Archive for July 2025

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Bumper Sticker Patience

July 31, 2025

“And don’t say anything you don’t mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, ‘I’ll pray for you,’ and never doing it, or saying, ‘God be with you,’ and not meaning it. You don’t make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. (Matthew 5:33-34, The Message)

Recently, I was driving down one of our city boulevards and was passed by a car in the next lane. As the car passed, I noticed a bumper sticker on the trunk that read, “Please Be Patient. New Driver.” A half-mile or so up the road, the other car was slow accelerating after being stopped at a red light. I passed the car on my passenger side and noticede that the “new driver” was a young guy who was staring at the screen of his cell phone as he picked up speed again. (Since January, in Colorado, it is against the law to drive while holding a cell phone in your hand.

I thought to myself, “Am I to be patient because he is a new driver, or because of his distracted state due to his cell phone?” Would they not have covered this in his driver’s training class?

It is a simple form of communicating mixed messages. Kind of like parking in a handicapped parking space and, just in case someone was looking, hobbling inside the mall before racing up and down the corridors. Our words and actions are often from two different hemispheres.

I think of business slogans…you know, the heart and soul of a company, what defines them…and the opposite vibe so many of their employees display. Perhaps we have evolved into a culture that says things it doesn’t mean, and does things it won’t say.

I stand convicted myself. My bumper sticker might read, “Follower of Jesus, Now Get Out of My Way!” Or, “I’m a Pastor. Leave Me Alone!” I mix my messages up, confusing body language signals with sympathetic verbiage, and applauding someone else’s recognition when jealousy drips out of my emotions.

Some of my mixed messages are only apparent to me because I am outwardly saying what inwardly I’m NOT thinking. They say that actions speak louder than words but thoughts show that we’re all guilty.

Jesus, help each one of us to live what we say; to love who we say we love; and to pray for who we say we will pray for. Amen.

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Hating Good

July 20, 2025

“ I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:9-10)

A college friend of mine posted the news this morning that the church he pastors was burglarized and vandalized last night. Rooms were ransacked, sound equipment was stolen, and thousands of dollars of damage was done. The church also has two minority congregations that use the building as well. It’s a light and a place of hope that is now grieving the callousness of a few.

My church has had scaffolding in place for several weeks to fix some structural problems on our bell tower. The scaffolding has fencing around it for the protection of pedestrians who walk by the front of the building, as well as a deterrent to anyone who might consider climbing on it. A couple of weeks ago, someone (or more than one) climbed over the fence, up the scaffolding, and painted graffiti on the tower a good thirty to forty feet up from the ground.

A skate park in Pueblo West, Colorado, in recent days has been graffittied so much that the hours that the public can use the park have been significantly reduced, and police drive-bys have been increased.

We are shocked by things like this, and yet we shouldn’t be. In our physical world, we become blind to the spiritual conflict between good and bad, the ways of God versus the work of the Deceiver. We blame it on bad kids, insensitive adults, and out-of-control hooligans. If there were simply more police, we theorize, problems like this wouldn’t happen. We fool ourselves into thinking that would be the solution for justice and getting back to a world that is good and civil.

Let’s not sound like religious crackpots and suggest it’s spiritual warfare.

And so we had Bob Vylan leading a crowd of thousands of music festival attenders in England in chanting “death, death to the IDF (Israel Defense Forces). Whatever your stance on the Gaza situation, promoting hatred in such a way is another sign of the chaos and distortion promoted by the forces of darkness.

An organization that tracks the number of church vandalisms has reported that there have been over 30,000 incidents in the United States in the last four years. An estimated $75 million in damage occurs annually as a result of church fires.

We have a tendency to categorize the crimes as a ripple effect of societal problems and even political differences. Whereas, there is truth in that we are prone to brush to the side the spiritual warfare that is happening. Perhaps our minds have become so removed from the spiritual dimension of life that it’s like “out of sight, out of mind.”

There is a vendetta against good, against wholesomeness, against the ways of peace. The media is very good at putting the chaos of our culture in front of us and keeping us informed about how out-of-control the world has gotten. And so a church in California is cleaning up the mess, mourning for the wounds to its faith community, and trying to figure out why it happened.

To put a positive spin on it, scripture tells us that things like this will happen. Followers of Jesus will deal with the consequences of following Jesus. It will not always be understandable and will bring us to tears and leave us with unanswerable questions. In the end, our faithfulness, grace, and mercy will bring glory to the One we serve. In many ways, that goes against our culture’s solutions but points us towards hope and peace.

The goodness of God will one day triumph over the hatred of darkness.

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Be Kind…Even If…

July 11, 2025

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.” (Galatians 5:22-26)

A young lady in my youth group has started her first job at a fast-food restaurant. She has gotten up-close and personal with humanity this past week, and experience that no amount of manual training can prepare a teenager for.

She’s getting the idea that people are rude, mean, and unreasonable. The fact that a person’s french fries were left out of the order should not justify verbally abusing the young lady who brought the order to you. Cheap food sometimes produces cheap personalities and caustic attitudes.

This young lady is an awesome individual: hard-working, caring, a good listener, and a devoted follower of Jesus. The first-job experience, however is taking its toll on her. She came home extremely emotional after her first long day of delivering food to entitled adults, who have probably been their child’s teacher’s worst nightmare.

Kindness is one letter longer than “kid-ness.” I find that interesting, in that Jesus talked about becoming like a child (a kid): “And he said: ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’ (Matthew 18:3) Kid-ness, I think, is wrapped up inside kindness. Which prompts the question, “Why are adults so abrasive about the fact that they had asked that there not be any mustard put on the sandwich, and there was?” Why does there seem to be battles happening over trivial details?

Perhaps it’s the absence of civility in our culture that has caused a void to develop, a chasm if you will, between treating people with respect versus belittling people with verbal venom. We don’t hear of many examples of kindness but we see a multitude of unkindness demonstrated each day at the highest levels in the lowest ways. We see the boldness of social-media-bullying from folk who don’t have the courage to confer face-to-face with those they have differences with.

At my middle school, our motto has been “Be Kind!” In many ways, that’s a good reminder, but it also makes me wonder if we’ve given up hope by even having to say the two words. Do people need to be reminded to treat their fellow man with respect? Shouldn’t that be on the same education level as 2+2=4?

My prayer for the young lady from my youth group is that she doesn’t give up hope on the goodness that is possible in people, that she sees herself as a light in the darkness that will not be dimmed by the stains of the world, and that she will see that smiling and being kind even in that moment of customer dissatisfaction about insignificant matters may be used to change that very person’s attitude.

May her kindness remain planted in kid-ness!

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Enjoyable Experiences

July 5, 2025

“Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,  in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

Recently, a Hollywood actress boasted on a podcast about her sexual adventures. She mentioned the number of one-night-stands she had been involved in, and how amazing one of them had been in a recent experience. There was no shame, no regrets. She lives by the principle, “If it feels good and I want to do it, then I’ll do it.”

It’s the adult version of what I tell my middle school students. I point my finger in front of me and draw a invisible circle around it and say, “This is you and the world revolves around you.” In regards to this actress’s sexual exploits there is no consideration of the emotional damage or misleading ideas she creates. It’s all about her enjoyment. Like I said, “…the world revolves around her.” Most of the time, when middle schoolers do something stupid, they have regrets. Putting thumb tacks on the classroom teacher’s chair may have led to laughter for a moment, but then the harsh return to the real world wiped the smiles off of the offending student’s face.

Many adults, on the other hand, put the exercising of stupidity and self-centeredness on their resumes. Lack of morals is viewed as a sign of the times. It’s just part of life. Life, according to the new mindset, is about doing things that are enjoyable, not necessarily beneficial.

When enjoyment becomes the shrine of worship, the world gets a little more warped and unpredictable. It’s like being on a seesaw where I want to control the movement, and the other person is left dangling in the air. It’s all about me and what I want. “How much I enjoyed it”, regardless of its effect on others, becomes the measure of value.

Walking with Jesus isn’t always enjoyable. It’s revealing. It includes walks of soul-searching, walks of repentance, and walks of comfort. If what a person points toward is having an enjoyable experience with Jesus, it will result in a superficial, self-serving kind of faith…shallow, undemanding, and punctuated with meaningless laughter.

There is joy that takes residence in our soul, but that is different than experiential enjoyment. When we walk with Jesus, we find that it involves taking a knee in His presence, letting Him control the direction of the walk, allowing Him to be the King.

When the joy of the Lord is evident, there is no boasting about my exploits and transgressions, just sorrow and a deep desire to be taken back into His embrace.

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