Adopt-Your-Neighborhood (Street)

Many of us are familiar with North Carolina’s “Adopt-A-Highway” program, in which people volunteer to regularly pick up litter on a particular stretch of highway. Basically, these volunteers agree to take ownership of their assigned stretch of highway. Now, what would happen if each of us took ownership of our neighborhoods and/or streets for the sake of the Gospel? As believers, one of the best mission fields that we have is our neighborhoods/streets. God has placed each one of us in a particular place so that we can proclaim his glory to those around us. Few of us take this task as serious as we should; this is to our shame. Therefore, I would like to challenge you to Adopt-Your-Neighborhood (street, if you do not live in a subdivision). In what follows, I offer some practical suggestions on how to take ownership of your neighborhood for the Gospel.1. Pray for your neighbors. Do you consistently pray for the salvation of your neighbors? for opportunities to share Christ with them? for opportunities to serve them?2. Pick up Trash in Your Neighborhood. This is what the Adopt-A-Highway program is all about. Take your family on a walk through your neighborhood and pick up the trash on the side of the road. When you do it on a regular basis, your neighbors will notice your service.3. Get to Know Your Neighbors. Don’t be a recluse. Get out of your house and walk around your neighborhood. Have some neighbors over for dinner or a cookout. Think of practical ways to get to know your neighbors.4. Serve Your Neighbors. If you have neighbors who are working on a project, ask them if they need some help. If you know that your neighbor is sick or injured, think of practical ways that your family can serve that neighbor.5. Bake for Your Neighbors. Holidays are a great opportunity for you to bake for your neighbors. Around Christmas time, bake some Christmas goodies and deliver them to all your neighbors.6. Keep Your Neighborhood Looking Nice. Our neighborhood has a couple of foreclosures and inevitably, the grass around these houses gets pretty tall during the summer months. Why not take about three Saturdays over the summer and just keep the grass in these yards at a manageable level? Sure it requires time and money, but I guarantee you that the neighbors around those houses will want to know why you care enough to mow the grass of a foreclosed house. Another good idea is to trim the hedges around your neighborhood sign (if someone else does not already do this).7. Look for Needs. Simply put, every neighborhood/street is different. As you go about life, keep your eyes open to needs that people may have in your neighborhood. Then, show the extravagant love of Christ and try to meet those needs.8. Share the Gospel with Your Neighbors. This is where our service pays off. If you are a person who has demonstrated the sacrificial love of Christ to your neighbors on a regular basis, they will probably be much more willing to listen to your proclamation of the Gospel. As we adopt our neighborhoods, we are demonstrating the sacrificial love of Christ to those around us. Trust me...they will notice. Most people in our culture are so self-absorbed that they would never take the time to do many of the things I have suggested in this post.In the end, we all have a responsibility to find creative ways to reach our neighbors with the life-changing message of Christ. How much have you done for your neighbors in the last six months? How much have prayed for them? How much have you thought about ways to reach them? Do you really care for your neighbors or are you content to be like most Americans and live in your self-absorbed world? If you were offered a million dollars, I am sure you could come up with an endless list of creative ideas for reaching your neighborhood. It is sad that money motivates us more than the glory of God. May God help us as we seek to adopt our neighborhoods for Christ! Do you have any other ideas? If so, please leave feedback so we can learn from one another.

Security & Short-sightedness

Security is a powerful temptress in life--mainly due to the negative emotions that come when we feel that we are not secure. At times feelings of insecurity can be so intense that they can be totally debilitating. As a result, we often find ourselves working hard to keep a semblance of security in our lives. We work hard to maintain a regular pace and pattern in life, to surround ourselves with ample material possessions, and to isolate ourselves from chaos, all in the hopes that we will go to bed each night and wake up each morning feeling secure. Living life under this frail security blanket may seem comfortable, but it has a deadly side effect.Security of a earthly, temporal nature makes us shortsighted. A perfect example is king Hezekiah in Isaiah 39. Hezekiah had just recovered from a sickness that nearly cost him his life. After recovering, some envoys from Babylon brought Hezekiah a present to celebrate his recovery. King Hezekiah responded by showing the envoys all his royal treasury. After the men from Babylon left, the prophet Isaiah told Hezekiah that his actions were foolish and that in coming generations the nation of Babylon would carry all of Jerusalem's treasure and some of his own sons into exile (Isa. 39:6 - 7).Hezekiah's response is shocking. "Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, 'The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good.' For he though, 'There will be peace and security in my days'" (Isa. 39:8). Hezekiah was so focused on his temporal security that he simply passed over the reality that his nation's wealth and his own sons would be carried off into exile. He was so short sighted in his thinking that he the thought of his own family's exile didn't bother him. His only concern, "There will be peace and security in my days."Sometimes we are so focused on our own earthly security that we miss the larger implications of life. We become short sighted to the point that we fail to see the people around us. You might think, 'I would never neglect my family, present or future, for my own security.' Maybe you wouldn't, but what about the men and women around you who face not the threat of earthly exile, but the reality of eternal judgement. Does the desire to maintain our security blind us to their need for Christ and our responsibility to share the gospel with them? The simple reality is that our desire for security--a safe, comfortable life--often keeps us from going overseas, across our nation, even across our own street to share the life giving message of Christ. The story of Hezekiah is a vivid portrayal of what a life looks like when it is dominated by the desire for temporal security. I pray that our life will be grounded in the security of knowing Christ. When it is, we will have incomparable peace, and a passion and boldness to take the gospel to the nations.

Are you living in the Spirit?

The Spirit of God is one of the more intangible things about Christianity--we cannot see or touch him, we cannot confine him in a manageable box, and we have never experienced anything else like him. Even though we may struggle to understand the Holy Spirit, we desperately long for his presence and ministry in our life. The New Testament is full of promises that help us realize how great a gift the Holy Spirit is.Every time I read one of those promises I stop to ask myself, 'am I living in the Spirit'? 'In the Spirit,' however, can be a vague phrase. People often make living in the Spirit some mystical, esoteric endeavor; similar to walking through the grocery store blindfolded and attempting to pick out the right ingredients for a complicated recipe while guided by a mysterious force.  What we really need is a simple way to measure how much or how little of our life is spent walking in the Spirit of God. And to do that that we need to know what the Spirit accomplishes in someone's life.While there are several things that God's Spirit does, one of the predominant tasks he accomplishes is sanctification. Sanctification is the process of being conformed to Christ. If an individual is living in the Spirit, he or she will bear the marks of Chrsit-likeness. That is the point Paul makes in Galatians 5:16 - 24. The fruit of the Spirit is nothing more than the result of the Holy Spirit's work in a life, a work that leads us in a sanctified,  holy life. If we want to know whether or not we are living in the Spirit, we only need to ask, 'how holy is my life?' That's the point J.C. Ryle makes in his book Holiness. He writes, "We may depend on it as a positive certainty that where there is no holy living, there is no Holy Ghost" (22).Think about that. If I am not living a holy life, then I am not living a Spirit guided life. What we need is to desire holiness, Christ-likeness, and peruse it with the means God has given us--prayer, Scripture, private and corporate worship, and Christian fellowship. Then and only then will we find ourselves living in the Spirit and experiencing the great comfort and promises of a Spirit filled life.

Living the Gospel at the Beach and Pool (Part 6): Women and Lust & Men and Modesty

Well, here we are…the last post in our series “Living the Gospel at the Beach and Pool.” My purpose in this last post is to tackle two matters that are rarely addressed: 1) women & lust and 2) men & modesty. Basically, these issues are reversals of the two major topics that we have been examining thus far in this series (women and modesty & men and lust).Women and LustFor some reason, the topic of women and lust is rarely discussed in Christian circles. This is somewhat understandable when one considers how big of an issue lust is for almost all men. Yet, in our culture this is not a topic that can be ignored, especially when one considers the statistics regarding women and internet pornography (for example, 1 out of every 3 visitors to pornographic websites is a woman; for more statistics, see here). For many women, the temptation to lust is real, and like Christian men, believing women have a responsibility to guard their hearts and minds from such temptation. Since lust is definitely not a gray issue, the points I made in the previous two posts regarding men and lust can easily be applied to women. So, if you are a lady who struggles with lust, please refer to those previous posts. Only a deep love for Christ and a desire to please him in all things can help you overcome the powerful temptations that face you at the beach/pool.Men and ModestyIf the matter of women and lust is often ignored, then the issue of men and modesty has been buried underground. It is somewhat assumed that if a man has swimming shorts of a descent length, then he is dressing modestly. Thankfully, I have never met a man who thinks wearing Speedos is permissible and I hope I never do. Not only are Speedos immodest, they are just plain NASTY! Now that we all have horrible images in our head, let’s move on. In what follows, I will tackle an important question that few men consider: Should men wear t-shirts when at the beach/pool? In short, my answer to this question is that there are some men who should wear t-shirts whenever they are at a beach or public pool. Since this is a gray area, I will offer to questions every man should ask himself in seeking two answer this question: 1) Am I being a stumbling block? and 2) Is taking off my shirt fuel for my arrogance?Let’s face it, not every man has the physique of Vin Diesel. For some men, there is no chance of a woman lusting after them when they step out from the snack bar at the pool. However, there are some men whom the Lord has blessed with (and who have worked hard to get) an athletic build. In regard to such men, I think it is completely appropriate to raise the same questions I raised in my two posts on women and modesty. Some Christian men make light of the fact that they could be causing their sisters in Christ to stumble by not putting on a t-shirt in public. If you are such a man, I would simply remind you of what Paul said in Romans 14:21:“It is good neither to eat meat nor drink wine nor do anything by which your brother stumbles or is offended or is made weak.”Men, we have no right to point fingers at our sisters in Christ without applying the same standards to ourselves. Simply because it is culturally acceptable does not mean that it is acceptable in the eyes of our Lord. If you have an athletic build, you must be sensitive to your role as a stumbling block in a sister’s walk with Christ. I know a Christian man who will not go to the beach/pool without a t-shirt (sleeveless). Whenever he is asked to give a reason for his actions, he always tells the same story. He was at the beach one year and noticed two teenage girls staring him down (he has somewhat of an athletic build). Later in the week, he met these girls’ parents and discovered that they were believers (as well as the two teenage girls). He was immediately convicted of causing his younger sisters in Christ to stumble and began wearing t-shirts whenever he was in public. Now, were the girls wrong for lusting after him? Yes. But if we take Paul’s words in Romans 14 seriously, then he did not love them well. So, here’s the question for every man: What is the potential of a woman lusting after me if I do not wear a t-shirt in public? Remember…it is always better to take the high road with gray issues!The second reason I believe some men should wear t-shirts at the beach/pool is related to the sin of arrogance. If there is a sin among men which can rival lust, it has to be the sin of pride/arrogance. I know so many men (including myself) who, in one way or another, struggle with pride. For men who are “rip,” one of the key areas where arrogance flares up is when they take off their shirt in public. Many of you know exactly what I am talking about…as soon as your shirt comes off, you suck in your belly, stick out your chest, and your head swells up. You are the man! But wait, what does the Scripture say about pride? Consider the words of 1 Peter 5:5:“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”If you are anything like me, you need all the grace that you can get. You definitely do not want to be opposed by the one who can strike your sculpted body down at whatever moment he so chooses. So, if taking off your shirt at the beach/pool gives Satan a foothold, I would suggest leaving it on at all times. Remember the words of Christ:“If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.” (Matthew 5:29–30)The battle against indwelling sin often demands radical steps, but such radical steps are well worth it when we consider the unspeakable joy of knowing and loving Christ. Few sins can hinder such unspeakable joy like the sin of pride. Check yourself, men. Is your physique an idol that expresses itself in pride at the beach/pool? Don’t ignore your arrogance and use “being in shape” as an excuse to add fuel to the fire.I hope this discussion has caused you to think differently about the issue of men and modesty, especially if you are a man who struggles with pride or who is in good shape. For the sake of the Gospel, let us be men who take such issues seriously.Thank you for taking the time to read through this series of blog posts. I pray that your next trip to the beach will be Christ-centered and Christ honoring. If anything I have said contributes to that, then to God be the glory. Till next time….