Remember Colby or Psalty?

All right, all of you who grew up in church listening to Psalty the Psalm Book or Colby the Computer – you might enjoy this. For those of you who don’t know, Psalty and Colby were famous characters that a lot of churches showcased to kids, kindergarten -6th grade. Keep in mind, this took place around the turn of the decade from the 80′s-90′s. I remember our church would have our music director play the part of the famed characters – painted face and costumes and all – and the middle-school kids would play the ensemble cast, singing and dancing out Bible lessons and putting on “the church even of the year” for the little kids. Christian book stores also sold a lot of merchandise featuring these two separate characters.

I asked Sarabeth the other day, “If they brought back Psalty or Colby, do you think they’d be just as popular today?”

Her response?

“No. But maybe if they made a Timothy the Tablet.” She’s right. Kids today couldn’t relate to a giant psalm book or a desktop computer. So then we started throwing out some other ideas just for laughs.

Like Nikki the Nook.

Or Kit the Kindle.

So we want to invite you guys in on the fun. What are some fun ideas that would be popular with kids today that would be relevant to today’s young culture? Also, if you happen to have some personal photos of your days with Psalty or Colby, show your age and send them to me to adoptingjames@aol.com and I’ll post them in about a month. Voters will vote on the best picture and that person will win a free advanced reader’s copy of my book THE MAN IN THE BOX (totally unrelated, but I just wanted a reason to give one out). Have fun!

If Only

John 4:10

Jesus answered her, “If [only] you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water.”

-Jesus to the woman at the well

If only we’d have known how faithful God is, would we have done things differently? Think about it: If we knew God in His truest essence from the day we were born, wouldn’t we be in a completely different place than we are now?

Would you have made the same decisions? These are provoking thoughts. The what-ifs tend to pile up and the if-onlys begin to take shape. “If only I had waited.” “If only I had done something.” “If only I could’ve known what would happen.”

Eleven disciples knew how to walk on the water, but only one actually did it. Ten disciples knew not to abandon Jesus during His final hours, but only one didn’t. Sure, we know how to live spiritual lives, we know how to keep from sinning – really, we do. James is even big on this point: “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder” (James 2:19).

A very wise friend of mine once told me that if we really believed that Jesus died for us, and cut us loose from the chains of sin, we wouldn’t sin anymore. If we really believe that God is faithful to fulfill all of our needs, we would not have any problems with petty temptations. The truth is, Christians, we don’t always believe. We sin due to disbelief that God has something better for us! (In essence, we will continue to sin as long as we are in the flesh.)

God has provided the paved road, but we prefer the path with potholes.

Jesus has cut our chains, but we prefer to stay in the cellar.

All of this because of our disbelief.

A reason for our reoccurring disbelief in God is our pasts. We see how far we’ve fallen, and we talk ourselves into thinking that it’s going to happen again. Like the old saying goes, “It happened once, it’ll happen again.” And that becomes the standard that we live by.

Think about the instances that changed your life over time. Were they mediocre occurrences that happen every day, but one day just clicked? Or are they more extreme? What tips your mind to start getting you to think differently? What places your heart in the chambers of the divine? A lost child? a death? an illness? an early pregnancy? What does it for you?

For the woman at the well, it was a thirsty messiah. She saw that He was not the One in need – but rather, she was. The woman was in need of clarity, as well as compassion. But she was still a little uncertain, and perhaps a little frightened. “If only you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (emphasis added).

There it is: If only.

The terrible two.

This is not a phrase that contains enough space for hope like what if does. This is a phrase that can only reflect and regret. And what’s worse yet, Jesus is saying this! Why is Jesus using such a phrase with someone who is in such need of redemption? What’s going on here?

“If only” are no words I want to hear from Jesus – ever. But you know what? I think if only comes with a territory of being a Christian. The Bible is filled with if onlys.

If only Moses hadn’t talked back to God.

If only Jonah had obeyed God the first time.

If only David hadn’t lusted.

If only Paul didn’t murder.

If only the thief on His right could see.

But without those if onlys, we would be left with a very skinny Bible. We would be left with very few lessons to be learned, and very little examples of God’s love and patience for mankind.

I wonder if the woman at the well would have seen Jesus for who He was if she was a “righteous” woman.

If she had remained married to the same man for a number of years, would she have even met Jesus? Remember that it was her shame that forced her to fetch water during the heat of the day in the first place. And if not for her mistakes, she would have no shame, therefore she would not have met Jesus at that divine moment in time.

[Image Credit]

Comfort Books

If you have followed my blog long enough, you know that I am dedicated to, apart from other things, recommending only the best books I have ever read. Rarely will I recommend a mediocre book, unless I think it would be beneficial or interesting to others, putting aside my own preferences.

You may have kids, so you’ll want to pay particularly close attention to this week’s recommendation.

The children’s section at your local bookstore is chock-full of all sorts of books about kid vampires and zombie dogs and mindless babble. The teen section is loaded with slutty “role models” and adolescents discovering their “true selves” coming out of the closet.

And the adult section of the fiction genre is no different from the kids and teens books combined. It takes hard work to dig out the gems of fiction from all the excrement dripping off the shelves with price tags of  $9.99 and up.

Ironic, isn’t it? That a guy who writes fictional books hates fiction so much. It’s not that I hate fiction… there’s just so much bad fiction, both in content and story. One gem of fiction that I keep coming back to after my wife introduced me to them several years ago is the Anne of Green Gables books by Lucy Maud Montgomery (there are eight in all). Now, don’t be too quick to write these books off as just some old books that wouldn’t be their worth in gold today. In fact, we’re more in need of this kind of writing more than ever. And yes, it is possible for good wholesome drama to still be enormously  successful in this day and age just as it was before. (I think I need only to mention Downton Abbey.)

In the Anne books, the characters are very real, and very relational. Anne is not some goody-two-shoes who dresses properly and goes to church every Sunday. Though the story is set in the turn of the twentieth century, none of the characters fit the clichéd prototype we “advanced thinkers” have coined historical figures with.

Often funny, sometimes sad, this set of books is absent of gratuitous sensuality and meaningless perversity that too many authors feel obligated to smear their books with today. Your daughters will embrace these books as their favorites all their lives, and men who appreciate solid storytelling and in-depth character-development will not want to miss out on this timeless, classic series of books.

(And did I mention that adoption is a BIG theme in these books?)

And by the way. I know Kevin Sullivan put out a wonderful tribute to the Anne books a long time ago, but glancing at the picture of Anne above, don’t you think Disney would do well to make an animated adaption of the series? What are you thoughts?

Check out the website for my Image Credit.

Joyfully Ruined

Sometimes you just can’t help but thank God for social networking. You know how you have more friends on your facebook page than the number of people you see in a given day? Well, I didn’t even know I was friends with my youth group worship leader until I saw that he had been posting more statuses than others a few months back.

We didn’t have much in common back then. He was cool, knew how to dress like a true Californian and could jam like the Rolling Stones, and I was …not, and couldn’t, and still can’t. We’ll leave it at that. But the great thing about being brothers in Christ is that even though we may be as different as salt and sugar, common themes unite us. One such theme being adoption.

I was so glad to see that Todd, now a youth pastor at Christ Community Church in Idaho Falls, and his wife Summer were in their own adoption process and it’s been fun to watch their facebook statuses keep everyone updated on their story. They’re adopting two young boys from Africa, and aren’t quite there yet, so please, keep them in your prayers. And follow Summer’s blog, Joyfully Ruined. Here’s an excerpt from her latest post:

today was a joyful time in our house.
it was a time to look & say…
we see God’s goodness.

we have fervently claimed it all along.
i have tried to remember it when i forgot it.
we shared it with others.
knew it would continue to bless our family.
we were waiting for this moment.

tuesday at 11:28 am an email entered into my inbox without my knowledge.  & there it sat.  i was trying to clean my basement.  {it has been a while.}  after straighten up my desk i sat down really quick to check my facebook.  interrupted by an intense scene on REVENGE (a guilty pleasure), i refocused & opened my computer.  in my inbox was a message from an ALBB family.  it simply asked if i had heard anything yet.  a quick response to “not yet”, then spurred me on to quickly check my email…

To finish, check out her blog here and find out more about their story and how you can pray for the Roughtons. It really is a beautiful blog. Joyfully Ruined.

For Whom the “Bell” Tolls – My Thoughts on Velvet Elvis Part 3

For Part 1, click here.

For Part 2, click here.

This post will conclude my review of Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis.

…And what does he say about those pastors who do teach the Bible? Luke 11:46 says, “Jesus replied, ‘And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.’” He uses this against pastors who challenge their congregation to read the Bible more and pray more. Understand this! He’s attributing reading the Bible and praying to burdens of the world! Think about the implications of what he’s saying! He says that when pastors tell him to do those things, it makes him want to do them less. I only have one painfully obvious response to this: It’s called laziness, Superpastor!

Bell continues: “A little while later he [Jesus] calls them ‘sons of hell’ …religious leaders actually get in the way of entering into the life of God.” I think this is the closest to the truth he’s gotten so far!

So is the Bible the best God can do? Besides the fact that this question is completely irrelevant it stands that whatever God offers is the best because it’s from God. God is the best. That’s what He is, and anything that comes from God, including His very Word spoken through the Bible is the best no matter how much or how little He gives to us. No matter how you slice a block of cheese, it’s still cheese. [I recommend the John Piper's book, GOD'S PASSION FOR HIS GLORY for more on this topic.]

I can spend lots and lots of time pointing out stark contradictions in this book. It would be laughable if so many people weren’t buying into these lies. A book that people are still buying off the bookshelf at the local Christian store provides sentences like this:

“To grab a few lines of Jesus and drop them down on someone 2,000 years later without first entering into the world in which they first appeared is lethal to the life and vitality of TRUTH and the Bible” (emphasis not mine).

Anything that is factual and insightful in this book is completely stolen from Ray Vander Laan’s That the World May Know DVD series, whom Bell gives very little credit to, found only in the endnotes. Bits and pieces of Vander Laan’s teachings were evident throughout the first part of the book, and then toward the end, an entire chapter was taken from a portion of his DVD series. And Rob Bell gets paid for this book. 

“Hell is full of forgiven people,” is a statement Bell makes that is arguable at best. (How can people be forgiven if they haven’t accepted it?) But, “Jesus measures their eternal standings in terms of not what they said or believed but how they lived specifically in regard to hell around them,” is a statement that is not at all in line with Scripture. It is clear in Romans that you must believe that Jesus is Lord in order to gain salvation through Him. Bell disregards this part of the transaction and preaches a works-based faith, failing to balance the practices of belief and works stemmed through convictions of the Holy Spirit. 

“The most powerful things happen,” says Bell, “When the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join.” So let me ask if this desire is from the flesh or from the Holy Spirit? Granted there are people who “save” people to make them look Super Christian. But do we just assume that of everyone who is reaching out to the world? I think not, because Christ Himself clearly states that we are to be fishers of men. We are to serve others and reach out to non-believers out of love just as Jesus did. Bell eliminates the latter command from any realm of importance to the Christian faith. Spreading the Gospel and serving go hand in hand. There can be no separating them. 

Finally Bell says that the “church must stop thinking of people as saved or unsaved… it’s offensive to others. Do not treat people differently based on what they believe.”

This is another lesson I have learned for myself while reading this book. I couldn’t quite understand the fierce and seemingly bias protection the church has over us, the members. Reading this book taught me why it’s so important that the church does so. We are the Body of Christ, and we are to protect ourselves and each other from lies and anything that might harm us spiritually so that we may not stumble. It is crucial that we guard the doctrine that we know and believe with the same intensity of a citadel guarding a fortress (or a wall for that matter). This kind of thinking that is taught through Velvet Elvis has more potential to damage and weaken and question the faith of a believer in Christ than it does to uplift, encourage, and liberate said believer from the bondages of this world. At least, in the end, Rob Bell did get one thing right: “Something can be labeled Christian and not be ‘true’ or ‘good.’” 

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2 

[Image Credit]

For Whom the “Bell” Tolls: My Thoughts on Velvet Elvis – Part 2

For the first part of this review, click here.

“Is the Bible the best God can do?” asks Bell. Apparently not, because he doesn’t seem to be sure God even wrote the Bible to begin with. He wonders if Corinthians, for example, is written by Paul or God or God through Paul or Paul through God. I wonder, as he’s standing at the pulpit on Sunday mornings preaching through 1 Timothy what he does with chapter 3 verse 16 (“All Scripture is inspired by God…”), but there’s really no reason for him to preach out of the Bible anyway, according to him. 

“The Bible is open-ended,” he says. “We cannot simply do what it says,” because it first must be interpreted. Meaning, “Someone has to decide what it means.” Yes, he’s saying that the Bible can be interpreted in any way we’d like. “When someone tells you what the Bible means, it’s not true.” It’s just their interpretation. Yes, this man is the pastor of a mega church. If you’re not yet wondering about the devastating effects of the gut-wrenching statements here, take the time to read some reviews on this book online. People really think this is deep, sound, theological teaching and many say it has changed their lives. I have no doubt their lives have been changed because Rob Bell the “superpastor” is releasing people from the obligation of obeying the Words of God. No one ever said a changed life is a holy life. 

To take this hellish theology further, he gives the example of a leader in his church who had a question about a section found in the Bible and after asking many learned people and consulting many references to no avail, she in the end, decided to just go right back to the Bible to see what it had to say about this topic. Bell’s response? That’s “toxic.” And if that’s not far enough, he says that Jesus Himself gives His followers permission to make new interpretations of the Bible (somehow he gets this idea from Matthew 16:9 and 18:18).

Earlier in his book he admitted that Jesus came to fulfill the Word of God by giving it flesh and bones. Now he’s telling his readers to do what they think Jesus is saying, not what He is saying. After all, it wasn’t until the 300’s the sixty-six books were agreed upon, according to Bell. “This is part of the problem with continually insisting that one of the absolutes of the Christian faith must be a belief that ‘Scripture alone’ is our guide. It sounds nice, but it is not true.” 

If you want to irk Bell, tell him that you attend a church that teaches the Bible. According to him a church that’s growing has an easy yoke. Do you want to know why that church has “easy yoke”? Because it’s not holding its congregation to the standards of the Bible. The church may present an easier yoke on Sunday, but what are the attendee’s lives like the rest of the week, being starved for the Word of God, and having it withheld time after time?

Many yokes seem easy, which is what people will likely flock to. People want the easiest dieting books, the simplest instructions, the lighter load, the church that has very few standards and does not convict with the two-edged sword of the Holy Word of God. Many churches like this will grow. And why shouldn’t they? They’re giving out milk and honey! But over time that trampoline will get overcrowded and the few springs holding everyone up will give way and the party will end when the whole thing comes crashing down. Did I mention that not once, if my memory serves correctly, does Bell make any reference to Satan and the unseen world? 

To be concluded…

 

Fullness In Christ

The following is taken from The Valley of Vision by Arthur Bennett. To those of us trying to find fulfillment in passions, pleasures, satisfactions, cravings, needs, and wants other than in Christ: 

O God, though hast taught me that Christ has all fullness and so all plenitude of the Spirit, that all fullness I lack in myself is in Him, for His people, not for Himself, alone, He having perfect knowledge, grace, righteousness, to make me see, to make me righteous, to give me fullness; that it is my duty, out of a sense of emptiness, to go to Christ, possess, enjoy His fullness as mine, as if I had it in myself, because it is for me in Him; that when I do this I am full of the Spirit, as a fish that has got from the shore to the sea and has all fullness of waters to move in, for when faith fills me, then I am full; that this is the way to be filled with the Spirit, like Stephen, first faith, then fullness, for this way makes me most empty, and so most fit for the Spirit to fill.

Thou hast taught me that the finding of this treasure of all grace in the field of Christ begets strength, joy, glory, and renders all graces alive.

Help me to delight more in what I receive from Christ, more in that fullness which is in Him, the fountain of all His glory.

Let me not think to receive the Spirit from Him as a “thing” apart from finding, drinking, being filled with Him.

To this end, O God, do thou establish me in Christ, settle me, give me a being there, assure me with certainty that all this is mine, for this only will fill my heart with joy and peace.