Warren Rachele

Fan or Follower?

Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman

As a fan of the Colorado Rockies, I’ve learned to live with the feast and famine cycle of the team. When things are going well for the team, as they do for varying lengths of time, there’s nothing better than a game on the radio while working in the garden. On the other hand, as the Rox endure one of their all-too-frequent slumps, the ease with which I can go days without a thought about the team makes me wonder why I invested so much time in them in the first place. Fans come and go.

When author Kyle Idleman throws down the challenge-fan or follower-he sets our sights on something much more significant, Jesus Christ. One who defines the relationship with Him as one of being a fan finds that Jesus is great when things are going well. When life turns difficult, the relationship becomes much more tenuous. For the fan, turning to other sources for answers, comfort and guidance is easy. They’ll get back to Him when everything turns around.

For the follower, there is no option.

The follower sees the relationship in a much different way than the fan. Good times or bad, Jesus is their shepherd and all of their trust is vested in Him. Follower, Idleman rightly teaches, is the only correct attitude when it comes to Jesus, though he acknowledges that our churches are filled with fans. Through the pages of Not a Fan, he walks the reader through the nature of a biblical relationship with Christ, one in which He is Lord more than friend, Shepherd more than guidance counselor.

Idleman does an excellent job of providing the necessary reflective tools to enable the reader to judge the nature of their relationship with Christ. In chapters dealing with legalism, lack of personal relationship, commitment or the lack thereof, etc., he brings the reader face to face with the areas which tend to plague modern Christianity. Throughout, you are encouraged to DTR (define the relationship). Only when you have done so can you effectively understand the invitation to become a follower and all that that means that follows.

Not a Fan is a much-needed book in the Church today. Though there is a small-group or Sunday school curriculum associated with the book, I encourage individual believers to approach the book on their own first. Allow the Spirit to illuminate the specifics of your relationship with Christ in the quiet, free from the distraction of how He is influencing others in the group or class.

I’m grateful to Zondervan who provided this copy for review.

Not a Fan – Zondervan

www.notafan.com

Opening New Mission Fields

Damaris Zehner, carrying on Michael Spencer’s Internet Monk blog, wrote this about new mission opportunities…

Have you ever thought you might have a calling to missions? I have a suggestion for you.

I won’t try to convince you that this new field is more deserving or better or more desperate than a hundred others. All mission fields are important. People might get competitive about missions, but how can God compete with himself? He calls different people to different jobs, and it could be that one of you might find your calling here.

“Here” is in rural and small-town America. But don’t come to do vacation Bible school or build a picnic shelter or even start a church.

Most small towns have a church and VBS, and we can build our own picnic shelter. What we need is a grocery store. A doctor’s office. A hardware store. A co-op to package and sell locally grown produce. We need the necessities of life and meaningful employment in a place that feels like home.

My family and I live outside a town of a thousand people in western Indiana. A hundred years ago our town still had a thousand people, but it also had a theater, a grocery store, a general store, two hotels, a high school, an elementary school, a grain terminal, a Carnegie library, and a hardware store. The last four remain. A few years ago the state tried to shut down the little library, but our petition drive was at least temporarily effective. The grain terminal will stay in business, I guess, and so will the elementary school – although several nearby have shut and some children now spend an hour each way on the bus. But our wonderful hardware store, that smells of old wood and nails and oil and paint, with the window display of 19^th-century implements and the mannequin legs sticking out of the claw-footed bathtub – it may close when the proprietor gets old.

Read the entire post..

Psalm 102–Contrast

My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.

But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations. Ps 102:11-12

Contrast; an easy concept to define and understand. Placing one thing aside another so that the differences become apparent. As the psalter continually reminds us, no greater contrast exists than the gulf between God and man.

Man…created in the very image of God, privileged to be imbued with His Spirit and yet starkly different. Given domain over the Earth as caretakers of creation, humanity aspires to go beyond, to grasp the divinity that belongs only to the Creator. Brokenness of character marks our souls forever.

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. (vv 25-26)

We lament our condition, fragile and brief as it is in contrast to the eternal nature of God. Life passes by in an instant, sometimes filled with joy while other moments are marked by despair. Permanence is sought and found only in one place, at the base of the throne of God. Our quest for eternity is satisfied only here, hand and hand with the Creator of all.

Grace and peace to you.

image .indigo.

Psalm 102–Contrast

My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.

But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations. Ps 102:11-12

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. (vv 25-26)

Grace and peace to you.

image .indigo.

Psalm 101–Eyes on the Faithful

My eyes will be on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; he whose walk is blameless will minister to me. Ps 101:6

The psalmist introduces a small group of psalms (101 – 110) that concentrate the larger themes of the entire psalter. Arranged concentrically, both 101 and 110 speak to the devotion of the king to God. He pledges to arrange his kingdom on the principles of the Lord and to reign in righteousness.

I will walk in my house with blameless heart. (v2)

I will set before my eyes no vile thing. (v3)

Men of perverse heart shall be far from me; (v4)

Faithfulness to the Lord begins with separation from the world. Dwelling in the muck does not leave you spotless. While we will reach into the mud to pull another to safety, it is not meant to be our dwelling place. We will spend time with the unsaved, but they will not direct our lives. When blame enters our heart, we will confess and repent.

Grace and peace to you.

image WeiterWinkel

Average Joe Finds the Updraft

Average Joe by Troy Meeder

You won’t find but a handful of web sites devoted to the comings and goings of the average guy. Blogs, books and the media do not celebrate the dad who works all day and then coaches the kids at night and then does battle with his lawn on Saturdays. No paparazzi track their every move and no one votes via text message for the next “American Average Guy”.

And yet, it’s the ordinary guys that make the world work, socially and spiritually.

Troy Meeder invites us into the world of the average guys who have enormous and often unrecognized impact in Average Joe. He builds the book on the notion that God uses average guys for extraordinary works, paralleling the biblical men who stepped out of unsung, ordinary lives ( the fisherman, the waiter, the farmer ) with their modern counterparts who leave their marks on the lives of others while remaining in the background, as far as society is concerned.

Average Joe would have been ideal material for the Promise Keepers movement in its heyday. Meeder encourages Christian men to recognize that their status needn’t be governed by the categories of secular society, the big house, big car and the corner office. Instead, he says, what we are in the eyes of God is measured by how closely we live out the life that He outlines for us. It is a life in which we enrich others, not by what we can do for them in worldly terms, but rather, by what we leave with them that enables them to do the same for others.

If Average Joe only serves to initiate conversation among men as they see themselves or their mentors in the vignettes, it will be a success. If the pages help to open the eyes of a man who is driven to “be somebody” in order to have a Spiritual impact and to help him to see the power of his ordinary devoted life, the ripples will have effect long into the future.

I’m grateful to Multnomah who provided this copy for review.

Psalm 100–We Are His

The verses of this psalm strike a note of familiarity with the reader and the reason for this is twofold. The themes of praise for God, membership in His flock and the ultimate truth of His enduring love are all present. Because the truths present are all encompassing, the words of the psalm have made their way into countless hymns, choruses and prayers.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness;

come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.

Placed in the cultural context of Israel, there are also theological lessons that take root in the subconscious. The Lord is God, not one among many, not capricious and prone to tantrum as the imaginary gods of those surrounding Israel. Knowing this truth and the truths about God make worship and the joy inherent second nature. Unlike the way in which one might approach an idol—hoping but never knowing—approaching the gates of the Shepherd comes with assurance.

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;

His faithfulness continues through all generations.

Assurance despite any temporary travail or circumstance comes through knowing God. The psalmist doesn’t speak from book knowledge here, he writes from the heart of one who has searched both his personal history and that of the people of Israel, knowing the peaks and valleys. Knowledge brings level to these ups and downs. Knowledge reminds us that time belongs to God and that the contours may only soften over time. Knowledge reminds us that we can still be joyful in this truth.

Grace and peace to you.

image docman

A Crash of Christians

Unleashed by Erwin McManus

Domesticated Christians are far too willing to abdicate the battle for the soul of the world. Civility focuses our energy on all the wrong places. … In contrast, Jesus calls us to a different way. He tells us this is a battle of kingdoms. McManus

Activist pastor and thinker McManus is never shy about emphasizing a wild and untamed Christianity. He is less concerned with church structures, the recitation of creeds or spending all of his precious moments of life arguing theology. Instead, he sees in Jesus a Lord calling into followers into dangerous territory that is fraught with potential pain and even loss of mortal life, in order to reclaim it from the corruption that beset it in the Garden. Faith for McManus is not to be lived in the safety of the sanctuary while the world dies a little more around us. Rather, we are to be following our Lord into the battle for souls and the ground to extend the kingdom.

Unleashed is a repackaging of McManus’ earlier book The Barbarian Way. It was great read in its original form and the additions and edits in its new form make it appealing to reread. The subtle changes in the cover and the text appear to be aimed at opening up the book to more than just the men that the original title appealed to. McManus’ daughter has grown up over the years and her appearances in the book also show that the barbarian heart beats on both sides of the Christian family.

Pastor McManus doesn’t write Unleashed as a prescriptive guide to changing your life. Rather, each chapter encourages you peek outside the walls to see the untamed world outside of your safety zone and take the first tentative steps into it. As he says, “if you make the insane decision to live your life for the sake of others, if you choose to follow the One whose barbarian path led Him to the brutality of the Cross, and if you embrace His invitation to take up your won cross and follow Him, then it has begun.” You can choose safety and simply wait out your time to be called home. Or, as did the original disciples, you can follow the Lord into life completely different from every day that came before.

I am grateful to Thomas Nelson who supplied this book for review.

Psalm 99–Seven

O Lord our God, you answered them; you were to Israel a forgiving God, though you punished their misdeeds. (Ps 99:8)

As the joy and awe of Easter remains fresh in our hearts, we do well to reflect on the reality of God’s demand for holiness. Psalm 99 is linked to 97 as an expression of the benefits of the Lord’s reign over His people. These benefits are not the product of a one-sided covenant however. As mercy is extended to us, we are commanded to pull our boots from the mire that has held us captive and ascend to higher ground. Our core calling is to make holiness the objective of our efforts.

The psalmist also expresses the parallel expressions of God’s reign, mercy and correction. Grace is not license, as some mistakenly interpret it. He corrects those he loves in order to reorient their path. To be abandoned to sin is to be without hope.

Grace and peace to you.

image sarah and mike

God So Loved The World VI

Lent 2011

For God so loved the world… John 3:16

so adv 1. In the way or manner indicated. 2. to the extent or degree indicated or suggested. 3. very or extremely. 4. very greatly. 5. most certainly…

You may come to this passage indirectly, perhaps as your first memory verse or your initial introduction to the great truth of the Bible. As you read and absorb it, you cannot help feel the Spirit move as you encounter this simple but profound reminder of the sacrificial love of God for you.

When you read God’s story from the beginning, on the other hand, and arrive at the fourth gospel and this verse, your eyes read the words in a much different light. Where it was just you and the secrets of your heart before, now you have the entirety of history casting its lengthy shadow over God’s love. The rise and fall and rise and fall tempo of man’s relationship with his creator causes you to wonder why He loves us, and marvels that He does.

Love us, that is. He most certainly does.

Grace and peace to you.

image stevendepolo