Covenant And Control

The Bible is full of examples of covenants: 314 times in one translation. In fact, the Book itself is divided into two Covenants, and the two Testaments that describe them: Old and New.

In the church today, we use the term “covenant” sometimes (in some circles more than others) to describe our relationship between individuals, and between individual congregants and the congregation of which they are members.

Covenant is an agreement, at a heart level, to walk together. Biblical covenants are divided into a small handful of standard models: a marriage covenant, various covenants between God & His people, covenants between a king and his people, and specific covenants for a specific task. Biblically, covenant exists primarily between God and man, or between man and man.

In fact, the only place where an individual makes a covenant with a group is for rulership (anointing a king), and that does not have a NT parallel.

So when I join myself with a congregation, I can make a covenant with them according to one of these models; I can submit myself to their pastor to rule me as a king (probably inappropriate in the days of “the New Covenant”), or I can forge a covenant with individuals in the congregation (including the pastor), but there doesn’t seem to be any Biblical model for a covenant between me and a congregation, between an individual and an organization or a group. On the other hand, apart from the “church of the city,” the individual congregation is not a Biblical concept, so it makes sense that there is not a Biblical model for a covenant with a less-than-Biblical concept of a congregation.

In some ways, we treat our churches like we treat our favorite sports teams: we want ours to be “better” than the others, and we are offended to one degree or another when someone leaves our workplace, our favorite team, our church, to join with another “team” across town (or in the case of pro sports, across the country). We whine about free agency in pro sports because it encourages players to leave “my team” to join another team that more aligns with their goals (usually financial goals). When someone leaves my church to join another one, we talk behind their back. I know one church: when one family left his church to join with another, the pastor of the church they were leaving called up the pastor of the church they went to and demanded to know why he allowed that to happen!

We apparently feel we own them. Honestly, while I feel some sense of ownership towards the Seattle Seahawks, I don’t really own them. When they traded Percy Hawkins away a few months ago, some of us took that personally and indignantly. And that attitude is encouraged by sports pages and by the NFL, but the reality is that I’m not even a part owner: the owner continues to be billionaire Paul Allen, and he doesn’t answer to me! The real issue – if I’m a Seahawks fan – is that I miss his receptions, and that will be true whether I’m a Seahawks’ fan or the head coach.

My friend, and covenant partner, Todd recently explained to several of us in our church that he has been feeling God’s call to Mike’s church on the other end of town. I will really miss him: he’s come to mean a lot to me, and I have loved watching God work in Todd’s life. But I don’t have any more right to hold on to Todd than I do to Percy Hawkins: I’m not the owner or master of either, and that’s true whether I’m just another “member” or the “head coach.” God is Todd’s owner, and if He’s really calling Todd to cross pollinate with Mike’s church, then I am responsible to be excited for both of them!

We’ve developed this mentality that “my church” has some level of ownership of me: that if I leave this congregation for that congregation, somehow I’m being disloyal, to which, I say, “Balderdash!”

Sure, it’s possible that someone leaving my church is flaking on God and on me, that he’s just decided to forget his friends and become self-centered and find something that makes him feel happier. People change churches for those reasons and others all the time in this town, but those don’t count: these “shuffling sheep” probably weren’t ever “a part of” in their past church, and they won’t be significant contributors in the new one; don’t worry about them.

One day, God may bring Todd back to “my” church. But ultimately, God is the one who said “I will build My Church and the gates of hell will not stand against it.” Todd’s trade may have been orchestrated for Todd’s good, or for Mike’s, or for the good of others in that congregation; He probably does not orchestrate Todd’s life for my convenience.

There are two issues here: covenant and control. If I’m in a covenant relationship with Todd, then it doesn’t matter if he’s attending this church, or the one across town: we have a commitment to each other that transcends issues like “this makes me feel better.” But if I try to control Todd’s choices – whether I’m his pastor or just another member of the congregation – then I’ve moved out of covenant relationship into a controlling relationship, and that would be a serious problem.

Naked in the Streets

Nakedness isn’t about what I have. It’s about what I don’t have.

When I’m naked, as in “naked and unashamed,” I am without clothes. If I’m using “naked” as a metaphor – and I am – then I’m writing the absence of the things for which “being clothed” is a metaphor. I’m also writing about the absence of the things for which “being armored” is a metaphor.

Some time ago, God showed me a series of weird pictures about self protection. Clothes are a layer of protection, though not generally from great big bad things. A t-shirt and shorts protect me from a cool breeze, from embarrassment, from abrasions and scrapes.

Now think of wearing a layer of heavier clothes: more protection, right?

Beyond that, if I’m wearing body armor, then I’m probably planning on going in harm’s way, to places where I need protection from greater weapons and greater attack than a t-shirt will provide. (Either that, or I’m trying to impress the ladies, and that’s not part of today’s conversation.)

The image I saw was actually from the ‘70s movie Rollerball: where armored men played a testosterone-charged sport with armor and spikes (I told you it was weird!). In spite of the armor, it was a remarkably bloody sport.

The next picture was modern soldiers in an Abrams M1 tank: monster gun on top, monster engine in the back, several inches of armor protecting those inside. Did you know that there are weapons specifically engineered to successfully penetrate that much armor?

This is the way He presented it to me: no matter how well armored I am, there’s always a weapon that’s powerful enough to penetrate the armor. If I’m wearing a t -shirt, then my armor can be pierced when I trip and skin my knee, or by a stray blackberry bramble. On the other hand, if my armor is in the form of an Abrams tank, then it takes an armor-piercing shell or a larger-than-average land mine to penetrate my armor.

It’s true that were I to wear the ugly Rollerball armor or the thick steel of an Abrams tank, then I’m pretty effectively protected from skinned knees and blackberry brambles. I’m also protected from machine guns, hand grenades, and drunk drivers.

So which looks like the more effective armor? First glance rather looks like the heavier the armor, the more I’m protected doesn’t it? That’s what I thought too.

And then He pointed out that I can easily survive a skinned knee; and when my t-shirt “armor” is penetrated by a blackberry bramble, sure it hurts a little, and I bleed a tiny bit, but then I go about my day. I don’t venture into land mines or armor piercing shells, because I know that the armor that I’m wearing – the t-shirt that I’m wearing – is completely insufficient of itself to protect me from that level of warfare.

On the other hand, if my armor is thick like the steel of a tank, then when (not if) the armor is pierced, I will be destroyed: I’ll be completely dead. But think about this: if there are enemies in the neighborhood that have armor piercing shells, they’re looking for a tank to shoot at. They’ll never waste those shells on a guy in shorts and a t-shirt.

In other words, the strength of my defenses will to some degree determine the strength of the attack that comes against me. And at some point, an attack will get through my personal defenses. And then what will I do?

So which is the safer place: when I’m well protected behind several inches of steel? Or when I’m wandering around in out-of-fashion gym shorts and a worn-out T-shirt?

There is an application, of course, about walking before God with our defenses down. When we armor ourselves to keep the bad guys out, we keep the good guys out, too. Our armor may be our self-sufficiency, our pride, an unwillingness to let people speak into our lives, or it may be fear of trying something new: it’s anything that protects us from the people around us; it’s anything that keeps from being “members of one another.”

Those defenses – that personal armor – has two problems: first, it seems that people with a strong defense attract stronger attacks. And second, while it keeps out things that can make me hurt, it also keeps out things that can make me better, like my brothers and sisters in Christ, or the presence of a living God.

Now let me clarify: I am not talking about the spiritual armor of Ephesians 6. I’m talking about my own armor, my own defenses. I absolutely need God’s armor, because it’s the only thing that actually cannot be overcome; there is no weapon that is forged against me that can prevail against His armor protecting me, and His armor doesn’t keep Him out of my life.

But in regards to my own defenses, the less I have, the better. Ideally, I’ll walk before God “naked and unashamed” like Adam did. Ideally, I’ll walk with “naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” I’ll live with my life open and uncovered from the eyes of the world. Naked (uh… that’s metaphorical, remember) in the streets.

But doesn’t that leave me open to attack? to being hurt by stupid people or stupid choices?

Well, yes, actually it does, all that and more: I can be wounded by stupid people, by evil people, and I can be wounded by good people in a moment of weakness, too. But the solution isn’t to develop stronger defenses. It’s to be as defenseless – in ourselves – as possible, to take the hits and be wounded, and then to learn to be healed quickly and effectively.

So I am encouraging us to be – spiritually, not physically, of course – naked in the streets: without the defenses of a hard heart, of a manipulative soul: to be open and transparent before God and before our fellow man, and to learn to heal quickly from the wounds that do come our way.

Go! Preach! Heal!

I’ve been studying the Bible for many years, and I’ve come to a conclusion: Jesus is a pretty good role model. For example, I’ve been watching Him in His ministry, and listening (so to speak) as He instructs His followers, and I’m thinking, “Hey, I’m a follower. Maybe I’d better pay attention!”

 

For instance, at the end of Matthew 9 we have a description of how Jesus did ministry, and if I want to be like Him, then I ought to do ministry the same way. And then in the beginning of Matthew 10, He instructs the Boys (aka “the apostles”) on how to do ministry. I’m thankful that He’s not a hypocrite: He teaches them to do the same things that He did. And when you boil it all down, it’s actually not real complicated.

 

Matthew 9:35: Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

 

So the essence of Jesus’ ministry was pretty simple: Go, Preach, Heal.

 

Matthew 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.

 

And His instructions to the Boys were pretty much the same: Go, Preach, Heal. He added some details about what to preach (“The kingdom is at hand”) and how to heal (cleanse lepers, raise the dead, etc…).

 

Even the Great Commission focuses on the same things.

 

Mark 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

 

All of my responsibilities as a Christian fall into two camps: who I am and what I do. And in the “what I do” category, I have only three things: go, preach, heal.

 

I look at that list, and it scares me. I think: “Go. I can do that. Preach. I can do that.” And then I come to the last one: “Heal. I can’t do that.”

 

That’s wrong on a couple of levels. First it betrays a fundamental heresy in my understanding of the gospel: the gospel requires the supernatural. The presentation of the gospel that Jesus understood involves signs and wonders. It involves people throwing down their crutches, and dead guys climbing out of their coffins and surgeons looking at x-rays and scratching their heads and demons being chased out of people. That’s part of the gospel!

 

I’m thinking that a five minute presentation of “the Four Laws” is insufficient. That’s what brought most of my generation to Christ (maybe that’s our problem!).Someone who knows about these things pointed out to me that pretty much every time in the gospels that we see Jesus teaching or preaching, we probably see him healing the sick as well: a powerless gospel is not the gospel!

 

But that leads me to my second problem: I don’t do so good at healing people. I can’t really do that. And for long seasons of my life, I gave up trying. This is where my second major error happens. Sure, I can’t heal people without divine assistance. But what on earth makes me think I can do the rest of it on my own?

 

The whole gospel is – at its core – supernatural. It involves at the very least a transformation from death to life, and if you believe the Bible, then there’s a party in heaven when that happens, because something supernatural happened! So what makes me think I can preach without His divine impartation on me? What makes me think I can even go as a representative of Heaven except that He commissions me, He sends me, He goes with me? This is not a place where a “Please bless my words” prayer will work. I need power as desperately in my going and in my preaching as I do in my healing the sick and raising the dead.

 

And just because I can’t do it is no excuse. I still need to heal the sick and raise the dead.

 

So ultimately, my problem is that I don’t believe the Bible: I haven’t recognized the necessity of the supernatural, so I’ve left the healing part out, and then I’ve tried to do the rest of it pretty much on my own.

 

I think I have a lot to learn!

 

Go! Preach! Heal!

 

 

The Trouble with Christian Bumper Stickers

1. All they do is identify car’s owner, and they do that poorly: “I’m an ineffective communicator trying to get a message across without actually relating to anyone!” or “I’m a member of the Christian Country Club!”

2. Bumper stickers are a violation of the great commission: we substitute “I’m a Christian” instead of “The Kingdom of God is among you!” We don’t preach the gospel; all we do is show a sticker on our car, and we generally stop there.

3. It replaces dialog with our culture or government with a vinyl proclamation of “I’m better than you, and here’s why!” No wonder the world doesn't like us!
4. They’re excuses: instead of living a Christ-filled life, we slap a sticker on our car. We substitute appearance for a life of obedience.

5. Many bumper stickers are written in in “Christianese”: Christian culture vocabulary – which the world doesn’t understand. Why would we want to parade our irrelevancy on our car?

6. Many of them are a false witnesses. The State Patrol in my area talk about “Flying Fish”: cars with fish stickers who drive like hell. Rude drivers with Jesus stickers are only giving evidence for the assumed hypocrisy of the church. If you can’t live up to the standard, don’t put the sticker on the car!

7. They’re an exercise in futility: Who ever heard of someone’s life – anyone’s life – being changed for the better by a bumper sticker, regardless of how witty it is?

Clean Refrigerator Prayers

I was visiting a friend the other day, and we were talking. She is rather an active person, and while I was sipping tea at the kitchen counter, she played the exciting and fun game she calls, “What’s that smell” with her refrigerator.

Her refrigerator is new and efficient, but it had developed a weird smell. It was full of good food, but every time she opened the door, this strange odor wafted out. It wasn’t terribly bad, but it was NOT a food smell, and it kind of turned my appetite off.

Here’s how to play “What’s that smell?”

First set aside some time: I’m going to do this; I’m not going to be interrupted.

In our version, you’ll want to prepare yourself. Call a friend. “I’m going in. Cover me!”

Then open the door, and start looking for the smell. Pick a shelf: start at the front, and open every container on the shelf. I usually start on the bottom shelf because that’s where my refrigerator is likely to have the most interesting colors and textures.

For every container: Lift the lid. Look at what’s inside. Then give it the Sniff Test. Is it nutrition, or is it a science project?

Somewhere near the back of the fridge, you’ll probably find something really interesting. My friend – who was cleaning her fridge while I sipped tea and tried to say encouraging things – discovered some candy she bought on a trip to Sweden. Two years ago. She didn’t remember it being that color. Or that slimy.

When you find the source of your smell, you win the prize! Put on heavy rubber gloves, take the prize container out, and throw its contents away. Sometimes it’s better to throw the whole container away still sealed. Then take the trash out immediately.

Now it’s time for a choice. You’re all dressed for the mess, and you’ve already won one prize. Do you stop there, or do you go for an extra bonus prize? Since you’re already prepared, maybe pick another shelf and keep looking: Lift the lid. Unwrap the tinfoil. Look at what’s inside. Then give it the Sniff Test. Is it nutrition, or is it a science project?

Doesn’t that sound like a fun game?

Let’s take a left turn for a moment.

Hebrews 12:1: Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us….

We want to run, but stuff is holding us back. Some of what is holding us back is sin. Some is just weight that hinders us. Some is buried wounds that have never healed. Some of the weight is made up of lies: lies from the enemy, lies that we've told ourselves. And some, we may never know what it used to be; we just know we need to get rid of it because it smells yucky.

How many of us are hungry for revival, and we want to be part of what God is doing, but we know we’re not really ready for it? We know there’s garbage in our soul that’s whispering to us, “Sit back down there. Who do you think you are, wanting to be part of a move of God like that?” Sometimes we’re already aware that there’s stuff in our lives that needs to go. Or some of us are thinking, “I’m already dying! How in the world am I going to keep up with a move of God?”

That’s who I’m talking about: we need to get rid of the stuff that’s weighing us down. Like I said: some is sin, some is woundedness, some is just weight. But there isn’t any part of it we want to keep, is there?  So the source hardly matters, because the real question is how do we deal with it? How do we get from where we are, weighed down, to where we need to be, free from crud and ready to go?

It’s time to play “What’s that Smell?”, but this time, we play with the help of the Holy Spirit, and we play in the confines of our own soul.

Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit to live in us, but He doesn’t come as a quiet house-guest, sitting around, bored, waiting for you to entertain Him.

John 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin , and of righteousness, and of judgment.

One of the specific assignments the Holy Spirit has before Him is to convict us of a number of things. That conviction is the smell we’re looking for! That nudge of the Holy Spirit is what we’re going to be looking for. “Holy Spirit, show us, teach me: what can you show me that’s slowing me down? What can I get rid of? Help me find it and jettison it. Convict me of every weight, and of the sin, every lie, every piece of crap which so easily ensnares me please!”

I find that praying in the Spirit for a while as I begin the process is helpful for establishing a fruitful context for these soul-searching prayers.

There are a couple of things we’ll probably find as we allow the Holy Spirit to search our soul, as we sniff through every possible container of our heart:

Nutrition: Quite a lot of what you find will end up being testaments to God’s grace: Memories of His provision, places where you’ve cleaned out former messes and been forgiven, lessons learned. These, we keep. We might even organize the shelf so we can remember them better.

The Leftover Leftovers: Some of the interesting smells we find will be just the residue of life: little offenses we need to forgive, or things we weren’t paying attention to that we need to repent of. If we don’t go looking for them, we’ll never find them. They're not "big deals," but we want to get rid of them anyway: like the "little foxes" of Song of Solomon, they’ll spoil our tenderness if left unchecked.

The Slime: Sometimes, there’s just stuff that gets us: we just get slimed. We didn’t go looking for sin, it came and jumped us when we weren’t looking. And just like that green slimy gunk that grows in the back of the fridge, it needs to get washed away.

False Advertising: the enemy is pretty good at slipping lies in among the food. And if we’re honest, we're not so bad at it ourselves, telling little lies to keep from dealing with the real issues that face us. These gotta go!

The Science Projects: the hidden things in the back shelves of the fridge that stink – these are the weights and the sin that so easily entangles us. It’s in there somewhere, and it might be disguised as food, or it may be surrounded by a cloud of green spores, but it’s something we don’t need to carry with us.

The solution for whatever we find is pretty much the same: repent. Change the way you see that thing.

If you find a place of sin that you haven’t seen in yourself before, then it’s easy to repent; now that you know what it is, you can choose to go another direction. As long as we’re there, we might want to repent for letting our guard down, for not keeping watch over our soul, for not catching this earlier. This is a good place to cheat: to ask, "What more can I repent of here, Holy Spirit?"

If you find a place of unforgiveness there, we can repent for holding on so long to the offense, and we can choose to forgive.

If you find a place of hurt or woundedness there, we can repent for holding on, for believing the thing that holds us there. We can also forgive the one who hurt us, and ask God for healing. We can’t ever change what they did to us, but we can change what it did to us, how we react to it. 

The goal here is to find the smell. Wherever the funny smell is, go looking there. Ask the Holy Spirit to bring His conviction, and show us all of the details that we need to know in order to repent well.

Press especially hard into the places where your soul says, “I don’t want to go there” or “It hurts to look at that.” Those are the really rich places. Look into those places, not away from them. The degree that your flesh resists looking into something indicates the potential for God’s healing and grace that we get to have when we press through the resistance, with His help, of course!

Give everything the sniff test: is this nutrition, or is it a science project?

So. You’ve probably figured out that in the end, this is all about repenting, changing how we think. We don’t just wait for the Holy Spirit to tackle us on the big and ugly issues that need repenting: because we believe that repentance brings forgiveness, cleansing and other good things, we go looking for places where we get to repent. There are two reasons I love repentance:

Cleanliness: The more we find, the more we experience forgiveness. The more forgiveness we walk in, the cleaner our heart is, and the more that God can trust us with His secrets, His treasures. And the more we receive His forgiveness, the more we can walk boldly in Him: no condemnation, no worries, no “if only’s.” We’re free.

Intimacy: The process of partnering with the Holy Spirit to accomplish His heart’s desire is an inherently intimate one. In my experience, Clean Refrigerator Prayers are a great way to develop a powerful intimacy with the Spirit of God.

Resurrection

Today, I prayed for a dead guy for the first time.

I was at a gathering of a bunch of God chasers, maybe a hundred, and we were in God’s presence, and we were making some declarations. God told someone there that He wanted to heal some folks, and gave some details about people’s intestines, and that person announced God’s intentions. There were some guys that recognized those details and stood up and we prayed for them, and God brought a pretty substantial measure of healing to their intestines.

Then we were worshipping some more, and Mike just got juiced up. A friend of his and mine was in the coroner’s office in another county, looking at the 25-year-old body of William, who was lying on the slab there.

What do we do? We say we believe in healing, and God had just done some of that. We say we believe in raising the dead, and we needed some of that. I know – I really know – four people who have raised the dead in the past, and I have always admired them, and their boldness is part of why I admire them.

So Mike calls our friend and asks him if he’s still there in the morgue (he was) and if it was OK for this company of people to pray for the young man (and it was). So Mike puts the phone on “Speaker”, and invites us to pray.

Suddenly, I’m overwhelmingly aware that I’ve never prayed for a dead guy before. I’ve believed this for decades, but I’ve never had a chance, and here I am, with a chance, and I don’t know what to do. I’m stormed with fears about my own issues, and I’m aware that that’s really not appropriate, so I ask God for compassion, and I go for it. All 100 of us went for it. For a long time.

I was so proud of my troop. This company of people didn’t shy away when facing Goliath. Dead guys are scary. At least when it’s time to pray and they’re looking at you. It’s terrifying. It’s like he’s shouting that he’s taken this kid and he’s not letting go, and why don’t you just give up.

But we didn’t give up. We stood up to Goliath and we looked him in the eye and we spat in his face and we went after it. We didn’t have a clue how to raise the dead, but we went for it anyway. I was so proud of the group: they didn’t chicken out.

But the dead guy didn’t stir, at least as far as I know. (If I find out differently later, you’d better believe I’ll post it here!)

And I’m aware that young William paid the price for our ignorance, our unpreparedness. We were bold, but we were ignorant, and William stayed dead. Jesus commanded us to raise the dead, and our spirits were willing, but we were weak. Our gospel doesn’t have resurrection in it yet, not really.

I want to make this declaration: if we are going to be serious about following Jesus, we need to do what He did. We need to “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” We know how to worship. We know how to pray. We are learning about prophesy and about healing the sick and about casting out demons. We have to get better at all of that, and add raising the dead. We’re good at chasing after Jesus, and we need to get good at doing the stuff that Jesus did.

On the other hand, if I keep hanging out with a troop like this, we’ll get there. The dead won’t be safe in this town.

We gotta do what we talk about. Can we keep up the pace? Can we keep pressing into Him until we get there? Or will we quit early and keep leaving people dead on the coroner’s slab?