly adults in the faith. He’s going to get some good work done here.”

“And the worst thing that can happen to him–something that will frighten him as badly as anything imaginable–is to learn that the leadership of the church is immature. Getting anything done is going to be slow and difficult and at great risk.”

A friend was telling me about her parents. “I had the misfortune,” she said teasingly, “of being raised by two adults.” That is, as opposed to immature parents who were still working out issues of their own identity and life-purpose. Such a child is blessed indeed.

Every church needs a healthy portion of immature members. After all, new believers start out as spiritual babies with a world of learning and growing ahead. No one is born fully grown.

What your church should never do, however–what no church should do–is to place spiritual babies in positions of leadership. Do that, and the news is all bad. The pastor will grow old before his time, the congregation will be in a constant turmoil from the bickering of these refugees from the church nursery, and the church’s outreach ministries will grind to a halt.

Never elect a spiritual baby to anything. If you must give him or her an assignment, see that they are surrounded by a team of godly and mature members who will keep the ship on course.

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What Spiritual Growth Looks Like

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“Like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation….” (I Peter 2:2).

The bane of the church today is immaturity.

A Sunday School class is asked to relocate so a growing class can have a larger room and it sets off a firestorm of belly-aching.

A longtime church leader does not get the recognition he feels is his entitlement and his family threatens to leave the church.

The pastor teaches a rich lesson from Romans or Hebrews and the congregation isn’t capable of understanding it. The sermons they prefer include “four reasons to be saved today” and “the sin which God hates above all others.”

The preacher brings a message on the tithe and church members criticize him for emphasizing money. At the monthly business meeting, they gripe because the church’s income is lagging.

The church hears a missionary’s report on a great harvest of souls in Singapore and balks at being asked to receive an offering on its behalf.

The pastor is asked by an influential group in the church to invite a flashy, carnal evangelist whose message is God-wants-you-to-prosper. When he hesitates, they grow critical and threaten to have him fired.

When the city leaders enact a policy that upsets the church, the congregation’s main response is to write hostile letters and stage a protest. Prayer and acts of love never enter their mind.

When the church does something of a truly generous nature, the congregation insists they they must get recognition for their largesse.  When they see that other churches have done less than they did, they become inflated with pride.

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