My Blog

Celebrity worship
by John Fischer

Once you’ve experienced the real worship of God through the things he has made, you can’t help but think that the rest of creation isn’t a bunch of steps ahead of you in this. I know I’m right about this because the Scriptures talk about mountains singing and trees clapping their hands (Isaiah 55:12).

Inspired by this thought, I wrote a song once about a discovery made watching the sun go down over the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly, I saw this as a theatrical presentation anticipated by the rest of God’s creation around me.

The rocks are in their places
The seagulls look for theirs
The flowers wait expectantly
Forgetting all their cares
The curtain clouds roll back to let you know
The show has just begun
We’re about to see the setting of the sun

Think for a while along these lines and the natural world begins to take on celebrity status. Not only has God created the show, he’s created the audience, too, and imbued it with a sense of appreciation that is nothing short of worship – a sort of worship that is going on all the time.

I read in the paper this morning how

Los Angeles

fashion shows are seating movie stars and other celebrities in the front row – a sort of show within a show – ensuring that cameras will click on the audience as well as the models on the runway. In the same way, it’s not only what God is doing in the world that is important, but who (or what) is watching.

Of course we are speaking metaphorically here, but the implication should not be wasted. I believe the Psalmist animates creation in its appreciation of God in order to awaken the same thing in us – and even greater, because of our intelligence. For us not to worship as the mountains and trees are doing all the time is an insult of the highest degree. How can we miss what rocks, flowers, seagulls, and seals do without thinking?

The sky has turned a yellow-gold
With fading signs of blue
The ocean green has turned to gray
With a shining path breaking through
A lonely seal swims by the screen
Diving just for fun
He has come to see the setting of the sun

Spring is coming. There are some gorgeous days ahead. Find yourself a seat on the front row with the other celebrities of nature, even if only in your imagination, and drink it in!

And though the sun must set each day
And come back again
There will be a new sun soon
Whose day will never end
He’s the maker of it all
The light of everyone
Soon we’ll see the glory of the Son…
The real One

It’s not about Christians
by John Fischer

I have heard it said that more people are offended by Christians than by Christ. I’m not sure this has ever been statistically verified, but it seems true in my experience. How often have you begun a conversation with someone who is not a Christian and had them bring up either Christians they know who are bad examples or a negative stereotype of Christians that they have bought from the media and used this as a reason why they are not interested in discussing it any further? One bad influence can go a long way toward erasing the whole.

I once had a neighbor whose pastor ran off with the church secretary and money from the church coffers. He left the church, never forgave that pastor, and projected his poor behavior on anyone who had anything to do with Christianity.

So what do we do about this? Well let’s start with what we don’t do. We don’t have to defend bad Christians. Poor or inconsistent behavior of Christians never has to be a threat to sharing Christ with someone. Turn it, instead, into a reason why we all need him.

The reason I am a Christian is not because Christians are such grand examples of human beings. I don’t have to prove that our guys are better than your guys. I am a Christian today, because of Jesus Christ and what he has done for me. If it’s true that people are less offended by Christ than by Christians, then by all means, talk about Jesus instead. Who was he? Who is he today? What did he do for you? What can he do for anyone who believes?

Keep the focus on Jesus and how much you need him. Talk about what he’s done for you – how much he means to you. Tell your friends, “Yeah, I know there are a lot of lousy Christians out there, but it’s not about Christians. It’s about Christ.” If it were all about Christians, we’d all be in trouble. Even the disciples didn’t always get it right.

Knowing we don’t have to defend the behavior or attitudes of other Christians leaves us free to focus on Christ and this is exactly what we want to do. It’s all about Jesus. If and when you do talk about Christians, talk about yourself because you are the Christian you know the best and the one who needs Jesus the most.

And the next time someone brings up a poor Christian example, just say, “Yeah. I agree with you. I wouldn’t want to be one of those people either. You know, that’s exactly why we all need Jesus.”

For the love of the game
by John Fischer

Last Thursday night, my son, Chandler, and I checked into a hotel near the Los Angeles International Airport in order to meet my wife who was due in late from a business trip. I was surprised to find the lobby bustling with people. It seemed like an odd hour for so many to be checking into a hotel. They were definitely traveling as a group and many of them were toting large duffle bags. When I saw baseball bat handles sticking out of one bag, I assumed they were some kind of team, but they were not a very well-heeled team in that they could not afford team bags. They were all traveling with their families. Kids were running all over the lobby and it did not take Chandler long to join them. Finally, I caught the red and green colors of Mexico on a laminated ticket pass that one of them was wearing around his neck and I wondered if this was Mexico’s team in the World Baseball Classic – the guys that hours earlier had knocked Team USA out of the games with a convincing win. I would have expected much more of a display of color and uniformity from an international team.

“Are you guys on Mexico’s baseball team?” I asked two families in the elevator. They nodded. “Are you still in it?” Yes, they shook their heads. “So, you just knocked us out?” They grinned ear to ear with satisfaction. “Well, congratulations!” I said as they spilled out onto their floor – women, children, players, and bats. One guy had signatures all over his jacket. Two others had Team USA hats signed, I assumed, by Major League players.

These were no-names from nowhere who had just knocked off their millionaire heroes and gotten their autographs in the process. These guys were playing only for pride and the love of the game, and they were carrying their own bags. You can bet that USA players never touch their own equipment outside the ball field.

I want to remember that picture: the smiles, the kids, the players, and the equipment bags strewn all over the lobby. Something about it seems true and pure – the kind of thing that will keep this game alive.

Something about this also seems right about our relationship with God. When you serve God, you carry your own stuff. No one is above being a servant. And we’re in it for the love of the game, only this game is life. It’s the real thing.

That guy may have autographs of big league players all over his jacket, but in his heart, he’s got something better than all their million-dollar contracts combined – he’s got the real game and the real reason to play it. And look who won.

Johnny on the Spot

“It is not that we think we can do anything of lasting value by ourselves. Our only power and success come from God.” (2 Corinthians 3:5)

I think every Christian struggles at one time or another with this truth. Spiritual growth is a constant struggle between what we do for God versus what we do in God. The struggle is sometimes hard to see because it is not a struggle between good and evil as much as it is a struggle between the good and the best.

The good is always an enemy of the best because the good is so good. It looks good; it has the feel of good, but it is ultimately useless because it is not the best. It is success produced exclusively by human beings and human services. The good is what we do for God by ourselves — what we do relying on our own resources and our own ingenuity. We may even make it sound good because we are doing it for God, but unless it is of God and from God, it will not be ultimately successful.

All great Christian endeavors fall into this trap at some time. We want to control the outcome. I can guarantee that as soon as we here at Purpose Driven feel we can get our arms around this endeavor, that will be the end of it. You can’t experience the power of God without risking something of yourself in the process.

How do you know when you are working for God? You get tired, you burn out, or the opposite — you become very successful and start taking pride in your success. You begin repeating what works over and over again, because you found a formula that will work regardless. This is what the Bible calls: “walking in the flesh,” and in spite of how good it looks, it will burn up in the end like a big pile of dry wood.

So how do you know if you are dealing in the success of God’s power? You are at risk; you are Johnny on the spot; you are way over your head; you are not completely sure what you are doing; you are acutely aware of your own weaknesses; you have ventured into a place where, if God doesn’t show up, you are a dead duck. Believe it or not, this is what the Bible calls: “walking in the Spirit.” (Don’t you love it?)

Welcome to the adventure. It’s kind of fun, actually. Once you jump in and believe in someone other than yourself and what you can control, you discover a whole new resource.

Growing Your Soul
by John Fischer

Your soul is the place where you know there is a God even before you meet Him. The soul is that in us which longs for the right thing. And once we come into a relationship with God, it’s the place where we commune with Him. The soul can be filled with God or devoid of Him, but if it is empty, God is the only thing that will fill it. We can throw all sorts of pleasures and loves in there, but none will satisfy like God, because the soul was made to long for Him and no other. When God breathed into Adam, he became a living soul, forever longing for God’s breath to fill him again.

So growing your soul means to enlarge your capacity for God and truth. It’s all about learning to walk with God — listening to Him through His word and through the natural revelations of Him that come through the things He has made, which includes all the people you know since they were made in God’s image. Growing your soul can also involve finding God in the ordinary life and activities we share in every day. It’s about being more conscious of the presence of God within you as you go about your normal routines of life. Growing your soul doesn’t only happen through spiritual activities like praying and reading the Bible; it can also happen in the way we do everything else. It’s a God-consciousness that enlarges as we grow it. When Paul says to pray without ceasing, he means to be more of a soul-conscious person.

This may be hard sometimes, even for the most mature of believers. We all go through times when everything around us seems dry and barren, spiritually. Our souls still long for God. David’s soul longed for God in a dry and weary land where there was no water (Psalm 63:1), and like a deer panting for water, his soul panted for the Lord (Psalm 42:1).

This is important to know, because it is not a longing that is over once we meet God. We still long for Him because we long to know Him more, and we sometimes lose sight of Him even though we know better. Just as we must regularly take in physical food in order to stay alive, our souls must have spiritual food in order to grow and be healthy. If your soul is undersized, it is because you haven’t been paying attention to it. It’s been telling you all along what it needs and wants. It’s time to do something about it.

Taking Last Place by John Fischer

Watching Team USA lose to Canada and Korea in this first ever World Baseball Classic is a humbling experience for any American baseball fan that is paying any attention. And not too many are. For many, these games are a spring training distraction. Nothing to pay much attention to. After all, who invented this game and played it for the last hundred years? Nothing could be better for America than to be humbled on an international stage playing our own game. And the enthusiasm of these other teams is also a lesson. I noticed a lot of empty seats for the USA vs. Korea game, but try finding one empty seat when Korea played Japan. These countries are excited about this sport, and they are showing they can more than hold their own against anyone. Depending on the results of other games, Team USA could be out of this thing by the time you read this. Hopefully the American players will discover that humility is a virtue and not try and simply cover up these loses with excuses. And this is a good lesson for us all. Whatever we think we have accomplished, we can never sit back on our laurels. Even spiritual highs need to be tempered with reality. The disciples were always arguing over who would be greatest in the kingdom of God and who would get to sit next to Jesus in heaven. Jesus responded by reminding them that they were all servants, and it is always for servants to take the lower place. If God wants to usher us to a higher place, that’s up to Him. Our place is last place. That’s what we should choose, and in so doing, lift up all those who are ahead of us. We all will experience loss sometime, whether it’s a job, a position or a relationship, and how we handle it will be a good test of whether we really believe God has a purpose for us or not. If He does, then these losses are not really losses in His book. They are opportunities to learn what we couldn’t learn any other way, or in some cases, time shows us that through losing, He was actually protecting us from something worse that we didn’t see coming. Whether or not Americans pour praise on the teams that beat them and in so doing serve something bigger than their own egos and million dollar contracts remains to be seen, but we can learn something. There is a gracious way to take last place by serving God and complimenting those in front of you. For America to do that would be very good for baseball, and America’s image in the world. For us to do that would be good for our souls and the Kingdom of God.

Finding Eternity

Here Terry Scott Taylor* has written a tender, bittersweet ballad that kills me every time I hear it. It is about the loss of a dear friend who loved to rise early to the beauties of “dawn’s golden colors” and dance across a “quilt of morning dew.” And when she prayed in the morning, her prayers “cracked the mountains of Virginia, and touched the hem of Jesus’ will.” So when it was her time to leave this life, according to Terry, God came for her in the afternoon because she loved the morning so much. Whenever I hear this song, I can’t help but reflect on how insignificant one more morning on earth would be, compared to the eternal glories in heaven into which she was about to be ushered. And yet, at the time, the morning was the most glorious thing she knew, and Terry has created a picture of God not wanting to touch the sanctity of their morning experience together, almost as if He would miss it too. I believe this beautiful metaphor captures something true and significant about our human relationship with God. God cherishes the time we spend focusing on Him. Otherwise, why would He have created us, let us go our own way, and then invite us back through the forgiveness brought about on the cross of Jesus Christ, if it wasn’t to experience the spontaneous nature of our worship from the point of view of our forgiven humanity? Didn’t He create us to revel in His grace and in the beauty He made? Something about finding and treasuring moments with God as imperfect human beings on a tired, fragile planet is valuable in and of itself. So much so that God himself cherishes it, and would revel in one more morning of our earthly praise, even while eternity stretches before us in all its fullness and completeness. Which brings all this down to you and me today. What do we have “one more of” that would make experiencing it worth living one more day? Why would God leave you here? What have we yet to do and experience with Him? Don’t miss it. Treasure your experience of God in this body while you can. We are not just marking time until heaven, we are finding out what this human experience is for. Every moment is significant now. Don’t be so eternally focused that you can’t find eternity here. In my dreams I see her laughing; In the mist she’s still at play. So each morning I go looking For the child who could not stay. Now she fills the fallow green fields With a memory-laced perfume. Oh how she loved the morning So God took her in the afternoon. [From “The Afternoon” by Terry Scott Taylor, on the album, “Avocado Faultline”] * Terry Scott Taylor (of the rock group Daniel Amos, Lost Dogs, and a host of other musical incarnations in his lifetime) is on a very short list of singer/songwriters whose geniuses, in my opinion, were lost on a Christian music label and audience that could never understand what they were trying to do. Hopefully they will still be found by those who can.

Winning and Losing

It’s been statistically proven that out of the 162 Major League baseball games that make up a full season of play, every team will win at least 60 games and lose at least 60 games. In other words, the worst team will still manage to win 60 games, and the best team will still manage to lose 60. It’s what happens with the other 42 that makes or breaks a season. It’s an interesting way to think about a baseball season and another reason why I think baseball is a lot like life. Winning teams experience a lot of losses. Losing teams experience a significant amount of wins. For 120 games out of 162, everybody looks the same. That’s almost 75% of the season. It’s what happens with the remaining 25% that makes the difference between a champion and a cellar-dweller. Life is all about ups and downs. We’re all going to have good days and bad days. Winners don’t win all the time; losers don’t lose all the time. In fact, most of the time, it’s hard to tell the difference. You can’t make one’s experience the judge of everything. Pretty much all of sports tells us that winning is only a slight edge. So what’s the point of this for us? Experience isn’t everything. If you’re having a hard day, be patient, things are about to change. If you are cruising on top of things, enjoy it, because things are about to change. Change is the one constant for all of us, and those who are best prepared for it will have the best experience. If you expect things to always go well and get upset when they don’t, you’re in for making tough times tougher. If you are simply grateful for what each day brings, you will fare much better in the long run. Paul revealed the secret for making it through his “season” of life. “I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:12-13). It is a way to live that evens out the wins and the losses. It even leaves the wins and losses up to God. Don’t you remember that coach who taught you as a kid that it’s not all about winning or losing, but how you play the game that counts? Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

Trash Ministry Power!

After my devotional about finding God in the trash, I received some amusing reports from some of our readers of similar sightings of God and lessons learned where you would least expect them. One I enjoyed the most was from John, who volunteered for what he called “post Sunday morning trash collection duties” at his church. He reports that this lowly job has reaped rich rewards in the joy of serving. “As God had been so faithful to clean the trash out of my life, the least I could do was to clean up after some of His sheep once a week.” I especially liked the other story he told about how every Monday night he and his neighbor both roll their full city-supplied trashcans down the steep driveway they share to the street. As an act of kindness, it occurred to John, as he was preparing to roll his empty can back up the hill one Tuesday, that it was no big deal to grab his neighbor’s can with his other hand and roll them both back up to their respective places. This has now become his weekly practice. So far, he relates, his neighbors haven’t acknowledged what he does, but he claims that is irrelevant. “In reality I’m not doing it for them, but I’ll keep it up until I receive other instructions.” Two things about this comment I like. First, he’s not doing it for them. When we serve others we are ultimately serving God. Jesus suggested that because of this, we need not make a big deal of it. No one even needs to know, actually, because our heavenly Father sees everything and will reward us in heaven at the proper time. This kind of thinking will keep us from the error of the Pharisees who served with great embellishment in public. As Jesus said, they already have their reward. The other thing I like about what John said was that he would keep this up until he receives other instructions. John quietly initiated this service as an act of love and intends to keep it up until God tells him otherwise. This is a perfect illustration of what Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:13 that we were to be eager to do good. In other words, look for opportunities to serve those around you and when something appears, do it. We don’t have to wait for instructions; we’ve already been encouraged in this regard, so grab what you can with that other hand and don’t think twice about it. Look for opportunities to serve others today, and don’t be surprised where you find them. John affectionately calls his: TRASH MINISTRY POWER! Who knows what ours might be.

One Big Happy (Dysfunctional) Family

The family that thrives is the one that can absorb conflict and failure and still exhibit love and acceptance at the end of the day. The family that fears its conflict and buries its unseemliness under a cloak of good impressions is the one that creates highly dysfunctional people who lug around suitcases of unresolved baggage and never get down to the real thing. Sometimes maintaining a “happy” family can be the worst thing you can do. It can drive a lot of powerful emotions underground, where they will eventually surface in unhealthy ways. How much of being a Christian and going to church is all about appearances? Too much, at least in my experience. Too many of us act as if it were our responsibility to make God look good by showing ourselves as shiny happy people. In the end, we make God look bad, because we are dishonest in the worst sort of way; we are dishonest with ourselves. Do this long enough and you lose track of who you really are. I find that a lot of Christians get so far removed from who they are that they need professional counseling to help them face the truth about themselves. Most of this comes from getting good at living an impression rather than living the truth. We are too good for our own good. Why is it that PKs and MKs (that’s evangelical talk for preacher’s kids and missionary kids) always seem to have a reputation of being the most troubled kids in the church? Because pastors and missionaries have the most pressure on their families to maintain the best possible reputation. After all, isn’t everyone looking to them to model the happy, successful Christian family? And so a disconnect develops between who we are and who we appear to be, and the wider that gulf, the more unhealthy the person. How do we fix this? Give up pretext and love each other for the messes that we are. Isn’t that the way God loves us? He sent His son to die for us while we were still in our sin, and that death is like a billboard for why we continually need Him (Galatians 3:1 NLT). “Have you lost your senses?” Paul wrote to the Galatians. “After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?” (Galatians 3:3 NLT) Our human effort always covers everything up. Our life in the spirit brings it all out into the open because Jesus died for this, so we wouldn’t have to hide. Let’s love each other for who we are, instead of trying so hard to be loved for who we are not.