This week I was reading a book called “Tribes” by Seth Godin, a secular business book.  The book is all about faith vs. fear.  Seth believes people who make a difference in the world do so because of “faith” (which he really means “faith in one’s self and not God).  On the flip side, people who accomplish nothing do so out of fear.  But Seth said it is not just any fear, it is fear of people, especially what they will say about you or think about you.  In Christianity this is called “Fear of Man”, and it is contrasted with “Fear of God” (which is true faith).  I was amazed that a secular author so clearly brought out this amazing Biblical truth.

Two weeks ago, God confronted my own “fear of man” when reading Bill Bright’s book “Witnessing without Fear“.  I was struck when I read Bill Bright’s definition of successful witnessing, which is “Sharing Christ by the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God”

Leave the Results to God

This is a POWERFUL statement that applies to much more than witnessing.  Indeed, I think this can apply to all aspects of our life that are affected by fear of man.

* Have someone you are in conflict with but are scared to apologize because they make try to hurt you more?  Just ask for forgiveness and leave the results to God!

* Have a friend who needs to know Jesus but are scared they may reject you if you share Christ with them?  Just do it and leave the results to God!

* Have a Christian coworker who continually is choosing sin but you are afraid to confront her about it?  Humble bring it to her and leave the results to God

* Feel called to do something radical for God but scared what your family or friends may think?  Obey what God tells you and leave the results to Him!

* Are you under a person’s leadership who may not be making the most right decisions but are heretical?  Submit to their leadership and leave the results to God!

* Has God put someone on your heart to love but you are afraid of their reaction?  Obey God and leave the results to Him!

* Has God given you a message to tell someone or a dream to share but you are afraid of how that person will react?  Ask God for guidance, share it, and leave the results to God!

Anytime you are confronted by fear, ask yourself how you are not “leaving the results to God”.  Ask God to show you how you could trust Him more.

This is one of my favorite diagrams from Bill Bright.  Fact is God and His Word.  Faith is our faith.  And feelings are our feelings.  The diagram is obvious:  the train will only run if we let the Facts pull us along.  Whenever we are experiencing “fear of man” or not leaving the results to God, we’re letting our feelings try to pull the train.  That doesn’t work!  Instead we put our faith in the Fact of God and His Word and can “leave the results to God” because we know that He is trustworthy, true, and able.

God's wrath is worse than a killer bunny. All the more reason to run away.

This is a post about dudes who have problems submitting to authority.  I can speak with “authority” on the matter since I have been one of these guys.  As a young, prideful punk I tended to think I was better than those over me.  And I paid for it.  Praise be to God for the gift of being humbled.  Now I praise God for the Godly older men who are over me in authority.  I owe much to their wisdom and guidance!

But this post is also an exhortation to the women out there about to marry rebellious boys (yes, they are not yet men if they are rebels).  If a dude has problems holding a job, won’t stay a long time in a church, won’t get into a small group, won’t submit to God’s laws (ie: won’t stop having sex with you), won’t give his life to Jesus, doesn’t want to be in any kind of accountability relationship, won’t do marriage counseling, won’t ask for your parent’s permission to marry you, tries to separate you from close friends and relatives, talks badly about almost everyone who doesn’t agree with him, judges and condemns his bosses and leaders, or generally has a long history of relationship wreckage in relationships, I have one piece of advice:  RUN.

Why?  Because our God is a consuming fire and you will experience His wrath if that man is your husband.

Take Korah for example in Numbers 16.  He led a rebellion against Moses, falsely accusing Moses of abusing his authority.  He rebelled against authority, and here’s is what happened to Korah:

32 And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods. 33 So they and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol, and the earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. (Num. 16:32-33)

Korah, his wife, his kids, and everyone else in his household were eaten alive by the earth.  Not a pretty picture.  I really hope this does not happen to you.  It may not happen physically but it WILL happen spiritually.  Until that man humbles himself, he is a walking death trap.  Again I say:  RUN AWAY. I don’t care if you are engaged.  If you’re going to worship the ring on your hand over God, you’re in for a world of pain.  RUN!

The Bible is very clear:  ”17 Obey your leaders and submit to them” (Heb. 13:17).  If a man will not submit to the leaders God puts over him, how will he submit to God?  Those that do not submit to their leader or their God are rebellious.  And the Bible says “For rebellion is as the sin of divination” (1 Sam. 15:23).  This means that a rebellious boy is like a witch.  Would you marry a dude if he told you he was a practicing witch?  Are you willing to follow a man who does not think he is even accountable to God?

If you are a dude reading this and are convicted about your prideful rebellion, I exhort you to get yourself under authority.  Join a church and get into a small group or other close relationships.  Ask a Godly older man to mentor you.  Meet Bible-believing Christians who can hold you accountable.  Practice radical submission over a long period of time.   Learn that submission is WAY more important than other people doing things the “right” way or believing the “right” things (according to your own standards of course, which are most likely totally wrong anyway).

“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you” (James 4:10).

There were a lot more pictures I could have put here, especially of animals, but I think this one is probably more PC.

Well, if you read this, what would you think:

15 Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well. (Proverbs 5:15)

This is the verse people quote to support urgophagia, which is the consumption of urine.  Case closed?!?  Hardly.

There’s a little something called CONTEXT.  Most crazy people who use the Bible to support things like snake handling, nudism, or murder take a couple of verses and use them out of context.  If you ever talk with a Jehovah’s witness, they will point to a bunch of single verses and not want to discuss anything around those verses.  Why?  Because the context changes the meaning they are trying to convey.

Context is always important, as it is easy to misconstrue a person’s intentions by not giving the complete context or giving a fabricated context.  Kids do that all the time.  They might say, “well you told me: ‘drink pee’”.  And I’d reply, “I said ‘Don’t drink pee’, which is totally different.  You need to keep the don’t in there with the rest of the words”.  So please, read/listen to the context.

I would suggest reading the whole context of Proverbs 5.  If you read the context in the surrounding verses, you’re realize that it is a larger argument about why you should not commit adultery and instead love the wife God gives you.  For example, a couple of verses later we find one of my favorite verses in the Bible:

18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love. (Pv. 5:18-19)

One of the many commands of God I happily obey!  He is a God who gives me life and joy in this life and in the life to come!  God wants to give you life and peace.  Learn more about how to get life and peace from God through Jesus Christ.

If we continue on with our context, we also see:

20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
and he ponders all his paths. (Pv. 5:20-21)

We can see from the context that Proverbs 5:15 does not urge us to drink urine, but rather to drink from our “own well”, which is the husband or wife God gives you or will give you in the future.  It also is a reminder that God knows everything you do.  There is a coming Judgement.  I’d recommend going and read about how to have peace and life with God.

We are nearing the end of about a week and a half of sickness for the Ireland house.  It was Corban’s first big cold.  Poor guy.  It is getting to be the longest winter ever.  Even still, we have found some very sweet moments around here.

This morning I spent about 40 minutes on our stairwell, sitting under a comforter with Luke, pretending it was our truck.  We decided to take our “truck” to the ocean.  He held my hand as we drove, and periodically got out to get gas.  He told me, “I’m the Daddy getting gas.”  We imagined in great detail what our trip would be like.  We had apples, tomatoes, and bananas as “cargo”, as well as plenty of beach towels, sunglasses and beach sandals.  And when I got out of the truck a few times when I was getting too hot, Luke would say, “get back in the truck, Sweetie Mama!”

Ah, it really was therapeutic, imagining us on the shore.  I almost forgot we were trapped in our house in MinnArctica.  Today, my heart was bursting with gratitude for the work I have to do.  If this were not my full time occupation, when else would I get to escape to the coast with my little man Luke?  When else would I get to experience, and encourage, his blossoming chivalry?

This of course led to the building of our “church” in the living room.  I know mama forts can never surpass the coolness of daddy forts, but we gave this one a try:

So, thank you God for winter (there I said it) for giving me some very sweet time with my cutie little boys.

Negative attitudes bring negative results.  Makes sense huh?

I have to confess my negativity, which has resulted in condemning judgments, cynicism, and criticism.  Lord please help me!  Many Christians, even Pastors, take this path of having a negative attitude.  I was convicted by this from Bill Bright’s book, Witnessing Without Fear (which I HIGHLY recommend).  To provide some context, Bill shared a story of going to Japan and a missionary who had been there for decades said no one comes to Christ in Japan, it takes years and years.  Bill then led hundreds of Japanese students to Christ a few hours later.  After that, Bill wrote:

Like the well-meaning missionary in Japan, have there been Christians whose negative thoughts and comments have impeded your witness?  Have you had a tendency to think negatively about how people might respond to you? (p. 51)

Those two lines made me undone.  God laid conviction on my negative cynical heart.  He showed me that my heart was not first and foremost characterized by love:

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love HOPES ALL THINGS. That gets me right there.  When I decide not to share Christ, I’m not hoping for them.  When I decide to criticize another behind their back, I am not hoping for them.  When I decide to respond cynically to someone, I am not hoping for them.  God has given me the greatest Hope in the world, and that hope will never put us to shame (Romans 5:2-5).  It is easy to be negative and cynical, especially when God does not do what we want Him to do.  But we’re called to be people of Hope (Eph. 4:4).

If you, like me, are experiencing sinful bondage through negativity, let me share another wonderful truth Bill Bright showed me, called the train diagram:

Here’s what Bill has to say about this:

Do not depend upon feelings. The promise of God’s Word, not our feelings, is our authority. The Christian lives by faith (trust) in the trustworthiness of God Himself and His Word. This train diagram illustrates the relationship between fact (God and His Word), faith (our trust in God and His Word), and feeling (the result of our faith and obedience) ( John 14:21).

The train will run with or without the caboose. However, it would be futile to attempt to pull the train by the caboose. In the same way, we, as Christians, do not depend upon feelings or emotions, but we place our faith (trust) in the trustworthiness of God and the promises of His Word.

When reading this, I realized:  When I am negative, my feelings are trying to pull the train.

Bill has another great truth to share to address this, called Spiritual Breathing:

Spiritual Breathing

By faith you can continue to experience God’s love and forgiveness.

If you become aware of an area of your life (an attitude or an action) that is displeasing to the Lord, even though you are walking with Him and sincerely desiring to serve Him, simply thank God that He has forgiven your sins – past, present and future – on the basis of Christ’s death on the cross. Claim His love and forgiveness by faith and continue to have fellowship with Him.

If you retake the throne of your life through sin – a definite act of disobedience – breathe spiritually.

Spiritual breathing (exhaling the impure and inhaling the pure) is an exercise in faith that enables you to continue to experience God’s love and forgiveness.

Exhale – confess your sin – agree with God concerning your sin and thank Him for His forgiveness of it, according to 1 John 1:9 and Hebrews 10:1-25. Confession involves repentance – a change in attitude and action.

Inhale – surrender the control of your life to Christ, and appropriate (receive) the fullness of the Holy Spirit by faith. Trust that He now directs and empowers you; according to the command of Ephesians 5:18, and the promise of 1 John 5:14-15

Read the full article by Bill Bright on “Have you made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-Filled Life”? here:  http://www.looktojesus.com/tab/spirit_life.html

Breath out, breath in.  Set your faith on the facts of God and His Word.  Hope for people.  Now share that hope with others…