Familiarization

I've always thought familiarization is one of the greatest spiritual dangers we face. We become immune to the miracles that surround us. We lose our sense of awe. The sacred becomes mundane.

There is a neurological reason. Neuroimagining has shown that brain stimulation depends on task familiarization. Novelty stimulates the right-brain. Familiarity stimulates the left-brain. So what happens is this: our relationship with God shifts from the right-brain to the left-brain. And God becomes routine.

The same thing happens with just about everything. The job we used to love becomes routine. Our marriages become routine. Kids become routine. Hobbies become routines. Every dimension of our life is subject to routinization. And before we know it, we stop living out of imagination (right-brain) and start living out of memory (left-brain). We repeat the past instead of creating the future.

I think that has huge implications on everything from worship to prayer to preaching.

Preaching needs an element of novelty to stimulate the right-brain of listeners. My preaching motto is say old things in new ways. In other words, find novel ways of communicating ancient truth. That is what Jesus did with the parables. The parables appealed to the right-brain of listeners.

The goal of every preacher should be to be the channel through which the Holy Spirit stimulates the anterior superior temporal gyrus. That is the part of the brain that is stimulated when you make new connections. That is where eureka moments and aha experiences happen. That is the part of the brain that is activated when you say: "I've never thought about it that way before." I am always thankkful when people come to me and say, "I never saw that scripture that way." I celebrate the right-brain activation!

I think one of our jobs as preachers is to keep God from becoming routine. We've got to help people think about Him in new ways (and obviously biblical ways). There are more than 400 names for God in Scripture. And each name reveals a different dimension of His infinite personality. We need to keep reintroducing people to God over and over again.

I think familiarization is one of the dangers we face in worship. Too often we worship from rote memory. But left-brain worship is often lip service. We're lip syncing. There is a difference between singing from memory and singing from imagination. Studies have shown that once we've sung a song thirty times we stop thinking about the words.

The same thing happens with prayer. We pray cliches. Our prayers become empty incantations.

We've got to keep our routines from becoming routine. In other words, one key to spiritual growth is reinventing our routines so we continue to engage the right-brain.

If you have 30 days to live; you want to live life breaking away from every possible routine. You will want to live from the right brain more than the left brain. You will want to savour every bit of life.

The point is don't put God in a box. He is not a manageable God. Do something, do anything, to keep your relationship with God from becoming routine. . There is so much more of God to discover! And so much more of Him to love!

All Things Are Created Twice

Stephen Covey says all things are created twice. There is a mental creation and a physical creation. Buildings start out as blueprints.

I Chronicles 28:11 says, “Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind.”

This the first creation--the Spirit gives David a detailed set of blueprints for the Temple. In his mind’s eye, David sees a mental picture of everything from the portico to the inner rooms. I don’t know exactly how God does this, but the fact of the matter is that while neurologists can trace brain waves via electroencephalographs, millions of signals crisscrossing millions of synapses is still a mystery! I don’t know how God does it, I just know that God gives ideas and impressions, and sometimes an entire set of blueprints! The Temple wasn’t a good idea. It was a God idea. And there’s a big difference!

Everything starts with vision--the first creation. But the Temple wasn’t built in a day! From start to finish--from the “spiritual Aha” to the finished product--it took seven years!

It may take seven years to build a Temple. It may take many years to build a church buiding and still more years to see a community transformed. It takes time to turn dreams into reality, but God always finishes what He starts. Philippians 1:6 says, “I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Choose Your Battles Carefully (Part 3) - Visioneering

New York City, 1931. America was in the depths of the Great Depression and a businessman named Conrad Hilton was staring foreclosure in the face. People weren’t traveling and his hotel chain was suffering the consequences. Hilton was actually borrowing money from a bellhop so that he could eat. That year, 1931, Conrad Hilton came across a photograph of the Waldorf Astoria--the quintessential hotel with 6 kitchens, 200 chefs, 500 waiters, 2,000 rooms, and its own private hospital and railroad.

Hilton said it was “an outrageous time to dream,” but he clipped the photo out of the magazine and wrote across it, “The Greatest of them all.” He placed the photograph under the glass top of his desk. Whenever he moved offices or changed desks, the picture remained under the glass top. He never lost sight of his goal. In October of 1949, eighteen years after clipping the photograph, his dream became reality. Conrad Hilton acquired the Waldorf.

According to psychologists, if an object is removed from a baby’s field of sight that object ceases to exist. They have not developed the capacity known as object permanence. With kids it’s out of sight, out of mind. The same is true with vision. If you want to keep something in mind you better keep it in sight. For eighteen years, Hilton kept his eye on the goal. He had vision permanence.

Stephen Covey says, “To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.”

What that means is that you got to fight to keep your vision from getting out of your sight. The battle that you must fight is the battle for a clear vision of the future God has for you – your family, your ministry, your business, your career, your life.

Visioneering is about beginning with the end in mind. Most people see what is. Visioneers see what could be and should be and work backwards. In the words of Hebrews 11:1, faith (vision) is “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

We need to become certain of what we hope for. Faith must turn to hope. And the bridge that we must travel on to turn faith to hope is the promises of God. When God gives apromise for the future, vision is birthed.

Everything starts with vision--every business, every church, every invention, every building, every painting was once an idea in someone’s mind. An entrepreneur or missionary or inventor or architect or artist had a vision. And that vision became reality.

When you fight to keep your vision alive, you are fighting the right battles.

Choose Your Battles Carefully (Part 2) - Pre Choices

Leadership guru John Maxwell says, “We only make a few major decisions. We spend the rest of our lives managing those decisions.” When I look back on my life I see half a dozen major decisions that totally changed the trajectory of my life. For better or for worse, you never outlive the consequences of big choices. But I want to suggest that there is a category of choices that are even more important than big choices. The most important choices you make are the choices you make before the choices you make! I call them pre choices. Let me give you a personal example.

In the early years of my pastoring, when Agape was a church of 40 people, I did just about everything there was to do pastorally. I preached every Sunday. I taught the mid-week Bible study. I worked hard to put together teaching seminars for the church. I equipped the worship team. I even washed the office toilets!

And that’s only half the story. Here’s the other half. I was counselling people in the evenings and attending to every kind of ministry related meetings arfter office hours. For most of the week, I was probably home just one night of the week and that night was usually Sunday night when there was little left of me for my wife or children.

My children were about six and three at that time. And I found it so hard to balance my family and my ministry. Between the kid’s activities and my wife’s schoolwork and my ministry-related meetings, it felt like I was never home!

So I made a tough choice—a pre choice. During that season of my life, I decided to limit my ministry-related meetings to one night a week and no more! I wasn’t going to fight this battle trying to balance family and ministry anymore. It was not a battle worth fighting. And I ended that battle with a pre choice.

I’m not going to lie. It was hard. Almost every week I had to turn down meeting people for ministry or counselling. To compound matters, I am the type of guy who sought to be all things to all people then (that's no longer true now.) So it was really tough. To make matters worse, I had church members who came up to me and said that I didn't have a pastoral heart - that I don’t care enough for my sheep!

So while I ended one battle, I found myself in another battle. But this time I felt, this was a battle worth fighting.

Let me tell why pre choices are so important. If I didn’t limit my ministry-related meetings, I’d be counselling members or meeting with leaders or visiting people or presenting myself at invitations to dinners and birthday parties three or four nights a week. And those are good things, but here is what would happen: I would end up sacrificing the most important people in my life. My wife and children would get the short-end of the stick. And they may not have turned out to be what they are today! If there is a battle I wanted to fight in that season, it was the battle to keep my family from degenerating because of the busyness of ministry.

If you don’t make pre choices you will make compromises and end up hurting yourself and others. Let me say it another way: you will either make pre choices or wrong choices. There is no other option. Choose your battles carefully!

Choose Your Battles Carefully (Part 1)

Each of us has a finite amount of emotional energy to invest in the things we care about. Therefore it is very important that we choose the battles we want to fight. So what are the battles worth fighting for? I thought I will spend some time blogging how to choose the right battles in the next few posts.

I like to see issue in my life in two circle; one inside the other. One circle is the Circle of Concern. In this circle are the things we are very interested in but have little or no power to change. I cannot do much about the world events or the price of petrol or the economy or how someone out there is living out his days. If I invest my energy in this circle by complaining and fussing over them, I have less to invest in the things that matter to me and that I can do something about. Those issues that matter to me and what I can do something about is my Circle of Influence. If I spend too much energy in that Circle of Concern, my Circle of Influence becomes smaller because I have dissipated my energy in the other circle.




I should therefore confine my finite resources in my Circle of Influence and pray about the issues in my Circle of Concern. That way I will be a good steward of the things that God wants me to engage in rather than the things I can do little or nothing about. Then I fight the right battles and climb the right mountains.

The enemy wants me to squander my energy on things I cannot change because he knows I will then not be able to give my all to the things I can change by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is his tactic to distract me and constrain my Circle of Influence.

The following passage reminds me that there are things out of my control. A good cause becomes a bad cause when I engage something at the wrong time. Even though anxiety weighs heavily on my soul there is a proper time and procedure:

Ecclesiastes 8:1-5 Who is like the wise man? Who knows the explanation of things? Wisdom brightens a man's face and changes its hard appearance. Obey the king's command, I say, because you took an oath before God. Do not be in a hurry to leave the king's presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. Since a king's word is supreme, who can say to him, "What are you doing?" Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.

What is in your Circle of Concern? What is in your Circle of Influence? What are the things God has given you control of? What are the things you’re concerned about but cannot change? What does God want you to invest in? Who does God want you to influence? What are you wasting your energy on? What things has God given you to manage that isn’t getting your attention? What has God called you to be and do? What issues has the enemy distracted you with?

Get back on track. Stay focused. It is the Circle of Influence that you must expend your limited energy. Pray about the things in your Circle of Concern. Engage the things in your Circle of Influence. Fight only the right battles!

In Trouble, Out of Trouble

Did you realize that we act one way when trouble is behind us and another way when trouble is in front of us. Jacob is a great case study.

In Genesis 28, Jacob is running away from Esau who is trying to kill him. His trouble is behind him. His back is to Esau. He has an experience with God at Bethel, but he's still in what I'd call "temporal mode." He's focused on "food to eat and clothes to wear" (Genesis 28:20). That is what Jacob asks God for--food and clothes. He wants a material blessing.

But it's a different story in Genesis 32 when Jacob is returning to Esau. Trouble is in front of Him. He's facing Esau. He doesn't know if Esau still wants to kill him. He's no longer in temporal mode. He's no longer seeking a material blessing. He is seeking a spiritual blessing. He wrestles with God and says, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

That resonates with my experience. When I'm "out of trouble" (back to Esau) I sometimes focus on material blessings. But when I'm "in trouble" (facing Esau) I seek the Lord. To think of it, my faith is circumstantial. If really the foundation of my faith is Jesus Christ, then whether I am in trouble or out of trouble, I will seek the Lord.

We must learn to seek God with the same intensity when we're "out of trouble" as when we're "in trouble." That's when God can trust us with the material blessings. Another way of saying it is this: when we seek a material blessing we can't be trusted with a material blessing. But when we seek a spiritual blessing we can be trusted with material blessing. In other words, when we place our faith in circumstances, that faith is shaky, fragile. But when we place our faith in Christ, that faith is stable, founded.

Isn't that why God blessed Solomon? He didn't ask for wealth or power or fame. He asked for wisdom. And because he asked for wisdom (spiritual blessing) he got wealth and power and fame (material blessing) thrown in for free. It was a package deal.

The Small Dot Syndrome

Every once in a while I find myself struggling with a critical spirit. I look at some person; observe the way they do things and my mind begins to tell me what is wrong with them. If I don't quickly arrest those thoughts, I will make some judgements about them and my spirit will immediately close-up to them. I may then walk away feeling very righteous but what has happened in that moment is that I have let pride rule over my soul and I have grieved my heavenly Father.

What I usually do when I find myself becoming critical is to turn my focus from that person back to me. I look back at myself 5 or 10 years ago. Then I had made some foolish mistakes. I have done some regrettable things. But I believe God, in His grace, had His hands upon me even then; otherwise I will not be who I am today. God was not critical of me then. Neither is He critical of me now. Then why do I want to do this to others?

God is so big and so secure He uses people despite their flaws. Many Christians will have "problems" with the many Christian giants of the past. Martin Luther liked beer, a lot; John Wesley was pretty disappointing as a husband; George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards had some annoying amillenial and hyper-Calvinist tendencies; Charles Spurgeon smoked a cigar; D. Martyn Lloyd Jones baptized babies. But these were people whom God used mightily. It didn't seem like God dismissed them for their flaws. Of course, it doesn't mean their weaknesses can be excused or mean that we shouldn't be clear about why we see things differently, but still, we cannot deny God's hand on them.

Because of our critical spirit, I am afraid many Christians today wouldn't recognize the power of God if they saw it. It's sad. My son told me that in the world of photography there is such a thing called "a small dot syndrome." Like when you look at a newspaper photograph, you will notice that it's made up of many dots of ink. Now if you focus on only one of those dots, you will miss the "big picture."

A critical spirit tends to focus on little details of errors that God is still in the process of refining. It's important to pay attention to those little errors but not at the expense of the big picture. Then we miss God!

Boldness!

Boldness seems to be one of the primary byproducts of being filled with the Spirit in Acts. In fact, what I find interesting is that the early believers didn't pray for God to deliver them from their circumstances. They prayed for boldness to go through their circumstances. That is clearly not circunstantial faith that drove the disciples. I'm so impressed with the way the disciples didn't back down in the face of opposition. They didn't back down when they were arrested by the Sanhedrin, the religious establishment. They didn't back down after they were thrown in jail in Acts 5:19. In fact, after the miraculous jailbreak they didn't run away. They went right back to where they were arrested. What then was the foundation of their faith? Not circumstances! It was Christ. And that gave them their spiritual boldness.

Spiritual boldness boils down to Acts 5:29: "We must obey God rather than human beings!" I'm realizing more and more that there is a tension between the fear of man and the fear of God. The two cannot coexist. The more "fear of man" I have the less "fear of God" I have. And the more "fear of God" I have the less "fear of man" I have.

I think too many Christians become easily intimidatedslaves to the opinions of people. But when God sets us free from the "fear of man" then we aren't afraid of looking foolish which equals faith. Faith is the willingness to look foolish because it is not such faith is not shaped by what people think or say or what a circumstance warrants. But the "fear of man" keeps us from exercising faith. So we live reasonable risk-avert lives. I don't want to live a reasonable life.

My personality is such that I want to keep everybody happy. Somehow people's happiness matter a lot to me. So sometimes I tend to chicken out or cop out. But God has not given us "a spirit of timidity." Many times when I have to do the right thing that may not make everybody happy, I have to pray for a "spirit of boldness" in my life. I pray Romans 1:16: "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes."

So here's the question: are you more concerned about what people think or what God thinks? It all depends on who you're trying to please! If you're trying to please people then you'll "fear man." If you're trying to please God you'll "fear God." It all depends on what your faith is founded - Christ or circumstances.

The story of Ananias and Sapphira is one of those stories you don't even want to think about too much. Both of them died because they lied to the Holy Spirit. Here is what astounds me about the story. After Ananias dies, Sapphira comes to Peter but she doesn't know her husband is dead. Peter doesn't show compassion. He doesn't sympathize with her. Why? Because when God is offended Peter is offended. He was more concerned about Ananias lying to God than God striking him dead. So Peter doesn't back off. Sure there is a place for compassion and sympathy. Don't get me wrong. But we should always be more concerned about how God feels than people feel. So Peter tows the line in Acts 5:7. "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?" Sapphira lies just like her husband. And Peter says, "How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord?"

For what it's worth, fear is the cure for fear. Let me explain. Fear of God is the cure for the fear of failure and the fear of man and the fear of the unknown. Fear of God is the cure-all for every other fear. If we fear God we have nothing to fear! If we don't fear God we ought to be fear-full.

So here's the bottom line. Someday you will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. You won't stand before you family or friends or colleagues. Why bow to the opinions of people when someday you'll have to bow before Christ? All of us bow down before man or God. Sure seems to make sense to bow before God.

So take a minute and get on your knees. "Bow before the Lord our God, our maker."

One last thought. Boldness is what impressed the skeptics. In other words, it wasn't what they said as much as the spirit in which it was said that impacted people.

Acts 4:20 says, "We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard." That is the end goal. To get to a point where we don't feel like we "have to" share our faith. I want to get to a point where I "cannot help" but share my faith. How does that happen? It all boils down to this. Acts 4:13 says, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and took note that these men had been with Jesus." That's the key: being with Jesus. It's always been the key. Christ is the source of our confidence. Christ is the foundation of our faith.