Great Judgment Morning Jack Holcomb

Living Like Zenith

Norman Vincent Peale, the patron saint of positive thinking, waited impatiently for the limousine. The popular pastor-author of a long-running series of books and magazines on positive thinking and transformative Faith stood quietly studying the nearby statue of Julius Caesar. It lent an aura of the Roman Forum to Caesar's Palace in Vegas.

The tough-minded optimist turned to his wife Ruth and declared, “I’ll never be in Las Vegas again; I might as well try one of these slot machines.”

“Wait a minute, Norman, replied Ruth, “you don’t believe in gambling. Don‘t do it. And besides, someone may recognize you.”

Ever curious, Peale wanted to know more about this practice he had opposed for so much of his life. Arguing that “no one around here knows me,” he jammed a quarter into the slot. Nothing happened. As he yanked the lever down, a voice announced nearby, “Hello, Dr. Peale! I was at your church last Sunday.”

We live and breathe in an age of media marketing that values appearance more than the reality of the content. Jesus speaks to our age of political spinsters, advertisers, public relations experts, and TV preachers offering complete makeovers without personal regard for reality.

“Let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’, said Jesus; anything beyond these is of evil” (Matthew 6:37 NASV). Judge not, he added, because you will be judged in like manner Examine the log in your eye, before judging the speck in your brother’s eye (7:1-5).

Jesus called for transformation from the inside out, rather than the artistic makeovers of politicians, preachers, publicists, and public personalities. As the old preaching professor used to say, “Make your sermons so clear they cannot possibly be misunderstood!”

Viewing life through the lenses of Jesus builds character into life unlike the Pharisees of his day who valued appearance more than substance. Dr. Rowland Taylor, the Anglican Vicar at Hadleigh, was observed by those who knew him to live as a reformer. He took seriously the Spirit of Jesus and avoided unnecessary controversy. He lived a Godly life. He internalized the truths that he taught, and he nurtured the poor. On the other hand, followers and friends could not deter the authorities of Bloody Mary from burning Taylor at the stake for opposing their unbiblical practices.

The Bishop summoned Taylor, gave him a tongue-lashing, imposed a two-year imprisonment, and tacked on a death sentence. Just five days before the burning—February 5, 1555—Taylor presented his son with his only remaining writing, a book of Christian advice. Taylor commended his family to God, declared his confidence in God’s faithfulness, and reminded his parishioners to continue walking in the truths he had taught them.

Assured of his heavenly welcome, Taylor urged his people to avoid blasphemy by turning back to false religion, and added his confession: “In thee, O Lord, have I trusted: let me never be confounded.”

The Sheriff then took Taylor to Hadleigh to burn (his Memorial is shown on right). As weeping parishioners followed en masse, a guard thrust the tip of his staff into Taylor’s mouth, thus preventing him from further preaching. Taylor gave his shoes away, while also distributing his remaining coins among the blind along the way.

Without doubt, appearance has great value, but Christianity offers more than a mere makeover. Jesus invites us to experience a transformation, to be "born again" to make our “what is” in life one and the same with “what appears to be” in our life.

From walkingwithwarner,blogspot.com 

we invite you to consider the words of Jesus to begin reconstructing your life from the inside out and live like Zenith, “where the quality is built in”.

"I Will NEVER Say NO"

On a recent overnight stay with Dale and Cheryl Stultz in Anderson, IN, I browsed Dale’s book shelves and two self-published biographies jumped out at me. They were about people with whom I had some personal experiences. I Will NEVER Say NO is a 178 page autobiography telling of the ministry of Lavern and Aleta Beach, following his conversion as a Christian shortly after they married.

Their ministry journey began during the cold winter of January 1939 when Lavern was unemployed and sitting in a movie house in Coldwater, MI. He was enjoying a brief respite from the turmoil of his struggles to succeed as a responsible bread winner for his family. He had worked at his temporary job long enough to draw a pay check and send  money home to his family, who were sustained by the washings and ironings his wife took in.

While the movie proved interesting, he could not escape the conviction that God was calling him to invest his life in God’s service. Thus begins a life story summarized by the commitment he made to God when he became a Christian. His conversion to Christ led to a lifetime in Christian ministry under the auspices of the Church of God (Anderson Convention), in which he was eventually ordained.

L.D.’s lifetime commitment to God confirmed what became a fact of life for him, as well as the title of a self-published autobiography” I will NEVER Say NO. I first met the Beach’s in 1974 in North Platte, NE as part of an entourage of youth and youth leaders from Battle Creek. We were en route to the 1974 Denver International Youth Convention. I had arranged for our group to overnight in North Platte and sleep in the sanctuary of their attractive A-frame type structure.

They hosted us in a most gracious manner. As an extra benefit, I enjoyed a tour of the huge Union Pacific Bailey Rail Yard complex. Wikipedia describes it as halfway between Denver and Omaha. It covers 2,850 acres and is over 8 miles in length and 2 miles wide. It has 200 separate tracks totaling 315 miles of track with 985 switches, 766 turnouts, and 17 receiving and 16 departure tracks. Union Pacific employs more than 2,600 people in North Platte, who are responsible for the day-to-day operations.

An average of 139 trains and over 14,000 railroad cars pass through Bailey Yard daily. They sort some 3,000 cars daily using the yard’s two humps. The eastbound hump is a 34 feet tall mound and the westbound hump is 20 feet high. These are used to sort four cars a minute into one of the 114 "bowl" tracks, 49 tracks for the westbound trains and 65 for eastbound. The bowl tracks form trains headed across North America, East, West and to the Gulf-coast of the United States, as well as the borders of Canada and Mexico.

Also included are 3 locomotive and servicing centers called eastbound run thru, westbound run thru, and the service track that handles more than 8,500 locomotives per month, a locomotive repair shop that can repair 750 locomotives monthly, and a car repair facility that handles nearly 50 cars daily. The car repair shop replaces 10,000 pairs of wheels each year. The yard features an in-motion wheel defect detector developed by Union Pacific that uses ultrasound to inspect each wheel. It is the only such detector in the world. UP has also developed a method for changing wheels in the field on empty westbound coal trains, which enables three workers to use a hydraulic jack under the couplers between two cars and exchange the trucks. This has reduced the time needed to replace trucks from up to 12 days to 8–12 minutes.

Locomotives can be serviced in a NASCAR like pit stop facility called a Run-Thru staffed by four different crafts—an electrician, machinist, fireman oiler, and a car man. Locomotives are serviced in 45 minutes without detaching them from their trains. The cars go through the car department to get fixed and the locomotives go to the diesel shop. 

Because of the enormous amount of products that pass through Bailey Yard, Union Pacific describes the yard as an “economic barometer of America.”

While there I learned of an upcoming Mission’s work camp the Beach’s planned for building a parsonage at Cotton Tree Bay Church on Cayman Brac about 90 miles south of Jamaica. Working with the Beach’s was Pastor Robert Hazen and an experienced and skilled group from Lansing Pennway. I was interested!  I could easily rendezvous with them at I94 and I69 so I signed up.

I Will NEVER say NO describes L. D. Beach’s search for God as a  young married man in his hometown of Coldwater, MI, doing his best to keep his little family afloat in Marion, IN. Their journey took them from Marion to Wabash, IN in 1943. They launched their ministry ship by working with that small struggling congregation at Wabash, a state project.

Mankato, MN; Port Huron, and Mt Pleasant, MI; Sioux Falls, SD; Fairfield, IL followed, each bringing their achievements, disappointments, and all the extraordinary personal and family experiences that go with spending life in the bubble of a church parsonage. Coldwater and  Sanford, MI followed. Finally, there came that hiatus at Sanford that allowed them to invest a year of volunteer service at Cayman Brac, BWI.

They returned stateside to serve at North Platte, NE where I became personally acquainted with them, after knowing of them for many years. Chapter eighteen outlines the story that crowned their career, in which they took great pride: “To build a Parsonage”. It outlines the story of Faith Villa, the attractive cement block (with stone surface) home that I helped build on the beaches of Cotton Tree Bay Church of God, Cayman Brac.  

For me, that was a priceless experience. I would never forget Oley Brown and others whose names escape me momentarily--some of the greatest of God’s humble servants.  Project Coordinator, L. D. Beach concludes with this simple statement: “The work campers arrived on the scheduled date and the parsonage was completed on schedule. This was a great accomplishment for this congre-gation. Upon the completion of the parsonage, ‘Faith Villa’, for the Cotton Bay tree Church of God, we returned to North Platte, Nebraska and continued our pastoral duties.”

The Beach’s retired and the kids published dad’s book, complete with a cd in the jacket at the end of the book. Meanwhile, Lavern and Aleta graduated their course with honors and went to be with the Lord, having fulfilled their commitments.

This is walkingwithwarner@blogspot.com

Building Relational Bridges

Dr. John Johnson and Professor of Missions, spoke at a local church where someone asked him this question: “So when you go to other countries, how do you tell other people they are wrong and we are right?”

Johnson, a cross-cultural missionary in Muslim countries for twenty-three years at the time, explained, missions is not about prying people loose from their tightly held cultural and religious beliefs and replacing them with new ones.

“I don’t tell them they are wrong and we are right,” Johnson admitted, “I work to develop relationships with them … Then I try to love them in the name and style of Jesus.”

As professor of ministry and missions in a Christian College, Johnson believed missions begin when we come into relationship with the God through His missionary Son. A passion is birthed in us that the peoples of this world will come to know God and live in relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus.

Pastor, Steve Stone watched this relational bridge become a convenient conveyor of truth between his church in Tennessee and a small Islamic community nearby. As the pastor, Stone went on the initiative by reaching outside the recognized box in his community; he welcomed members of the small Islamic community center into his neighborhood.

CNN later aired the story of the church’s hospitality. Eventually, Pastor Stone received a call from a group of Muslims in Kashmir who’d seen the segment. The callers informed him that after watching the program, one of their community’s leaders said to those who were gathered: “God just spoke to us through this man.”

As a result, one of the men went straight to the local Christian church and proceeded to clean it, inside and out, because of his desire to also be a good neighbor. The Kashmir group informed Pastor Stone “We’re going to keep taking care of this little church for the rest of our lives.”

We draw strength in the confidence that we have found new life in Jesus. It is also true that we desperately want others to know Him as well. Nonetheless, telling others they are wrong and we are right does little to help us establish a constructive relationship. It may, in fact, disrupt any existing relationship and prevent further chance for friendship.

Jesus intentionally broke through barriers that prevented him from befriending, counseling, healing, and serving others. As we follow Him, our mission becomes that of structural engineers building bridges and establishing relationships that allow us to love people and share God’s good news with them.

These necessary relationships become the bridges by which non-believers are enabled to complete their journey to faith. From Warner's World, we are walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

"Such Were Some of You"

Doug [not his real name] joined our small self-help group and found new hope of strength for today and new possibilities of an improved life in a better tomorrow. I had recently joined this group that was primarily students, but included a few non-students, and we met at the Seminary where most of us were students.

All of us were active participants and there were no sideline spectators. Some were earning academic credits. A few faced issues with which they needed some assistance. In time, all of us would experience much more than just an academic credit as we discovered areas of personal growth and maturity and became more thoroughly committed disciples, in a group setting that was covenanted together in a circle of trust using the focus of Integrity Therapy developed by Dr. John Drakeford and Hobart Mowrer.

Doug was a member of the group when I came in. He had been dismissed from his Church Staff position after his third arrest, losing first his job and eventually his family. This floundering church musician now existed as a man without a country, until joining this small, close-knit circle of Christians. In the eleventh hour of Doug’s career, he came into the group and they loved him in spite of his homosexual behavior, giving him a place in their circle and room to rediscover himself.

Everyone accepted Doug as he was; socially rejected, personally defeated, without friend and sustenance, and at the end of his rope. He knew he was loved although he no longer loved himself. He had the support of the group just as he was, and time and space to become who he wanted to be, as well as encouragement to become all he could be in Jesus Christ.

Tediously, Doug scratched and clawed his way out of his emotional pit of hopeless disparagement and social abandonment. By the grace of God and the encouragement of his Circle of Support, life took on a new look for Doug, with new meaning.

Life for Doug slowly turned from a journey of repetitious defeat to a life of recovery in which he discovered God’s transforming power of metamorphosis. Like the tiny worm in nature that disappears into its cocoon and later reappears as a lovely Monarch Butterfly, Doug discovered happiness, wholeness, and a whole new sense of personal well-being.

The group taught Doug how to interact--openly and honestly, without rationalization and deception. Each group member became a conduit of God’s grace, as living waters of God’s healing grace flowed through our interrelationships and poured Doug’s life. Doug found new reason to hope for tomorrow through his new relationships with his new friends.

Through Christian discipleship, Doug discovered fresh reassurance when he discovered, “And such were some of you” (I Corinthians 6:22, RSV, italics added). Supported by this trusted circle of friends, Doug took the necessary time and painfully worked his way through responsible restitution and restoration of formerly broken relationships.

Doug consequently discovered new peace where once he had known only turmoil. New possibilities for further transformation of life invigorated him and he experienced further satisfaction in productive behavior and wholesome relationships. Like the Psalmist David, Doug discovered a new man within--a man after God’s own heart, a man of strong faith, an overcomer in spite of earlier failures.

Like many others whose personal struggles the Bible reveals, Doug eventually found that in his new friendship with the Lord Jesus Christ he had tapped into that power line described in John’s gospel as power “to become children of God” (John 1:12 RSV).

From Warner's World, I am 

walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

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Renewing the Mind

Roger Hazelton observed: “Difficult as it may be for us, a believing faith in God is all that can save us from our critical intellectual situation.” This teacher of philosophy at Andover Newton Theological School was writing in 1949 rather than 2015. He was also teaching students on their way into religious vocations, not all of which would fill pulpits. The book he wrote was oriented more to Christians than to non-Christians.

What I found most interesting was that he described our current times with almost prophetic accuracy, almost better than his own age when I was just beginning my career (Renewing the Mind, McMillan, 1949). “Such belief is not a residue but a resource,” claimed Hazelton.

This professor-preacher, a man of high intellect, believed, that a “world without God is a world without truth; indeed, it is no world at all, but mere nonsense. No drummed-up atheistic courage, no nihilistic posture of defiance, can long evade this fact. Hence if we are intellectually in earnest about getting well, a lost aptitude must be recovered, an abandoned birthright reclaimed, a precious heritage rewon. Plainly, the renewing of our minds demands that we learn again how to believe in God (emphasis added).

If such a recovery is to take place, insisted Hazelton, “our minds must become more childlike. This does not mean that we ought to be gullible; it simply means that we ought to be docile or teachable. By folk of our generation, at any rate, belief is not to be had on ‘I-told-you-so’ terms; and it cannot be generated and grown in the soil of ignorance and superstition. We do not need to be told what to believe, so much as taught how to believe. To some this may appear a childish and quite preliminary sort of discussion; but since where belief is concerned most of us are in the kindergarten anyway, learning its alphabet and practicing its scales, it may not be the wrong place to begin …” (22-23).

Hazelton saw human intelligence retreating “before the undisciplined squads of raw emotion or goes down before the shock troops of ruthless interest. Thought for power usurps the place once given to the power of thought. Reason gives up the battle for meaning and worth in human life, numbed by disaster and worsened by despair” (p. 6)

He concludes “A great and awful perversion has occurred. Man has sold his birthright of reason, and sold it cheap, for the pottage of a power-centered and power-obsessed culture” (p. 7). If this statement was accurate at mid-century during the Russian cold war, it is accurate many times over today when citizens are totally obsessed with the latest technology and governments are operated by power brokers.

People know how to build smarter computers (eg: the Smart Watch everyone is waiting for) but few people know how to read the signs of the times or tell the difference between truth and half-truth. Alfred North Whitehead once wrote, “The keynote of idolatry is contentment with the prevalent gods.” That describes us as a nation.

Or as Hazelton wrote, “To borrow a useful phrase, idolatry means “absolutizing the relative.” Whenever, we set up fragmentary and finite things as if they merited that full and ultimate concern which only God has the right to demand of us, we are in fact worshiping idols” (p 10).

We are a culture that values athletic coaches more than college presidents, the words of an athlete more than of a preacher. We get all excited when a bunch of one-and-done basketball players who have leased their abilities to a school for  a year, compile a record shattering thirty-eight victories without defeat. Yet I doubt that one of us will concern himself or herself as to whether they further educate themselves for the rest of the lives they will have to live after their professional careers.

After all, life’s bottom line is making money and education mostly concerns itself with making better people. All the while, people know more and more about gadgetry and things and less and less about reading, thinking, and truth (which may in actuality be non-existent).

“The task of Christian philosophy is not to establish an unsteady and artificial peace between the gospel and the world,” insisted Hazelton. “It is to penetrate all the nooks and crannies of human life with the spirit and significance of Christian faith (emphasis added). Morals and science, the arts and industry, letters and government must all be sought out, won, made captive to the mind of Christ” (pp 181-182). Obviously that would completely transform American culture.

The Apostle Paul pleaded with fellow believers “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.” This begins by not conforming to the surrounding world but to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 1:1-2 NASV). And if you read the rest of the chapter, you find a practical manual for everyday living by ordinary people.

We will see more lives changed and experiencing the transformation of which Paul spoke when more Christians get their heads (hearts and minds) really into the ballgame.

Walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

Why Muslim Dr. Nabeel Qureshi Converted to Christianity