Through a Glass Darkly

There was sure to be a backlash to the 100+ years of Sunday School, as well as to all the Bible camps and vacation Bible schools Christians have conducted. And here it is.

Jeninne Lee-St. John reports in Sunday School for Atheists that there is a growing movement of institutions for kids in atheist families modeled after Christian Sunday Schools and Bible camps.

Seems to me their parents are attempting to “innoculate” their kids against that dreaded contact they will inevitably have with Christians in United States society.

According to the article,

The lives of these young people would be much easier, adult nonbelievers say, if they learned at an early age how to respond to the God-fearing majority in the US.

Besides responding, negatively one would assume, to the “God-fearing majority,” there are other reasons to catch the kids early before any real damage is done:

Others say the weekly instruction supports their position that it’s O.K. to not believe in God and gives them a place to reinforce the morals and values they want their children to have.

Apparently this movement has been inspired by awful experiences like the one this mother had to endure when her son fell into the clutches of a Bible-toting neighbor:

Kneisley, 26, a graduate student at the University of Missouri, says she realized Damian needed to learn about secularism after a neighbor showed him the Bible. “Damian was quite certain this guy was right and was telling him this amazing truth that I had never shared,” says Kneisley. In most ways a traditional sleep-away camp–her son loved canoeing–Camp Quest also taught Damian critical thinking, world religions and tales of famous freethinkers (an umbrella term for atheists, agnostics and other rationalists) like the black abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

The mother of little Damian (Ironic, no?) is making sure he gets one hell of an education. Hell as in “without God,” of course.

And this sounds like a real uplifter:

One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I’m Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home.

How original. I guess it’s appropriate that the anti-Sunday-school would be a rehash, albeit in antithesis, of the original. But it does get more sophisticated for the older kids. They get “Socratic conversation:”

Down the hall in the kitchen, older kids engaged in a Socratic conversation with class leader Bishop about the role persuasion plays in decision-making. He tried to get them to see that people who are coerced into renouncing their beliefs might not actually change their minds but could be acting out of self-preservation–an important lesson for young atheists who may feel pressure to say they believe in God.

Now that is sophisticated. Actually, it’s probably more sophisticated than Socratic if the discussion holds to my own experiences with atheists. Notice that the class leader’s name is “Bishop.” Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Yesterday I wrote in reference to some negative aspects of the seeker-friendly church model. Don’t infer that to mean I’m anti-seeker-friendly church. I’m not.

For example, one important aspect typical of seeker-friendly churches that I appreciate is their recognition and rejection of a phony and usually hypocritical “cultural” Christianity pervasive in American society.

They often make a distinction between “Christians” and “Christ-followers.” That distinction inspired Community Christian Church of Chicago to produce a series of well done parody commercials based on the old Mac vs. PC commercials. Here are a couple episodes:

Not real deep stuff, but definitely entertaining while effectively presenting a message well worth communicating.

On the other hand, they might have tried a little too hard to be entertaining with the “Jesus Goes Shopping” episode from another series they produced. That message escapes me completely (other than perhaps what seems to be a final little side point at the “Casa Jesus.”) … Mind boggling, really…

…Hey, it just makes me love those brothers and sisters more. You gotta admire their efforts for our Lord and His kingdom. Praise God and may there be many more servants of our King, including more of those who see things differently than me. May we all learn from our missteps and mistakes as well as from the strengths of others until we all grow up into Him in all things.

Seeker sensitive churches have been around for decades now. Most have heard of Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago. I attended there briefly many years ago. It was truly massive in numbers as well as in physical plant. So when I caught the title of Bob Burney’s column on Townhall.com commenting on A Shocking “Confession” from Willow Creek Community Church I had to look even though I ignore most things Willow Creek.

So what are they confessing?

[The] “confession” coming from the highest ranks of the Willow Creek Association is that they are coming to realize that their existing “model” does not help people grow into mature followers of Jesus Christ.

Whoa now. They were the experts of “doing church” in modern times. They poured mega-bucks for mega-years into their model. They sold all sorts of materials teaching their model. They held all kinds of seminars and conferences for church leaders all over the country, who then based ministry after ministry on the Willow Creek model. How can this possibly be?

Willow Creek has released the results of a multi-year study on the effectiveness of their programs and philosophy of ministry. The study’s findings are in a new book titled Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Cally Parkinson and Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek Community Church. Hybels himself called the findings “earth shaking,” “ground breaking” and “mind blowing.” And no wonder: it seems that the “experts” were wrong.

The report reveals that most of what they have been doing for these many years and what they have taught millions of others to do is not producing solid disciples of Jesus Christ. Numbers yes, but not disciples. It gets worse. Hybels laments:

‘Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.’

If you simply want a crowd, the “seeker sensitive” model produces results. If you want solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ, it’s a bust.

Whoops.

The error of the seeker sensitive movement is monumental in its scope. The foundation of thousands of American churches is now discovered to be mere sand. The one individual who has had perhaps the greatest influence on the American church in our generation has now admitted his philosophy of ministry, in large part, was a “mistake.”

Double whoops.

Incredibly, the guru of church growth [Hybels] now tells us that people need to be reading their bibles and taking responsibility for their spiritual growth.

Now that’s an idea that is really “earth shaking,” “ground breaking” and “mind blowing.” I have to commend the Willow Creek folks for being so candid with their findings. But there really wasn’t any reason to be off track for so long and with such far reaching consequences.

All one ever has to do to get or stay on the right track is read their Bible and do what it says. That should be our beginning point, not the conclusion we come to after we have poured massive resources into propagating “models” that lead so many astray.

There is a proven, Christ-modeled, approach to “building solid, sincere, mature followers of Christ” in the Bible. But I have to tell you, from my fifth year of experience with following Jesus’ example in this area, numbers do not result.

If you are concerned about numbers you’d better put your Bible back on the shelf and start working out some ingenious method of getting people in and keeping them there. You may even hit on a really long-lived fad yourself. But if, like Christ, you have both an amazing lack of concern about numbers and an intense desire to lead some to solid godly maturity, then Jesus leads the way.

Recall that Jesus had a disturbing habit of teaching truth and accepting the response. He actually let people leave when they didn’t like his message! Jesus was “leaver-sensitive.” I don’t recall one time in the Gospels where He pursued and tried to convince leavers to stay.

The result was that real “seekers” stayed and followed while the passively or philosophically interested faded away. Because those remaining were the real seekers, they were beneficiaries of God’s promise: they found. In the process of “finding” God, they became more like Christ. Hence, they grew in a “solid Christ-like maturity.”

Let’s take a look at Jesus’ model in action:

From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. (John 6:66 KJV)

Notice in verse 66 that it is Jesus’ disciples that leave and “walked no more with him.” These were something more than casual visitors to one of his sermons. These were people that were “seeking” enough to be considered, however loosely, disciples of Jesus. Why did they leave?

The disciples were listening to Jesus teaching a group of Jews with some upsetting metaphors (nb. Jesus’ seeker-unfriendly style here). You can read what Jesus said in the beginning of John 6. The reaction among some of Jesus’ disciples was:

Many therefore of his disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying; who can hear it? (John 6:60 KJV)

In other words, they weren’t feeling too friendly with Jesus’ message. And then, in great form for a true teacher of truth-seekers, he pushes a little harder (and thus continues being seeker-unfriendly):

When Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto them, Doth this offend you? What and if …(John 6:61-62 KJV)

And then, after setting up His point (a foundational truth, and highly offensive to the natural man, as a matter of fact), He pushes past the breaking point:

But there are some of you that believe not…Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father. (John 6:64-65 KJV)

Ouch. No wonder they left as we saw in verse 66. But then, in an amazing move from a master builder of followers a church could be founded with,

[Jesus said] unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? (John 6:67 KJV)

Incredible! He turns to His hand-picked and intensively kingdom-groomed students and, in effect, holds the door open for them so they can leave with the rest! A beautiful, gutsy, master stroke that gave His real followers what they needed to become more firmly established: the opportunity to yet again decide to stay. He made them more solid followers because he forced them to make another decision, either to stay or to go, and they decided to stay. They passed that test and were ready to continue forward with renewed resolve. They also benefitted by not having the distraction of the “Jesus Fan Club” hanging around anymore.

Jesus’ style rubbed off on His followers. You can check out their “seeker-unfriendly” approach to church building in the book of Acts yourself.

Where the church goes astray today is when the focus is on growth in numbers, not growth in Christ-like maturity. That results in a church that is decidedly not a New Testament church.

Jesus just did not seem to care about numbers. He poured everything into producing quality of followers, not quantity of followers. So why do some of us focus so much on numbers? I always suspect someone is into building their own kingdom when they show more concern than Christ did about numbers. Builders of Jesus’ kingdom understand that solid spiritual maturity is the goal, not numbers.

Real ministry to the poor demands ultimately providing a “hand-up” out of a bad situation. This will usually require temporary and wisely chosen “hand-outs” combined with a committed effort to find an actual solution to a person’s problem. An actual solution requires commitment because it will involve struggles, time, effort, and other resources that most are not willing to give.

Designing a ministry to the poor that ignores the hand-up component of working with a person to get out of a problem is usually little help and most likely worse in the long run.

Consider this study quoted by Bethany Stotts in her recent column
Unhealthy Freedoms:

…studies show that reliance on government welfare programs may also contribute to higher levels of depression among Americans. According to the University of Michigan 2001 Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), Americans on welfare were more than twice as likely to feel “worthless” or “hopeless.” “Holding constant all of one’s personal characteristics, including whether or not one is employed, we find that receipt of public assistance by itself pushes up the chances of saying you have been inconsolably sad over the past month by about 16 percentage points,” writes American Journal writer Arthur. C. Brooks on the subject. “No other single factor—not income, age, education, or anything else—comes close to predicting this much of one’s unhappiness.”

Helping the physical need while leaving the recipient of our ministry depressed about their situation is not really ministry. It might be help, but it’s likely not even that if viewed from a long term perspective.

Real ministry to the poor should result in the one being ministered to having a growing sense of hope, encouragement and determination to overcome their challenge. And a growing sense of God’s presence and help in the midst of their situation. That comes by getting into the trenches alongside the needy person and working with them, at what ever level it takes, to find and implement a solution.

Easy? Not at all. In fact it is pretty much impossible–without God. But it is God who has called us to minister to the poor and He does equip us to do the job. Usually step-by-step as we gingerly inch our way forward assured only by faith that the end of the process will be found at some point.

Don’t have time or other resources? Well don’t waste what little resources God has provided you with. Be faithful with the ones you have and perhaps He will provide more. Helping a whole bunch of people a little bit is not usually as good as helping a couple of people a whole lot.

Who called you to save the world? If God has called you to that, you have the necessary resources. If not, look around to the one or two that you are equipped to help. If every Christian really ministered to just a couple of people in a meaningful way we would probably be amazed at how much suffering could be overcome.

Furthermore, help to the poor would probably be increased exponentially as those we have helped OUT of a situation become empowered with personal insight and experience to help others.

What if someone doesn’t want a hand-up, only a hand-out? Well, actually, that’s all most people seeking you out want. Jesus saw it in His ministry. Remember to minister to needs, not wants. Real ministry to some requires not helping them cover up their need for a solution by providing what they want today. Give or don’t give a hand-out as the Spirit leads. But save your real resources, effort, and commitment for those who realize they need to find a solution for their problem.

Real ministry to the poor does not add up a list of dependants, it sets people free to become our partners in ministry to other poor people.

Here’s one for the “fig tree” watchers (see Matthew 24:32).

Check out this article, Cellphone Tracking Powers on Request:
Secret Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause, by Ellen Nakashima.

The article provides interesting insight into yet another potential opportunity for some “Big Brother” of the future to step into a ready-made infrastructure for the exercise of abusive power. Click on the link to read it all. My comments and article excerpts follow.

The article reports:

Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.

While this is a useful spying tool for the sorts of characters referenced above, other sorts of characters (ie. you and me), may not be exempt from unknown scrutiny at some point:

In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.

The ability to use a cell phone as a tracking device has marketable aspects.

With Verizon’s Chaperone service, parents can set up a “geofence” around, say, a few city blocks and receive an automatic text message if their child, holding the cellphone, travels outside that area.

But we have a two-edged sword here. Consider that these “good” uses demonstrate the possibilities available to those with other intentions.

To make matters even more interesting, you don’t even have to be using the phone to be spied on. Notice the word “routinely” in the following quote:

“Law enforcement routinely now requests carriers to continuously ‘ping’ wireless devices of suspects to locate them when a call is not being made . . . so law enforcement can triangulate the precise location of a device and [seek] the location of all associates communicating with a target,” wrote Christopher Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA — the Wireless Association

Some courts are demanding probable cause warrants, but not all. The “majority of districts” do not. Also note the argument that the decision to carry the “tracking device” can be construed as permission to be spied on:

But judges in a majority of districts have ruled otherwise on this issue, Boyd said. Shortly after Smith issued his decision, a magistrate judge in the same district approved a federal request for cell-tower data without requiring probable cause. And in December 2005, Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein of the Southern District of New York, approving a request for cell-site data, wrote that because the government did not install the “tracking device” and the user chose to carry the phone and permit transmission of its information to a carrier, no warrant was needed.

Seems like a practice that is only going to get worse:

The trend’s secrecy is troubling, privacy advocates said. No government body tracks the number of cellphone location orders sought or obtained. Congressional oversight in this area is lacking, they said. And precise location data will be easier to get if the Federal Communication Commission adopts a Justice Department proposal to make the most detailed GPS data available automatically.

Often, Gidari said, federal agents tell a carrier they need real-time tracking data in an emergency but fail to follow up with the required court approval.

Just “trust us.” They are, after all, acting in behalf of the federal government, right?

Well, I’d love to stay and discuss clues upon which to speculate about possible future scenarios, but I gotta go. I think my wife is looking for me and my phone is ringing.

A few years back a group of engineering students in a Bible study I was leading became very animated when it was suggested that “pre-tribulationists” should not be too presumptuous in thinking they have a handle on all-things-end-time. Sensing a teaching opportunity, I picked up the opposing viewpoint (post-trib rapture) and began making a case for it while pointing out weak spots in their arguments. One argument the group made that really caught my attention, not because it was a great one but rather because it was so different from any I had heard before, went something like this:

God has always told His people where to go and where to get their food(?!) before He brought judgment to those around them. Since He does not tell us those things, He is not planning to have us around during the Great Tribulation and therefore He will rapture us out beforehand.

Their manner in making the point made it obvious they had been taught or discussed this idea previously. Yet it was completely new to me. I sensed unnavigable “rabbit-trails” with the explanation of that one so I let the origin of the point pass in favor of the larger conversation. But I was a little curious as to where in the Bible they got this idea.

Assuming it was probably based on logical extrapolation of biblical principles or record, I made a mental note to keep an eye out in my daily Bible reading for clues to the source of this idea.

Then one day, some time later, I was stunned to see something in Isaiah I must have read a number of times before but had never noticed: God actually gives His people end-time survival instructions! While the source of the students’ point is still unclear, it is clearly refuted with a fascinating peek at a message that will be of vital importance to some generation someday. The instructions are directly addressed to God’s faithful in the last days and tells them where to go while giving them enough information to let them figure out where their food is to come from!

Obviously those students had not seen it, but there it was: God’s end time survival strategy for His people laid out plain as day. While it will be most relevant to a quite possibly future generation, an application of it even today could prove quite beneficial to you. But first, the biblical teaching.

Isaiah 24 and the three following chapters foretell a great desolation of the Jews except for a faithful few who trust in the Lord’s deliverance. The prophecy could be, and has usually been, applied to any or all of three great desolations (by Shalmaneser, Nebuchadnezzar, and Antiochas Epiphanes).

There are, however, elements that suggest that it also refers to a greater and final desolation. A desolation of not just Jewish lands, but of the whole earth both in judgment and in setting up an earthly reign of a heavenly King. There also seem to be parallels to other end time prophecies. Here are a couple of the clues that tell me that Isaiah 24-27 also has an ultimate, yet to happen, fulfillment:

And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth. And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited. Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the LORD of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously. (Isaiah 24:21-23 KJV)

And:

For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain. In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. (Isaiah 26:21-27:1 KJV)

Immediately preceding and grammatically linked to the verses quoted above, the Lord turns and directly addresses His people and tells them what to do:

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast. (Isaiah 26:20 KJV)

That’s it. Short, sweet, and simple. Don’t head for the hills*, don’t dig in a defensive position, don’t take an offensive stance, don’t go on “the lam” running from place to place, just lay low. It’s not unlike the command Moses gave to the Israelites when the destroying angel was to go through the land of Egypt. He told them not to go out the door of their houses until the morning (Exodus 12:22). Notice some of the details: be prepared to go into your (”thy”) home and shut your (”thy”) doors behind you. “Hide thyself.” How long? Until the terrible but short-lived trouble is past. What about the food part? That’s easy.

Since God’s people are to go inside and stay behind shut doors they will need to have food stored in their “chambers” with them. That’s logical. It also fits the situation well:

There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done. (Isaiah 24:11-13 KJV)

Catastrophic events, as described in Isaiah 24-27, would put a serious damper on food supply and distribution. Isaiah 24:13 suggests that the food and drink will be just a fraction of what is considered plentiful (ie. shaking the olive tree to get every last remaining olive out of it and going through the vineyard trying to gather the remnant of a harvest).

Tah-dah. There it is for those who will someday need it. God’s direct instructions for surviving the last days. Does it imply that Christians will be present during the Great Tribulation? Not at all. It is originally addressed to Jews. It may be for the benefit of those Jews who become faithful after the rapture of the church. On the other hand, does that fact imply that it is not a message of instruction to the church through the Great Tribulation? Not at all. It is addressed to God’s people, of whom the Christians have been grafted into. So it neither makes a case for or against either a pretribulational or postribulational rapture. But it does offer a fascinating example of how some very old prophecy is waiting to have some very new relevance to some people some day. How might we benefit today (assuming we are not “that” generation)?

Putting away a limited supply of food and water in case of emergency is considered wise and practical by the US government and emergency response charities. Both the American Red Cross and FEMA both advocate every person and family put away several weeks worth of food and other supplies in case of emergency. This is advice based on experience and we would all do well to take it. I personally have benefitted.

The small congregation I lead is too poor to pay me consistently. Over one particularly difficult period my family and I were able to spend virtually nothing on food or personal care products for a couple of months because we had the items stored away.

So even if you don’t think there is much chance of personally needing enough supplies to ride out the Great Tribulation, go ahead and take the government’s advice and put up a couple month’s supply. Even if you don’t need them yourself, it’s always nice to have extras on hand to help others around you out of their own personal tribulations.

*Jesus does say that those in Judea should run away as fast as they can (Matthew 24:16, Mark 13:14, Luke 21:21). But keep in mind that His instruction is to those in an exceptional situation. They are at “ground zero” when end times conflict is imminent.

Food pantries are experiencing greater struggles as times get economically tougher. More people are relying on them at the same time fewer people and businesses are able to donate money and food. Higher demands paired with smaller resources result in less help for less people. Here’s an informative news article about the problem.

In my area many “poor” people rely on food pantries on an ongoing basis. They view the pantries as permanent help supplementing other welfare they receive. Unfortunately, this “help” is often really a subsidization of cable television, cell phones with the latest ring-tones, cigarettes, junk food, and other luxuries that are mistakenly interpreted as needs.

Even more unfortunately, during times of increased demands on the pantries, those going to find help in their legitimate crisis situation are at risk of finding little-to-no help because there is already an established clientele vying for dwindling resources.

This is yet another wake-up call for the church to either rethink or refine its strategy for helping the poor. Too often ministries to the poor stop at providing “crisis solutions” for all situations whether crisis or long term. At best, this practice patches up the pain while never really healing the problem. At worst, and all too often, this practice results in wasting valuable resources for crisis needs on the long term selfish wants of those who have made a livelihood of working the system set up to help the poor.

Crisis solutions are temporary and quick fixes to immediate and desperate need. They are exactly what are required in crisis situations. We make a mistake, though, when we apply them long term. This mistake is highlighted during periods of greater need. If we are really going to help the poor we need to develop strategies for providing solutions, not patches, to those who are really seeking a solution.

Providing solutions to long term problems means giving the poor a hand-up out of poverty eventually while giving them a hand-out for a brief time to cover their immediate needs. This requires setting up a ministry framework that will aid in getting to the bottom of each individual’s unique need, determining their unique resources and then applying persistence, creativity and love to help them get the individual solution to their individual problem.

The end result will be better and more ministry as we leave more adequate resources for those in real crisis. It will also reveal who doesn’t really want to find a solution to the poverty by which they earn a living so that we can stop wasting our time. That is where we must aim in order to hit on a relevant and truly helpful ministry to the poor.

(Note: See working principle No. 1.)

Reality is fast approaching many folks who have conducted themselves as “have-somes” but were really “have-lesses.” They are now “have-nots” because of their foolish game. Many could have become “have-mores” if they had faced reality, saved more, bought less on credit and otherwise made good financial decisions.

But, for the most part, these have-nots-in-denial still play their game and refuse to face the reality of their situation. True, they have a nagging awareness of looming disaster. But they easily push back that feeling by going out and buying something (on credit probably) to reassure themselves that everything is okay. That game is coming to an end. Times are getting tougher for everybody across the board. And it is the have-nots-in-denial that will feel the pain the most.

The have-mores will absorb the increased costs and will often find a way to profit from the situation. Nothing wrong with that. That’s how many of them became “have-mores” to begin with.

The have-nots will make out alright. They already are used to doing money-crunch as a lifestyle. The poor have largely learned to work the system and have already been hard at work building up networks of help around themselves for a long time.

The situation looks bleak for the have-nots-in-denial. Getting more credit will likely become harder in the days ahead because of the current mortgage and lending crisis. The have-nots-in-denial will have less and less access to other people’s money in the days to come. Correspondingly, they won’t have access to a large portion of their own money because they are making payments on their past. What little remains of their cash-flow is buying less and less of the basic items necessary to live. They are being outed. Welcomed to the world of have-nots.

But isn’t the economy doing well? For the have-mores, yes. Not so good for the have-somes. But downright deadly for the have-not-in-denials. All that good news about the economy we read about is really more denial. A kind of denial the rich can afford, a denial the poor aren’t fooled by, and a denial that spells disaster for the have-nots-in-denial.

The reality of our economic standing is that high ticket luxury items are coming down in price, basic commodities for living are skyrocketing. When everything is lumped together the overall picture looks okay, but in reality its only great for those who buy high ticket luxury items (the rich), its pretty bad for those who buy basic commodities for living (everybody, but those basic commodities are already a much greater percentage spent of income for the poor), and disaster for the have-nots-in-denial.

Have-nots-in-denial will borrow money for the high ticket luxury items they “can’t live without” or that they “deserve.” They will pay more for them because of interest payments. Then they will have less to spend on those basic commodities that are increasing in price because they are paying off their debt load.

You can read more about the smoke-and-mirrors manipulation behind the rosy economic pictures we are being fed here, and here.

We are fast approaching a critical need for real ministry to the poor because we are fast approaching an increase in the number of poor among us. Many who have been “have-nots-in-denial” are about to be outed as “the poor.” The same difficult times will also mean the “have-somes” will have less money to give. That presents us with an opportunity.

What the church needs now more than ever is a ministry of hand-ups, not hand-outs. There is an increasing number of people with need and a decreasing amount of people with a decreasing amount of expendable income to share. Pouring money on a problem to hide it is fast becoming not an option. We now need to learn what we should always have been about before: offering real solutions to poverty that will lift have-nots out of their poverty for the rest of their lives.

Why Help the Poor? Reason 2: Because God takes it personally when we do (and when we don’t).

How do I figure? Well, let’s look at a teaching of Jesus:

And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Those being commended by the King are those who helped the needy. They didn’t realize that they were actually serving the King by serving those in need. The King, however, took note of the fact and rewards them for their service to Him.

Next comes something that should be terrifying to those who don’t help those in need around them: God takes it personally when we do not help the needy:

Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:32-46 KJV)

Those receiving the condemnation of the King had no clue that they were passing up the opportunity to serve the King each time they passed up an opportunity to help the poor. But again, the King took note and casts them off.

When we come across someone in need, and the poor have many needs, then we must recognize the opportunity to directly minister to our King. To refuse help, when it is in our power to give it, is to directly refuse the King.

If being a peacemaker makes a citizen of God’s kingdom happy (Matthew 5:9), why is it that so many Christians are not happy unless they are stirring up contention and strife among brothers and sisters? The answer is clear to those who will accept it: it’s because either these folks are not really in the kingdom of God to begin with, or it’s because they are pitifully immature in Christ.

It’s imperitive that peacebreakers either enter the kingdom of God and receive a new nature, or grow up and start living according to the new nature they already have in Christ.

But that’s not likely to happen if mature christians tolerate (or worse, encourage) peacebreakers in their midst. We do a disservice to the body by ignoring the problem of peacebreakers. We must first gently and patiently teach God’s truth and standards of peacemaking to these offenders. But if that very basic teaching of the Bible and of Christ is rejected, then we must expose the practices of these hypocrites or imposters as being unhealthy to the church body.

I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but around these parts, “peacebreaking” is a much practiced and respected undertaking amoung church folk. Sadly, this is a very unnatural and perverted environment for a body of believers to tolerate, let alone bring new believers into. The biblical fact is that God hates what these people are doing! And we should too.

Consider these scriptures:

Peacebreaking is a part of the definition of a wicked person:

A naughty person, a wicked man…deviseth mischief continually; he soweth discord. (Proverbs 6:12-14 KJV)

God hates peacebreakers (so much so that He can’t stand the sight of them):

These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:…he that soweth discord among brethren. (Proverbs 6:16-19 KJV)

We are to live peaceably with all men:

If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. (Romans 12:18 KJV)

“Agressively” pursuing peace among the body is the worthy way for a Christian to take:

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. (Ephesians 4:1-3 KJV)

We are to take note of those who cause division and offenses (scandals, in the Greek) among the body and deal with them:

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. (Romans 16:17 KJV)

If we deal with the troublemaker, the trouble goes away:

Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer, the strife ceaseth. (Proverbs 26:20 KJV)

And if the trouble goes away we have made peace in the body. That makes us peacemakers at another level: not just keeping from troubling the body, but also being a part of the solution for the body. Are you ready to move to the next level?