Culture

Passion, Peace, and Jimmy Dean Sausage

Nov 10, 2009 12:38 pm by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions, Family, Funny videos

Psalm 34:14
Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

Ok, I admit it. I am a huge fan of the Jimmy Dean commercials that feature goofy men dressed up in goofy sun, moon, and stars outfits. I like them so much that I’ll rewind my DVR just to watch them. (If you’ve never seen one, it’s well worth a Google search to take a peek.) I think the reason I like them so much is because, well, they feature goofy men dressed up in goofy outfits. To me, that is the perfect picture of passionate pursuit. Sure, they may only be pursuing a serious acting career, or maybe just their next paycheck from Jimmy Dean, but they are passionate enough about something to go to the great lengths of wearing a sun outfit large enough to hide most of their body parts!

I’d say it’s fair to ask how passionately we’re pursuing peace. Sydney quoted this verse to Wendy last night as they were saying good-night to each other and it really got me asking myself about it. Do I pursue peace? Do you? I get the fact that we all want peace, crave peace, and would choose peace any day of the week over the chaos that surrounds most of us. But apparently peace isn’t the type of thing to just fall in our laps. It is, though, something we are to go after.

As I read the verses around this one, I realized that there is a lot going on. The Lord has delivered David, there was lying and evil, people are being cut off from the face of the earth, and even the righteous are at times crushed and brokenhearted. Peace is not a lack of noise or activity. It is not even a lack of questions or concerns about what is happening around us. But it is a lack of worry. It is the state of being so complete- so sound and safe- in our relationship with the Lord that no matter what goes on around us, we know nothing can touch that. If God is for us, Paul wrote to the Romans, who can be against us?

Now, I can pursue that passionately! I can’t pursue a lack of activity, because I’d just get bored. I don’t want to pursue all knowledge, because there is so much reward in questioning. But to be in a place where the evil around me does not scare me or phase me? I’ll do anything in the pursuit of that.

Well, I’m not sure about hawking sausage in a sun outfit.

The Disgrace of a Nation

Nov 6, 2009 5:03 pm by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions

Evotions Fort Hood Murder Orlando Shootings sin Tragedy

Proverbs 14:34
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.

If ever a 2-day span illustrated a passage of Scripture, I’d say yesterday and today took care of it. As if the shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, that left 13 dead and 30 injured wasn’t enough, today a nation turns on the news to see that a man has entered an office building in Orlando, Florida, and opened fire. This time 1 died and 6 were injured. Of course, the acts themselves don’t shed light on the truth of this Proverb as much as the reaction of people all over the country.

Acts like these always invoke similar responses. No matter the political or spiritual view of the person responding, one thing is for sure: we all seem to agree on the wickedness that drives a person to pull off something like this. We all seem shocked, surprised, horrified. No one ever gets interviewed by the news and says something like, “It’s about time somebody got rid of 14 more people. We don’t need ‘em. The world’s too crowded as it is.” Of course, if someone ever did dare say anything close to that, we’d all jump through our TV screens and get rid of one more person! My point is not to make light of the tragedies, but rather to make crystal clear that sin really is a disgrace to all of us. It deflates us, makes us feel hopeless, and incites a passionate anger within each one of us at the person, or people, who subjected us to it.

The downside, of course, is that we can’t seem to agree on what to do about it. Ask people if they’d rather be exalted or disgraced, and everyone’s picking Door Number One. But ask those same people if they’re willing to live righteously, and you’ll get a bunch of odd looks. See, we want the benefit, but we’d rather not pay the price. What we’ve seen in Orlando and Fort Hood (and other locations of mass shootings over the years) is the logical end of a society that wants to live by it’s own rules. We want the freedom to choose without consequence while being free to punish – or judge – others for the free choices they make. We want to determine right or wrong (if we even agree they exist) based on our situation, but when a man starts shooting others because in his twisted mind it seems right, we say that’s crazy. Don’t misunderstand me: I think the shooters in Florida and Texas deserve punishment to the full extent of the law, but I can’t help but wonder who the crazy ones are – them for carrying out seemingly random, senseless killings, or the rest of us for not being able to see that a country run without moral absolutes cannot consistently result in anything else?

Nothing can save our great country from the disgrace of sin except for righteousness, and only One is truly righteous. The sobering question is this: how many more breaking news stories will it take before we turn to Him?

I pray not many.

Getting the Boot to Samaria

Oct 30, 2009 8:31 am by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions

Declaration of Independence Evotions Persecution Preaching

Acts 8:4
Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

So, there I was, minding my own business, when Parker, one of the 11 year-old twin-wonders who belong to me, asks me if I want him to say the Declaration of Independence. Not typically what you’d expect to hear as you finish up a bowl of brown sugar and maple syrup oatmeal, so I said sure. You can image my face as I read along and heard my son say it, word for word, line by line, all the way down to the part about “throwing off such government.” It was pretty impressive.

Of course, something else caught my eye as I was reading along, and it was the line that says “…all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer…than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Wow! There it was, in black and white (and the yellow highlighter that Parker had been using). Even back in 1776, people did things – even things that made them suffer – because it was more convenient than change. Shoot, they might as well have included the line “because we’ve always done it that way” in there, too!

People don’t like change. Acts chapter 8 tells us that the early church was no different. They had received the Holy Spirit, had seen thousands of souls come into the kingdom, and were enjoying a nice little round of applause for their brand new church growth paradigm. We don’t know for sure, but I suspect that they may have even been in the early planning stages for a church growth conference at which Peter would have been the keynote speaker delivering “3 Steps to Adding Thousands to Your Church Daily.” Everything was going along as planned, when suddenly, persecution broke out. Not just any persecution, mind you, but a great one. And not just against anybody, but against the church. It was massive and it was direct, and I’m sure it left the planning for that conference in shambles.

Not far removed from the heyday of Peter’s pentecostal altar call, the leaders are now burying Stephen and hearing the screams of men and women being dragged off to prison. Verse 4 tells us how they responded to it: they preached the word. It didn’t matter to them where they were dragged, because they were preaching the whole way to the people doing the dragging. Verse 1 tells us that this great persecution drove them all to Judea and Samaria, places that Jesus had already told them to take the gospel way back in chapter 1, verse 8. It kind of begs the question, doesn’t it? If they had gone willingly to those places in the first place instead of planning that conference, perhaps a persecution wouldn’t have been needed to get them there?

At any rate, these first century believers had a lot in common with the guys writing the Declaration of Independence, didn’t they? And we have a lot in common with all of them, too. Because of our propensity for the status quo, sometimes a little kick in the pants is what it takes to get us preaching again. That’s not great news if you think a kick might be coming, but it’s wonderful news for those of us who are under a bit of attack and think that maybe we missed a turn on the way to that conference about how the faith is all butterflies and rose petals.

So, if you went to bed in a good place and woke up in a bad one, take heart! There’s a little scattering in the forecast for you, but God is in control and He will put you right where He needs you to preach, because you’ve got something that someone you haven’t met yet needs to hear. You can find hope, too, in knowing that you’re not alone. There’s a whole bunch of us getting the boot to Samaria with you!

Let’s meet up and do some tag-team preaching. I’ll see you there.

Pimp My Rickshaw

Oct 29, 2009 2:00 pm by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions

cross Evotions India Rickshaw

Acts 17:30b
…but now (God) commands all people everywhere to repent.

People are the same the world over. We don’t always dress the same, or drive the same, or speak the same (this last distinction once played a role in me unknowingly cussing out a group of school children in Rio, but that’s another story!), but at the core of who we are, there isn’t much difference in mankind in California or Calcutta. I realized this on a recent ride through the busy streets of Delhi, India, as I prayed for God to spare my life while clinging to the back of a motorized rickshaw.

It wasn’t the NASCAR-worthy driving that made me realize it. Nor was it the way the driver seemed to grin the more we groaned. It wasn’t even the numerous rickshaws that held 2-3 times the number of people it was built for. Nope, it was none of those. What made me realize that people are the same the world over were the rickshaws that passed us that were decorated in all kinds of crazy ways. Some had flowers, some had flashing lights. Heck, I even saw (and heard) one that had a sound system in it! Apparently “Pimp My Rickshaw” is quite the show over in India!

Just like back here in the land o’ grits, people there felt the need to try and stand out from the crowd. They wanted to show that they were just a bit different from the other drivers commanding rickshaws with other passengers praying, smiling, or groaning. It made me think of all the drivers here in the States who – in an attempt to be different – have adorned their vehicles with everything from fuzzy dice to bobble-head figures to Calvin peeing on whatever make of car they don’t like. Funny, though, that everyone else has the same stuff so they will stand out, too. Of course, in the end, it just shows how alike we all are, and that’s probably a good thing.

God commands all men everywhere to repent, because no matter where you go, men everywhere need to repent. This isn’t rocket science. People everywhere want to feel better about who they are, but the only way for that to really happen is for us to all meet at the same place: the foot of the cross.

So, no matter what you’re driving – plain rickshaws or pimped rickshaws – you need to park it long enough to acknowledge your need for a Savior. The light He gives will be more than enough to make you stand out.

When Money Gets in the Way

Oct 28, 2009 7:16 am by Paul Jenkins in Culture, Evotions

beggars Evotions India Money

Acts 3:6
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

On our last day in India, we were able to to a bit of shopping. The streets were packed with vendors offering deals, but the lady who caught my eye was the one who held the baby and kept sending her small son to our group to hold out his hand and beg. It was a bit awkward, especially since they wouldn’t go away. It seemed that every time I turned around, the three of them were there, asking me with open hands and big, sad eyes for 5 rupees, which, in US dollars is about a dime.

We had been warned before shopping by the nationals that we should not give any money to the street beggars because many of the beggars don’t even keep the money. The system in India is so corrupt that they are often working for someone else who will not use the money collected to benefit the small child who moved your heart to give. In fact, some children are even purposely disfigured so that foreigners will be more likely to give. Of course, everyone on our team found it impossible to not give something, and when we loaded up in our vehicles and compared experiences, it seemed that we’d all given this boy and his mother rupees. It was at that point, sitting in a crowded car in the crowded markets of Delhi, that the Lord brought this passage to my mind, and I realized that my money had gotten in the way. Let me explain.

For most of us, our first reaction to any situation is to give what we have most accessible. The boy wanted money, we had money, and so we gave money. In Acts, the beggar wanted money, Peter and John had no money, so they gave him what they had, too. The difference is that they had Jesus. We give what we have, and for those of us in America, that is typically money. It’s quick, relatively painless (outside of the pain of missing another trip to Starbucks), and makes us feel like we helped someone. But God wants us to give more. He sends us to a world that needs healing, hope, salvation, and so much more that is found in Jesus alone. Perhaps it would do us good to reach into our pockets and find them empty. Maybe that would cause us, like Peter, to give away what they really need.

We give what we have, but when we have a lot, we’re guilty of giving what is the easiest. My prayer now, though, is that God will help me to give what is best.

Only then will people walk away with more than change in their pockets.