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I came across this great story as I was reading Piper’s blog earlier which features the story of a man who when asked for his wallet at knifepoint, handed over his coat as well so his would-be mugger could stay warm.

It begs the question, “How far are we willing to go to help and serve those who hate us or mean us harm?” For me this is a tough one. In many ways it would be easy for me to make the same decision the guy in the story did. At the same time, if this were the third, fourth, or fifth time I had experienced such a thing I would probably think twice before handing over my coat.

The story reminds me of an experience my wife had at our last church while serving in a volunteer role. She was asked to help out with the Youth and gladly agreed to do so. Over a period of months, anytime she had a question or asked for help, repetitively she was ignored and treated with a sort of willful neglect. Until one day, without any thing being communicated to her, she attempted to log into her volunteer email address only to find it had been deleted.

So she acted much like the guy in the story who extended his coat after being asked for his wallet. After extending a helping hand in one area only to have it rejected, she did her best to shrug it off and moved on to serve as a greeter on Sundays. Unfortunately she experienced similar lack of communication-going as far as to just show up early every Sunday because she never knew which Sundays they needed her. After experiencing many similar circumstances myself, my wife and I decided it was time to move on.

So, how far are we willing to go?. How far starts by realizing that our treasure is in heaven and whatever we have here, we are but temporary stewards of. How far we are willing to go may need to end when we realize that what we have extended in service gets mismanaged time and time again. Wise use of what we have been entrusted with is the key. We would do well to remember the Parable of the Talents, because one day the Master will return to reclaim what is his.

So give your wallet, go as far as to extend your coat, and give with joy more of yourself than you ever think you ought to give. But, time after time, when you see no fruit, no change of heart, do as Jesus instructed us to do and shake the sand from your shoes as you leave the village.

I came across this very brainy study named “Evidence of a Significant Solar Imprint in Annual Globally Averaged Temperature Trends” recently which raises some interesting evidence concerning climate change. I’m no scientist, but if the evidence presented in this study holds true, the warming trend in the late 20th century (we are in a cooling trend right now despite all of the media overload saying otherwise) was due to the effects of a “solar cycle”.

I look forward to reading part 2 of their study and hearing more of their conclusions.

Today from the Desiring God Blog, a poignant reminder to us all (yes me at the top of the list) that it’s not possible to lift ourselves up and lift up Christ at the same time:

. . . there are more ways to preach ourselves than one might think. This word from James Denney has exerted a sobering effect on me since I first read it in 1982. He had these words framed and posted in the vestry of his Scottish church.

No man can bear witness to Christ and to himself at the same time. No man can give the impression that he himself is clever and that Christ is mighty to save. (Quoted in John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 325)

This one comes with a story, so please bear with me as I make my point.

Easter Sunday my wife and I actually went to church somewhere–something we have done only once since we left our last church home several months ago. We went back to the same place we visited before because we have a few friends that go there. We got there a few minutes late, leaving us to park across the street at the Lowes because of the church’s overflowing parking lot. We were greeted by several smiling faces on the way in and then found it tough to find a seat once inside. There were people standing in the back of the worship area cause the place was absolutely packed. Luckily one of the greeter people found us a couple seats.

The worship was really good, several songs I have never heard, but still enjoyed mouthing along as the band rocked out in worship. It was good, but not showy if you know what I mean. We got to enjoy the Lord’s Supper. Then the pastor shared a fairly simple message comparing some of the miracles of Jesus to his death and resurrection. They ended the service with a song and everyone went on their merry way. We stayed around and talked with our friends a bit and headed to lunch at my parent’s house.

The thing that caught me off guard the most were some comments during the pastor’s message. The first was about the feeding of the 5 thousand and why Jesus did it. He already taught them because he had compassion on them, so it wasn’t so Jesus could teach longer. Jesus wasn’t trying to prepare them to go and do some huge task for His Father or trying to get them to go invite their friends. It’s really simple, he wanted to feed them because it was late and time for hungry people to eat. Jesus wanted to meet their need of hunger plain and simple.

The pastor commented briefly on Jesus’ first miracle of turning water into wine and asked why he did it. His response was “Jesus turned the water into wine so the party could go on”, which got some laughs, but is so true.

Then I got to thinking about the rest of Jesus’ miracles and tried to think of why Jesus performed them. None of the answers I came up with pointed to anything other than bringing glory to the Father and meeting people’s needs. The only exception was Christ’s death and resurrection–in which Jesus became a means to an end for His father and for our sake. Jesus became the “utility” by which we are saved.

Jesus wasn’t trying to use people for some greater purpose, he wasn’t trying to develop some large conference or entertain crowds or put on some sort of circus show that would attract more people. He wasn’t trying to get all of his followers to go “reach” people for himself. He wasn’t about making a name for himself. It was really simple, what he was trying and succeeded in doing was glorifying His Father and meeting people’s needs–thus pointing them to the Father.

It was very refreshing to go a church and not walk away feeling overwhelmed by entertainment and underwhelmed by the insistence to perform acts that undermine the value of the Gospel.

It was refreshing to go to a place that seemed to understand that when Jesus performed miracles, he didn’t do them as a means to an end. Jesus didn’t feed the 5,000 and post pictures somewhere showing how many people were there. He didn’t turn water to wine so people would like him more, nor did he use the testimony of the healed blind man to bolster support for himself. Jesus came to be a sacrifice for the sin of many and point those who would call upon his name to the Father. It is my hope and prayer that the Church as whole will pray along with John the Baptist, asking that He might increase and we (and all of our great utility) may decrease.

Today in much of the post-modern era church, the ethic of Utilitarianism is alive, well, and growing in unconscious popularity. Mills and Bentham I’m sure would feel right at home in many of these churches, as they may be comforted by the “using” for the “greater good” that they would find there.

You see, no longer should the Shepherd leave the many to seek out the few. No, the church should now be focused on ascribing the value of the individual based upon their merits in contributing to the overall utility. Basically meaning that you are only worth as much as you are able to contribute to the mission of the church in which you are involved. The church, in its activities, will only focus its energies on developing the individual Christian inasmuch as it believes it will benefit the greater good for the greatest number of people in the community of that church.

This sounds very good to most, when really it shouldn’t. It’s the unconscious effect of the ethic of Utilitarianism, which indeed sounds appealing until you consider the consequences. The consequences of forgetting that the command in Matthew 28:19-20 wasn’t just to “go”, but was to go and “make disciples”. Most of the energies of such churches are focused instead on another “d” word–”decisions” for Christ. Once that “decision” is made, the greater good has been fulfilled. As a new Christian you can be certain that opportunities for discipleship, evangelism training (so that you in turn have a biblical context from which to go and make disciples of those whom God has placed in your life), and even learn of simple steps to get you started on your spiritual journey will be few if not nonexistent.

Never mind Jesus’ parable of the seed ( Luke 8:7-8 ) that fell on the rocks and withered due to lack of moisture (spiritual nourishment) or was choked out by thorns (ideologies of the world). No, such seeds are suppose to go out and invite their friends to join them in their rocky or thorny soil so the church can “reach” more people.

Must we be reminded that only those who stand firm until the end will be the ones who see Christ ( Mark 4:13 )? You see, if you aren’t making disciples, then you really aren’t reaching anyone. Instead you are “reaching” people with a message that doesn’t even get them started on the journey, and which leaves them to be choked out by the thorns of life just as soon as they think they were starting to make their way.

So next time you are asked to take part in helping someone make a “decision” for Christ, listen intently to hear if there is any follow-up. Ask yourself (or ask them if they even make themselves available to you) “what’s the next step after I invite my friend to church and they make this decision?”. If you hear no answer, then your church isn’t interested in making disciples, but is instead (mostly due to their ignorance) intent on growing something built on sand.

Don’t so quickly abandon the Gospel for what seems exciting and satisfying. Instead remember that Christ spent most of his ministry time pouring his life into only 12 men, which in turn were directly/indirectly responsible for us hearing the message that their Christ died so that those who would believe in him would be saved.

My friend Tim just sent me a link to some pics that photographer friend Dan Almasy took of the tornado damage downtown. Dan lives really close to the area of downtown impacted by the tornado and was able to grab some great shots that really show the depth of what took place Friday night. I recommend clicking on the “View as Slideshow” link.

Check out the flickr gallery

I find it somewhat funny that accessing your mac through a dynamic dns service while out and about is now being described as ” ‘Back to Mac’ without .Mac”. I guess not many people knew you could do this sort of thing long before Apple introduced the Back to Mac feature in Leopard.

I’ve been using pretty much the exact set of instructions that lifehacker.com lays out in their article for several years and it works very well. I won’t duplicate their instructions, so click the link above if you also would like to not have to pay apple $99/yr for the few features of .Mac that you may like. I recommend using AFP over FTP to access your files. It’s just a better experience overall and allows you to do things like drag and drop files straight from Expression Media (formerly iView Media Pro) archives while your AFP volume is mounted. Check their directions for port numbers to use for AFP.

Piper quotes from John Stott Today, and I believe it is a helpful reminder to everyone seeking to Glorify God in all things–that they be careful not to relish the thought of their own glorification:

From one of the best books on preaching that I know comes this word on the danger of pride in us preachers:

Pride is without doubt the chief occupational hazard of the preacher. It has ruined many, and deprived their ministry of power…. In some it is blatantly obvious. They are exhibitionists by temperament and use the pulpit as a stage on which they show off…. Other preachers are not like Nebuchadnezzars, however, for their pride does not take the form of blatant boastfulness. It is more subtle, more insidious, and even more perverse. For it is possible to adopt an outward demeanor of great meekness, while inside our appetite for applause is insatiable. At the very moment when in the pulpit we are extolling the glories of Christ, we can in reality be seeking our own glory, and when we are exhorting the congregation to praise God, and are even ostensibly leading them in praise, we can be secretly hoping that they will spare a bit of praise for us. We need to cry out with Baxter, “O what a constant companion, what a tyrannical commander, what a sly, subtle and insinuating enemy is this sin of pride!” (John Stott, Between Two Worlds, 320-321)