Today is Good Friday. 

I think the biggest irony is that it’s called Good Friday.  After all, this marks the anniversary of the death of my Lord and Savior, Jesus the Messiah, on a roman cross.

How can we look at what occurred that day and call it “good”.  It’s hard to do.  We call this past week “Holy Week”, when you look back at the events how can you call what occurred “holy”?  It’s hard to do.

However, when you pier behind the veil at what was really going on it makes a lot of sense.  From Jesus entering Jerusalem to the resurrection, there was something more going on than the obvious.

When Jesus was before Pilot, Pilot initially found him not guilty.  He could have subverted the plan of God by releasing Jesus right then and there (not that it would have taken God off the plan, but it would have happened later.)  However, to save his neck and to put the release of Jesus on the people, and to wash his hands of the whole thing, he invoked the tradition of releasing one prisoner with a full pardon for the Passover.

He took Jesus and Barabbas (believe it or not, Flavius Josephus, the great Hebrew historian, says that Barabbas’ first name was also Jesus.) and brought them to the people.  He expected the people would select Jesus, the Christ to let go, considering that Barabbas was a murderer.  However, the people, the mob decided to release Barabbas.

Jesus took a merciless beating at the hands of the guards.  He had the crown of thorns pressed on his head, he was whipped with the scourge.  The scourge was known as a “Cat o’ Nine Tails” for a reason.  It was a pole, 3’ or so long with 9 leather straps attached to it.  Within the leather straps were placed fragmented bone and rock every couple of inches apart.  The straps where longer than the pole that they were attached.  He took 39 lashes.  you take those 39 strikes and he was hit 351 times.  Each one the bone and stone would sink into the flesh like a hook and tear away skin, muscle and sinew.

After the beating Jesus hardly looked human.  He had been punched and kicked in the face, so he was swollen and bleeding.  His back had been scourged and looked more like hamburger than flesh and bone.  They then took his cross and placed it on his shoulders, those same shoulders that had just been whipped by the scourge.

The greatest show of love, ever, happened a short time later when he arrived at Golgotha, the hill of the skull.  As he hung there on the cross, he said, “Forgive them Father, they know not what they do."  He forgave everyone involved for killing him.

Upon Jesus’ death the veil in the temple, that separated the Most Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom.  This wasn’t a curtain that was easily rent, it was several inches thick and very big.  The earth shook and the sun was blotted out. 

Three days later the pinnacle of history took place, Jesus was resurrected from the dead.  Why can we call today “Good Friday” and this week “Holy Week”?  It’s because Jesus rose from the dead and remained for the next 40 days and was seen by many, many people.  He then ascended into heaven.

Jesus died for my sins, to take my place on that cross.  He rose so that he could take His place in the heavens and so that we could gain the opportunity to gain intimacy with our creator.

Today, the laws of Sin and Death have been defeated and cast down for those who gain relationship with Christ.  I encourage you, to seek out a ministry this weekend and get to know the one who died for you.  He was a king and he laid his life down for you.

I’ve been evaluating the church as late.  Not my specific church, the church as a whole.  I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve misunderstood a particular scripture.

John 17:14-16  I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  15 I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one.  16 They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard ministers or other Christians say, “We’re in the world, not of the world, so though we live here we can’t interact with the world or they may contaminate us.”  Or some other ridiculous version of that.

I’m here to say, emphatically, that is wrong!

Let me ask a few questions:

Did Jesus shy away from the world? NO!  Wasn’t his first miracle at a wedding, didn’t he turn the water into wine?  And don’t try to tell me it was grape juice, I think the master of the feast would have known the difference, and he said it was the good stuff.  Matthew was a tax collector, a word in those times synonymous with sinner and he became a disciple.  According to the Pharisees, Jesus, himself, could have been considered a sinner, didn’t he heal on the Sabbath day? 

Did the apostles shy away from the world?  NO!  Peter went to everyone, even, ugh, a gentile home and shared Christ with them.  Paul even took it further, going to almost the whole known world at the time and sharing the love of Christ.

Anyway, to be in the world, and not of the world doesn’t mean that we need to be separate from the people of the world.  It means that we need to be involved in the world, but not fall into the sin that they participate in.

Is it possible to enter a night club and not fall into the temptation that is there?  Yes!  Is it possible to enter a bar and not get drunk?  Yes!  Is it possible that there are a large number of people who need to know Christ that go to the places that Christians don’t want to go to? Yes!

We need to get out of our comfort zone.  It’s time to drop the Christian-eese and start being Christ-like, after all, that is what Christian means, to be a little Christ.  We need to forget the little slogans we learn in the church when we exit the door.  Some of them are nice and may help you, but if you walk up to someone who doesn’t know Christ and say, “Would you like to fellowship after …”  How many people would know that you meant to hang out.

It’s OK to speak that way around people who understand you, but you are not sharing Christ with those who already know him, you share Christ with the ones who don’t know him.  When you speak to people with Christian dialect you push them away.  The will reject you because they don’t understand you.

Let’s get to the point where we can speak to people on their level and not expect them to raise (or lower) to ours.  Can we relate to people without alienating them?  Can we be real and honest with the lost?  Is it possible for us to break down our walls and show them that we hurt and we bleed the same as they do?  Can we do it without passing judgment on them?

We can do that.  When we start doing it we will become agents of change in the world.  This next generation is not like the last, the way to reach them is going to be different.  We must not be afraid to build relationships with them.  We will have to get our hands dirty, so to speak, to see this generation know Christ. 

The 3 minute sales pitch of yesterday is done.  It’s not going to work in the microwave generation.  If we want them to have staying power, we’ve got to show them that we have staying power.  We need to have that relationship with them, so they can see us struggle and not give up, to not give in.

In conclusion, we need to learn new techniques to reach new people.  We need to relate to people, not just preach to them.  In the true meaning of St. Francis’ words, “Preach the gospel always, if necessary, use words.”  I know it’s a paraphrase, but it’s the gist.

The key leadership has been asked to research a few topics individually to help build a Bible Basics Curriculum. The first topic I was asked to research is the Fall of Man. These give me a good opportunity to write a couple posts on what I'm doing for the research.

The criteria of each topic are to have one scripture as a summary of the topic. For "The Fall of Man", it's Genesis 2:8 - 3: 22. That is the obvious passage and easy enough. The next is to have 3 supporting scriptures to back it up, for "The Fall of Man", that won't be too hard, though I haven't done the research to get them yet (one step at a time.)

The two topics that I've been give are the afore mentioned, "The Fall of Man" and "Healing and Devine Health". I'll probably be doing several posts on both of these topics as I do the studying. I've already gotten one heavy revelation from reading the Genesis passage. The next post will be an exposition of the revelation.

I hope you will enjoy this as much as I will. I also hope that as I go through the process you learn something about studying the Bible. I do wish I had my laptop at work today, I could do a much more in depth word study. That will have to wait until tonight. For what I post today, it'll have to be the non-Hebrew interpreted version of things.

Yesterday, on my way home from work, I had one of the most amazing times of prayer in my life.

I've recently begun praying regularly when I"m in my car.  Not only is it one of the few places that I can truly be alone, but it's been part of my introspection.  I've always prayed in my car, but now it's an "appointment" with my father.  Scheduled time for He and I to get together and pow-wow.

I've been doing this for the past couple of months and I've noticed that it's been getting harder and harder to pray.

It's not that I don't have the words, anyone who knows me knows that words are not the problem.  It's getting harder because I refuse to be a repetative prayer.  I don't want to speak just to be heard.  I don't want to sound like the old priests of Ba'al who would chant the same thing, over and over again just to be seen.  I want my conversation with God to be relevant.  I want it to have conversations with God like I have conversations with my friends, frankly, because I want to be friends with God.

My abiility to pray and be relevent has been hindered because of God.  It's His fault.  You see, He's been meeting all of my needs, so it's more dificult to just converse.

With that being the case, I've decided that I must increase my need!  If the basics in my life, food, shelter, love, have been met then I have to find bigger things to need.  So what do I need now?  Considering that He is able to do excedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think, what do I need now?  I need for my wife to be happy.  I need my boys to grow up to be great men of God.  I need to be out of debt with money in the bank when we open the church in Sarasota.  I need to be able to give to my community.  I need to be a blessing to those around me.

When you start getting into details of everything you need in your life, even past the things that are normally considered a need, you'll discover a whole new world. 

Now, what will happen when all of my current needs are met?  Well, I'll have to increase them again.  I don't know where I'll be when that point in time happens, but I'll know what to do when it does.

Another thing, since He is able to do excedingly, abundantly, above all we can ask or think, I think it's time we stop thinking and asking small.  I don't think he wants us to be coming to Him with small ideas.  If I am $20 short of paying my bills, I don't think He wants me to ask for $20.  He want's me to ask for as much as I can think of, because he is able to do so much more.

I have a vision of what I want my kids to grow up and be.  I know that each one has a personality that will be used to do great things.  I know that they will all do different things because they are all different.  I know that Josiah has the heart, he is compassionate.  I know that Braedon is the thinker/schemer (in a good way).  I know that Thorin is going to be the leader.  I'm not too sure about Rilian yet, he's a little too young to decipher yet.  However, I'm praying that the Lord lead them all to immense success no matter which path they take in life.  I am praying that he protect them from my mistakes in raising them.  I'm asking that he do more than I can imagine with them, and I have a pretty good imagination.

Ultimately, we need to never be satisfied where we are.  We need to constantly be growing.  We should be getting past our current needs and into the next round.  We need to start thinking bigger.  Our small thinking keeps us trapped in a pit of despair from which no one can get out.  Expand your horizons and escape the grasp of this worlds system.

I want to talk a little about human nature.

Let me explain.  Human beings have three distinct, yet intertwined parts of our nature.  We have three parts because we are created in the image of God.  We are made up of the spirit, soul and body, as God is made up of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  In our nature, the biggest difference between God and man is corruption.  Where God knows no corruption, we humans are corrupt, flawed from the womb.

So, if we are corrupt, from where does that corruption originate?  The easy answer to that is sin, but I’m not talking about the outside influences, or the consequences of the corruption, I’m talking about the corruption itself.

To get a grasp on this, let me explain some basic things about human nature.

Within each person there is a war going on. When sin enters our lives, at birth, it brings two parts of our being into conflict over the third.

The human spirit is incorruptible.  It is the divine, eternal portion of our nature.  After our bodies have perished, it is our spirit which will endure.

Our soul has another name in the modern vernacular, it is called the mind.  This is also an eternal part of our being, however, it is corruptible. Anyone who has had an evil thought, and that is everyone of us, knows that the mind, the soul, is corruptible.

The body is not eternal, it is temporal, and it is in the body that the corruption starts.  It is the body that screams for pleasure, no matter how temporary, no matter the long term cost.  That is why addictions are so devastating.  The alcoholic drinks and numbs the pain that the alcoholism creates.  In order to avoid the pain the drinking continues until the bill comes due, and it always comes due in time.

So, the body and spirit are at war in the battlefield of the mind, and at stake is your eternal soul.  The spirit tells the mind to do the right things.  It tells you to live a good life.  It tells you to seek after your heavenly father, and seek a relationship with him.  It tells you to buffet your body and stay away from sin.

The body tells the mind, “If it feels good, do it.”  The body wants to corrupt the mind in order to have the experiences that it wants.  It doesn’t want to be in an unpleasant position, it want pleasure for the sake of pleasure, because it doesn’t care about eternity, it wants what it wants now.

Satan tells two lies that have been effective to deceive the body and mind.

The first is that he doesn’t exist.  If he doesn’t exist you can do whatever you want with no eternal consequence, because Satan doesn’t exist then God doesn’t exist.  If God doesn’t exist there is no heaven to be saved to nor hell to be saved from.

The second is that Satan is more powerful than you.  There is nothing you can do to resist him.  If there is nothing you can do to resist him, there are two consequences that people experience. First, if you can’t resist him, you are not at fault.  Second, if you can’t resist him, why try.

These are the lies that the body will introduce to play with the mind.

So why is the mind the battlefield?  The mind is the seat of intellect.  It is the seat of emotion.  It is the driving force of personality.  If your mind decides it wants to get drunk or take a drug or have sex, your body is going to rejoice and your spirit will scream.  If your mind decides to not give into the temptation, or decides to seek God, then the spirit rejoices and the body screams.
So, there is a war.  Do you recognize this battle in your own life?  I know I do in mine.  I know there are a couple of areas that my body uses.  Primarily it uses my love of food and the fact that I experience pain when I get involved in too much physical activity.

I know that if I lost weight, the pain would go away.  I also know that the physical activity required to lose the weight will hurt.  My spirit says go through the pain, lose the weight, be healthy. A healthy Shaun is a more productive Shaun.  My body says, “Ouch!”, surf the internet, eat some ice cream and be lazy.
I think it’s time for me to choose to listen to my spirit and get active.  What do you think?

For a long time in the United States the church has been a social club.  I'm not sure when this happened, but I'm desperately disappointed that most of the congregations that I am familiar with completely miss the point of what it means to be Christian.

For example, see if this sounds familiar, you walk in to the building, everyone is dressed to the 9's.  You get a big hearty hug and someone says, "Hey, (Brother/Sister) So-and-so, it's great to see you."  Which is code for, "Hey, don't I look great and isn't it great that I'm great!".  This isn't everyone, but I think you all know who I'm talking about.  The people of the church like it when new people come as long as the person is like them.  They don't want to get their hands dirty.  They don't want to do anything that might put them in contact with, *gasp*, a sinner.

Have you ever sat in a service and had the pastor say something like, "You know, if Jesus were to show up in our town right now, he'd walk past, such and such church, he'd ignore this other church and he would stroll into this building and join us here tonight!"  I've been in a service where the pastor actually said that, naming the so and so churches by name.  I wanted to stand up and scream, "No, he wouldn't, he'd stop off at the bar and minister to those who truly need him.  If he showed up here it would be to tell us that we are whitewashed tombs filled with dead men’s bones."

Have you ever been to a church where they say, "Love the sinner, hate the sin.", but in the next breath condemn the sinner while putting on a show for everyone, like they have no faults?

The first misconception of the church is that the church is a place.  The church is not the building; the church is the collection of God's people.  That extends past walls and far past denominational boundaries.  The church is the whole of the Bride of Christ.  We were pursued by Christ.  We were romanced by Him.  We were saved from our sins and brought into the bride.  Do we so soon forget who we were before?

I remember where I came from.  I remember who I was.  I remember the prayers and I remember being pursued, no matter how far I wanted to run.  I remember being woo'd by God.  I remember falling in love with Him.  I remember being made the bride of Christ.  I remember these things.  I remember who I was.  I remember knowing I was going to Hell.  I remember not really caring.  I remember being rejected by the church.  I remember being hurt and humiliated.  I remember the sin that encumbered me.  It wasn't something I did, it was what I was.  I was sin, I was a sinner.
However, God loved me, where I was.  He pursued me because of His absolute, unending, unfailing love for me.  The Bible says there is no where we can run, no depth, no height, nothing that can separate us from the love of Christ.  While I still had the disease of sin hanging off of my like a flesh eating bacteria, He loved me.

Do you remember that in your life?

Being that I remember who I was, I cannot look at people in that position in judgment.  We need to get past the sin, that disgusting disease that hangs on them, and see a future bride.  One that is clean and pure and perfect, despite what the person looks like, acts like or how they live their lives.  If we can develop compassion for the lost we will want to be around them, because we will want to be the one who shows them Christ.

The second misconception of the church is that the gathering together of the saints is where ministry takes place.  It can take place and it's a good place for Christians to minister to Christians, but it should not be the place in which unbelievers are ministered.  The pastor is not meant to be the one that leads your friend to Christ, which is meant to be you.  Church, the place, is meant to be the school where the saints go to be educated and edified.  Church is supposed to be the way station in the battle, the M.A.S.H. unit to heal and replenish the troops.

Ministry is not what happens in the four walls of a specific building.  Ministry is what happens when you leave the church building and go back to your house and your neighborhood and interact with those around you.  Ministry is the tool that the Holy Spirit uses to grow His Bride.

We, the church, are on the brink of destruction and revival.  We stand on the precipice of greatness and disaster.  We can become the true, perfect Bride of Christ, or we can become a deceived anathema to God.  We can have our worship be sweet incense or it can be a rotten stench.  The choice is up to us.  I for one have decided to be what Christ wants me to be.  I choose to be His bride.  I choose to look at people as He sees them.  I choose to be an instrument to be used by God to institute His will.

On occasion, everyone needs to do a personal inventory of themselves.  This is one of those times for me, as I prepare for my future.

As part of my personal preperation for starting a church in Sarasota in the next couple of years is the need to discover all of my strengths, weaknesses and short-commings.

To define these three areas can be like splitting hairs, except for strengths, that one, not so hard, but to differentiate between a weakness and a shortcomming, that can lend to confusion.

• Strengths are the areas of my life that I am good at.  These are the things that I need to build my ministry upon.  I need to identify, with clarity and distinction, what my strengths are.  This is a process that I don't mind undertaking, considering that the process will uncover this that are positive for me.  However, I must discover my obvious and not-so-obvious strengths, so it won't be as easy as it sounds.
• Short-commings are those things that should be strengths but are not.  I may look at these things as weaknesses, but in reality, they are not.  This will be a little more painful of a process because it will uncover the areas where I have just plain dropped the proverbial ball.  I've fumbled these areas of my life.  I've been lazy at developing these areas.  These are things that I will need to work on to become strengths.  This will take work.  I'm not as young as I used to be and I'm stuck in my ways.  My task is to unstick myself and become the man I am meant to be.
• Weaknesses are going to be tough.  These are areas at which I am just not good.  These areas are the ones that I will hand over to other people when someone who is good at them comes along.  One of my mentors told me a long time ago, staff your weaknesses.  That is my intention on these particular areas of my life.  This will be painful because I don't like admitting that I am not good at something.  This will be a humbling process.  It's a good thing, but it will hurt.

A sample of something that is a strength of mine is my ability to program computers.  I'm a technological guy, so technology needs to be a part of this church.  God didn't make me a geek for me to not use it.  The church will take part in things that most churches won't take part in, but I will always be open to getting involved in areas that are not comfortable for most churches, if it means that we can be ministers of gospel to people who need it.

Another thing that I'm good at is that I'm not afraid of turning people against me if it means that they will get their lives right with God.  I have a tendancy to not give people an answer, I put them in a position to come up with their own answer.  I believe that if I make it easy for someone by giving them the answer, they will still struggle with that area of their own lives.  However, if I make them discover the answer on their own, they will become successful in that area of their lives.  If they hate me for doing that... so be it.

One of my short-commings is witnessing.  I'm not real good at being the instigator of a conversation.  Once the conversation is started I'm the champ, but I have always wanted someone to ask me about my beliefs.  At that point, I know they want to know and they will be open to what I'm going to tell them.  However, I need to be bolder at the outset.  This is a short-comming, because I know the material, I just don't have the confidence in myself to go up to someone I don't know.

My biggest weakness that I need to staff almost immediately is in the area of finances.  I'm not compitent at keeping them in line.  I like to spend money to advance the kingdom of God.  I'm a firm believer in prosperity.  However, in my zeal I, sometimes, tend to spend foolishly.  I want to make sure that all areas of spending in the ministry are in directions that God will approve.  I need someone who is financially saavy to make sure that I always stand with that goal.

Ultimately, this can only be accomplished to its fullest through alone time with my Daddy.  After all, he knows more about me than I do.  I trust His judgement far more than I do my own.  I really look forward to this experience.  It may be painful, but I know that the end result will be like being gold going through the furnace.  It may be painful removing the dross, but once it's gone I'll be much purer for having gone through this.

Pray for me over the next 6 months or so as I go through this process, I'll need all the prayers I can get.

The modern church makes many mistakes, one of the biggest is judging the sinner.  I’m not saying that we should accept or participate in the sin that the non-believer does, but we shouldn’t judge them either.  After all, telling an alcoholic that they shouldn’t drink is like telling a fish that it shouldn’t be out of the water.  They know that they shouldn’t be there, but how do they get back to the water without some help?

First, we shouldn’t judge anyone anyway, unless we want God to judge us by the same measure that we judged.  I don’t think that anyone really wants that.

Second, the non-believer doesn’t know God.  They will only be judged by God for one sin and one sin only, and it’s not gluttony, Thievery murder or covetousness.  It will be because they were never born again.

If we, as people of faith, turn on these people in judgment will they ever come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ?  I say, “No”.  Instead we need to stop being judgmental and start being burdened by compassion for the lost.  We need to look at people through the eyes of God, with the compassion of a father missing his son.

If you had a child that was a slave to a harsh taskmaster, would you judge your child for being a slave or would you try your hardest to rescue them from their bondage?  I know, for me, I would do everything in my power, fight to my dying breath to ensure that my son was set free.

Well, isn’t that exactly what sinner is to God?  Isn’t he/she a child that is a slave to sin?  Didn’t God send His son to pay the price to set humanity free from the law of sin and death?  When we give our lives to Him were we not adopted in to the family of God?

I say yes, we were bought with a price, we are a royal priesthood.  Now we are in the position to lead people to the King.  After all, He gave us the authority to do it.

When we were saved we were not just rescued from hell, we were made children of the Most High!  We were shown grace and mercy.

I like the way the Newsboys described grace and mercy, “When you get what you don’t deserve, it’s a real good thing, when you don’t get what you deserve, it’s a real good thing.”

In conclusion, you deserve death, but were given life.  You don’t deserve forgiveness, but you were given it anyway. Pass it on!