Listening for God's Voice

A snippet of scripture surfaced before me recently, waiting for me to take notice. Three times in the last two days, in fact, floating front and center, finally grabbing my attention this afternoon. Revelation 12.11. “…they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.” I’m familiar with the verse, but it is a bit unusual and by the third expression I figured I better heed what the Spirit was saying.

I’m not usually one to ‘hear from God’ on a regular basis. I believe I’ve felt promptings, but I generally don’t experience God tapping my shoulder telling me to head left or right. Though maybe I should listen more closely (see Isaiah 30.21).

At any rate, when a friend spoke this phrase during prayer today (the other two expressions came through two different songs – Overcome sung by Jeremy Camp and More Than Conquerors sung by Steven Curtis Chapman) I began to contemplate what God’s message to me might be.

A Vision Worthy to Embrace

This is part of a talk I gave recently on
encouraging educators to "hang in there" in their
ongoing endeavor to make a difference in young people’s lives.

Vital to society are women and men who are committed to the vision of providing quality education for today’s students.

Now I do not use the term vision lightly. I believe that in any endeavor – whether it be in business, sports, parenting, teaching – without a vision of some greater good to be accomplished, without a vision of a better or preferable future, then the sustainability of that endeavor diminishes with time.

Novelty, freshman enthusiasm, excitement at the beginning of the journey will eventually wane. Although mountain top experiences, renewal conferences, and rewards for jobs well done are all very important, it is the vision of what you want to accomplish with your life or your career that keeps you in the game until the job is done.

The challenge for many people is that they do not have a vision big enough to sustain them long-term. Most people are living too shallow a dream, so no wonder they’re frustrated when the initial enthusiasm wears off. A big vision will answer that challenge.

You’ve heard this quote. The saying has been attributed to Victor Hugo, "Dream no small dreams. They have not the power to stir men’s souls." The bible puts it like this: "Without a vision, the people perish."

I want to make the case that assisting in the maturation process of young adults into healthy, well-rounded, individuals who can better society because of the skills you as a teacher handed down to them is a worthy vision to embrace.

Let me repeat that. Assisting in the maturation process of young adults into healthy, well-rounded, individuals who can better society because of the skills you handed down to them is a worthy vision to embrace.

For three reasons...

Back from the Precipice

Rescue those being led away to death;
hold back those staggering toward slaughter.
If you say, "But we knew nothing about this,"
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?(Proverbs 24:11,12 - NIV)

When teaching from the Book of Proverbs a few years ago, I discovered some amazing gems of wisdom that I had never seen before. Just proves that the teacher learns more in preparing the lesson than the class does in receiving it!

One precious word I rediscovered (from Proverbs 24:11) is God's call for me - for us - to pull back from the precipice those who are tripping toward death. The signs are obvious. A friend's life is spiraling downward. A family member is flirting with disaster. A neighbor is shutting God out of her life. We all know people who are staggering toward the slaughter.

What to do? Intervene. Social workers know the routine: Situation. Phone call. Visit. Evaluation. Drastic measures. Intervention. Someone has to step in and set right what has gone wrong.

We're talking life and death. An issue of eternal significance. And we're to act. Immediately. We are called to rescue those who, if they don't hear and respond to the message of Jesus Christ, will be separated from God forever. We can't plead ignorance. We can't wish it away. We can't opt to do nothing. We are faced with a hazmat disaster and the time to respond is now.

How? Through positive, personal, prayerful, persistent intervention.

Positive. The gospel is good news, full of hope, delivered with joyful hearts and encouraging words. When we share the wonderful story of salvation, disapproving frowns are replaced with smiling faces.

Personal. The gospel is relational, tailored in its presentation to the unique situations of its audience. Our lives are open letters engagingly written by Christ, not forwarded carbon copies of stale and tiresome news.

Prayerful. The gospel becomes effective in someone's life through the power of the Holy Spirit. When we pray for a person's salvation, we're praying for a miracle that only God can perform.

Persistent. The truth of the gospel will stand up under scrutiny. As people explore the claims of Christ we can demonstrate love and patience, confident that God is at work. Our job is to continue to witness with our life and lips.

Have we weighed our hearts? Are they heavy for the lost? Having been rescued, are we now reaching out to others who are staggering toward death?

© 2006 Lyndon Perry
Permission granted to reprint this article provided copyright information is included.

It's Not About the Bike

The human spirit surprises me.

Aware of the devilish and awaiting the heavenly, I often overlook a simple matter: Our mortal soul is a remarkable thing. Lance Armstrong's battle and victory over cancer, his well-documented racing comeback, and his unfathomable 7 consecutive Tour de France wins is a moving saga, reminding me that courage and struggle are profound human virtues.

Lance's first book, It's Not About the Bike, is not just for dedicated athletes or survivors of the disease. For the race in which we find ourselves is really a metaphor for life; it is not limited in scope to sports or sickness. In fact, it's a human race - full of tragedy and disappointment, surely - but buoyed by triumph and celebration. Armstrong's perspective is a crucial part of the story of the human spirit and I appreciate his candor in sharing it. It inspires me to dig deep and work through some of my daily and often mundane struggles.

But there's more to this story. I pray that Lance will one day experience the next chapter, or sequel, and taste true victory in and through Jesus Christ.

After reading this inspiring book, I get the impression that Armstrong knows that death and defeat don't deserve the victory lap. Yet in life's race and at this point in his personal tour it seems he believes that the best we can hope for is to confront death "straightforwardly, armed with nothing but courage." (p. 272) In the final analysis, any triumph we experience is due to a reliance upon the self.

But if ultimately, in this dangerous race through mortality, it is simply a matter of standing firm in the face of adversity, then I fear our hope is built on something less than lasting. In the end, death wins. Yellow jerseys fade. Courage expires. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (from Ecclesiastes 1.2)

Except the eternal. This is the victory that Jesus offers. Life now and life eternal. Yes, as Armstrong states,

"People die. That truth is so disheartening that at times I can't bear to articulate it. Why should we go on, you might ask? Why don't we all just stop and lie down where we are? But there is another truth, too. People live." (pp. 4, 5)

Again, this part of the story - our pursuit of life - is an inspiring story that he tells fairly well. And yet I long for Armstrong to keep reading, keep listening for the rest of the story. The message that, not only do people live, but people Live. This triumph does not rely on self or courage or grit or luck. It comes as a gift, one that can't be earned, for it is a victory over Death that has already been won for us by Jesus Christ.

Maybe I'll be able to talk with Lance about this someday. He already knows it's not about racing; I just want to tell him that it's really about Life.

© 2005 Lyndon Perry
Permission granted to reprint this article provided copyright information is included.

New Hearts and Frozen Chickens

A few years ago NASA developed a special gun for launching dead chickens at the windshields of military jets in order to test the design and strength of the glass against collisions with airborne fowl.

French engineers were eager to test this gun on their new high speed trains. But when they launched their chickens, they found that their shatterproof windshields were no match for the dead birds. The French engineers sent their specs back to the US for analysis. NASA's response: "Thaw your chickens."

We laugh, but life can serve up some major fast balls. Although we'd like to believe that our personal, family and business lives are shatterproof, we know better. It only takes one hard shot - a death, illness, divorce, or job loss, just to name a few - and we're in a tail spin.

God can rescue us, though. He desires to salvage our broken lives and fortify our "inner man," the secret place in a person's heart that aches and sputters even as we try to maintain a tough and confident exterior.

And, although we like to imagine ourselves as self-sufficient, we know that we need rescuing. The scuds that life launches at us have done some damage. In response to the daily pressures of home and work, our hearts have grown cold and callused. Our inner man has grown faint. We need God to re-engineer our lives in order to withstand the "frozen chickens" that assault our souls.

This is, in fact, God's specialty. God desires, and is able, to re-ignite the fire that once burned in your belly. Or ignite it for the first time if you've never had a fever for life. Maybe you're living life by default. Yet you suspect there's a better existence out there, if only you could discover it.

I'm convinced God has the answer. He is the answer. He says, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." (This quote from the bible is Ezekiel 36:26.)

Through the person of Jesus Christ, God offers a pulsing, vital heart that is able to weather everything life unleashes. Don't worry, God isn't some divine Dr. Frankenstein bent on controlling his creation. He wants the best for us. And he makes it possible for us not only to survive our home or work environment, but to thrive as well.

How does it all begin? By receiving a new heart. Are you ready for a transplant? Then move a step closer to Jesus Christ. His heart is beating toward you; your strength is in his strength. He can jump-start your soul, pull you out of your nose-dive and set you back on course. Accept God's heartfelt gift today.

© 2005 Lyndon Perry
Permission granted to reprint this article provided copyright information is included.

Finding Religion

Heard an amusing story, probably apocryphal, about W.C. Fields upon his death bed.

A friend caught Fields, a notorious agnostic, flipping through the bible. "What are you doing?" his friend asked. "Finding religion?"

"Looking for loopholes!" came the reply.

In Luke 10 an expert in biblical law approached Jesus looking for loopholes. "What must I do to inherit eternal life?" he asked to test the waters.

Love God; love your neighbor.

Impossible, when it comes right down to it. And this duty to one's fellow man, so inconvenient!

"But who is my neighbor?" he asked, spotting a possible out. Depending on the definition of neighbor, this command might be do-able after all. In response, Jesus tells a story about serving those in need.

" . . . So finally, there was this Samaritan," Jesus concludes in a surprise twist of plot. A surprise, that is, for the listeners who were snug in their relational blankets. For Jesus asked this law expert, "Who played the neighbor in this story?"

Hmm. Well. [Cough, cough] I suppose the Samaritan was the neighbor.

So answer your own question - Who is your neighbor? The plot twist reveals that it is not so much the person in need whom we are to love, it is the alien, the Samaritan who acted neighborly. Our neighbor then is the outcast; the person with whom we wouldn't naturally associate.

This path of service is a difficult path. Especially for us mortals who are bent on securing immortality through self-righteous acts. But if that's what we have to do... So we clarify the question: Will this hard path lead to eternal life? If so, let's buckle down and get to work.

But the bible answers, honestly, no. For even good Samaritans fall short of perfect obedience to God's standard of perfect love. Loving one's neighbor will never move us toward salvation. It's merely an expression of it.

This, then, is the real test. Is our relationship with Christ overflowing into every relationship (with those we care for and with those we don't) out of a response to his love? God will place the outcast in our path, will we stop and care for this person? It's a daily take-home exam; and one that I often fail. But there's freedom even then.

No, I haven't found a loophole. I've simply discovered that in Christ I'm set free of the tyranny of trying to secure eternal life through self-effort. You see, at one point, I was that alien on the side of the road, helpless and dying. And the Good Samaritan stopped, bound up my wounds, and soothed my soul. In response to his great neighborly love, I now, imperfectly yet aided by God's Spirit, watch for others who need to receive the healing touch I've experienced.

This is finding religion.

© 2005 Lyndon Perry
Permission granted to reprint this article provided copyright information is provided.

When Pigs Fly

You may have heard about the 300 pound porker that flew first class on a US Airways flight a few years ago. Like an urban legend in the making, this true story is stranger than fiction. Evidently, the pig's owners claimed their pet was a "service animal" - much like a seeing eye-dog - and assured the ticket agent that the pig was only 13 lbs. Based on the available data, this swine flew.

When the pig showed up it became obvious this was no small chop. Despite permission from a physician, a sow is not fit for flight. Most people know this and so the flight attendants and some passengers protested. But to no avail. Sure, the pig slept most of the 6 hour flight, but a pig-in-a-blanket is still a pig. And I can assure you, upon arrival the clean-up crew did not squeal with delight.

It just goes to show you, you can't smuggle a pig anywhere.

Sin is like that too. We may think it's just an itsy-bitsy, cutesy-wootsey little thing. We may have a note from the doctor. We may even convince a few strangers to buy a pig in a poke. But it becomes obvious to all - sooner or later - that we're wallowing in our own foolishness. You can't smuggle sin around for very long without making a stink of things.

I know this first hand. So do you. So what should we do? Galatians 6:1 & 2 are verses to cherish: "Sisters and brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore this person gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ."

Restore. Watch. Carry. Fulfill. These are community verbs. Action words that can only "work" in relationships of trust and mutual love. Without the net of a spiritual family - brothers and sisters in Christ who struggle along side one another - the follower of Jesus will just stumble along, alone. And maybe he or she will journey on without mishap. But very likely, the Christian will fall under the weight of his or her own sin. For sins tend to piggyback.

One sign of smuggling sin around is obvious. Isolation. When people begin to withdraw from the fellowship, you can rest assured something is terribly wrong. But when you lovingly reach out to these folk, you often get a mumbled response. You can hear the echoes of their excuses: "I don't need the church. I can be a Christian on my own. My spiritual life is my own business. I'm finding my own path toward God." There's a whole lot of independence in those statements. But that's the way some people choose to cope with sin. They look for easy answers and take their cues from ear-pleasing voices.

Sadly, many of us do the same thing when we turn from the outstretched hand of a friend in Christ. Instead of reaching back we often wrap up our failings and try to smuggle them from one destination to the next. But this flight always leads us away from healing and wholeness. Choosing isolation is choosing to turn away from the very instrument that God wants to use to bring us to completion in Christ: the Church.

For one of the primary means by which God transforms us into Christlikeness is the Body. Jesus longs to touch us through the restorative touch of a friend. Ignoring the gracious hand of God is like refusing a lifesaving treatment guaranteed to heal our wounds. Now that would be silly, wouldn't it? Or, if I may allude once more to our running metaphor, it's just being pigheaded.

Haven't we learned by now that we can't arrive at journey's end without some help along the way? We need one another. Still, we persist in thinking that we'll get along okay by ourselves. "I'll be alright," we say. "I can do it. I'm okay." Or, if pressed (as we try to cover over our struggles), "I'll ask for help before it's too late." But both you and I know when we'll make that admission. When pigs fly!

© 2005 Lyndon Perry
Permission granted to reprint this article provided copyright information is provided.

A God of Refills

A distraught patient called her physician.
"Tell me, Doctor, do I have to take the medication you prescribed for the rest of my life?"
"Yes, that's right," the doctor replied.
"Then how serious is my condition?" the woman wanted to know.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because," the patient cried, "I just picked up my prescription and it's marked 'No Refills!'"

Some people believe life is a "no refill" proposition. You only live once, they say. "So eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." Many people buy into this bit of cultural wisdom. And many people in the church do so as well. We believers place a lot of stock in what we can see, smell, taste, hear and feel. By focusing on the world around us we often forget about the view from heaven.

This is especially true in decision making. We research, we estimate, we cost-factor, we analyze. We take a look at the bottom line and then we decide. Necessary, but worldly by itself. While we shouldn't ignore our 5 senses, I believe Jesus would have us add another set of indicators - spiritual indicators - to our decision-making dashboard. These super-natural "senses" give us a heavenly perspective that our natural eyes will miss.

The three senses I'm referring to are faith, hope and love. In discerning God's will, our plans, projects and programs need to be examined in the light of these spiritual realities. Sure, review the facts, use the natural resources God has made available to us. We should analyze all the available data. But realize that supernatural resources are also available.

Think of faith, hope, and love as three divine guideposts, pointing us in the right direction. These virtues are powerful resources. Faith is based on God's faithfulness to us in the past. Hope is based on God's commitment to us for the future. And love is based on God's present ministry of grace and mercy in our lives.

A bit too abstract? Think of a decision you are facing right now. You know the details, what your 5 senses tell you about the situation. Now check your spiritual indicators. Ask yourself if you're viewing this decision from heaven's perspective. Are you trusting God, that he is willing and able to help? That's faith. Are you confident that the Holy Spirit is good and that He is working for your best interests? That's hope. Are you seeking to live a servant life like Jesus Christ? That's love.

Is this easy? No. But it leads to an abundant life, a life beyond "eating and drinking." When we add faith, hope, and love to the mix, great things will happen. And don't worry about mistakes. God is a God of "refills" and second chances. He simply asks that we keep trusting, obeying and responding to his Word and Spirit. He's given us both natural and supernatural resources. Let's utilize them all. Now that's a life-changing prescription.

© 2005 Lyndon Perry
Permission granted to reprint this article provided copyright information is included.