S.O.S ?

As you can see, it’s nearly 3 AM and I still can’t sleep so I thought I’d let you know I have just got back the rough drawings for my first tee shirt collection. It will be call the irreverent holy collection it is for those who need to wear their holiness. There are five shirts in this collection, I will be taking orders. Be the first one on your block to have one or all of them. They are not intended to offend anyone, just a light hearted attempt to bring a smile to faces with pictorials of sayings we have all heard or use. All five shirts have a likeness of me with a pistol. Shirt #1 has me sitting around a campfire eating pork and beans with smoke billowing up and I’ve shot holes in the smoke. (holy smoke)#2 has me pushing a lawn mower and a mole sticks his head out of the ground and I shot a hole in him. (holy mole) #3 has me in a herd of cows with bullet holes in them. (holy cow) #4 has me standing over a commode shooting a hole in a turd. (holy crap) and  #5 has me shooting a hole in a statue of Mary standing in a half bathtub. (holy Mary mother of God) It is my irreverent shot, no pun intended, at a kinda Christian Farside. Shirts will be available very soon. The logo for all the shirts will be the same GFIT on the front left, God Forgives I‘m Trying. All proceeds will go to Missions.

Get over your self!!!

Babu

Well S.O.S. fans It’s about 1:45 AM Wednesday morning here in Beaver Dam as I begin this post. Needless to say I can’t sleep. I am wrestling with some things and I feel as if I’m losing. I think I may whine a while, and I may have to delete a lot of my thoughts because they are to honest for most. I have found that people in general really don’t want you to tell them the truth. As of late it is best if folks don’t preface their statements with…”now be honest with me.” If you are honest it has some effects that makes life a bit uncomfortable. Don’t ask me if your pants makes your butt look big, when in fact your butt would probably look big no matter what you had on. Probably not a good analogy but what the  heck it’s nearly 2 AM and you really ain’t supposed to be that sharp at this hour. Wait unless you’re working the grave yard shift guarding chemical weapons of mass destruction or working the drive through window at White Castle. What put me on this “truth” thing is this, I was talking to someone yesterday and they seemed to be upset with the fact that smoking, drinking, cussing,  or messing around with strange women or men was not what caused you to spend an eternity without God. They wanted to have some measuring stick they could pull out and beat the ‘HELL” out of you. They sounded disappointed with the simple truth that rejecting Jesus Christ was what separated man from God for eternity. And the other side of that coin was just as simple…receiving Jesus Christ was what gained you eternal life with Him. I’m not sure I ever convinced him of the truth, it was to simple for him to comprehend. The response was but there has to be something other than just receive Jesus for us to be accepted. You see I have discovered there doesn’t seem to me to be very many folks out there who really believe the truth that Jesus is enough. Surely something must be added to secure our place in eternity with Him. I don’t think so, no I know so. What I know is there is a remnant, a group that is alive and well, they are not the ones the hot shot TV preachers and celebrity Christians are talking about. The truth is the real remnant are those who have elected, put in  authority by their choice GRACE. The unmerited favor of God, which is Jesus Christ. Paul wrote about them even in his day in Romans 11:5 Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. 6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work. Truth is, it don’t matter if you got a big butt but what does matter is making Jesus enough. From our perspective It’s All About Jesus…from His perspective It’s All About You. And that is the truth!!! Well it’s about 2:15 AM and I supposed I’ve rambled and deleted enough. If you were here you could hear me exclaim to all a good night/morning depending on where you are in the world.

Babu

I don’t know who made the following statement but the truth of it, well you be the judge.

“Christianity started out in Israel as a relationship when God came to man. It went to Greece to become a philosophy, to Rome to become a religion, to Europe to become a tradition, and to America to become an enterprise.”

Babu

Today is a very special day at our house. A little over seven years ago today my daughter in law went to the hospital for some surgery, after about an hour or so waiting we were called back to her room and she was crying and sobbing. If you knew Christi  the sobbing and crying is just not her style so we automatically surmised that something went wrong. Between sobs she began to tell us that things had changed and the surgeons would not be able to do the surgery. I should tell you she was there for a female issue that according to the doctors would prevent her from having children. Well Patti and I began to tear up and our son Joshua was already beside himself in tears and finally through all the snotting and tears we finally received the message that Christi was in fact pregnant with twins. Seven years ago today Ezekiel and Elijah were born into the family. The plan is for their dad (Joshua), their grandfather (me) and great grandfather (Ivan) to take these two young men out to breakfast at a local eatery this morning and lavish our love on them.

The boys as we call them happen to be standing in my office as I write this post and I asked If there was a message they would like to share with the world on this their seventh birthday. Since Zeke brags of being one minute older he’ll speak first. Zeke says: he has learned how to swim better and how to be the catcher for his baseball team. And he also adds that he hits the ball good too. Eli says: he has learned how to be a good baseball player and hit good too. He also brags of his swimming ability. As their Paw Paw I might add they both do very well in school and the thing that makes me the most proud is that they have publicly acknowledge they have decided to be followers of Jesus Christ. 

Well I got to go breakfast awaits with “The Boys”.

A very proud,

Babu

As you know yesterday was the day we set aside to honor fathers in our nation. But I’m not sure we really understand what fatherhood is all about. Being a biblical father is more than being a sperm donor. A biblical father has in them and produces fruit, fruit of the spirit of God. Needless to say if God is not alive in the male DNA contributor they are only a co-creator with a female and God but not a father. I am so glad to report that the sons God allowed Patti and I to conceive are both now mature young men and are producing fruit. Our older son, Jeremy, has just accepted the invitation to pastor a church here in our area and our younger son, Joshua, serves here with us as our administrator for the ever expanding ministry God has invited Patti and I to participate in. Yesterday was a special time for Patti and I. Both our sons their wives, Angela and Christi, and all five of our grandchildren, Millie, Zeke, Eli, Rudy and Mya, gathered at our house for food and fun. What a joy it is to be a father and watch your sons be a father to their children. I know it seems like I’m bragging on my family, and you are absolutely correct. In a society where homes are broken and lives shattered I am excited to be a part of the miracle that God performs when He joins a man and a woman in holy matrimony. Despite all my faults and shortcomings God has allowed me to catch a glimpse of the unconditional love of fatherhood. My sons don’t have to perform or produce to earn my love, I didn’t have to fall in love with them, from the first time I laid eyes on them I loved them just because there were. In a small way I have been blessed to experience how our heavenly father loves us….unconditionally. Nothing can separate us from His love, the question is will we receive His love so we will be able to impart love. As men, until we receive His love, we can only be sperm donors but if we receive His love we can then impart and share what all the world, starting in our own homes are looking for…….LOVE!!! Thank you Father for giving us a example of fatherhood as a picture to gage fatherhood by, all else misses the mark of true fatherhood.

Baba (father) & Babu (grandfather)

The following is a letter from a friend that was visiting some mutual friends in Kenya. His name is Shammah and he has some great insight. It is a little longer than most of my posts but please read it, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Babu

I am sitting in a hotel room in Kenya. Why am I here? I am here to preach the Gospel to the longing masses of Kenya. Just yesterday I heard a woman announce loudly with great zeal and joy, “Until these brothers came from the USA, I was in darkness. I was depressed and saddened by what I was seeing in the church around me. I was without hope. But now they have brought the light, and I am ready to shine.”

Keep that in mind. Do I believe in evangelism? You bet I do, and that’s why I’m over here in Kenya, some eight thousand miles away from my six children, crying out of missing them, but also crying because I’m going to miss my new brothers and sisters here in Nakuru when I leave tomorrow. I have been laid out flat in a European airport with my back thrown out, trying to be out of pain enough to get on an overnight flight to Nairobi and out of the way enough not to have airport security carry me off on a stretcher. I have kissed and hugged children with dirty noses and open sores, shared a 10×10 room with five other men, and bounced my way across 120 kilometers of a dirt road we nicknamed “The Eternal Road” for the vigorous shaking it gave us.

Okay, with that out of the way, I want to complain about the American emphasis on evangelism. It is destroying Christians, it has already completely destroyed the church, and it is working on destroying the world.

Twenty years ago, I was in a group called the Navigators. They are ministry mainly to college students and young military. They emphasize discipline, service to others, Scripture memory, and discipling others. What they do is generally good, and their founder, Dawson Trotman, was an exceptional and wonderful man.

They have a publishing company called NavPress that has now, apparently, spawned another called NavPress Deliberate. NavPress puts out some of the best books in the Christian market. _The End of Religion_, by Bruxy Cavey, is the first book I’ve read from NavPress Deliberate. It is excellent.

However…

I read the introduction or preface or something that describes NavPress Deliberate. It says Navpress Deliberate “encourages readers to embrace this holistic…Christian faith.” What holistic Christian faith? The one that includes “caring for the poor, widow, prisoner, and foreigner…and redeeming the world.”

That’s it? That’s the holistic Christian faith? What about the Church? You know, the thing that’s called the fullness of God (Eph. 1:23), the body and bride of Christ, and in which God receives glory forever. Nothing too important, just the very purpose that he died, at least according to Eph. 5:25-27 and Tit. 2:14.

Today we taught the newborn church in Nakuru to look inward and not outward; to focus on ministering to one another rather than on ministering to the world. That is heresy to evangelical Christianity. On the other hand, evangelical Christianity is a horrendous failure (re: _The Scandal of Evangelical Christianity_ by Ronald Sider), so they’d better start looking at the things that are heresy to them to find out what they’re doing wrong.

Galatians 6:10 says that we’re to do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. Why? Because the only way we are going to reach the world is to show them Christ. And Christ has said that the way we will show them Christ is to be perfectly united in love (Jn. 13:34,35; 17:20-23). This is what the Thessalonians did, and it was so powerful that Paul no longer needed to preach in the area of their influence! (1 Thess. 1:7-9).

Paul preached. He did it to start churches, which would then be the light of the world. They are the city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. It’s not your little light that must shine, believer. The good works God wants us to show are to be done by the church together, so that the great light of the city of God will shine (Matt. 5:13-16). When that happens, my friend, the nations will gather, and they will bring the children of the kingdom on their shoulders (Isaiah 60:1ff).

This is not theory, we are seeing it happen, even in the deadness, greed, and unbelief of American society. It is now beginning to happen in a place much less closed to the Gospel than America is.

Search somewhere for a command in any letter to any church for believers to evangelize. You will find not even one! The closest you will find is Peter’s exhortation to be prepared to answer those who ask you about your hope in Christ. When was the last time you were asked about your hope in Christ? Chances are, that’s exceptionally rare. People do not want to be corralled by a member of the Christian sales force that Evangelicals have mobilized to hide the fact that their Christianity has lost all its power.

I get asked about my hope regularly. At least every week or two. Really. That’s the product of living in the kind of environment that the Thessalonian church lived in, where brothers dwell together in unity. There God has commanded the blessing of eternal life (Ps. 133:3).

Paul knew that words were useless. He wasn’t interested in the being the kind of peddler of wise words and arguments that we evangelicals are (2 Cor. 2:17, where the Greek word means “retail” or “peddle”). He said, “Don’t preach unless your sent” (Rom. 10:15). He said, “Mind your own business!” (1 Thess. 4:11). He knew that it was important that the Gospel be preached only by ministers who adorned it with good works, and who relied on the power of God and not on words (1 Cor. 4:20).

The church is important. Today I heard children singing, “Read your Bible, pray every day,” and then some words that basically said, “This is the way you grow.” It is not the way you grow! That is the lie, my friends, that has allowed wonderful people like those who created NavPress Deliberate to completely ignore the church, the fullness of him that fills all in all, while declaring that they have a holistic Gospel.

Read Ephesians 4:11-16. Really read it. The way we grow is together, speaking the truth in love to one another. You will not grow sitting in your room reading your Bible and praying. You will grow, together with other saints, as every part does its share, as you are trained by your leaders to build the body of Christ by speaking the truth to one another in love. This is the only way you’ll grow. We should teach those children to sing, “Exhort your brother, don’t miss a day,” in accordance with what the Bible actually says (Heb. 3:13).

It is a saying here that African Christianity is a mile wide but only an inch deep. I heard it both in Kenya and in Uganda. Of course that’s so. It’s not just the children who think that we will grow by reading our Bible and praying every day. We need to read our Bibles enough to find out that’s not so.

God is restoring his people, binding them together under his rule so that they can grow like they’re supposed to. Please join the revolution. As a dear Kenyan brother here likes to say, “It is powerful, my brother; powerful!”

This may not seem like much to the average person but to me what I’m about to share proves what an awesome and caring God we serve. Let me start by sharing how I got to be where I was on a Wednesday night, because as we all know Wednesday night is “church night”. We have a small adult group that meets for a round table bible discussion and as it worked out everyone was either sick or had an unexpected change in their schedule. We did not have our regular meeting and I got to go watch my grandsons, Zeke and Eli, play in a baseball tournament. This was the second game of the tournament and they had already lost the first game. I missed the first game because I was out of town for a funeral.  A loss last night would have ended their season. I also should add that they are very consistent…they haven’t won a game all year. As is our custom we try and have dinner with our family that lives here in Beaver Dam every Wednesday before bible study. So last night was no different in that respect except we were going to a ballgame instead of our  meeting. We dined at Micky D’s and the adults had already started eating when Eli asked if anyone had prayed. We admitted we had not so Eli prayed and we finished partaking of the cuisine. In his prayer for the food and all the family he simply with an honest and pure heart asked God to let his team win the ballgame. He didn’t ask for himself but for his team. But as God orchestrated things he and his brother both went 4 for 5 from the plate and one of Eli’s hits was a 3 run homer. On defense Eli caught a fly ball and doubled a runner off first base to end the game. The winning run was on base when the game ended in the double play. I hope you don’t think I’m just bragging on my grandsons, which I am, but not as much for their athletic abilities as I am of their prayer life. It just let’s me know that God listens to 6 year olds and is concerned about their desires when they delight in Him. From conception throughout eternity God asks us to places our cares on Him so He can care for us. We are admonished to be careful for nothing, the implication is if we place all our cares on Him there should be nothing left for us to fret or be anxious about. In the game of life, give it all to Him, He wants to give you the desires of your heart as you take delight in Him.

Babu

There is an old song we sing from time to time that says ” What a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see when I look upon His face the one who saved me by His grace and He takes me by the hand and leads me through the promise land what a day that will be.” May I submit to you that day is today!!! If we don’t see Jesus before we draw our last breathe chances are we are not going to see Him though out eternity. If we really believe that we, His church, are His body on earth today then we should see Him every time we are in the presence of another believer. We can look into the face of God across the breakfast table behind the register at the market or any other place we happen to encounter one of His followers. This saving by grace thing is another point all together. We have somehow confused eternal life with salvation. I do not believe they are one and the same. You can have eternal life and not be saved but you can’t be truly saved without eternal life. Let me try and explain. Eternal life is strictly a spiritual issue and salvation has to do with the natural.  You gain both eternal life and salvation by grace. Eternal life is what secures your place in eternity. Salvation is what assures your protection, provision and well being while living life on earth. Eternal life is gained by receiving into your body the gift of God himself to reside in you. The gift of salvation is gained by being received into His body, the church, for your supply while living your life for Him. He said, He would supply all our need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Look carefully at that verse in Phil 4:19. Supply our need…now, because of His supply He has given those who are present and represent Him on earth. This verse does not indicated that God’s supply will fall from the heaven as some profess, but will be provided by His glory or presence here and now. The supply has already come down from heaven some 2,000 years ago and has returned there to be out High Priest and Intercessor, it is you and I who are left to provide salvation…He has taken care of the eternal life issue now let’s do our part. He does want to take you by the hand and lead you through the promise land. When God’s people crossed over from the wilderness walk to the land of promise they needed to take each other by the hand and lead guide and protect each other. What a lesson we’ve missed. We’ve taught the promise land to be heaven when it is our walk on earth. The only way to take cities, and countries for His Kingdom is by uniting ourselves and providing salvation to those who have crossed over and received eternal life. What a day that will be!!! If those who are searching for a supply for their need don’t see salvation they most likely won’t receive the gift of God and they have no hope. Eph 4:16 Through whom all the body, being rightly formed and united together, by the full working of every part, is increased to the building up of itself in love.

Having received eternal (aionios, perpetual, past time, or past and future as well, for ever, everlasting.) life, now let us provide salvation for he journey (sozo, safe, save, deliver or protect, heal, preserve, do well, be whole)…

Babu

It is approaching the midnight hour on Monday and we just returned from Uncle Lucas’s funeral. It was an awesome time of celebration as we gathered to remember the life of a man who was one month to the day short of ninety five years old. I heard stories I’d never heard about this gentle spiritual giant. Born July fifth nineteen hundred and thirteen he still today, four days after his passing, is touching lives and I suspect that will touch lives for generations to come through his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren as well as the rest of us who loved him. Uncle Lucas was a “follow me” kinda Christian. He really didn’t try and push, pull or even lead with words as much as he just followed Jesus and it looked so natural you just wanted to fall in line and follow too. I discovered it wasn’t always as pleasant as it looked but never the less Uncle Lucas just kept following Jesus. Today his son and daughter, along with his son’s daughter “preached” Uncle Lucas’s funeral. There were tears shed, but not tears of sorrow as most would think, tears of joy that his race was over and he had in fact won. And some of his trophies were being displayed. The thing I remember most about Uncle Lucas was he was just plain real. What you saw was what you got. He adapted to life but never changed his view or perspective of Jesus. I wish he had had a bigger head…I would have loved to have one of his hats. Always wore a hat, they even had one of his hats made into his casket spray. All I can say is what an awesome old dude…hope my kids, grand-kids and family and friends can find as much good to say about me when it come my time. Thing is what they said about Uncle Lucas was true, that makes it even better. Today would be a great day to live or die, I’m ready for either. What about you? Follow me, I have The same God in me that was in Jesus and Uncle Lucas.

Babu

Patti, her father Ivan and I will be leaving as soon as I get this posted to attended the funeral of one of the patriarchs of her family. A great friend and brother in the faith has gone home to his eternal reward. Uncle Lucas, as we called him, left this life for the next Thursday evening from Branson Missouri. Uncle Lucas was in his mid nineties and had given his life to serving the Lord Jesus Christ and others. He and his wife, Marie who preceded him in death, helped raise Patti’s dad after the death of his and Marie’s mother. Uncle Lucas will be missed here but there is a party going on in heaven. He is no longer suffering from an aged body, memory loss and the loneliness of latter years. Uncle Lucas has been a pastor, a friend, a confidant and just an all around great guy for the thirty five years I’ve know him…now he has entered into a rest that we can live and hope for. This is not good bye to Uncle Lucas, this is a see ya latter. Till then though pray that all of our family will make the choice to follow Jesus and Uncle Lucas to the same eternal destination. Pray for us as we travel today and return home after the services for Uncle Lucas. Because of the influence Uncle Lucas our family has another point of great heritage to build on for those who will follow in his footsteps.

Thanks Uncle Lucas you all the years, till we meet again…know this, you had more impact than you thought.

Babu