Time to Clear the Log Jam

It is always easier to point at the speck in another person’s eye than dealing with the log in your own, "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's/sister’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's/sister’s eye” Matthew 7:1-5 (NIV, italics mine).

While fighting for “liberty and justice for all” (a noble and right cause) we don’t get to address one wrong only to justify another. We don’t get to stand up against vilifying one group of people only to turn around and to vilify another group. We don’t get to preach love for one another and turn around and okay hating police officers. Specks give us fuzzy vision, but logs render us blind. Jesus tells us to remember that we don’t get to fight injustice and be unjust ourselves, we don’t get to fight abuse of power by abusing power, we don’t get require of others what we do not require of ourselves, we don’t get to fight for equality under the law while being lawless ourselves, we don’t get hold others responsible while being irresponsible ourselves, we don’t get to blame others and not deal with our own logs.

The log-eyed have it right now, on the political right and left, on the liberal and conservative end. You can’t say that black lives matter, or that we need to treat immigrants like Jesus would, without an immediate backlash, being denounced, dismissed as liberal, and even being hated. You can’t stand up for policemen/women and law enforcement officers, the vast majority doing a very difficult job with integrity, without an immediate backlash, being accused of just not getting it, dismissed as being uniformed, and even being hated. You can’t stand up for Colin Kaepernick and his right to kneel without being accused of being unpatriotic, and you can’t stand up for Biblical/traditional marriage without being denounced as homophobic or a hater. The sad reality of this is that the very thing both sides passionately clamor for, liberty and justice, is being lost.

I believe Jesus is weeping as He is looking down like He did over the Jerusalem of his day (Luke 19:41). They were coming to John the Baptist in droves, hungry for national change, hoping God was going to something big (Luke 3:1-14). John tore into them, their hypocrisy of wanting change without changing themselves, for trying to act pious while abusing power. He told them God would cut down the logs (them) and hold them responsible.

“What do we need to do?” they wanted to know.

“Take personal responsibility and use your extra not to hoard but to help, be part of creating equity! To improve people’s lives," he told them. “Don’t abuse your public office and the power it gives you to twist the rules and exploit it for personal gain,” he fired back at the tax collectors. “Don’t abuse your badge, don’t abuse the power that comes with your uniform, don’t pervert justice,” he spelled it out for the soldiers (the police in their day).

He was confronting them all because just like today, log-eyedness was ruling the day, creating the narratives, fostering endless finger-pointing, justifying lawlessness, flaunting hypocritical piety (both religious and political), excusing personal responsibility, and twisting or ignoring what is right before God. So, what about them logs, that blind our eyes, darken our minds, justify our wrongs, shape our actions?

A great place to start dealing with them is Jesus’ longest recorded sermon, called the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5-7 (Its shorter parallel is found in Luke 6:20-49). I think it tells us a lot about what God dreams of regarding our personal lives, culture, and society. In the end, Jesus makes it plain that merely hearing/reading and trying to understand, though necessary, are is not enough. We must catch the vision of it, the hope of it, the necessity of it, the rightness of it, and then radically live it.

To God be all glory.

Love you, Pastor Hans

Justice Matters - Black Lives Matter

Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the LORD understand it fully. Proverbs 28:5 (NIV)

Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart. To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice. Proverbs 21:2-3 (ESV)

Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands far away; for truth has stumbled in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. The LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no justice. Isaiah 59:14-15 (ESV)

Every one of us, regardless of the color of our skin, should be weeping, should be outraged, and should be calling for justice. We all should be demanding change, rushing to be part of the solution, and stand alongside our black brothers and sisters as we bitterly mourn Ahmaud Arbery, whose violent death barely caused a ripple until the sick recording of the lynching in broad daylight was finally released - and the death of George Floyd, who died pleading for his life while a policeman’s knee slowly choked the life out of him. We should be brokenhearted as we witness violence birthing more violence, injustice breading more injustice, and stones are being thrown at each other instead of working together to build a nation “with liberty and justice for all.”

Each of these deaths is outrageous by themselves, but sadly, they are just the most recent and most public in a long history of racism, injustice, and police brutality. Neither Ahmaud Arbery nor George Floyd should have died, they should be alive and well today. We need to decide when enough is enough.It should not be difficult to stand beside our fellow Americans and shout with them, “Black lives matter!” in light of the long reality of injustice this cry represents. Immediately countering with, “All lives matter,” or “Blue lives matter,” is tantamount to telling them, “Just shut up.” Of course, all lives matter, blue lives matter, but the very nature of injustice is that some lives matter more than others.

Injustice is always an abuse of power. One of the greatest statements about ancient king David, a man after God’s own heart, is “So David reigned over all Israel. And David administered justice and equity to all his people” 2 Samuel 8:15 (ESV, emphasis mine). Since we are privileged to live in a country led by a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” (Abraham Lincoln), we, every citizen, are responsible to hold our governmental institutions and powers accountable to use those powers entrusted to them in just and equitable ways. That’s not a knock on our police officers and all those who work in our justice system, but rather it validates the importance of a police force and justice system that does not tolerate injustice, inhumanity, and abuse of power.

It’s so easy to talk about these complex issues, but it is quite another to engage myself in ways that help, that are part of the solution, that bring about change and empower equal justice for all. As multifaceted and overwhelming as all of this is, we dare not flee into disengagement or mere talk. Even without having all the solutions:

• I need to recognize that justice is also a spiritual issue. Just by reading the Scriptures above, I know I can only fully understand justice in seeking God through Christ, and that God expects me to personally practice and engage with justice regarding others.

• I need to thoroughly study my Bible (God’s written word) so I can understand justice and what it demands of me as a follower of Jesus.

• I need to put my listening ears on and go to my black brothers and sisters and hear their side, their story, their hurt, their rage, their sorrow, their solutions.

• I need to be a voice for justice and equity with my friends, around my dinner table, and in the sandbox with my grandchildren.

• I need to speak up whenever and wherever ignorance, bigotry, cruelty, evil, and injustice rear their ugly heads, regardless of who I am with, and regardless of the cost.

• I need to pray for God to show me my blind spots, to see justice through His eyes, for courage, for change, for those in power, for our law enforcement officers in my own community and counties.

• I need to use the avenues available to me as an ordinary citizen to influence our government officials and institutions.

May God have mercy on us and help us. 
Love you, Pastor Hans

Extraordinary Kindness, part 2 - It's not theoretical, It needs no excuses

But—When God our Savior revealed his kindness and love, he saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through the Holy Spirit. Titus 3:4-5 (NLT2)

Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. Luke 6:35 (NLT2)

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:31-32 (ESV)

No one had to teach her, my incredibly sweet and cute granddaughter (my favorite) to whack her brothers, bite them, snatch their stuff, ruin their creations, and pay them back for any misdeeds of their own. She knew how to dish out unkindness and withhold good instinctively, as, by the way, you and I do as well. Having to be told to be kind, to do good means that that unkindness, not doing good comes all too natural for us.

My little ladybug of a granddaughter knows how to be kind and unkind though she doesn’t even know the words, she just knows the actions and reactions and most often dishes them out according to what serves her best and how she feels at the moment. She knows how to give both kind and unkind looks. She knows how to use her tiny vocabulary in kind in unkind ways, her hands and feet sure know how to do both, and she knows different impacts kindness and unkindness, doing good and withholding good have, which, by the way, you and I do as well.

It is amazing to me how immature and undisciplined grown adults, myself included, can be when it comes to being kind and doing good. It is even more amazing to me that Christians, who have crystal clear instruction, who know the will of God when it comes to being kind and doing good, act like two-year-olds. Your eyes, are they kind, look at people and things with kindness? Or, are they skilled at throwing daggers, burn with anger, look down on, and look away to ignore and hurt? If looks could kill.

Your ears, are they good at detecting when and where kindness is needed? Or, are they deaf to the frequencies of kindness, only open to what they want to hear, often rejoicing in the sounds of misery and pain of others. They had it coming.Your mouth, is it fluent in the language of kindness, the healing, peacemaking, encouraging, and blessing power of words? Or, is it a double-edged sword that continually honed by anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, frustration, evil, and the grind of our world? It’s just words, I didn’t mean anything by it.

Your hands, are they good at giving, helping, reaching out, tenderness, involvement? Do they have the callouses of doing good? Or, are they good at taking, hoarding, stiff-arming, finger-pointing, handling remote controls, the grime of selfishness and manipulation thick under your fingernails? No one told me. I‘ve been so busy, can’t you see.

Your feet, are they good at stopping at the intersections of life calling for kindness and goodness? Do they love to run into the direction of kindness and where doing good is needed? Or, do they balk at the one-way street of kindness, when there is no immediate payoff, when the cost is high, when kindness doesn’t fit your schedule or mood or sense of justice and fairness? It’s a two-way street, you know. Your wallet, does it have kindness in it, dream of it, and remind you to do good every time you take it out? Or, is it fluent in toddler, “MINE,” constantly dreaming of what to get next, of something fun, of having more than enough, or just plain more? One day. I’m barely making it as it is.

Would you read the scriptures at the beginning of the pastor’s note again? They both command and instruct us to be kind, to do good. They do not furnish any excuses for being unkind and not doing good. I need to remember that next time I am tempted to be unkind and try to excuse it. They tell us that God/Jesus did not determine his kindness, his goodness, his mercy, and his forgiveness by our worthiness, our gratefulness, our responses or reciprocity.

One more thing, as a follower of Jesus, a Christian, I have no excuse to be unkind. I have known how to be kind going way back to when I was just wee little and still cute, I know how to be kind because throughout my life I have been at the receiving end of kindness, and foremost, God has poured the full measure of his kindness and goodness into my life through Jesus Christ from the moment he saved, wicked, undeserving, ungrateful, stuck-on-self Hans.

Be extraordinarily kind.
Pastor Hans   

Extraordinary Kindness

Generous, stingy, educated, ignorant, selfless, selfish, honest, liar, saint, sinner, gentle, violent, trustworthy, corrupt, hard-working, lazy, hot-tempered, calm, humble, arrogant, forgiving, bitter, fit, out of shape, interesting, boring, funny, grumpy, patient, impatient, blessing, jerk, straight-forward, two-faced, wise, foolish, handy, clumsy…

We are all known for something. When others think of you and me, they never do so without adjectives or descriptive nouns that identify something about us, our character, habits, appearance, our social status, ethnicity, roles, …I am a Christian, man, husband, Dad, Opa (grandpa), brother, uncle, neighbor, German, American, immigrant, citizen, pastor, neighbor, whipped cream lover, educated, white, bald, fairly fit, odd, multi-lingual, now 60-year-old, who tells lots of people that they are my favorites.

The way you think of me and would describe me depends on your experience with me, how well you know me, whether or not you like me… Some things about me I cannot change, some I should (so I am told, but I am also stubborn), some I want to, and some I have. I cannot not be a German, white, Dad, Opa, uncle, neighbor… What I do have to decide what kind of German, American, husband, Dad, Opa, white, man, and neighbor I am going to be. I do have to choose what I will be known for, what adjectives and descriptive nouns my name will conjure up in people’s minds and conversations.

In Acts 28 Luke, who is among the shipwrecked crawling up a beach on the island of Malta, whose inhabitants met them with “extraordinary kindness” (v.2), received them, made fires for them, and helped them. What a great thing to be known for! Extraordinary, uncommon, kindness. Contrast that with the Cretans who were described by one of their own as, “liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons” (Titus 1:12). Everyone is capable of kindness, even extraordinary kindness. These Maltese were not Christians, but they were super kind. This did not mean they had no need for Christ and the forgiveness and eternal life that is only found in Him, but it did mean they made a real, tangible difference in the lives of the battered survivors littered on their beach.

In pouring rain, they poured out extraordinary kindness to such as extent that Luke attached it to them whenever and wherever he mentioned them, and that God thought it important enough to permanently record it in the Bible (God’s written word). It is a great honor when people use the words extraordinary kindness to describe you, it is quite another when God recognizes you as such. Everybody is capable of kindness, even extraordinary kindness, but for a Christian, it is never optional. Kindness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22) and without it a believer is unstable and keeps tripping up (2 Peter 1:5-11). Two more thoughts:

• How much unkindness does it take before people will stop calling you kind? In my experience, not a whole lot.

• Imagine with me the difference kindness makes, especially when we commit ourselves to practice it continually, rain or shine, regardless who washes up on the beach of our lives, beginning with those closest to us.

You can be extraordinary kind today and every day. 

To God be all glory.
Love you, Pastor Hans 

Getting It Right

It is so easy to be wrong. Sometimes being wrong is not a big deal, like not listening to your wife and cooking a batch of chocolate chip cookies at 450 instead of 350 degrees. Sometimes being wrong has huge implications, like Chamberlain trusting Hitler and declaring, “Peace for our time,” or persistently denying or ignoring the existence of God, only to find yourself standing before the judgment seat of God.

Can you imagine being in our president’s or our governor’s shoes at this time? I am fairly certain that you wouldn’t want to get your handling of the COVID-19 crisis wrong. So much on the line for millions of people, for your political party, for your own political career. You would need input and advice from wise counsel in regard to public health issues, economic concerns, budget implications, public sentiment, political considerations, and so much more. Then you would have to weigh all this information and make timely decisions that the power of your office allows you to make. All the while, you would have no shortage of critics screaming that you are getting it all wrong.

I have not been entrusted with an ounce of authority regarding civil government and the public decisions that have to be made. But, I have been entrusted with authority to lead an assembly of believers known as the Lake Don Pedro Baptist Church according to the will of Christ (the head of the church) and the leading of the Holy Spirit according to the Scriptures (the Bible). How do we as Christians not get it wrong? How long do we suspend the assembling/being-together-life integral to our faith and being a church? How much submission to the authority of the state is appropriate for a church? At what point are we justified in rejecting governmental authority and take a stance of civil disobedience?

The opinions, voices, and criticisms within the church are as divided as they are in the general public. “The state has no authority regarding the church!” “No, we have to apply Romans 13:1-10 and 1 Peter 2:13-17!” “God will protect us and heal us!” “Our highest priority is to love our neighbor!” Allow me to tackle a few of these and the process give you some insight into what has been guiding me.

• Our highest, supreme, royal laws are to love God and to love our neighbor (Mark 12:28-34). Knowing this we are forced to live in continual dependence on the Holy Spirit and his Word (the Bible) to help us figure out how to practice both of these commandments and the tensions they can create. Loving my neighbor does not mean I stay silent about his/her racism etc., but it also means I will not endanger his or her health. At this point, we do know that close contact large group gatherings are particularly problematic in spreading COVID. In that sense it matters little what Walmart or Lowe’s is permitted to do by the state, it matters what scripture’s core laws compel us to.

• The Head of the Church is Christ (Colossians 1:13-20) not the state and any of its representatives (In fact, even the state is under the authority of Christ). This, however, does not mean the church can or should ignore all state authority, for instance, we should adhere to building codes, fire codes. However, regardless of any actions and orders of the state, the church is the custodian of the both the Gospel and the Faith (A Christian worldview) that permeates all aspects of life, and the church’s allegiance to and practice of these is uniquely subject to Christ alone. I have led our church to comply with the official orders not out of a recognition of the state’s authority over us but out of the freedom we have in Christ to do so.

• The church has from its beginning lived in tension and often open conflict with public and state authority (You do not have to look any further than Jesus). Christians throughout history have lived in and had to sort through that tension and conflict in order to have clear conscience with both God and man, often at a very high price. In this navigation we do well to remember to make every effort to be at peace with all men (Romans 12:18).

• Does God protect and heal? The answer is unequivocally, “YES!” Is God obligated to protect and heal even when we practice foolishness, ignore sound knowledge, and trample on established wisdom because we claim faith? The answer is unequivocally, “NO!” Faith never excuses foolishness, in fact, foolish faith is a stumbling block to reach the lost.

Since I am way past of this being a short pastor’s note, let me add a few things that irritate me.

• Christians navigating, opinionizing, speaking out based on their political persuasion and overdosing on news outlets and pundits rather than reading the Bible extensively, daily, with a willingness to apply it, even if it completely contradicts our politics and opinions.

• Christian pontificating that is devoid of actions, not reaching out, not sharing the Gospel, not helping in some shape or form.

• Christians without Kingdom of God vision, acting like this is all there is, afraid of all the things unbelievers are fearful of, content as long as they are okay and have it their way.

• Little, if any, acknowledgment of the value and work of the church by our governmental leaders, acting as if they have to invent what the church has done since it’s inception, loving, helping, taking care of people.

Finally, since this is no way of ending this pastor’s note:

• I thank God for all those in our government who are working incredibly hard to get it right, may God give them favor, insight, foresight, and some rest.

• I thank God for the encouragement of brothers and sisters who have reached out to Susie and me, who are daily looking to be used by God, who are searching the Scriptures in order to direct their own minds and lives, and who are praying with me for the church to get this right.

 To God be all glory. Love and miss you, Pastor Hans  

Waiting – Don’t Waste It, Part 3, Waiting and Working

“Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know and will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” Matthew 24:42-51 (ESV).

Waiting, watching, working – did notice these three in the scripture above? All three are part of the Christian life. We are waiting for many things. Toping the list is the return of Christ, but we also wait for redemption, for restoration, for deliverance not just for own self but for all of creation (Romans 8:18-25). We wait for prayers to be answered, for directions, for the mortal to be swallowed up by immortality (1 Corinthians 15:50-58), for fully applied justice (Revelation 6:9-11), and so much more.

The major challenge in our waiting is to be continually watchful, staying awake, being alert. The longer the wait the easier it becomes to relax on our assigned responsibilities, to get sidetracked by our own interests, to fall into a short-sighted way of doing life, to lose both a Jesus and God’s kingdom focus.The disciples wanted a timeline, a date around which to manage their lives. They wanted to know, “How long?” Jesus told them that they need to focus on a different question, “How well?”

The length of the wait is not near as important as what we do and who we are while we wait. Jesus stressed faithfulness, wisdom, and the blessing of doing what God assigns to us, not just occasionally or when we feel like it, but day after day, no matter how long the master has us waiting. Christian waiting should always be marked by faithfulness, wisdom, a dogged day by day perseverance, and a heart and mindset which finds its greatest joy in doing what God wants us to be doing (see Matthew 25:14-46). It is hard not to notice how politically incorrect Jesus’ answer is, “Master, “servant/slave,” “cut him in pieces,” (that last one will really fly in children’s Sunday School).

Whatever our sentiment, you can’t miss how serious Jesus wanted his disciples to take this. They wanted to know how long before they got to lay their hands on glory, reward, and liberation, Jesus told them to daily focus on God’s will, God’s assignments (no matter how tedious, taxing, and thankless), and the blessing of carrying them out faithfully. Jesus called doing anything else and doing anything less “hypocrisy.” You can’t read a passage like the one at the beginning of this pastor’s note and not ask yourself some serious questions and after answering them you might have to make serious adjustments.

So, take some time right now, reread the scripture above, write down the questions, then write your answers, and finish with writing down the concrete changes you have to make for you to be that, “Blessed … servant whom his/her master will find so doing when he comes.” 

To God be all glory. Love you and miss you, Pastor Hans 

(What concrete responsibilities has God assigned to me? How faithful am I with those responsibilities? How seriously do I take them? How excellent do I carry them out? What gives me the most joy? When do I feel most blessed? What do my answers to the last two questions reveal about me? My focus on Christ and his kingdom? Have I relaxed? Become sleepy/ Derelict with my God-assignments? How do I get back on track? What practical changes do I need to make? …)   

Watching While Waiting (Waiting - Don't Waste It, part 2)

“So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking him, ‘Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?’ He replied, ‘The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times, and they are not for you to know. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see him. As they strained to see him rising into heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. ‘Men of Galilee,’ they said, ‘why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven, but someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go!’” Acts 1:6-11 (NLT2)

For almost 2000 years Christians have been waiting for Christ to return, that’s a very long wait, that’s 80 generations (if you count 25 years as a generation) waiting their entire lives. I would call that serious waiting. There they were gawking into the empty sky Jesus just disappeared into when two angels told them to snap back to a life of waiting, watching, and working. Maybe we need some snapping back ourselves?

It is easy to get sidetracked, bored, and passive while waiting. Jesus had warned his disciples about becoming lax and irresponsible while waiting (Matthew 24:42-25:46, Mark 13:33-37), “Stay alert!”Staying alert is one of the big challenges in waiting, it so easy to slip into Netflix filled waiting, simply passing the time waiting, whatever I want to do kind of waiting, and before you know it you’re just staring into space – spacing out.So, how do we stay alert in both waiting for Jesus’ return and the waiting in everyday life? Here are there things to learn to practice: 

1. Waiting with your ears open (Acts 8:26-31)

• To the Holy Spirit – He has where you are in time, location, and situation for a reason.

  1. Listening to obey (James 1:2-7). Listening to the Holy Spirit is about wanting to do God’s will, not about evaluating options.

  2. To what you hear around you – Learn to listen for clues of God being at work in people, hearing people’s questions, confusion, searching.

1. Waiting with your eyes open (Acts 17:16-17)

• To spiritual reality – There is a spiritual dimension, a bigger picture to all of life.

  1. Noticing what is right in front of you.

  2. Seeing opportunities to advance God’s kingdom.

1. Waiting with our life open (John 4:3-10)

• When you are tired, exhausted, busy.

  1. When you encounter different people and situations.

  2. When you are alone or with your group.

Maybe God is trying to open up your ears, your eyes, your life in the midst of all the current waiting. What does God want you to hear, to see, to be open to?

To God be all glory.
Love you, Pastor Hans   

Waiting - Don't Waste It

I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. Psalm 27:13-14 (NIV)

How good are you at waiting? Yes, you, and I can see you ducking. Our entire culture is not good at waiting, we don’t see it as a virtue but as a failure of someone or something, as something interrupting our happiness. It has to happen now, quickly, and hopefully, sooner than later. Have you noticed? The COVID-19 crisis did not care one bit about making us wait, putting our plans on hold, for who knows how long. By now we can’t wait for things to get back to some kind of normal. So again, how good are you at waiting? Since you are, for some reason, refusing to answer, take the following test. Mark all the ones you would have a hard time with:

• Waiting for 2000 years. Christians have now been waiting for almost 2000 years for Jesus to return and who knows how much longer it will be (2 Peter 3:3-10).

• Waiting for 400 years. God told Abraham that his descendants would have to wait for hundreds of years to be delivered from the tyranny of Egypt (Genesis 15:13).

• Waiting for 70 years. The rebellious remnant exiled to Babylon was told they had to wait for seventy years before any of them could return. (Jeremiah 29:10)

• Waiting for 7 weeks. After Jesus’ ascension, the disciples had to wait seven weeks for the promised Holy Spirit (Luke 24:49, Acts 1:8)

• Waiting for 1 week. Saul, because he saw his troops defecting, couldn’t wait for more than a week for the prophet Samuel to arrive (1 Samuel 13:8-11).

• Waiting for 1 day. Naomi told her daughter-in-law Ruth to relax, be patient, and wait a day for Boaz to take care of things.

• Waiting for 1 hour. The disciples were emotionally and physically tuckered out they couldn’t wait for an hour when Jesus asked them to sit and wait until He had prayed (Matthew 26:36-41)

Our chief problem with waiting is that we run out of time even if we beat the life-expectancy statistics. But we don’t just run out of time in general, we don’t get to be kids forever, opportunities pass, the chance to have children diminishes, the time to adequately store up for retirement vanishes, you can’t realize your dreams by waiting forever, ...God on the other hand never runs out of time, He is the Eternal One, the Inventor and Creator of time and space.

Have you ever considered what it must have been like for Jesus, the eternal Son of God, in his incarnation, to restrict himself to time, to waiting, to running out of time?Some of Satan’s major temptations thrown at Jesus were regarding waiting and time (Luke 4:1-8). “You’re hungry! So, why wait? Just turn these stones into bread?” “You’re supposed to be king of everything! Why waste time waiting for God’s long-winded plan filled with suffering? You can be king now; all you have to do is worship me.” When it comes to waiting Satan assumes at least four things:

1. We are not good at waiting. There is not a single baby who is good at waiting, “Feed me, change me, hold me, adore me – NOW!” Our needs scream out, our wants demand satisfaction, our dreams whisper to us, “You don’t have forever,” none of them encourage us to wait.

2. Our sinfulness hates waiting, self-denial, submission to God’s will and ways. “Waiting to have sex until you are married – get real!” “Staying out of debt and waiting to buy things until you can pay for things? – What about your credit score? Dummy!”

3. Waiting becomes more difficult the longer we have to wait. Have you experienced rising anxiety as you waited patiently in an airport check-in lane, realizing that at this pace you will miss your flight? Consciously or subconsciously we are aware of and afraid of missing out, that opportunities are not endless because life isn’t.

4. We make serious mistakes when we operate out of impatience, impulsiveness, and give in to FOMO (fear of missing out).

As busy as Satan might be in our waiting, God is even more so. He is the one who is in charge of time, so, if God has us waiting, we can safely assume that we we’re not wasting time or opportunity. God is not inactive when he has us waiting, He is actually growing us, developing us, shaping us – Jesus thought so.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans 
P.S. For more waiting click here to watch the 04/26/20 sermon - www.LDPBaptistChurch.com       

Changed Plans - Changing Plans

Susie and I were supposed to have gone camping this past week, but like everyone else living in these COVID-19 days, we had a change of plans. Of course, having to change plans is nothing new, but to have so many people’s plans change all at the same time is new to most of us. Career plans, business plans, wedding plans, retirement plans, educational plans, vacation plans, graduations plans, financial plans, … all of them affected and in serious upheaval.

How good are you when it comes to having to change your plans, adapting to new realities? Flexible and positive, grumpy and complaining? A having-to-change-your-plans kind of crisis certainly does reveal who we are and what we are made of. Few of us like to be forced into changing plans, the only time we really like changing plans is when it is our own idea, when we’re the ones cooking up the changes.

50 days after Easter, on Pentecost, the Bible tells us about two groups, the followers of Jesus and the Jewish leaders. The disciples of Jesus were changed by the fact of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on them. The Jewish leaders thought they had brought everything back under control, everything running according to their plans, until, those Holy Spirit-filled believers started preaching.

“’The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and glorious day of the LORD arrives. But everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.’ People of Israel, listen! God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know. But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him. But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip'” Acts 2:20-24 (NLT2), Peter declared.

Did you notice the clash of plans? God’s plan or the Jesus plan and the Jewish leaders’ plan?God’s plan – a long-range, eternal, good for all plan

• To save people from judgment

• To offer Jesus’ life for our sins

• To defeat the grip of death (death for is the ultimate plan changer)

The Jewish leaders’ plan – a short-sighted, evil, what’s-good-for me plan

• To have no change

• To get back to and maintain the old

• To kill the plan of God

The question becomes, which side of God’s plan will you be on? Will you oppose it, or will you accept the changes needed to accept it? Will you brush the center of God’s plan, Jesus Christ, to the side, or will you organize everything in your life around Him?

God is neither silent nor inactive in our current crisis, He has put us in the vise of change not just try to get out and back, but to examine our plans and make both temporary and life-long changes that put Jesus, God’s plans, God’s purposes and will in the very center. We are collectively yearning to get back to “normal,” and we pray it will be sooner than later, but I can’t help but think that God would love for us to emerge from this chaos changed for the better.

Listen to what God delivered to the exiled to Babylon Jews in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, “This is what the LORD says: ‘You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again.  For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the LORD. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.  In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. I will be found by you,’ says the LORD. ‘I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land’” Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NLT2).

God did not just want them to return and get back to the same-old same-old, He wanted them to came back better, changed, completely in tune with Him. May this be true of us.

To God be all glory.
Love you, Pastor Hans   

The Resurrected Resurrector

"Talitha koum!" ("Little girl, I say to you, get up!" – Mark 5:41), Jesus said to the twelve-year-old dead girl, before giving her back to her Mom and Dad alive and well. They had laughed at him before going into her room because he said, “She is merely sleeping,” but they knew she was dead.

"Young man, I say to you, get up!" (Luke 7:14), Jesus said to the widow’s dead son as those who were carrying out to bury him watched him sit up and start talking. Fear and praising God was the funeral procession’s reaction.

"Lazarus, come out!" (John 11:43), Jesus shouted towards Lazarus’ opened tomb before the crowd saw man buried four days ago walk out dressed in burial wrappings. “But by now it will stink,” his sister warned before they rolled away the entrance stone.

Resurrection, hard to wrap your mind around it. It is not difficult to understand those who laugh at the notion because seen too many little caskets occupied by dead little boys and girls. Resurrection, easy to dismiss it as mere religious talk, sentimentalism, and cheap comfort because we have not seen the one riding in the back of the hearse join the wake, turning it from a mourning fellowship into a praising God party.Resurrection, rings unscientific, flies in the face of what we know about our natural world. We are familiar with the stench of death, telling us of irreversible decay, no one gets up from that, religious or not.When they laid Jesus’ dead body in the tomb there was no one to touch him, speak life-giving words, call him out, no mighty prophet, none of his followers, and certainly not his enemies. But he did rise, not as the three above who needed someone with power greater than death to restore their lives.

Jesus, the creator of all life (Colossians 1:13-19), the one who has life within himself (John 2:19-22; John 10:17-18), free from life-robbing and damning sin (2 Corinthians 5:21, Hebrews 4:15), rose by his own divine power. And, Jesus Christ did not rise like the three above, merely restored to physical life and destined to die again, no, he resurrected to incorruptible, eternal life.

“Jesus told her (Martha, Lazarus’ sister), ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ she told him. ‘I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God’” (John 11:25-27, NLT2, parenthesis mine).

This Easter 2020 we will remember as the Coronavirus Easter with daily updates of total infections and deaths, and all of us very aware of our fragility and inescapable mortality. Ultimately no vaccine, no ventilator, no medical breakthrough will be able to rescue us from death, accountability before God, and eternal damnation. For that you and I need the power of the one who is the resurrection and the life, Jesus Christ.You and I have to decide whether to laugh him off, settle for a little religion every now and then, inform him of the impossibilities and scientific facts, or believe and trust him who alone conquered the grave, who is the resurrection and the life. So, what is your Easter, Jesus risen from the dead, reaction and response? Oh, that you will believe.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters (those who believe in, follow, and live for Jesus Christ), we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died. We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (NLT2, parenthesis mine). 

Have a blessed Easter.
Love you, Pastor Hans    

Don't Get Spiritually Infected

But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them. In this way, they will bring sudden destruction on themselves.  Many will follow their evil teaching and shameful immorality. And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. 2 Peter 2:1-2 (NLT2)

Coronavirus, Coronavirus, Coronavirus, … COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-19, …Social distancing, shelter-in-place, wash your hands, sanitize, …Respirators, masks, PPE, hospital beds, shortages, …Infection totals, death tolls, …Shutdown, …Crisis…

Daily we are bombarded with Coronavirus news, facts, statistics, changing predictions, revised timelines, official guidelines and orders. Mix that with our own worries, fears, anxieties, economic and existential threats, and it leaves you feeling confused, unsure, powerless, and vulnerable. Christians should be uniquely equipped to navigate in, even thrive trying times and circumstances. Not because we, in ourselves, are somehow better than everyone else, but because the life of Christ and the Spirit of God indwells us, and because true and well-taught followers of Jesus have a theology that incorporates and embraces suffering.Satan also thrives in chaos and crisis, he is the master of instigating and using them for his godless, evil, and destructive purposes (John 10:10).

It should come as no surprise that he will fan the flames of the current massive fire, not only in the world at large but also within the church. Much of the New Testament is devoted to warning believers against devil’s attack on the Body of Christ, the church, specifically against:
-Gutting the Gospel – faulty theology (Galatians, 1 Corinthians 15, Romans 1-11)
-Behaving badly – faulty ethics (1 Corinthians, Galatians 5-6, Romans 12-16)
-False teachers – faulty discernment (2 Peter 2, Jude)

It should not surprise us that with the current crisis and chaos there will be a spike in false teachers, conspiracy pundits, and eschatology (end times) wizards raising their voices, claiming new prophetic insight, personal expertise, miracle cures, proposing unbiblical means of harnessing and unleashing the power of God, contradicting sound science, dressing forms of presumption in so-called faith teachings, twisting the scriptures while trying to sound like theological experts.Now, with our world, including the church, almost exclusively relying on electronic media false preachers and teachers have a platform as never before.

Here in the United States the purveyors of the prosperity gospel, health and wealth pundits, word of faith charlatans already dominate the airwaves. Sadly, too many believers are tuning in to them, give them a hearing, lack the discernment skills, and don’t take time to check out both their life and teaching. Satan knows that a gutted, watered down, twisted, added-onto Gospel leaves the church without a message, perverts the church’s mission, and rips the Messiah/Christ out of its center. Satan loves for Christians to behave badly, unholy, hypocritically, loud, proud, fearfully, cowardly, selfishly, soft, and spoiled, indistinguishable from the world around them.

Christians behaving badly discredit the beauty of the Christ-life and the changing power of the Gospel. Christians behaving badly may talk a big game but bring shame to Jesus’ name. Christians behaving badly are vulnerable to all kinds of theological cockamamie and extremes.Satan is not ignorant of the word of God (Luke 4:9-11), he knows how to quote it, misquote it, divorce it from its context, twist its intentions, selectively apply it, and rearrange it to make the weird and perverted seem plausible. False teachers may be using the “Good Book” (the Bible) but they use it according to the devil’s playbook. If he/they can get you to accept faulty theology, it will sooner than later affect your behavior, conversely, if he/they can get you to legitimize bad behavior it will affect your theology,  both will rob you of the ability to discern. Time for a self-check:

• How theologically sound are you? Are you making an effort to be so?

• How Christ-like is your behavior? What needs to change?

• Who do you watch, listen to, read? Should you? Why or why not?

 To God be all glory.
Love you, Pastor Hans      

Stable and Shining

“You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.” Matthew 5:14-16 (NLT2)

Jesus was directly speaking to his disciples when he spoke these words, but there was also a large crowd listening in, and clearly, he wanted them to hear what he had to say as well. At the end of his sermon, he spelled out why he was preaching what he was preaching.

“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows (practices, acts on) it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.  Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.  But anyone who hears my teaching and ignores it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash” Matthew 7:24-27 (NLT2, parenthesis mine).

Jesus, God is interested in you and me living lives of stability amidst the instability, even torrents, and disasters of our world. He wants you and me to be people of purpose, who make a difference, whose light keeps shining no matter how dark it gets, whose actions make people want to sing praises to God. But for this to actually happen, we need to hear Jesus' words and trust them enough to act on them, that’s called faith. This is why I read some portion of God’s word (the Bible) every day, think about it, take some notes, and try to make “act-on-it” connections to what is going on in my life around me. The last two mornings I read Luke 11 and 12 (We are in Luke in our church’s Bible-reading plan) and found some things to help my life keep shining brightly and keep me stable in our current crisis, and, since this is a pastor’s note, I am convinced these will benefit you too:

Pray – Luke 11:1-13

• Not if but “when” you pray.

• Pray with persistence, keep knocking, seeking, asking.

• Pray with a focus on God’s goodness.

• Pray seeking God’s very best.

Help – Luke 12:13-21

• Don’t hoard.

• Don’t act on the fear of not getting your fair share.

• Look out for more than yourself.

• However little or much you have enables you to share.

Invest – Luke 12:21, 31-34

• In more than yourself.

• In more than the stock market and your financial portfolio.

• In more than what will keep you comfortable to the end of your life.

• In the goodness of your heart.

Jesus didn’t just teach the above as a means of crisis management, he wants you and me to practice them, and much more keep-your-light-burning stuff, whether the sun is shining, or the torrents are raging. He wants you and me to build foundations that don’t crumble even under the greatest stresses and challenges.
To God be all glory.
Love you, Pastor Hans         

This Is a Time for Real Wisdom, Not Theological Foolishness

According to Fox News, Tony Spell, pastor of Life Tabernacle Church in Baton Rouge, said no "dictator law" could keep people from worshipping God, according to the local news… “The virus, we believe, is politically motivated,” Spell told WAFB. “We hold our religious rights dear and we are going to assemble no matter what someone says.” … Spell said his church, which normally has more than 1,000 attendees on Sunday across five locations, will be distributing “anointed handkerchiefs” to provide members with “healing virtues.”
(Article here: https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-police-church-defy-state-order)

Foolishness dressed up as faith is particularly disturbing because it hurts people, gives Christians a bad name, keeps people from believing and following Jesus, and distorts the truth and greatness of God. Christians are by very definition people of faith and are called to live by faith in Christ and the Word of God (the Bible), but we are also called to be wise, to be sober-minded, to be discerning, and to function according to knowledge and truth.

The Galatian believers got an earful from the Apostle Paul regarding theological foolishness, “You foolish Galatians,” (Galatians 3:1&3) he tore into them. Of course, Christians are not the only ones capable of theological foolishness, the atheist’s entire worldview rests theological fallacy, “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God’ (Psalm 14:1).”

Jesus refused to act according to theological foolishness when Satan tempted him to jump off the top of the temple at Jerusalem because God had promised that the Messiah wouldn’t break a bone (Luke 4:1-13). Maybe the devil should have also offered him a prophylactic hanky. Jesus didn’t jump because he was theologically sound, he both knew and did not twist the scriptures. “You don’t put God to the test,” he informed Satan, or put another way, you don’t force God’s hand, you let God test you, not the other way around, God’s promises are not an invitation to presumption.

Theological foolishness also is prone to be selective about science or dismiss science altogether. Can God do the impossible? Absolutely! Is there such a thing as the miraculous? Very much so! But it is also true that for the most part and most of the time God is running this universe according to the way he designed it. Miracles are the exception, not the norm, it is what makes them miracles. Yesterday evening I hooked up an electric dryer. Let’s assume I had one of Reverend Spell’s anointed handkerchiefs in my pants pocket, would you believe that it would protect me from electric shock? Why not? I didn't because I know the basics of science when it comes to the electrical outlets in my house, especially 220 volts. Faith and science are not enemies or mutually exclusive, don’t buy into that kind of foolishness.You cannot grow in faith without growing in wisdom and knowledge. But don’t just take my word for it:

My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures.Then you will understand what it means to fear the LORD, and you will gain knowledge of God. For the LORD grants wisdom! From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity.He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him. Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy. Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. Proverbs 2:1-11 (NLT2)

Let’s not be fooled by some “anointed handkerchiefs” or other nonsense, let’s not act godless, but let’s be wise, love our neighbor and bring glory to God in all we are going through right now.

Love you, Pastor Hans     

Finding Peace When You Want to Panic (COVID-19, part 2)

Prudence, Wisdom, Faith, Fear, Stupidity, Foolishness ,Presumption, Panic, Crises— all have the potential to bring out both the best and worst in us, they also reveal who we really are and what we really believe.Our world is filled with three kinds of evil, natural evil like the COVID-19 virus and other diseases or earthquakes and other natural disasters, moral (human) evil we perpetrate on others and our world, and spiritual, demonic, satanic evil, which is ever busy inciting people to do evil. Often the first is made much worse by the second.

One thing is certain, evil is never theoretical, it is real, brings hardship, causes stress, kindles fears, inflicts pain, and kills.Jesus encouraged us to pray: “Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil (or the evil one). [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.]” Matthew 6:9-13 (NASB, parenthesis mine).

It is foolishness to ignore evil of any kind, including the evil within us, it is unwise to think we do not need God’s help when it comes dealing with evil, and it is faith that will help us to deal better with evil, with our fears, and keep us from panicking. Christians are called to a life of faith that applies to the real world, actual circumstances, to life’s unpredictabilities, dangers, and worries. In all of these our anchor, our starting point, our compass is God himself, his presence, his Spirit, his wisdom, his strength, his word (Scripture/the Bible).Christians are called to pursue knowledge, prudence and wisdom, they give us discernment, navigation skills, and help us to not be led by fear and panic. Wisdom is never in opposition to faith.

Often, I have had a fellow believer gush about the fact that their doctor was a Christian and prayed with them. I think that is fantastic, but I want my doctor also to be competent, I want her to wash her hands, put on a fresh pair of gloves, and be up to speed on the most current medical knowledge, skills, and wisdom. I want her not just to be confident, I want her to be confident for the right reasons. This is true for you and me as well, it is one thing to have a faith that talks confidence but is ignorant, lacks wisdom, and is presumptuous, it is quite another thing to have a faith that is informed, pursues and practices wisdom, and knows how to be both controlled by the Holy Spirit and sound interpretation of the Bible. Christians never have reason to panic, we are called to live out of the peace of God that even disaster, suffering, and death cannot rattle. This peace is not an invitation to stupidity and foolishness, to denying or foolishly responding to real and healthy fears. But this peace does enable us not to be consumed by our anxieties, our worries, and our fears, and act with Christlikeness in the midst of evil and the storms of life.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers (sisters), whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me--put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you” Philippians 4:4-9 (NIV, parenthesis mine).

To God be all Glory. Peace to you, Pastor Hans      

COVID-19

In a matter of no time at all, and seemingly out of nowhere, COVID-19 (Corona Virus) has spread around the globe, infecting, killing, spreading fears. Governments panicking, health officials scrambling, stock markets tumbling, tourism collapsing, people wearing masks.Church Mutual Insurance (our church’s provider) send out the following information:According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most people in the United States have little immediate risk of exposure to this virus. The virus is not currently spreading widely in the United States. However, it is likely that person-to-person spread will continue to occur and that, at some point, widespread transmission of COVID-19 in the United States will occur.

Action Steps

1. Stay informed – the situation with the coronavirus is fluid and the CDC is updating its website daily with the latest information and advice for the public.

2. Remember to take everyday preventive actions that are always recommended to prevent the spread of respiratory viruses:

   • Avoid close contact with sick people.

   • While sick, limit contact with others as much as possible. Stay home if you are sick.

   • Cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze. Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth. Germs spread this way.

   • Clean and disinfect surfaces and objects that may be contaminated with germs.

   • Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub with at least 60% alcohol.

3. The CDC and State Department have issued advisories asking people to avoid all nonessential travel to China and South Korea at this time. Travel alerts have also been issued for Japan, Italy and Iran.

I would add that, besides following the advice above, we ought to also pray for those infected, the officials in charge of public health, the medical people caring for the sick, and the researchers working on a cure.Finally, there is also a spiritual dimension. We reminded how fragile life and our way of life are, sickness and death are ever-present and inescapable realities.

With the COVID-19 virus and any other disease, we will rejoice over finding just one cure. While we are searching and praying for that cure, there already exists a cure for death – Jesus Christ, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies” John 11:25 (NIV).

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans   

Your "Erbe"

A good man, a good woman will leave an inheritance tho his/her children’s children – Proverbs 13:22

Heiningen Cemetery is where members of both sides of my family have been buried there for I don’t know how long, brothers, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and who knows how many greats, great great ... To me, it feels like a sacred burial ground in other cultures, deep roots, deep ties. The two Memorials for WWI and WWII have, for as small as the town was then, many names on them. Frei, Eitle, Aigner, all direct relations to my family are chiseled on it. A number of families have three, four names inscribed, entire generations decimated. “To Remember Them, To Warn Us,“ the World War II Memorial reads.

Right in front of the WWII Memorial, I noticed an older gravestone, it seems to have survived the 25-year policy. I am not sure when they decided to limit someone's stay in the Heiningen Cemetery to 25 years, but I seem to recall my brother telling me that they were both running out of space and that after 25 years no one shows up anymore to take care of the graves. So, after 25 years the plots are dug up, the remains are cremated, and the burial plot is recycled. Sometimes even the gravestone, it will have the current occupant on the front and a former on the back. However, this one grave in front of the WWII memorial was left untouched, it remains even though the couple buried there died more than 50 years ago.

It is the grave of Lutheran Pastor Erbe and his wife. They were part of the resistance, they trafficked Jews and other people to safety through the parsonage, right under the nose of the towns Nazi leader. I cannot tell you what impact this couple had on our town, my Mom, my Dad, my Aunt, my family and scores of others. They never forgot them, always spoke of them in ways that if you could meet anyone in Heiningen’s past, in their past, it would be this pastor couple.

What is most uncanny about Pastor and Mrs. Erbe’s grave in front of the WWII war memorial is the meaning of their last name – "Erbe" means inheritance in German. These two died neither rich nor famous, but they left a tremendous inheritance behind, an "Erbe" that by now is impacting the third and fourth generation past their own.

Walk with me for a minute to the Heinigen cemetery. We step through the wrought iron main gate and down at the end of the main path we already see the World War II Memorial. Two thirds the way down on the left we pass by the grave of my Mom and Dad with my brother Friedrich buried between them. Just a few steps further on the right the fresh grave of my oldest brother. A few more steps on the right the Erbe grave marked by an overgrown, weathered sandstone slab, and right past them, across the path turning right and left the WWII Memorial testifying to utter senselessness and waste. All of my family members we walked passed were impacted by what is at the end of this cemetery path, two memorials, two inheritances, one that will forever regret, weep and warn and one that knows no regret, turns tears to joy, and still blesses.You and I will not stay here today, we will most likely not be buried here. The iron gate will fall shut behind us as we leave to still live some and determine our "Erbe."

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans   

Learning God's Love - Every Day

 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

I have watched my share of “How to …” YouTube videos, many of them were super helpful, saving me time, frustration, and money. Some were ridiculous and worthless, like the guy recommending the using a cutting torch and Sawzall (reciprocating saw) to fix the heater core under the dash, or the fellow who took out the stove in his camper with just a hammer.

Of course, all of us have been learning “How to …” by watching long before YouTube. But simply because we learned something one way does not make it the best way or even a good way. Think about what we have learned about expressing anger, frustration, using words, values, caring for others, kindness, generosity, and love, by observing, watching from our earliest days, and how much good and bad gets passed on and is perpetuated this way.

When it comes to love some of us got to see outstanding examples of it, others got to view a whole lot of trash, and most of us got a mixed program. Of course, how you and love today is not just determined by what we observed in the past. Some simply perpetuate, some go from good to bad, others go from bad to great, and all of us can learn to be and do better.

One thing is for sure, we shoot and publish new videos every day, the question is whether they are helpful or hurtful, high quality or harmful? Is how we love worth emulating, something you want others to perpetuate?We are born sinners, which, among other things, means we bend the wrong way, especially when it comes to God and love. Selfish love comes natural to us but selfless love we have to learn. Keeping score of love we know but forgiving love we have to discover. Using love as a weapon is familiar to us, de-weaponized love we have to choose.Valentine’s Day has come and gone, the roses, if they have not already wilted, will be in the trash soon, and most of us, although we do not have to, will revert back even if it is not working, not worth perpetuating. Strange and broken creatures we are.

It is in this brokenness, this world full of awful love YouTubes, that God in Christ demonstrated a love of a different kind, a love we are wise to receive and learn. This same Jesus is still ready and willing to step into your and my every-day to transform us by his love and teach us to live his love, and that is something worth living, something worth watching, something worth passing on.

To God be all glory. Love you Pastor Hans

Learning God's Love - By the Way, Happy Valentines!

(Before you read this Pastor’s Note, find a Bible and read 1 John 4:7-21.) 

For as much as we love love, we sure struggle with it. Human history, every family, the majority of marriages, and almost all lovers testify to this fact. Love should be easier than our collective testimony certifies it to be. By the way, Happy Valentines!

Few things give clearer evidence to our fallenness, our depravity, our sinfulness than our struggles with love. It should be the easiest thing in the world, but somehow we manage it to louse it up, mess it up, twist it, pervert it, cheapen it, manipulate with it, so much so that we don’t trust love, at least not all the way. Too many are our bad experiences, our disappointments, our scars, our hurts. By the way, Happy Valentines!

“There is no fear in love,” right! At least not until the first time Dad or Mom loses their temper, breaks a promise, or until you discover your lover’s bad habits, his or her not so amazing side. Truth be told, by the time you turn my age, and usually, much earlier, we are much more prone to adjust our loving to our fears rather than adjusting our fears to our love. That’s because we get our hopes up, “maybe this time it will be different,” only to have them smacked down again. Of course, this reveals that at least in some small way we loved with some payoff in mind. By the way, Happy Valentines!

Few people have a problem with the truth that “God is love,” actually most of us love this truth. Of course, here too our depravity is revealed because we interpret it to mean, “I can do whatever I want and he will be okay with it because he loves me.” Do you hear the twistedness in this? The presumption? The depraved narcissism? No wonder we are so good at messing up love. By the way, Happy Valentines!

“There is no fear in love, perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). So why are multitudes of spouses dancing on eggshells around each other, afraid to …? Of all we could fear in this life nothing should fill us with greater fear than God. Think about it, he knows our every last little dirty secret and could embarrass us more than anyone. He knows every single transgression of ours and could haul us into his court anytime. He has infinite power and can not only inflict us with punishment for every misdeed or snuff out our life, but he can also cast our soul into eternal hell. By the way, Happy Valentines!

If we are going to get love right, if we are going to learn to love perfectly, if we are going to love without fear, we are not going to find it in our sentimental but depraved notions of love or our selective (mis)interpretations of love in scripture. We will have to learn it from Almighty God through his Son, Jesus Christ, who in all his fearsomeness loved us first and loved us completely through the suffering and sacrifice Jesus. It is only at the foot of the cross of Jesus that lovers, spouses, and each one of us can learn to love without fear, to love like God and Jesus. By the way, Happy Valentines!

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans  

Commanded to Love - Moving from Optional to Optimal

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.  Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:7-8 (ESV)

It seems like it should be the last thing we should need to be reminded of, and even less that we should have to be commanded to love. But the reality is we do need to be reminded and commanded to love. God certainly thinks so and in his written word (the Bible) he reminds us to love:

• God

• Jesus Christ

• Our Neighbor

• Each Other

• Our spouses

• Our children

• The Alien

• The Poor

• Sinners

• Our Enemies

• And …

God does not suggest to us to love all of the above, he commands us to, which tells us he does not consider it optional. We like for love to be optional, for us to feel it, and when we don’t we give ourselves a free pass. God, however, wants us to think of love as optimal, regardless of how we feel, and he knows more about love than anyone of us.God’s commands expect radical commitment, total participation, full obedience. They don’t come with a lot of legal fine print, but they do come with an expectation of us living by them because we trust God, because we are sure that in his love, goodness, and holiness he will only command us what is best for us. When God commands us to love he is leading by example, he is not asking us to do anything he has not done so himself. He has practiced:

• Faithful love

• Persevering love

• Sacrificial love

• Forgiving love

• Patient love

• Humble love

• Risk-taking love

• Extreme love

• Honest love

• Tender love

• Promise- keeping love

• Giving-your-all love

• Selfless love

• Merciful love

• Unfathomable love

• And …

Too many of us have experienced the absence of love, the opposite of love, twistedness masquerading as love, conditional love. Too many of us practice manipulative love, fearful love, even sick love. So, not trusting others and ourselves we are cautious, mistrusting, fearful with love. This why we need to be both reminded and be commanded to love on an entirely different level than our experience and fears compel us to and cause us to settle for.

I wish I could tell you that I no longer need to be reminded to love like God wants me to, commands me to, and has shown me himself through Christ. I wish I could hang up a Ph.D. diploma earned from DUL.edu (Divine University of Love), but all too often I find myself still in the Grammar School of Love. I am not saying this as an excuse, but because I still need to and want to learn.

I know God is right in all his reminders and commands for me to live a life of love. God doesn’t just remind and command, he provides and enables as well, especially regarding his commands to love. He provides opportunities to love and grow in love. He gives ability and strength to love when we can’t fathom how to or have plum run out of love. He allows us to tap his endless reservoir of love. He blesses and uses every effort we make to keep his commandments to love. There is one thing God will not do when it comes to love, he won’t make us - we have to choose, decide to, pursue, and want to live a life of love.

To God be all Glory. Love you, Pastor Hans

P.S. A good place to start keeping God’s commands to love is with the people currently in your life, the people God brings across your path today. 

"I'm going fishing" - Don't do it

“I am going fishing,” Peter said, and the six with him said, “We’ll come too.” (John 21:1-22, I encourage you to read it yourself)

Physically we have the ability to move forward, backward, and sideways, but not up and down like a hummingbird. In life, however, we are familiar with forward, backward, sideways, and up and down. I don’t know if three years earlier Peter parked his fishing boat in a boathouse, left it in a slip at the pier, turned it upside down at the beach, or covered it with a tarp in his back yard or driveway.

The last few months and particularly the past weeks had been crazy for them, a confusing rollercoaster ride, an incredibly stressful, challenging, and difficult stretch of life, lacking clarity, familiarity, and stability. So, they went backward, back to the old and familiar, that which their families had done for generations. They turned the pages of their lives back to before they heard Jesus say, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17).

What did you walk away from when you heard Christ calling you to follow him? What life did you leave behind? What did you set aside, put under a tarp, park in the backyard of your life? But now you’re back to it after your life with Jesus ran into hardship, tragedy, stress, suffering, and overwhelming challenges, leaving you confused, disoriented, yearning for familiarity.It was a mirage, because we somehow clean up the old life in our minds. We forget how difficult it really was, how devoid of real and lasting meaning, how many nights you come from fishing with nothing, nothing but business worries, nothing but weariness, nothing but frustration.

“Did you catch anything?” Jesus yelled from the shore.
“No,” came the grumpy reply.

Somehow, they didn’t remember the grumpy of the old life either. “Try the other side,” Jesus sent back across the water. “What the *@#&^!” Somehow, they forgot how rough, even vile, the old life could make you.

“What the *@#&^! Where did all these fish come from?” Somehow, they forgot how glorious was when Jesus interrupted your old life, when he spoke to you, directed you, surprised you. “It’s the Lord,” one of them connected the dots.

“Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” “Do you love me?” Jesus asked gone-back-to-fishing Peter.“I do,” “I do,” “You know,” were Peter’s replies.“Feed my sheep,” “Tend my sheep,” “Feed my sheep,” Jesus let him know (sheep being people, believers, his followers). Peter might have remembered that Jesus’ first invitation to follow him included that he would make him a “fisher of men,” but not the old life, the old boat, who he once was with just a little Jesus in it. Not the kind of living that is filled with the old but doesn’t concern itself with Jesus, his kingdom, his sheep.

Jesus told Peter again, “Follow me,” because he had gone back to fishing. Peter was going backward instead of forward; he had revived the old regardless of how unsatisfying and spiritually impotent it was. He, like you and I, needed to come to grips with that loving Jesus and the old life are incompatible, that following Jesus and living the old life are mutually exclusive, that he had to sell out and sell the boat.

To God be all glory. Love you, Pastor Hans