Humility can usher in tremendous healing. The most powerful moment at our event for Native American women: this is Kevin Jones on his knees, our drummer & as Christlike a man as you’ll meet, asking their forgiveness for all hurts & harms they’ve ever received at the hands of men. I don’t know a man who’s more of a gentleman than Kevin Jones. But he humbly & gladly stood before those women and on behalf of all men who had hurt them, voiced words like these: “I am so sorry. Would you forgive us?” He told them of their worth and prayed on his knees for them.

Scripture reading this AM was 1 Cor 12. I love the juxtaposition of “same” & “variety.” Same Spirit, variety of gifts. What irony that elements meant to make us function as a body are used to keep it disjointed. “You’re different than me so you do not have the same Spirit as me.” We’ve even developed sufficient hubris to survey that very list of gifts in 1 Cor 12 & say “If you claim to have any in this category, you may have a demonic spirit but you certainly don’t have the Holy Spirit.” I don’t have the least notion this post will change a single mind->

My reading plan had me in Galatians 1-3 this AM which is also my present memory work. Wonder invaded my soul again as I came to Gal 3:8. “And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham...” Don’t rush past it.-> Speed readers of Scripture leap blindly over endless treasures. Those who take time to meditate mine copper from its hills. That’s what I love about memorizing. Every word taken by itself. “Scripture, foreseeing...preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham...” Preached the gospel!

The crisis of the American church at this critical hour is that we know the issues & our stands better than we know Jesus. Our compromised public witness & rhetoric suggest we’ve confused knowing about Jesus with knowing Jesus. Being with Him is prerequisite to thinking like Him. We are not being conformed into the image of a great citizen. We are not being conformed into the image of the Bible. We are not being conformed into the image of Peter, Paul or Mary. Or John Calvin. We are being conformed into the image of Jesus. We have left our first love.

Let scoffers scoff but let the willing consider the evidence: Madness has descended on our culture in a blinding fog. Pure madness. Unreasonableness. Irreconcilability. Callousness. The devil has come to make animals of image bearers. This he does by convincing us we're gods. We who follow Jesus have been caught off guard and caught up in it with the rest of our culture. We weren't discipled by our elders for faithfulness and steadfastness in this kind of madness. We are ill-equipped, small-hearted & self-consumed. But we do not have to stay that way.

Deeply grateful to live in a moment in time when dialogues about sexual harassment, abuse & assault are taking place within churches. Was throwing away notes I'd jotted down for #SBC18 panel and glanced over them and saw some things I didn't get to share there. Will share a few: Keep in mind as you read these that I dearly love the local church and can't imagine life apart from it. I'm for the church, not against it. These are just a few ways based on my own life experience and ministry involvement I think we might help create healthier church cultures.

100 years from now, if Jesus tarries, imagine Satan reminiscing over this era. “Oh yeah, those were the days alright. All I had to do was get them swept up in fear & it did the rest. Led a whole nation by it. And the funniest part? Christians were the biggest fraidy cats of all.” We have not just caught the world’s fears. We are leading out in them. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be so. We may call ourselves Christians but we cannot call ourselves Jesus followers and be led by fear. They are going polar opposite directions.

Given enough time, privilege, power, protection & prestige, any network of people - no matter how pure their original purpose - can transmute into a web. We can be in a web & not even know it. A few signs:
1. It gets really sticky. Institutionally speaking, even incestuously so. Black & white turns webby gray. Protecting the network is paramount. Rules bend to protect those most important to the network still self-defined by its original noble purpose.Those outside the web can see that what bent broke.
2. It’s hard to recognize spiders from inside a web.

If you feel like sobbing, do. If you feel like going to church on Mother’s Day would crush your heart, don’t. You won’t lose your salvation because you don’t want to go to church on Mother’s Day. Grab pen and paper and get alone with God and pour out your heart to Him in full... Write write write. Say everything you feel & fear. Sometimes I don’t even know what I feel til I start writing it out to God. If you’re angry, pour it out honestly & without fear. You are safe. His perfect love casts out fear. He knows what’s buried inside your heart.Let it up...

Not in a snarky mood. Just want to speak plainly. I love us. I’m for us. Infinitely more important, Christ is for us. But if evangelicals are to move ahead in repentance & woefully needed reform toward Christlike witness -& hosts of us want that -we must deal with our denial.-> Of course there are exceptions but just hear this out without getting defensive. “I didn’t know.” Deniability is excusability. This is claimed over multiple issues from rampant racism to misogyny & sexual misconduct of leaders in the church. Yes we did know. We did not deal. ->

BUT IF NOT.
BUT IF NOT.
BUT IF NOT, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up.” “And these 3 men fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.”

Wait a second. Did we not cast 3 men bound into the fire?

True, O king. And King Nebuchadnezzar says, “But I see 4 men unbound walking in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”

Honestly I may have to run around my hotel room waving a pillowcase.

Killer reading this AM. 2 Kings 19. Sennacherib, conqueror-king of Assyria, invades Judah. Sends officers & large army to Jerusalem with a message of taunts & threats to Judah’s King Hezekiah who is shaken to the core knowing he’s made good on his threats to surrounding nations-> Hezekiah tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth and goes to the Lord’s temple. Prophet Isaiah reassures him but then Hezekiah receives intensified threats & taunts from Sennacherib via messengers. Scares Judah’s king half to death. This is where the narrative gets really fabulous->

If it does not make us tremble that Jesus is clearly cleaning house in His church, turning over tables & chairs, exposing what's underneath & calling us back to purity & prayer, if all it does is make us pump our fists over the exposed or give us fodder for gossip, we are fools. God is onto the fact that some of our gladness over the exposures of high profile people is not for righteousness' sake but for rivalry's sake. We relish no one's public descent more than those whose successes we've resented.

Quick devo. My AM Bible reading was disturbingly powerful & shook me so in case anybody else needs shaking: Reading plan has me in Prov 1. Wisdom’s talking: V23 NET “If only you will respond to my rebuke THEN I will pour out my thoughts to you & will make my words known to you.” How often might it be that we have a clog in the pipe of wisdom we need because we wouldn’t take a rebuke from God? Probably never even heard it. In fact, it might be fair to say if we can’t recall the last personal rebuke we got from God, we’re not listening.He chastens His own.