The Joy of the Refining Fire

You know how when singing those old hymns with a lot of verses, the verses near the end but not the last verse are often skipped? We sang "How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord" on Sunday morning and included the fith verse. For some reason the last phrase about the dross and the gold in verse five jumped out at me.

Verse 5

"When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.

It had been a while since I thought about the ancient process of separating the dross (impurities) from the valuable metal. Here are some references to “dross” from the NIV:

Psalm 119:119 All the wicked of the earth you discard like dross; therefore I love
your statutes.

Proverbs 25:4Remove the dross from the silver, and out comes material for the
silversmith;

Isaiah 1:22Your silver has become dross, your choice wine is diluted with
water.

Isaiah 1:25I will turn my hand against you; I will thoroughly purge away your dross
and remove all your impurities.

Ezekiel 22:18"Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to me; all of them
are the copper, tin, iron and lead left inside a furnace. They are but the
dross of silver.

Ezekiel 22:19Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: 'Because you have all
become dross, I will gather you into Jerusalem.

I was also lead to this portion of the Bible which assures us that we as Christians will suffer trials but through them we’ll be stronger or “refined.”

1 Peter 1:6-8 (New International Version)
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy,

Back from a Long Blogging Hiatus

I am hopefully back from a long blogging hiatus.  Things just got a little crazy for a couple of weeks at work and at home.  I spent a lot of extra mental energy at work for a couple of weeks on a special project.  It was fun and I learned a good bit while I was at it but it suffocated my blogging-related brain cells.  I also spent numerous weekend hours braving the June and July heat in Nashville to scratch a couple of items off my “honey do list.”  These items were however only belatedly off the list as I was reminded “if you’d done it earlier in the year it wouldn’t have been so hot.”  Also during this time I have been trying to take better care of myself and get some much needed exercize on weeknights.  Put those three things together and you have very few discretionary hours left for blogging.  Surely, I am not the only blogger to have this problem?

With Father's Day approaching, I will repeat here a Father's Day prayer I wrote last year and posted on my Caleb's Publishing website. (new as of June 13, 2008 see also Prayer for Fathers Day 2008.)

Father's Day Prayer

by Philip Hartman

Father's Day 2005

God, I thank you on this Father’s Day for all the many blessings you have given me.. Thank You for:

• Your Son Jesus and the sacrifice He made for me,
• my wife and my two daughters,
• for the other family and friends that love and care about me,
• for my good health and the good health of my family,
• for my career and Your provision for my family’s financial
  needs,
• for today’s special moments like catching a butterfly with
  my 8-yr old,
• for the love, care, and good example set by my own father when I
  was growing up.
  

God, I confess that I am not always the best husband and father I should be. I pray for Your forgiveness and grace.

I pray that You will bless me in my role as father. Give me wisdom and patience. Grow me into the father You need me to be for my two daughters. Help me be someone they know will always be there for them.

I pray that You will bless me in my role as husband. Again, I pray for wisdom and patience. Grow me into the man my wife needs me to be. Protect my marriage from evil influences. Grow us together as a couple that will be an example for our daughters and a good Christian witness to those around us.

Help me discern Your will for my life and the life of my family. Where I need to take a stand for You and Your purposes, I pray that You will make Your will obvious and supernaturally enable me to do what You need me to do. Where I need to shut up or back off, I pray that You will
convict me of this and give me peace as I turn it all over to You. Build me up where I am weak. Help me develop the spiritual gifts You have given me for Your service.

I pray that You will bless me in my role as provider. I ask for Your continued blessings on my work life. Help me honor You in all that I do. Help me be a good witness in the workplace. God,
there is much uncertainty in the world right now with many people losing their jobs. Help me trust in Your provision for my family. Where Your provision is where I am already, help me be the best that I can be. When turmoil is coming and a change is needed, I pray that You will
alert me in some way, prepare me for the change, and enable me to make the changes I need to in order to take full advantage of Your provision.

I pray that You will bless my wife in her role as mother of our children. Giver her continued good health, wisdom, energy and patience. Grow her into the mother You need her to be. Give her deep joy from motherhood despite all the hard work.

I pray that you will bless her in her role as my wife. Grow her into the woman You need her to be for me. Strengthen her commitment and resolve to our marriage. Remove all walls that separate us and bring us together intimately in a way that lasts a lifetime.

I pray that you will work mightily in the lives of my two daughters. Use Your Holy Spirit to draw them close to You. Give them a hunger to seek You. I pray that they will grow up happy and healthy. I pray that You will provide friends, teachers, Sunday School teachers, youth group leaders, and coaches who will be good influences on them at the very moment they will be tempted. Protect them from peer pressures to stray away from the path You have planned for them. If it is Your will that they should marry, I pray that at this very moment You are preparing a godly young man for them who will love them and remain committed to them always. I also lift up to You the parents of these young men. Help them raise their sons to be great fathers for my future grandchildren if that is part of Your plan as well.

This I ask in the name of Your Son, Jesus.

Amen.

Copyright © 2005 by Philip Hartman and Caleb's Publishing - All Rights Reserved

Humble Ambition

“I was once considering what the reason was our Lord loved humility in us so much. I suddenly remembered that He is essentially the supreme truth and that humility is just our walking in the truth. For it is a very great truth that we have no good in us; we have only misery and nothingness. He who does not understand this walks in lies. But he who understands this the best is the most pleasing to the Supreme Truth. May God grant us this favor, sisters, never to be without the humbling knowledge of ourselves...

His Majesty seeks and loves courageous souls. But they must be humble in all their ways and have no confidence in themselves ...

...But it is necessary that we should understand what this humility is like. For I believe Satan will try to do great harm. He hinders those who begin to pray from going forward by suggesting to them false notions of humily. He makes them think that it is pride to have spiritual ambitions, desires to imitate the saints, and longings to be like martyrs.”

Saint Teresa of Avila

Love and Joy

“Christ’s love sees us with terrible clarity and sees us whole. Christ’s love so wishes our joy that it is ruthless against everything in us that diminishes our joy. The worst sentence Love can pass is that we behold the suffering which Love has endured for our sake, and that is also our acquittal. The justice and mercy of the judge are ultimately one.”

Frederick Buechner

Nashville Christian Bloggers Conference ?

Like many bloggers I have an interest in writing and maybe writing a book some day. I got an email a while back about the Tennessee Writers Alliance and their Writers' Conference June 9-10. At the last minute, I decided to attend and see if it was helpful in improving my writing. I was enticed by the fact that the workshop leader for non-fiction (my area of interest) was Ray Waddle and he had published two Christian books, Against the Gran: Unconventional Wisdom from Ecclesiastes and A Turbulent Peace: The Psalms for Our Time. So, I felt like I would not be the only person there interested in faith-based writing.

I must say that enjoyed the conference immensely. I got some good suggestions on how to improve my writing. I also got to meet others who take their writing seriously. (I think there were probably 80-100 people at the conference all together.)

And... I got to meet a real published Christian author who patiently answered several questions I had and gave me some suggestions and encouragement to look at trying to publish some magazine articles. We traded emails afterwards and he took a peak at my blog. In his reply he asked an interesting question, "I wonder how many serious (religious) bloggers there are in Nashville - do they ever get together?"

I did a search on blogger.com for both the words "Christian" and "Nashville" and found that there are more of us that I thought. So... I'm curious, are any of you Christian bloggers out there within a reasonable distance of Nashville interested in getting together to talk about blogging for our faith, discuss the impact of blogging on your personal walk with God, stories you may have about contacts you've made thru blogging, any success stories you may have, how you've found you reach people in the best way, whether you're making any $$ from your blog, whether you hope to take on larger writing projects like a book or magazine article, etc. If you're interested in a face-to-face meeting please leave a comment or shoot me an email. Also, please pass the word to other bloggers in the geographical area that you might know.

Copyright © 2006 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved

My Missing Spiritual Discipline

I’ve had some thoughts recently about how Jesus talked about “when you fast...” as if there was a definate expectation that we would fast.

Matthew 6:16-18 (New International Version)

16 "When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 17 But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, 18 so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who
is unseen; and your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

I am sure I am not alone when I admit that I’ve never really fasted on a regular basis for the explicit purpose of getting spiritually closer to God. From the verses above it seems that Jesus expected the practice of fasting to be common.

I could try to blame this lack of spiritual discipline on my parents as we did not practice fasting when I was growing up. I could try to blame this lack of spiritual discipline on the various churches I’ve attended since I moved away from home after college. The pastors didn’t preach on fasting. Nobody around me set this positive example. Try as I might, there is no escaping the fact that I am smart enough to read the verses above and get the meaning.

Then there is that uncomfortable detail that I heard Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ talk about fasting on the radio about 8 or 10 years ago. He was calling on Christians to pray for revival in America and fast for 40 days. I even visited his website back then that gave advice on how to fast safely. He still has a lot of information on fasting available on the web. However, I must admit that while I was curious about whether fasting would really bring me closer to God, I wasn’t committed enough to actually try it. I was chicken! I was afraid I’d fail. I was afraid I’d feel worse trying and failing than if I never tried.

Then about 2-3 years ago, I was reminded about fasting again. My pastor announced in a sermon that he had just completed a 40 day fast while praying for our church and his ministry. There he was right in front of me... an imperfect person that I knew on a first name basis who had actually done it. Once again, I failed to have enough faith to act.

A couple of weeks ago, I was surfing around and stumbled across a web page on fasting. I have since lost track of the URL but I remember the author making a point that we should not enter into fasting to get God to do something for us. We can’t create an obligation for God to remove some burden we feel. We should enter fasting for no other reason than to get closer to God.

Then less than a week ago, I was preparing my Sunday School lesson by reading in the Life Truths Leaders Guide and immediately after my lesson was an extra article “Fast As You Flourish in the Lord” by Ed Cox, Director International Prayer Strategy Office, International Mission Board, SBC. I read how he began skipping lunch on Wednesdays to read his Bible and pray. He felt closer and closer to the Lord and wound up soon fasting all day on Wednesdays. The article ends with a call to participate in a “Day of Prayer and Fasting for World Evangelism” on June 4, 2006. I conveniently did write myself a reminder and I am sad to report it slipped my mind completely and today is June 5th already so I missed it.

Then today, I got an “Prime Time with God” email from churchgrowth.org with the catchy subject line “A New Remnant of Priests.” I thought to myself “What’s that all about?” When I opened the email right there in the upper left corner was a “Recommended Resource” Biblical Studies for Fasting by Dr. Elmer Towns. I found myself clicking on the “Order” button to learn more... but I didn’t turn over my credit card number for the $10.95 book. I’m still chicken and afraid of failure.

God, I pray that if it is no coincidence that my thoughts keep turning to fasting that You will convict me of this and remove all excuses and barriers which prevent me from taking this leap of faith. If this is what I’m supposed to do, then give me a hunger for a closer relationship with You that is stronger than my immediate desire for the next meal or the next visit to the office vending machine. Grant me the proper attitude. Draw me close to You. Grow me into the man You need me to be. Amen.

Copyright © 2006 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved

Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!

When was the last time you sang or heard The Star-Spangled Banner? When was the last time you sang or heard verses 2, 3, or 4 of The Star Spangled Banner? On this Memorial Day, I think all people of faith should be reminded of how Francis Scott Key ended The Star-Spangled Banner with thanks and praise to God for rescuing and preserving our nation.

Verse 4 of The Star-Spangled Banner

O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand

Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;

Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land

Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

For the complete lyrics of all four verses, see http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0194015.html

Copyright © 2006 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved

The Devil's in the Details-Scratch that-Weeds

Let me start by saying I am not really the “fire and brimestone” type. My nature really is to focus on forgiveness and grace and trying to discern God’s will for my life and act upon it. However, I was reading in Matthew 13 tonight and felt my eyes had been opened to Matthew in a fresh way. For some reason, I haven’t read the Parable of the Weeds or heard it preached from the pulpit in a long while.

What really jumped out at me is how it clearly refutes the notion of universal salvation that is so popular in these modern times. Too many people, in my opinion, have selectively read the Bible and concluded that there is no Devil and that God loves us all so much that He would never actually condemn anybody to hell. I will admit I have always preferred to look at salvation from the point of view of loving God so much that I want to spend eternity with Him. After tonight's Bible reading, I felt convicted to remind the readers of my humble blog that there really are dire consequences for not having a saving knowlege of Jesus. Here are the verses which contain Jesus’ own words.

Matthew 13:24-48 (New International Version)

The Parable of the Weeds

24 Jesus told them another parable: "The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. 25 But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. 26 When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

27 "The owner's servants came to him and said, 'Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?'

28 " 'An enemy did this,' he replied.
"The servants asked him, 'Do you want us to go and pull them up?'

29 " 'No,' he answered, 'because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.' "

...... I skip the Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast in verses 31-35.

The Parable of the Weeds Explained

36 Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."

37 He answered, "The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, 39 and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

40 "As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.

Note the sentence “The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil.” Doesn’t the phrase “at the end of the age” sound a lot like a reference to the end of the world as we know it as revealed to us in the Book of Revelations? Is there any ambiguity in Jesus’ use of the phrase “weed out”? What word picture comes to mind with the phrase “fiery furnace”?

I was then reminded of another parable Jesus told, The Rich Man and Lazarus. Once again, the words of Jesus himself.

Luke 16:19-31 (New International Version)

The Rich Man and Lazarus

19 "There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 "The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In hell,^[a] where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'

25 "But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'

27 "He answered, 'Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father's house, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.'

29 "Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.'

30 " 'No, father Abraham,' he said, 'but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.'

31 "He said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.' "

I don’t know about you, but the use of the word “torment” seems pretty clear. It also seems clear from “a great chasm has been fixed” and “nor can anyone cross over from there to us” that once we reach our time of judgement, if we have not already accepted a pardon from Jesus in this life it is then too late.

For those of you who have already accepted Jesus, you may want to check out False Humility and False Love for encouragement to share your faith when the Holy Spirit presents the opportunity to you.

If you stumble upon this post and have not yet accepted Jesus into your life, I pray that the Holy Spirit will work in a mighty way in your life. I pray that you will be open to the Holy Spirit’s leading in your life. I want to tell you that God’s grace is truly free. None of us are “good enough” to earn it. It is simply a gift to all who admit they are sinners, truly repent of their sin, and accept Jesus as Lord of their life. Jesus has already paid your price when He suffered on the cross.

And remember this (my favorite Bible verse)

Romans 10:13 (New International Version)

13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Copyright © 2005 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved

Changing Neighborhoods: The Holy Spirit vs. Demographics ?

My church is facing changing demographics in our neighborhood and declining membership. My church is on the northern side of a major city and up until a few years ago things seemed to be going pretty well, we were growing, and the church was even considering adding on another building.

At some point, the church began losing members. I'm sure we dropped the ball in some areas (shame on us) but we were also fighting an uphill battle against demographic trends beyond our control. Next thing I know, the preacher left for another church and the church began a serious self-examination to address the drop in membership and think about what kind of pulpit leadership our church needed. One step the church took was to hire a statistician from our denomination.

One of the things he did was look at the addresses of our "active" membership and plot them on a map. The results startled me a little. I knew that a lot of people had bought houses north and northeast of the church but I had no idea how pronounced the trend was. He presented some charts similar to the ones below.

On the left is how I theorize the chart would have looked maybe 40 years ago. On the right is a chart roughly representing the current situation. The congregation over the years has moved north and particularly northeast of the church. Only a small percentage live south of the church now.

The statistician went back into the computer databases of addresses looking to see what the geographic spread of addresses was like only 3 years ago and determined that in 3 years there had been a loss of 12% in the members of the congregation living south of the church.

He gave some other comments that really ruined my day. This is not to say I disagree with the data or facts, maybe I just didn't want to hear the message.

• The people moving into the neighborhoods close to and south of the church are from other socio-economic groups (I assume black and hispanic).
• What has likely happend to our community is that the children of our "blue hair" members bought homes north and northeast of us. For a while, they drove back to their home church in the old neighborhood.
  
• Members who live that far away have a hard time convincing their new neighbors to drive back towards the old neighborhood to go to church.
  
• When young adult members' kids get to be school age, their school friends go to a church close by in the new neighborhood .
  
• Eventually, the parents join a church closer to their house so their kids can go to church with their school friends.
  
• The most promising "thinking outside the box" approach for us to take today is to open a "satelitte" church maybe 20 or 30 miles away to the northeast and link the two locations by video. He cautioned us not to build a new location too close. The unstated assumption was that the satellite would eventually grow into the primary location and we would perhaps abandon the current location.

My reaction was something along the lines "Shouldn't we embrace the new residents and reach out to them in Christian love?"

What do the statistics say?

• The socio-economic groups moving into our area don't want to come to church with us. They go back to their old neighborhoods to go to church with people like them. Or.. they build their own churches in their new neighborhoods.
  
• Only 1 church in 20 that tries to reach out to the new socio-economic group moving into their area is successful getting the new socio-economic group to embrace their church.

Upon this news, I must admit I got knots in my stomach. Could it possibly be God's will that we abandon our neighborhood over the next few years? Could it possibly be God's will that we not try very hard to reach out to the new residents who are different from us? Is it true that we are "gifted" by the Holy Spirit to reach the needs of the people who are moving north and northeast and we should follow the demographic group we are gifted to serve? Am I really as open to new people in my church as I think I am? Or.. would God have us take the 1 out of 20 odds on faith? Am I ready and willing to accept the inevitable changes? Am I as ready to welcome other socio-economic groups as I think I am?

I don't profess to know the answer but I guess I still hold out hope we can reach out to the new residents. The pastor search committe took a survey of what characteristics we thought they should look for in our next pastor. I found myself writing that our next pastor should be bilingual. I hope I really meant it.

God, I lift up my church situation to You in prayer. I pray that You will lead us and help us discern Your will for us. If it is Your will that we reach out to the new residents, I pray that You will enable us to serve You in this way. If it is Your will that we follow our traditional constituency, I pray that You will enable this also. Prepare our hearts in either case to serve You and follow Your will. I pray also for our pastor search committe. I pray that You help them discern Your plan for our church and that You would guide them to recommend the person who would align our church with Your will. Lord, search my soul and show me where I need to grow. Help me align myself with Your will no matter where I am. Bless my community, no matter where they came from or where they're going. Draw them all close to You. Amen.

Copyright © 2006 by Philip Hartman - All Rights Reserved