When should I stop getting drunk?

Boy oh boy, God is a heavy hitter when it comes to His people. Take a look at this gauntlet that He throws down in front of us and tell me if ya like it! I know that I thought it was flat-out impossible and insane for a while:

"For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.  In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you." (1 Pet 4:3-4)

So God just tells it like it is, huh? There are no excuses! Time's up, now move on into Godliness! By the way, my main point for this is actually that, if you have bad habits and stop, you might see your old party/sin buddies get kinda mean. Guess what! That's a good thing. Time to make new buddies! And it's a sign that you're growing. If the old crew doesn't see a change in you, you've got a problem! :)

Is slavery ok or: are you a slave, too?

BQ: It's a great thing to want to be Christian, but it's a greater thing to know what that entails. What some don't realize is that being a Christian costs a lot. In fact, God says,

"Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?" (Rom 6)

Wait! Slaves? Obedience? What? God works hard for us—in fact, He worked Himself to death. It is therefore no surprise that he expresses some incredulity and says, "You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin."  (Heb 12:4) That may be a lot to take in, but God also gives us the power to live up to it—He is both King and Comforter! Let's go for it! 

I can watch as much porn as I want!

Something awesome about being a Christian is that I can do home and watch as much porn as I want. I can drink as much alcohol as I want!  Wait, are you confused? Is this some grace-type post? Nope! It's even better.

The Psalmist pleaded, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me!" (51:10)  So beautifully, God promised in Ezekiel, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh." (36:26)

That new heart is invaluable. 20 years after starting in AA, an alcoholic will introduce himself as still being an alcoholic—the desire is still there.  As Christians, God's power can change our very desires, if we embrace it. We can go home and think, "There is no way that I'd want to drink. There's no way I'd want to ever watch porn!" Our heart can feel sick at the very thought. And that is a huge blessing. 

What difference will one more sin make?

Many Christians let their past failures accumulate to the point where they have a hard time resisting temptation. They think, "What difference would one more sin make?"

There's a way to beat that. 2 Cor 5:17 says, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come."  That's a beautiful statement, but God alsosays, "you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus." (Rom 6:11)

We ARE new creations. We ARE dead to sin. But we have to actually believe it—we have to consider it, buy into it, and act in faith on that. Do you really consider yourself as dead to sin? If not, start today. 

A funny picture about drinking.

"Half the day I wonder if it's too late for coffee. The other half, if it's too early for alcohol." (From a FB picture.) Even many Christians use alcohol as an escape from their worries. That escape accomplishes nothing, though, and Luke 21 explains,

“Be on guard, so that your hearts will not be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of life...But keep on the alert at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” (34;36)

Instead of going to a drug for escape, let's go to our Father in prayer! 

A personal reminder about patience.

A personal reminder to me, today. Sometimes it's easy to wonder how in the world I can have patience with some super-bad sinner, but then I have to remember how much patience God has with me. I must "bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation." (2 Pet 3:15)

The safest road to hell—by CS Lewis.

Have you ever seen a Christian let bad habits slip in—and then after a while they're just totally gone? CS Lewis said, "The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts"

It's rare that a Christian just plummets away from Christ. Instead, it's usually gradual. Often their fellow Christians don't even risk confronting the sin, being scared to lose a friend or to cause offense. Heb 2:1 and 1 Thess 5:21-22 say in part, "we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it," and "examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thess 5:21-22)

Let's pay close attention to what we've heard, and remember that part of what we've heard is that we need to keep out brothers and sisters from stumbling off alone into the darkness. Be there for them, even if it's tough.

Hitting a plateau!

 Have you ever worked out and hit a plateau? Do you want to be useless or unfruitful for Christ? Of course not. 2 Pet 1 tells us to work on our character, starting with diligence, then moral excellence, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and finally love.  Those are all great. But God follows it up with something critical, saying,

"For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." (v8)

We need to have these qualities, but God says that they MUST be increasing for us to be useful and fruitful. God does not provide for a state of "acceptable plateau" in spiritual growth, because He only sees two states: growing or dying. Christ is a force so powerful that we need not plateau if we don't want to. Let's encourage those around us who have plateaued to "excel still more." (1 Thess 4)

The only thing about me is the way I walk!

"Do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (Rom 8:4)  My buddy Gil McNutt was talking about walking according to the flesh, and he said, "If your sin doesn't bother your conscience, you're walking according to the flesh."

The conscience is a blessing: it can defend us and it can accuse us. If we ignore it and shove it to the back when it's being pricked through conviction about sin,  we effectively start to sear it—and the end of that reaction is that we become liars seared in our own consciences. 

 Is there any sin in your life that you're getting comfy with? Maybe that you're defending a little? That's your warning sign! Reverse your course immediately, get rid of the sin, and be able to say, "I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit!" (Rom 9)

Full-time Christians or part-timers?

"He was a faithful member who attended church every Sunday?" Would you like that to be you? What if we fleshed it out (pun 100% intended) a little more, since it doesn't tell us that much and had it say, "He was a faithful member who attended church every Sunday, watched porn every night, got wasted at least twice per week, and never made a new Christian?"

Hmmm. That sounds just so much more wretchedly worse! Honestly, we're probably all glad at times that God doesn't play the lowlight reel of our last week at assembly on Sunday, but does He want part-time workers? 1-2 hours per week out of 168 isn't many, after all.

In Romans 12:1, we are urged "by the mercies of God, to present [our] bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is [our] rational service."  As it turns out, God's looking for full-timers. Are you interested? He offers the best retirement package. 

It's all about the fruit.

The parable of the soil that I mentioned from Luke 8 is VERY interesting, but sometimes we can kind of think, "Ok, so the person who is baptized and confesses and yadda yadda, that's the best soil. That's what I'm lookin' for." For romantic interests, it can be tempting to say, "Ok, so I've gotta have this guy/gal become a Christian, then I know it's a definite match made in heaven!"

But the parable is actually a lot more specific than that. In fact, it mentions a rocky soil where there are those who, "when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root;they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away." (13)

So what is the result that God's looking for, and that we should look for in others and in ourselves? Well, the "seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance." (15)

It's all about fruit. If we always fall to temptation, if we never bear fruit for Christ, we're not what we need to be. So let's bear some fruit today! 

Confessing your sin and praying for one another—a tough struggle!

I used to hide stuff from facebook, because I didn't want my brothers and sisters to know what I was doing. It was shameful.  I know of a couple of people who, like I did, lead double lives. They try and hide stuff, too, while keeping the spiritually good stuff—you know, assembly and whatnot—very public.  I would have grown much faster if I'd had the guts to practice James 5:16, 

"Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much."

Do you have the courage to admit your struggles? Do you know what a relief it is to be able to open up to someone and say, "This is killing me—it hurts so bad and I feel like I just can't!" I got to do that at family camp, and man that was a relief. It builds confidence. Oh, and just as a freebie, if you're praying for someone, you'll be keeping him at the top of your mind. 

What will your footnote be?

My dad chased my brother off with a shotgun. We had three SUVs of FBI agents show up once. His marriages number in the double digits. And when I was young, he "faithfully assembled" as a "Christian," and no one was the wiser because of his charisma. 

I've heard people say, "Man, stay away from her, the family's messed up and so is she."  
2nd Kings records a string of kings who appear as mere footnotes, "Did evil much like his forefathers and then died." "Reigned for a little bit doing evil like those before him and then got whacked." What would you want God to have written about you? "Crazy like her mother, kept sinning, then she died," or, "He was abusive like his father before him, showed up to all the family camps, continued in evil, then he died?" 

If your family is dysfunctional, you don't have to be. You can change your footnote, but you have to admit that you're sick, and that your family is. You have to be willing to go through the pain of confrontation and breaking the cycle, of saying, "Mom/dad, I'm sorry, but I'm going to overcome where you have failed." Look at specific problems in your family, like alcohol abuse, abusive language, partnering with non-Christians, etc., and be on high alert for them in your own life. Change them. Don't quit doing bad, but instead start doing good, because "the one practicing righteousness is righteous." (1 John 3:7) 

Romance and the order of operations—it's simple math!

In relationships, it's better to pick a mate through wisdom rather than emotion. In order to get the right result in math, the order of operations have to be followed. If you add something before accomplishing the multiplying and dividing, the answer just won't be right. It has occurred to me that the order of operations if critical in dating and romance, too. 

If we meet someone we really like emotionally, but who isn't saved, it is folly for us to give our emotional core to them. God tells us to, "seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness," and as a part of that, we need to put the spiritual health of the other person BEFORE dating and our emotional desires. 

If we don't do that, what we're really doing is setting an immediate example where our own wants are equal or superior to God's desires and plans, and we show that our emotions trump the other person's spiritual eternity. We should make disciples first, showing integrity and sincerity of our beliefs—this will reveal just how much we love God, and will be much more effective at causing faith in those we love.

My past will never define me.

For a long time I've tried to figure out why I went from spiritually lazy to spiritually working; from feeling safe in sin to toppling those titans. To this day, I can't really figure it out. I want to. I want to have a magic key to fixing people, to helping them overcome when they're stuck in bad habits. "Poof—you'll never drive drunk again! Poof—you won't be sleeping around anymore! Poof—your explosive anger is gone!" 

But I don't. it seems that I didn't change until my heart desired it, and then it was God who caused the growth.  And getting someone's heart to change—I am no good at that. I wish I were. But I think I have a solution that works, if I could convince people to try it. Hebrews 10:24-25 says,

"Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near."

For a long time, I hid my facebook, or sections of it, from my brothers and sisters in Christ—I even preemptively blocked them from seeing me, or from seeing lots of my posts. Who wants to show off evil to those who are good?  I didn't want to be in anyone's spiritual high beams, because man, I was pretty popular with the world, and that felt good.  

My life was a formula designed to cheat God's system: I'd keep my bad behavior, but show up to assembly enough that no one could say that I wasn't a participant. And I'd know a LOT about the Bible, so you couldn't say I could be destroyed for a lack of knowledge. I'd even show up to some functions outside of Sunday and make a good showing of it all.  Man, just look at the pictures! I'd be in them. That's my alibi. 

But if you ever checked my facebook, you'd see that I was definitely a friend of the world.

In the end, my conscience drove me to the breaking point. It was a little twinge I was ignoring, but it grew and grew.  I saw so many saints doing so much good, and I realized that I was trying to slide in to home plate—almost tagged out, but still saved. Saved by a technicality. 

But that conscience I mentioned...it got kicked from the backburner into overdrive. I met a girl who wasn't really a Christian, but who was really sweet. She had plenty of worldly habits and thought the world of me—or rather, because of my formulaic way of living, she saw me as ultra-Christlike. I knew the Bible inside out. I didn't cuss or drink. I was great with dirty jokes, but those were just funny...not serious. I was a breath of fresh air. But in that air was an odorless poison.

This girl liked to drink a lot, and it didn't help out her life at all—but I never said anything about her bar habits. I got to know her and her kid, and I started having feelings of attachment for them. For perhaps the second time ever I said, "Ok, this girl isn't on track for heaven...I guess I have to do something." But I wasn't committed. My formula was just that: technical schematics that could never change a person's heart. They were soulless criteria for getting what I wanted, not anything from a heart that ached to serve God ever better.

And because of that, I presented a truth devoid of love. It was like saying, "Here, drink this water, it'll help you live," but all the while, I was an oil slick on top of it, making her sick of the water. If I was such a saint, why did I hide so much on facebook? Why did I put such low priority on studying the Bible?  Why did I only assemble the bare minimum—Sunday evening only, because it's shorter? 

God says, "By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another," (Jn 13:35), and deep down, all men recognize this. And deep down, the girl recognized me as a fraud. So was she, being a Christian in name only, but it meant that I couldn't reach her. I couldn't cause a desire for her to change.  We split ways. She went deeper into drinking and the world, and I went into sadness and despair.  I had finally realized that I'd hurt someone—spiritually. Blown a chance to make a disciple of Christ.


It hurt. I decided to start getting involved with the saints. The "assembling" that's mentioned in Hebrews is way more than just Sundays, by the way, because the early church associated daily. In Acts 2:46 we see that Christians met daily. "And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts."

Changing your associates is one of the best way to change YOU. If you're not growing, start being around your brothers and sisters in Christ more—it can lead to explosive growth.  I had to start forcing myself to be with my brothers and sisters, to expose myself to the light.  When I did, it made me change my bad habits. I had to get rid of them. And the void that was left had to be filled with something—so I started filling it with what my brothers and sisters were doing. I started studying the Bible. I started teaching others. And the more I did, the more I loved it. And the more I saw results, the more I realized God's plan worked. And the more I saw His plan working, the more I worshiped (submitted to Him) in Spirit. 

But the thing that sometimes makes me sad is that, even knowing what can work, and what has worked, I can't force anyone to try it. I can't force anyone to desire it.  It took the painful realization that I was ultimately a failure—and a failure that put others in spiritual danger—before I woke up.  I had to recognize that God was right when He says, "For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries." (1 Pet 4:3) I had to realize that I'd hurt someone who had cared for me, and for whom I reciprocated that affection.

Even more than that, I had to open myself up to criticism. I couldn't just keep calling people meanies when they called me out. I had to say, 

"Let a righteous man strike me—it is a kindness;

let him rebuke me—it is oil for my head;

let my head not refuse it."

(Psalm 141:5)

But perhaps, just perhaps, I can encourage people to wish for the label of, "overwhelming conqueror in all things," to be known as one who topples the titans of sin, who says, "My past will never define me, but this day and every day I shall excel still more."  That's my prayer at least. I know that I can encourage. I can be kind. I can be honest. Paul said, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth."  I can plant. I can water. And I can pray for God to cause the growth. 

I praise God every day that He helped me examine myself, and find myself wanting. And I praise Him for helping me grow. In the past. In the present. And boundlessly in the future. 

What is a good man?

Humanity has a horrible track record of determining what a "good person" looks like. In Athens, pederasty was a common practice, and those who practiced it were thought of as good and even noble for having sexual relationships with adolescent males. What a "good" person looks like to us varies with time, culture, and even emotional attachment. How often have you seen a friend with a total loser but, being "in love," they declare his "goodness/potential/etc?"

The mistake we make seems annoying at worst, but it's more subtle and scary than that: when we compare ourselves to other people to see how good we're doing spiritually, it gives us a picture which is totally wrong and useless. As 2 Cor 10:2 says, "For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding."

Measure yourself against the Word, not against what humanity or your feelings label as good. smile emoticon

Depressed because of a dark world?

Have you ever seen people reveling and enjoying sin and just felt like it was too sad to witness? Has it caused your soul anguish? Perhaps loved ones, even? Habakkuk was surrounded by evil and it didn't seem to him that God was doing anything about it.

"How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, "Violence!" but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted." (1:2-4)

We can feel like this. Take ISIS. Horrible. Yet because of that evil, many are reporting that more Muslims are converting to Christianity now than in the past 14 centuries. God's will, as He told Habakkuk, IS being accomplished. Don't be dismayed, and don't be overtaken by shock and awe. Sometimes evil does surround us, but as General Chesty Puller said, "That simplifies the problem." And it makes our opportunities for good that much greater in number.

When we make light of sin.

When we make light of sin ("But a little [insert sin type here] won't hurt..."), we make light of Satan. Jude 9 says, " But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”

Satan's a powerful, supernatural evil. Take sin, and thus Satan, seriously and with a sober mind.

Who you really are.

 For this very moment push all your notions of who you are in your own mind out of your head. Look at everything you've done and will do from an outside point of view, with no biases—just your actions and words, the fruit of your life. You're now starting to look into a mirror that reflects not your physical body, but your character and spirit. We're not through yet—we have to know the point of view from which we're looking. Let's read James 1:

"For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does." (23-25)

Look at everything again. Assess all those actions, the good and the bad—teaching people the gospel, getting black-out drunk—against the Mirror of the Word. Keep it in your mind; don't forget. That is who you are. What changes do you need to make, not from your own perspective, but from the perspective of that outside observer, and that mirror—from the perspective of God?

"See the young man sittin' in the old man's bar, waitin' for his turn to die."

"See the young man sittin' in the old man's bar, waitin' for his turn to die." That's a line from the Goo Goo Dolls' song, "Broadway," and I think it's ultimately tragic, because it's ultimately true. Millions and millions are living their lives with just one ultimate goal: death, decay; dust. It is sadly true when God says,

"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished, and forever they have no more share in all that is done under the sun." (Eccl 9:5-6)

As Christians, we need to see the plight of those who, though they are sad for the moment in grief over a lost loved one, or happy drinking and partying with friends, are really simply waiting for their turn to die. We need to get out of our comfort zones and show them the spiritual reality behind this physical facade because, "the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Cor 1:18)