Losing a finger

Posted on February 4, 2014 by jwfisch

thI cut my finger doing a weekend project and now I have a finger that’s throbbing. But that’s a small matter that will be healed up in a day or so. Right now we have a more serious issue. We have a finger that is throbbing in our body and we have to do something about it.

Paul says we are the body of Christ and if part of us hurts — a foot or a hand, an eye or an ear — we are all affected. A dear brother, one of our most frequent commenters and close to the heart of many of us who have gotten to know him, took offense at something I wrote recently, commented about it and felt misunderstood in the resulting replies, and apparently has removed himself from us. This is unfortunate. It’s true that he has done this to himself, but we can still tell him how much we miss him and that in spite of what he thinks, he can never really leave us because he is a part of this body and this just means we have a finger throbbing right now and it feels terrible.

This calls for love and understanding. This person needs us and we need him. Regardless of the reason, nothing is more important than this — that we are one in Christ. No one part of the body can say to the other “I don’t need you.” All parts are indispensable. This is true for all of us. So Mark, we’re not buying it. We’re not buying the fact that you don’t need us, because, even if you think you don’t, we need you. My finger is throbbing right now, but how foolish to deal with a little cut by cutting my whole finger off and going through the rest of my life with four fingers on my left hand. How foolish, indeed, when in a couple days, I won’t even remember that I cut it.

“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). So Mark, give us cause to rejoice. Come back. We were born with ten fingers and ten toes; we’d like to stay that way.

As for tonight, we have a most incredible guest for our BlogTalkRadio show. I know you can hear all our shows on demand, but there’s nothing quite like being there with us live. Enric Sifa is a survivor of the genocide in Rwanda although he lost both parents before he was six. He spent the next six years fending for himself on the streets, and then as a teenager, learned three chords on a guitar and wrote a song that won Rwanda’s equivalent to American Idol and the rest is a history we’re going to find out about as we chat with him tonight. Believe me, you won’t want to miss it. Why not click below, bookmark the site and join us at 6pm Pacific (9 Eastern)?

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Waiting to listen

Posted on February 3, 2014 by jwfisch

Well, after that nice little friendly discussion on labels, let’s talk about something we’ll all agree on: the Super Bowl!1d0fa6ff-6a95-31ba-bf5d-e7b3b15a16a4

Not!

In fact I’ve already discovered an interesting thing about this Super Bowl. If you were even remotely a Bronco, Payton Manning or anti-Sherman fan, it was the most boring Super Bowl ever. It was awful. Couldn’t wait for the commercials. If you were even remotely a Seahawk fan, it was the most fabulous Super Bowl ever! What a defensive display! Kind of depends on your perspective, doesn’t it?

In this, as in so many other matters, our perspective effects out opinions. That’s why the only way you can have a real discussion with someone is to set your own opinions aside for a moment and get in the other person’s shoes. Instead of jumping on the first opportunity to say what you think, try and figure out what they think. What are they really saying and why? You can always pick your opinions back up if someone really wants to know.

There are those waiting to listen, and those who can’t wait to talk. Those waiting to listen are those who feel they have something to learn from everybody. They value everybody, and for that reason, they value everybody’s opinion.

Everyone has a reason for pretty much everything they believe. Instead of bashing them for what you perceive to be the wrong belief, find out why they believe what they believe. In the process, you will undoubtedly learn something you didn’t know, and most likely find some point of agreement – some starting point for dialogue.

Those who are waiting to listen know that God and truth will get along just fine without them. They don’t need to defend what they know; they want to find out what they don’t know. They are curious … eager to learn. Even if it’s a point of view they disagree with, they want to find out more about it and why someone is taking it. In the process, they will probably find out we are not as different as we think.

When Peter writes, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect …” (1 Peter 3:15), he is talking about someone who is waiting to listen. They wouldn’t be asked about their own reason for believing if they hadn’t first been open to hearing the other person’s reason for believing what they believe. It’s human nature. The only way to really get a chance to talk is to wait and listen.

So go ahead, tell me how awful yesterday’s Super Bowl was; you probably don’t even want to know what I think.

Don’t miss the opportunity to hear from this amazing young man.
Click here for his story.

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All you need is love

Posted on January 31, 2014 by jwfisch

th-8Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

My my. I kicked over a can of worms yesterday and to read through the comments yesterday’s Catch created, I feel as if the worms have been out squirming all night and have already traveled too far from where I kicked the can over to ever try to get them back in. It’s a helpless feeling. Wait a minute, what did I say? Did I really say all that? I’m wondering what I said now. When I go back and read it, I feel it’s clear the point I’m trying to make, and yet I seem to have also made a whole lot of points I never intended.

When things like this happen I begin to understand why Christianity in America has gotten so political in the last 30 some odd years. There is a power of emotional energy unleashed whenever you engage in a political discussion or propose political solutions or even opinions. I see why it would be tempting to think you could harness that power for something — even something good like the kingdom of God — when God actually has in mind a different kind of power in society. Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.

God wants a radical revolution of love. The kingdom of God will never go forth politically nor will it ever be advanced by defending or accusing anything. The kingdom will advance through love.

I could try to put a few worms back in the can but I think I would do better to call us all to something higher. So I draw your attention to the picture I posted with yesterday’s Catch and reposted today.

I was hoping there would be this quiet statement made by that picture. Perhaps you missed the significance of it. The picture is a statement written from a label gun: “ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE.”

I was so excited when I found this because it said so much I didn’t have to say. It’s from a tool that is commonly used to affix labels on things and yet it was used in this case for a different purpose. It was used to remind us all that love is the most important thing of all. It’s such a simple message. Instead of labeling, let’s love. Instead of dividing, categorizing, grouping, stereotyping, (and let’s face it … hating … because that’s where a lot of this leads to) let’s unite. Let’s come together as lovers of God and lovers of men. We don’t need labels; all we need is love. We don’t need to get it right; we never will, by the way, in this life. We need to love. Love covers over a multitude of sins, and I need to crawl under that covering today because the worms are out of the can.

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Too many labels; too little time

Posted on January 30, 2014 by jwfisch

th-8Pete Seeger was a Communist.

Here is a true statement. If you stand for something, someone will stick a label on you. It will probably not have anything to do with what you really stand for, but you’ll get the label anyway. If you stand anywhere long enough to make a point, that was also long enough to earn a label. But the problem isn’t with you or what you stand for, the problem is with the label.

We are a slap-happy, label-happy group. We have to have a category to put everybody in. And most likely, whatever label we affix to a person will be inevitably wrong, mostly because no one fits a label completely. They got the label because their personhood or their ideas protruded out beyond everyone else’s, as in, “There’s a guy making such-and-such point over there he must be a ___________.”

Jesus could have been a communist. He never owned anything. He roamed from town to town lifting up the fallen and bringing down the proud. That’s actually what God does; it’s in the Old Testament. He lifts up the humble and brings down the proud. So that probably makes God a communist. And what about the early church that held everything in common? Sounds pretty suspicious to me.

If you want to follow Jesus and walk in the truth, shun all “-isms” or “-ists.” That’s because the truth cuts a wide swath. The way is narrow but not the mind that follows it. In any ism, there is some truth. So if you stand for the whole truth you will have a lot of isms that could be attached to you, but they would all be wrong because each one of them also excludes other aspects of the truth that you stand for.

Stand long enough in one place, someone will stick a label to you. Maybe that’s why Dylan was a rolling stone. If someone attaches a label to a follower of Christ it’s more than likely wrong. So don’t get all riled up about it, just keep on rolling.

Bottom line, don’t label anyone and don’t believe any label someone wants to put on you. The truth you stand for is much bigger than that. There’s just too many labels, and too little time to pick one.

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Pete Seeger and five smooth stones

Posted on January 29, 2014 by jwfisch

th-7Pete Seeger could make monsters disappear.

Of all of his songs I thought about writing about today, the winner in my mind was a song he loved to sing for children based on an African folktale about a monster named Abiyoyo who terrorized a small town, periodically coming down from the mountain to gobble up cattle and sheep and anyone else in its path.

Now in this town there was a boy and his father who also terrorized the town – the boy with his ukulele “clink, clunk, CLONK,” and his father with a magic wand that could make things disappear, “Zoop!” Annoyed by the boy clonking on his ukulele and his father zooping things like chairs out from under folks, the people banished the pair to live on the outskirts of town.

One day, a giant monster came up over the hills and his huge frame cast a long shadow across the land. The little boy peered out of his window, having never seen this before, and said, “Hey, paw, what’s coming over the fields?” The father said: “Oh, son. It’s Abiyoyo. Oh, if only I could get him to lie down. I could get him to disappear.”

The boy said, “Come with me father.” He grabbed his father by one hand. The father grabbed the magic wand, and the boy grabbed his ukulele. Over the fields they went, right up to where Abiyoyo was.

Paying no attention to the screams of the people – “Don’t go near him! He’ll eat you alive!” – the boy started to play his ukulele, and then he started to sing: “Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo, Abiyoyo/Abiyoyo yoyoyo yoyoyo, Abiyoyo yoyoyo yoyoyo.”

Well, the monster had never heard a song about himself before, and a foolish grin spread across his face, and he started to dance. So the boy kept playing and singing and the monster, now fully taken with himself, kept on dancing. And the boy played faster, and faster, and Abiyoyo danced harder and harder to keep up until he completely exhausted himself and fell flat on the ground. And you know what happened next…

“Zoop!” he disappeared.

The story not only tips the hat to the biblical account of David and Goliath, it’s also a picture of the great monsters of injustice, inequality, poverty, oppression and bigotry that Pete Seeger continually felled across the countryside with his music. David did it with only five smooth stones; Pete Seeger did it with only his voice and his banjo. And neither of them could have done it without a big faith in God.

For 94 years, God graced us with this kind, gentle man, until, “Zoop!” He took him. But his songs will continue to fell giants as long as there is music.

Thank you, Pete, for all you gave us, and for all of yourself that we still have.

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The whole world is watching

Posted on January 28, 2014 by jwfisch

th-2In the conclusion of Scrooged, Bill Murray’s delightful 1988 rendering of Dickens’ Christmas Carol, television producer Frank Cross, flush with a second chance at life after three ghostly visits, introduces his reclaimed love interest on live television by pointing her towards the cameras and saying, “Claire, the whole world. Whole world, Claire.”

Okay, we get it that television, with the added impact of the Internet now gives us access to the whole world, but certainly he’s speaking metaphorically here. The whole world isn’t really watching. Well, maybe not, but the real truth, that has never been true until now is that they could be.

In Os Guinness’s new book, The Global Public Square, he makes this very argument, that “the whole world” is no longer a metaphor; it is a reality. He points toward Pope Benedict XVI’s speech at the University of Regensburg in 2006, and the cartoons and videos on the Internet that have incensed the Muslim world globally, and makes the following conclusion: “that even when we are not speaking to the world, we can be heard by the world, and the world can organize its response as never before. The whole world can now talk back to the whole world.”

And you thought we were only metaphorically speaking when we talk about taking the Gospel of Welcome to the whole world. Well let’s be honest here … I did … until now, as I realize as never before that this is no longer a metaphor. We really are talking about the whole world. Just take the mind-boggling fact that readers from 139 countries have tuned into the Catch. Who can get their mind around that?

Like never before, it’s important what we do and say. I think we should give special notice to Os’s statement that even when we are not necessarily speaking to the world, we can be heard by the world. How does that reality give new meaning to quietly and consistently living out the gospel? Such a thing is true globally, but it is also true in your neighborhood and mine. Even though we may not be speaking to the neighborhood, we can be heard by the neighborhood.

Bottom line: we are all living larger than we think. We can no longer think our life is insignificant. You can post a comment and reach 3 people or 3 billion people. You never know.

Keep it in mind today, and every day: Even when we aren’t speaking, someone is hearing. Live large. The whole world is watching.

Don’t miss our live broadcast tonight with Chuck Smith, Jr.
The whole world will be listening!

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Breaking routine

Posted on January 27, 2014 by jwfisch

th-1My morning routine has been severely interrupted. The lid on my Starbucks coffee mug that keeps my coffee hot fell to the bottom of the dishwasher and rested on the heating element so that it now has a bubble in it where the plastic melted, making it impossible to use. I can still put the lid on, but when I try and drink from it, coffee comes out at me from three locations at once. Not a good thing where hot coffee is concerned.

So the best I can do is keep the lid on to keep the coffee as warm as possible and remove it when I want to drink. This requires two hands to grip the mug and remove the lid and a plate to put it on so I don’t get coffee on the dining room table, and, of course, every time I remove the lid, precious steam is released, cooling the coffee much more rapidly than I like.

Now some of you are thinking I am nuts and probably need a psychiatrist, and you’re most likely right, but I can’t help how I am. Routine is vital to me. Marti treats this as a flaw in my character and makes it her responsibility to get me to change my routine whenever possible. In some instances she is right; in other things, like coffee mugs, it doesn’t really matter.

Where it matters is when the routine is a bad habit that needs to change – a selfishness that needs to be overcome, such as walking away from a responsibility simply because I don’t want to face into it. Avoidance can become a routine. Selfishness can become a routine. Unclean thoughts can become a routine. Daydreaming can become a routine. I could stand to lose the lid on any of these to the heating element in my mental dishwasher. These are routines that are not good for me; they need to change.

It’s timely that I am writing about this because, in fact, I am seeing a psychiatrist today and change is the main thing I want to talk to him about. Fundamental Christians like me have a hard time with things like this because change falls under the category of that which I shouldn’t need anything but the Holy Spirit to do. Going to a psychiatrist is a sign of disbelief. Anything that has to do with the mind is off limits to anything but a spiritual solution.

Here’s what I think. When it comes to overcoming well-ingrained bad habits, I can use all the help I can get. The psychiatrist isn’t going to be able to do anything for me, anyway. When it comes down to it, I’m still the one who is going to have to do all the work here, but if the psychiatrist is smart enough to see around my own tricks, rationalizations and manipulations (and he is), I may be able to have some answers for those things when they come up. In other words, he might be able to help me see a way around my own well-worn excuses.

However, regardless of what I find out today, I am going to have to initiate any change I seek, and when it comes to that, the Holy Spirit is my source of power. I am not usurping the Holy Spirit’s work in my life; I am merely giving Him some more tools to work with.

However you cut it, I’m still the guy who has to do this. Change doesn’t happen to you. (I wish it did.) Change is not passive. It’s active.

So here’s the end result: I’m going to replace my coffee mug, but I’m going to seek change in areas where it matters most. New tricks don’t come easy for old dogs, but with God, all things are possible.

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Sweet dreams

Posted on January 24, 2014 by jwfisch

thThere is a wealth of reality and encouragement that comes out of our comments every day. I know many of you don’t have time to read them. That’s why I am posting all four comments from yesterday and my responses as today’s Catch. As I read them and commented this morning, there was an unusual symmetry taken as a whole and it just seemed like a Catch to me – as if God had something to say to all of us today. Perhaps He does.

My replies are in italics.

First, Mark writes: Great advice for me to follow Pastor John: “We can’t exact justice upon one another. We don’t know the whole story, nor do we know the heart. Let it go. God knows how to do this and He knows when it’s the right time. Leave it to Him to do.” What I mean is for the past month or so, a person has been knocking on my door at about 4 or 4:30 AM a few times during the week, or weekend – I know because it does wake me up and I look at my alarm clock. A few times I have tried to rush out of bed to go see who it is, yet every time, I am to late, and no one is in the hallway. All that would or may happen wouldn’t be good for them or me if I ever do catch them, so for now, for me, it’s best I try to let it go and give it to the Lord…

This reminds me of Samuel who was awakened in the night by someone calling his name. He finally realized it was the Lord, so he said “Speak, Lord, I’m listening,” and God talked to him. Next time someone knocks on your door at 4 a.m. ask the Lord to speak to you. It could be Him!

Then Carole writes: Most of the time my dream life is much more exciting than my waking hours. I am always the “hero” in my dreams – rescuing somebody or some critter from something and soundly defeating the enemy at hand. My dreams are quite vivid and I typically recall them well. One thing I’ve noticed – things I do in my dreams make perfect sense, but in the light of day make no sense at all and would never work in the “real world” the way they did in my dreams. If our dreams represent who we’d like to be or who we subconsciously are, I think I like my alter ego. At least she gets things DONE! Of course, she’s much younger, being the 27-year-old I imagine myself to be… until I look in the mirror!

Um, maybe you could consider moving your dresser over a little in case you go for round 2 in your next flight of fancy!

Hmmm. That would be too easy. Besides, our house is too small.

And Cathy writes: Perfect timing to receive this message from you John! I can relate to your message. I have been fighting an invisible enemy in my dreams’ the past 8 months or so….mainly because I am fighting a battle in my everyday reality, to let go of the pain of rejection and betrayal that happened to me, and truly forgive a person. This invisible enemy is spiritual warfare, and it haunts me in my dream world. My nightly “dream fights” are a spar with the enemy who wants me to stay hurt and bitter; and even though I justify in my mind that I have every “right” to feel the way I do, I know I have to die to these thoughts and forgive them. I wake up feeling drained everyday. As a believer I do know what I need to do to release these hurts to God and to forgive others….but apparently I am still wrestling with the hurt and pain this person caused me. My dreams are the same most nights. When does one truly know they have forgiven? I say I have, and really think I have deep down in my heart…but my dreams think otherwise. As you wrote John…we don’t know the heart…and we need to let it go. I understand that and believe those words too. I pray and read scripture…I seek the Lord’s wisdom to heal my pain. Any ideas?

Sounds like your fleshly self is still holding onto its desire for vengeance. It always will. Flesh doesn’t ever get any “better.” You just learn to deny it and say “Yes” to the Spirit. Ask God to rule your sleep. Sounds like you are believing the Lord in your conscious self but not your subconscious. You need the Spirit to rule your sleep. Rest in Him. He will do it. He is the Lord of your sleep as He is the Lord of your waking hours.

And finally, Marc has the last word: John, maybe you were fighting the devil. I heard a story of how Martin Luther once threw his inkwell at him.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

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There’s always another way

Posted on January 23, 2014 by jwfisch

th-6I fell out of bed just the other night. Fell smack on the floor and hit the side of my face on the dresser on my way down. It’s still black and blue. It looks like I was in a fight, which I was. I was dreaming at the time that I was fighting someone. I must have taken a big swing at whoever it was and threw myself right off the bed. I hit the ground hard, because my wife heard it from the kitchen and came running. I know now why they call it a hardwood floor.

Like most couples I know, we are on opposite ends of the day/night spectrum. Marti’s prime hours are from two in the afternoon until about two in the morning. I’m good from four in the morning until about four in the afternoon. At ten o’clock at night, I’m barely standing and Marti is just getting her second wind. We’re like ships passing in the afternoon. By nighttime, we’re hardly within sight of each other. I can see her smokestack steaming off in the distance while I’m shutting my engines down and starting to drift.

That’s what happened when I fell off the bed. I wasn’t officially in bed yet. I was still in my clothes. I think I might have been folding laundry when the bed looked so good to me that I decided I’d just lie there for a minute until she was ready for bed. Next thing I knew, I took a swing at someone and ended up on the floor.

Marti was actually surprised that I was fighting someone. “It’s so against your nature to fight,” she said.

“It was ‘only in my dreams,’” I said, mimicking the popular phrase.

I don’t remember who it was I was fighting or why, but I must have packed quite a wallop, or maybe he did, since I’m the one who ended up on the floor!

Marti’s right. I dislike fighting, but not necessarily in my dreams. I bet I do a good deal of fighting in my dreams, if I could remember them.

We’ve been talking a lot about nonviolence in the Catch lately and maybe that’s why I’m dreaming about fighting. It’s human to fight — to defend oneself. Peter resisted the soldiers who came to take Jesus away. Lopped an ear off of one of them that Jesus immediately healed. What Jesus was accomplishing at that point would never be won by a sword.

I think the deal with fighting is that there is almost always a better way to resolve something. Fighting only proves who’s bigger or better; it doesn’t change anything about what started it in the first place. And usually, once you are underway, you forget why you were in it anyway.

Fighting almost always involves retaliation, and once that starts, it can go on for centuries as it has in many parts of  the world. That’s why Jesus has us turning the other cheek, going the extra mile, taking whatever is dished out at us and returning good for evil. It’s the only thing that will stop the cycle.

We can’t exact justice upon one another. We don’t know the whole story, nor do we know the heart. Let it go. God knows how to do this and He knows when it’s the right time. Leave it to Him to do, otherwise, you might just end up on the floor and forget why it was that you got there.

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Who’s at the door?

Posted on January 22, 2014 by jwfisch

Jesus isn’t knocking at the door; He left the door open, for heaven’s sake!

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. (Revelation 3:20)

Poor Jesus. Won't someone let him in?

Poor Jesus. Won’t someone let him in?

As a child growing up in a fundamental, evangelical church, attending my share of summer, fall and winter camps and the resulting gospel message, this verse was probably the second most widely used verse in the scriptures, right behind John 3:16. This verse came up usually somewhere during the actual invitation to become a Christian. Jesus was standing outside the door of your heart right now waiting to get in. Can’t you hear Him knocking? Won’t you let Him in?

Indeed, this verse may be the source of the common evangelical-speak, “Have you accepted Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior?” – a phrase, by the way, that has no founding in scripture except maybe for this verse. It’s amazing how some of these phrases become equal to the word of God.

Recently, it has come to my attention that using this verse as a source of an individual personal relationship with Christ is not necessarily what was intended. The context is not salvation, it is about revitalizing the church. It is part of a prophetic message given in Revelation to seven churches in the end times. This particular church, named Laodicea, is going through the motions of being a church, but is “lukewarm” in it’s passion for Christ (“neither hot nor cold”). The indictment against it is strong: “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” And the solution is direct: “I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent” (Rev 3:17-19)

This is what backs us up to the former verse, “Behold I stand at the door and knock…” The picture leaves no doubt. Here is a church trying to be church, and Jesus isn’t even in the building! They left Him outside! This is not about individuals being saved, it’s about a church full of hypocrites – a church without Jesus. Kind of hard to do, but quite possible in a time of affluence as we have now in America. So the invitation to open the door is to let Jesus into the center of what is rightfully His. Accept His discipline. Accept the truth about yourselves (you aren’t what you think you are) and get back to the Lord’s supper, where we all have fellowship over the forgiveness of our sins and Jesus is in our midst and we’re never quite sure what’s going to happen next.

And as far as the open door of salvation is concerned: that door’s already open. Jesus left it open. We can walk right in to where He is and He can walk right in to our hearts.

This makes a lot more sense, don’t you think? Besides, I always felt kind of sorry for poor Jesus out there in the cold waiting for someone to open the door. It always made Him seem so helpless. I don’t think so.

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