Author: gabrieltew

I turned thirty-nine this week. I was born in the first hour (just after midnight) on
October 11, 1983. It was then that I surrendered my life to Jesus and was born…again.

Many would say that, at that point in my life I was already a supremely privileged person, and I wouldn’t disagree. I was a twenty-one year old white man, so I was in the most privileged classes of gender and race, plus I was in the prime of my life physically at age twenty-one and, although I didn’t realize it at the time, I was in the days of less responsibility and more freedom than at any time in my life, because I was a full-time college student. But at the moment of my rebirth in Christ, my status jumped to the most privileged ever in the universe. I became a son of the Almighty Creator, Savior, Deliverer and Sovereign Judge.

The original text in certain New Testament passages is often “son”, even though many
English versions use “sons and daughters” or “children” in those cases. Galatians 4:6 is an example of that. Modern translations expand the terms to be sure readers understand that females are as privileged in Christ as males are. I’m glad those versions use more inclusive terminology because nobody needs to feel less or more privileged in Christ than anyone else is. Galatians 3:28 takes care of that point for us by clarifying that neither ethnicity, religious background, social status nor gender means anything in Christ. It was important for those early Christians to understand that because, in their culture, sons, not daughters, were the recipients of their fathers’ inheritances. In Jesus we are all equally and supremely privileged. That doesn’t mean God levels all playing fields for Christians. Just as Jesus didn’t solve the Roman-oppression problem, the slavery issue or the problem of male dominance in first century Palestine culture, we shouldn’t expect Him to relieve all forms of injustice in our culture. What He did in the past, and still does today, is help us navigate our difficulties in a way that evidences His power to personally overcome any challenge.

If you’re a person who’s fed up with unfair classes of privilege, there’s one place – and
only one place – you’ll ever find remedy. You won’t see worldly systems fixed; what you’ll see is inner power to deal with troubles in this age and a complete and perfect culture in all these ways in the age after this one. Eternity with Jesus will be the great equalizer where all have received eternal life because of our faith in Christ. This world can’t handle real equality; only Heaven can contain such goodness. Jesus said you can’t put new wine into old wineskins, and this unfair privilege issue is another in a long list of issues to which that analogy applies. We’ll find the new wineskins in our Spirit-filled hearts and in eternal Heaven. For the latter we need patience and for the former we need to walk in the Spirit.
Finally, please understand that, if you haven’t received the supreme privilege of being a
son of God, like the invited guests to the great banquet of Luke 14, you have only to accept
Jesus’ invitation.

And because we are His sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,
prompting us to call out, “Abba Father.” – Galatians 4:6

There is no longer Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male and female. For all are one in
Christ Jesus. – Galatians 3:28

A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. – Luke 14:16

It’s time for the first ever Tew Awards for TV & Film Production. The reason these awards
have never been given, no ceremony ever been held, is that completely unqualified is the
creator and judge of the awards. But why should that stop me? The show must go on.
This year’s awards all go to The Chosen, since it’s the first and/or best of its kind, in
many senses of the word, in human history. My ignorance will be exposed as I write this, but
I’m so excited that something as phenomenal as The Chosen is happening in my lifetime that, dang-it, I’m just writing it anyway. Here are the twelve (same as the number of Jesus’ apostles and tribes of Israel) awards going to The Chosen.

1. Best Ever Depiction of Jesus Christ in Any Medium. It seems to me you have to have a
   complete team, with all cylinders pumping, to pull off the Jesus The Chosen pulled off.
   Two men made up most of that team, writer and director Dallas Jenkins and actor
   Jonathan Roumie. Still there were crews and a cast, any of whom could have made it
   more or less difficult to capture Jesus of Nazareth the way they did. Not very
   knowledgeable about the process of making a show like The Chosen, I am an observant
   viewer of many portrayals of Jesus over the years. In my mind, although many have
   done it well, there isn’t a close second to the Jesus of The Chosen.

2. Best Treatment of Women in a Scripture-based Work. Every other production of a
   Biblical narrative I’ve ever seen has given women less dignity than they’ve given the
   men. But The Chosen shows how Jesus would’ve treated them in the context of first
   century Palestinian Jewish culture. He honors and respects them, and Jenkins gives the
   female characters more true to life character traits than other productions have. For
   example, Mary of Magdala, who follows Jesus right along with the male disciples, is
   often the one contributing the most wisdom in the disciples’ conversations. It’s very
   refreshing. The women in my life – my wife, mother, sisters, daughters and friends –
   have often been voices of wisdom for me. Why wouldn’t that have been the case in any
   generation, including Jesus’? Some other productions have stuffed female characters
   into images to fit fundamental stereotypes, including sexualizing them. So it’s nice to
   see women like Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother Mary and Simon’s wife Eden portrayed
   as wise, godly, yet still lovely female characters. And that description would fit every
   prominent female character in The Chosen.

3. Best Use of Creative Backstory for Scriptural Narrative. This is one of The Chosen’s
   greatest strengths. The backstory it established for Mary, whom the Bible says was
   delivered from seven demons, sets forth a scenario to consider, as does the one
   established about Simon’s need for a miraculous catch of fish after trying unsuccessfully
   himself all night before meeting Jesus. And Nathanael’s reason for being under the fig
   tree, why it was significant that Jesus saw him there, is a masterful creative suggestion.
   Also, why did Matthew just follow Jesus straightway from his tax booth when He called
   him? The Chosen backdrops a story that would answer that question, as it also does questions we’ve had as we read about the Samaritan woman at the well. After watching these episodes, you’ll never read those passages the same again.

4. Best Ever Para-Scripture Resource. The best-selling book in history, after the Bible, is
   John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. My son, Sidney, says The Chosen is the Pilgrim’s
   Progress of this era. I concur, but I’ll take it a giant step further. I believe history will
   prove that The Chosen eclipses Pilgrim’s Progress as the best ever work that is Scriptural
   but not Scripture itself. It does have the advantage of benefitting from a medium (tv)
   that wasn’t available to Bunyan. And even though it’s visual in nature, I’d put the sheer
   writing up against any Christian literary work.
5. Best Connector of Historical or Biblical Culture to Viewers’ Culture. It seems a
   challenge creators of period pieces always have is how to bridge across the cultural
   language barriers. Our culture is filled with idioms, like “pushing someone’s buttons”,
   meaning “getting a reaction out of someone.” Obviously, that expression didn’t exist in
   first Century Palestine, especially in Aramaic or Greek, since it derives from pressing a
   button in the tech age to cause a certain function. But “You know which buttons to push
   with Thro [a character in a Jericho tavern]” is a line out of The Chosen. To me it’s a good
   use of a modern US English idiom to accurately portray banter in that particular scene.
   There are many others. The writer is clearly careful and intentional in the use of idiom
   throughout the series. He does it very well. It communicates to our culture what was in
   theirs. And that’s what good period pieces do well.
6. Best Ever Multi-season TV Series. Until The Chosen, my favorite series was The Andy
   Griffith Show. I still love it, especially being a lifelong North Carolinian, but The Chosen
   has firmly bumped it into second. This Is Us is number three on my list. There are lots of
   good series now, like Call the Midwife, Turn – Washington Spies and others. But The
   Chosen stands head and shoulders above all others when you consider all the elements
   of a show.
7. Best Ever Christian Production. Admittedly, I prioritize message over acting, production
   and other factors. We have six kids – four Millennials and two Gen Zs, plus two
   Millennial daughters-in-law. Typically, I’ll judge a movie or series good if it has a strong
   Christian message or theme and my kids will argue the quality of other factors is lacking,
   often using words and phrases like cheesy, not-believable acting or predictable stories.
   And they usually help me see their points. Not so, though, with The Chosen. It’s strong in
   every single element and, as far as I know, my kids agree with me.
8. Best Writing. I’m not sure how they divvied up the writing in their collaboration. Tyler
   Thompson and Ryan Swanson are listed as cowriters along with Dallas Jenkins.
   Regardless of who did what, everything comes through with the utmost quality and
   clarity, and I’ve heard the actors and crew members say only good about the script.
9. Best Casting. I believe Amanda Jenkins, Dallas’ wife, was in charge of casting. And she
   nailed it! Every actor seems absolutely perfect for their role. I simply don’t know how
   they could have cast the show any better.
10. Best Actor in a Lead Role. Jonathan Roumie makes Jesus a real and believable person;
    he also somehow captures his divinity, which Jonathan admits to not understanding
    how to do. The final product is simply the most accurate Jesus, according to my
    hopefully Scripture-based image of Jesus, any actor has ever portrayed.

11. Best actor in a Supporting Role. This is a tough one. Every actor is amazing; they all
draw the viewer into their characters. I’ve cried tears and shared in the gamut of every
characters’ emotions. I guess the real point is that The Chosen has the top six or eight
supporting actors ever in a production (After them come Don Knotts and Ronnie
Howard.) I’m not making two categories, just one, including males and females. It seems
in keeping with the equal treatment of the genders by the show. I have to be careful to
not merely choose the character I like, but look more at the acting, which, again, I’m
probably unqualified to judge. I love the characters of Little James and Thaddeus.
Shahar Isaac (Simon) is definitely a nominee, as are Austin Reed Alleman (Nathanael),
Erick Avari (Nicodemas) and Vanessa DeSilvio (Photina). So is Paras Patel (Matthew); I
consider Paras the runner up….. And the winner is…. Elizabeth Tabish, who plays Mary
Magdalene!

12. Most Spirit Anointed Production. I’m reluctant to make this twelfth category a
competitive one. I don’t believe God would have us look at it that way. I’m definitely not
qualified to judge who or what project is more anointed by God’s Spirit than other
Christian projects. But let me just say it like this. I receive heart-level ministry from God
every time I watch The Chosen. And I watch an episode as part of my daily devotions almost every morning. On the merit of having included the Holy Spirit so obviously in the making of every scene, The Chosen deserves the highest possible recognition.

If you haven’t seen The Chosen, please watch it asap. Download the app on any device. (The Chosen is the name of the app.) The show has its own app, and it’s free. Everything about the show is free, although you can donate to it, since it’s completely crowd funded. But binge watch seasons 1 and 2, so you’ll be ready for season 3 whenever it comes out. Hopefully soon!

The one trait that sets Christianity apart (or should) from every other religion, philosophy and belief system is grace. Grace is simply the undeserved favor God generously offers everyone willing to accept Jesus Christ as God’s Son sent to save us from our sin problem. Every other religion/system is predicated on getting what we deserve and, therefore, earning what we want and need. 

Judaism, the very system from which Jesus, a Jew, brought freedom after fulfilling its requirements and its prophecies is built on the Law of Moses, which delineates consequences for each violation of one of its 613 laws. In Hinduism and Buddhism, Karma assures justice is served, even if it takes multiple generations through reincarnation to accomplish it. Crimes and punishments under Islamic Sharia law dictate very strict dos and don’ts, with the harshest of resulting punishments, especially for women. Those are the big three besides Christianity, and as we journey through the other less known systems we don’t find anything resembling the grace of Jesus.

There really is a constant string of surprising pieces of good news as a Jesus follower walks out their faith with Jesus. What makes it so surprising is the “you-get-what-you-deserve” environment we all come from and must continue to walk through. Grace surprises me everyday and it’s been doing it for almost forty years now. (I came to Christ in 1983.)

​Grace is the favor of God (FOG) and all us recipients of life in Christ walk in it, often without even knowing it. It’s so counterintuitive to our original nature, so foreign to our current culture, that we scarcely believe or recognize it. 

​Grace will always be foreign to whatever culture exists in this world – that is, until Jesus reigns those one thousand years on the earth. That shouldn’t surprise us. But the FOG shouldn’t be counterintuitive to those walking in it, to those who have accepted God’s grace by accepting Jesus. Anyone who doesn’t recognize the FOG, will never live as a DOG.

​A DOG is exactly the life God wants for us. One of the main ideas Jesus tried to instill in His disciples, and the Spirit tries to instill in us modern age disciples, is that we are to dispense what has been so lavishly poured out to us. I am to be a dispenser of grace (DOG)

​ Jesus said people would know his followers by the love we have for one another…we are to love our enemies, those who mistreat us…it’s no longer eye for eye, tooth for tooth, but give another chance to the one who just slapped you in the face…don’t repay evil with evil but give even more to the one who just stole from you…don’t stone the adulterer but let them go without condemnation and help them where they need help…don’t help only the ones who can repay you, but precisely the ones who can’t and leave it to God to repay whatever recompense there’ll be. 

​This idea is radical, and that’s exactly the point. FOG is foreign to this world, but a DOG can change that. Imagine what an entire worldwide church of us can do.

​I must say, lest I be a hypocrite, that I am not the model DOG. I’m definitely still orienting to the concept. But God has taught me that, while writing about, or preaching about, something may not make me exemplary in it, it must challenge me to apply it along with – yea, ahead of – my readers/listeners. So His Spirit is giving me individualized directions as I’m typing. Will you join me by seeking Him for yours? I’ll be your DOG; will you be mine? After all, we are in the FOG.

I turned sixty this week. To do battle against the idea that I’m now officially old I wanted to do something epic (for me, at least).

Since I’ve always had a fear of heights, I thought skydiving would be a good way to finally face and conquer that fear. So several months ago, I made a decision and commitment to go skydiving on my birthday. Well, three of my four sons (and Luke would’ve been there if it’d been possible, and with much less fear than I had) surprised me on the eve of the skydive by showing up at my house and announcing they were doing it with me. I was touched. Touched by both their gesture of support and the hardening reality that I was actually going to jump out of an airplane the next morning. 

Once on the plane, I sat fearful five feet from the doorway into the arid blue sky. Rock-paper-scissors had providentially determined that I go first. Terrified at the idea of rising and taking the two steps to the threshold, I searched my mind for any comforting thought. I rejected thoughts of parachutes not opening, becoming detached from my instructor and a thousand other ideas designed to strip me of my courage. Then it came: if Jesus can forgive all my sins and take me into His eternal kingdom, He can certainly take care of me as I do this thing that people do everyday. I knew it was a Scriptural truth but the actual verse was too vague in my mind for me to remember. Chris, the instructor who would tether himself to me and expertly assure all went well on the dive (and whom I thank from the bottom of my heart for making it as smooth and easy as possible for me), said to me, “Just hold your hands close to your chest; be sure to not stick your hands out as you go through the doorway.” As I rose, stepped forward and placed my feet on the threshold, my hand instinctively went up onto the wall above the doorway. 

Nothing in me wanted to exit that plane. Chris politely pulled my hand down and nudged me forward. I leaned forward and off we went into the wild blue yonder. 

It was nothing like what I anticipated. I expected serenefloating in the sky. But it was loud, hectic and chaotic. Chris pointed out geographical features down below as we rushedtoward our drop zone target, but I was distracted by all the wind noise to really take in what he was saying to me.

Soon after he opened our chute I became nauseous and dizzy. I told Chris how I was feeling, so he took it easy the rest of the way down, making as few turns and spins as possible.

Still, by the time we landed I was weak and white as a sheet. My co-divers, my three sons, helped me to the seating area, since my knees were weak and my legs shakey.

So my skydiving experience wasn’t what I hoped it would be. I envisioned myself standing strong and tall, having conquered my fear by heroically jumping from a plane and landing on the ground in the posture of a Marvel character. Instead, I cowardly leaned out of the opening of the plane, somehow survived my anxiety throughout the fall and landed on weak legs and groped for someone to help me back to the hanger. I was embarrassed.

I didn’t really feel like I accomplished my goal of overcoming my fear of heights. But I think I did accomplish something else. I soon searched and found the verse of Scripture I needed that would help me put my day into perspective. It was Romans 8:32, and it’s simple logic. If God has done something as great as sending His Son to die for us, which of our smaller needs would He be unwilling to meet? 

My plan is to remember my skydiving sixtieth birthday experience and Romans 8:32 to remind me that God will always take care of my needs, whatever they are, since He’s taken care of my greatest need via the cross. Whether my need is for courage, peace, provision, protection, or whatever, it’s smaller than the gigantic need He’s already met through the greatest act of sacrifice in history. That’s the promise of Romans 8:32, and it’s more reliable than the strongest of parachutes and the best of skydiving instructors (which would be Chris).

He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)

All of us who were old enough remember the tragedy of 9/11. The Twin Towers in New
York were destroyed and the Pentagon in DC was badly damaged by three highjacked
commercial passenger planes. A fourth plane crashed in a Pennsylvania field. The death toll, including the passengers on the planes as well as the people in the targeted buildings, was nearly 3,000. Each of those three thousand people whose lives were so sadly cut short left behind loved ones whose unspeakable pain continues today, more than twenty years later. In fact, people across America and even the world felt the pain of that terrible day’s loss. It was the most tragic national event of my lifetime.

On the heels of that horrible day in 2001, was another day, not of terror but disappointing nonetheless, that not many remember or even recognized. It was the third Sunday after 9/11. Vivid in my memory are the worship services on 9/16 and 9/23. Those were
the two Sundays immediately following 9/11, and churches all across our nation were packed. I remember the sentiment of the day as everyone turned to God for comfort and answers. We were hurting and confused, and for two weeks we were keenly aware of our need for God.

But that third week something happened. We were suddenly okay. Not really, we only thought we were. And by 9/30 the desperation was noticeably absent. The masses’ hunger for God was short-lived. Church attendance was back to pre-9/11 numbers. I remember being in our worship sanctuary, expecting to see those same people who had attended the previous two Sundays, but they weren’t there. I was far more surprised at their return to life as usual than I had been at their rush to find God’s comforting presence two weeks earlier. That we would run to God in the wake of national calamity made sense; to become disinterested so quickly did not. How quickly apathy had supplanted our anguish.
Jesus said “I didn’t come for the righteous but for sinners…It’s the sick who need a
doctor, not the healthy…blessed are the poor in spirit/those who mourn/the persecuted…for theirs is the kingdom of God/they shall be comforted/great is their reward.” The poor in spirit are those who are aware of their need for God and are willing to seek Him out as beggars to get His help. Those who mourn are they who are fervently aware of loss and depend on God for comfort and restoration. The persecuted, those who have been wrongly harmed. 9/11 left behind people in all three of those categories. We knew we needed help, and for a mere three weeks we turned to God for it.
For two weeks our national personhood was poor in spirit, mourning, sick, stinging from
terrorist attacks. But then…it wasn’t. It was fine without God.
The world’s biggest problem can be summed up in this attitude: we believe we’re fine
without God. America demonstrated it in the three-week aftermath of 9/11. And most of us
demonstrate it every time we hit a crisis; we seek God for comfort, but then end that pursuit prematurely. I’m certainly guilty of it, and I propose that we all are because it’s a natural desirefor us to assume ourselves self-sufficient.

I’ve read through the Old Testament several times. Every time something that’s jumped
out at me is how quickly a generation of Israelites could forget God, despite His recent
intervention, and become dependent on some idol, a false god or their own strength. Now I’m not at all saying the 9/11 attacks were God’s intervention. Some well-meaning but off-base preachers proclaimed the attacks were God’s judgment on a nation that had turned its back on God. I don’t believe that. What I believe most ardently about the 9/11 attacks is that God will somehow use them (and already has used them) to bring about something good for those who love Him and embrace His purposes (Romans 8:28). And I believe those attacks should have caused us to turn to God for help and healing, relentlessly pursuing Him for the rest of our vulnerable lives. Even though we can’t blame Him for those murders, we could and should give Him our humble and complete attention, not for blame but for help. When we turn our attention away from God it’s usually a gradual process. We’re usually like the proverbial cold- blooded frog in the pot of tepid water on the stove. We aren’t thrown into water already boiling; rather, we’re sitting in comfortable water, and eventually, when it’s too late, realize we’re being boiled to death.

I understand that we can be mesmerized into destruction. What puzzles me is how relatively short the mesmerizing is, how soon we can self destruct. In the Old Testament, scenarios usually involved a generation or longer – though some were far shorter than that – before God’s people realized they had done a one-eighty from Him. The speediest one I can think of was during the generation that wondered through the wilderness for forty years. It was a mere three days of travelling after God had performed the most famous miracle in pre-Messiah history – the parting of the Red Sea. In three short days the Israelites had taken on an attitude of faithlessness and complained against God and Moses. Little did they know, God already had a plan to give them the fresh drinking water they needed. So as is always the case, turning their hearts defiantly away from God proved futile.

I recently had an old friend call me. He’d had a near death experience. Emergency
medical workers had to use CPR on him. Fortunately, he revived after a single chest
compression. It got him thinking about the brevity of life and being prepared for what’s next. We texted back and forth for several days, looking for an opportunity to get together. By the time we met for lunch, about two weeks after he first called, he was no longer interested in discussing eternity. I was very disappointed. I felt like the incident a couple weeks before woke him to the most important things, and by the time we got to talk, he’d fallen back asleep. He’s still in my prayers and I’ll continue to try to be there whenever he’s interested again. I hope that interest is sparked again, hopefully this time without a medical emergency.
I certainly have no room to pass judgment. I know I frustrated people who worked so
patiently through prayer and persuasion to help me come to Christ. And even since God gave me life and His very Spirit I’ve had frustrating patterns of cooling off in my devotion to Him.
Nevertheless, whether it’s we as a nation, my old friend, or I myself, the problem of
apathy toward such a powerful and loving God is unfortunate. Our solution? Like David, we
should hide God’s Word in our hearts, so that we won’t sin against Him. What Word? Here’s a good one:

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. (Hebrews 10:23)

It’s been a long time since I was single. Seems like single life was a whole separate
existence before this one. One thing I remember about it is how hard – at times frustrating – it was to find mutual attraction. It seemed like most girls I was interested in weren’t interested in me. And many of the girls who showed interest in me, did not appeal to me. So there was this ongoing frustration of a yearning never satisfied.

therooster.com (a site I’ve never read or even heard of, but came up when I searched
“odds of finding your soul mate”) says “the odds of finding your soul mate during your lifetime are 1 in 10,000 [but]that figure doesn’t take into account the fact that 9,891 of those people probably live in a place you’ll never conceivably go.
Now I’m not one to think in terms of odds for something like finding the person you’ll
spend your life with. I was just curious what would come up in a search. “Odds” are never valid anyway when you factor in God, and it’s far less stressful for us to trust Him to lead us to the person He’d like us to marry.
But I’m not really writing today about inter-human love.

God’s Word tells us that He loves us so much that He gave up His only Son to die for us.
It tells the stories of a shepherd who found his lost sheep and rejoiced, a woman who found her single lost coin and invited her friends over to celebrate, a dad whose wayward son returned home to him and the dad threw a fattened-calf-killing celebration and that shook the neighborhood. All these parables, found in Luke 17, express the love God has for us and the joy He has when one of us accepts His invitation to join Him.
God has never been incomplete, like we often feel in our single days, but it’s clear in
Scripture that He has yearned to have intimate fellowship with us ever since humankind was separated from Him by the sin of the first two of us.
Ever since then, throughout human history, He has loved us with a longing we could never
completely understand but could only remotely fathom by that feeling we’ve all had of deeply, and for a long time, loving someone who didn’t love us back.

I remember the joy that came over me as I realized the girl I’d longed for, for a long
time, was actually also interested in me. She worked in her parents’ Christian bookstore, and I first went in to buy my first Bible soon after coming to Christ. Subsequently, I went in about every week or so and bought a lot of books I never actually read. I’d go in just to see her. Eventually, I mustered the courage to invite her to go on a date. When she accepted I was ecstatic. As we went out a second and third time, and so on, I fell ever more deeply in love with her, and it became apparent that she loved me back. I enjoyed a satisfaction like I’d never really had before.

It must be like that for God concerning us. He waited, longingly for more than twenty-
one years before I would respond to His love, millennia for humankind in general. Finally, after really seeing His love for me, somehow for the first time, I loved Him back. According to the Bible, the day I loved Him back, He was so overjoyed that He threw a Heaven-wide celebration. The one He loved finally loved Him back! Imagine that: the sovereign Creator of the universe could hardly contain Himself because His love for me was requited at last.

In closing, two things:

1. Please don’t get the idea that I think I’m more loved by God than any other person.
   God has the ability to – and actually does – love each of us as if there were only one
   of us. He’s as joyful over you as He is over anyone.
2. If you haven’t come to the place in your life of loving God back, please know that He’ll be absolutely thrilled when you do. You have the power to make God happy.

Listening to our lead pastor, Ron Barnard, this past Sunday as he preached his message,
an interest sparked in my mind that I’ve never had before exactly. It was actually Redemption Sunday, a holiday created by, recognized by and celebrated by 828 Church, our church. The 828 in the church’s name comes from Romans 8:28, which reminds us that, regardless of the occurrences and circumstances in our lives, God causes them all to work together for our good– our meaning those who love God and who submit themselves to His purposes for them. The holiday, Redemption Sunday, is the Sunday each year closest to August 28 (8/28). When Ron and his team launched 828 Church in February of 2015, there was a deeply personal reason for their settling on that name.

In 2006, Ron saw that a little boy who was crossing the street was walking into the path
of an oncoming pickup truck. Ron darted (my word, not his) into motion to hopefully save the little boy. He did save the kid, but sustained very serious injuries himself as the truck hit him.

Lying in the ditch with a shattered femur and several badly damaged vertebrae, Ron woke to his wife, Karen, praying for him. He was soon airlifted and taken into surgery. Long story short, Ron survived literally getting hit by a truck but with some major challenges ahead of him. He still endures significant back pain today (and definitely can’t dunk a basketball anymore).
But here’s the 828 connection. Ron soon realized that, even though getting hit by a
truck was in no way a good thing in itself, God caused many good things to come about by
working his accident together with other factors at play. For example, the driver of the truck
that hit Ron (I believe his name is Tony), a self-proclaimed atheist up to that point, put his faith in Jesus Christ as he saw the faith of Ron & Karen and the undeniable protection God provided for Ron and for the little kid. Also, God gave Ron many opportunities to tell the story about how a guy can get hit by a truck, live to tell about it and continue to be used by God to help people spiritually and physically. Many people have come to know Jesus and many have benefitted from Ron’s pastoral ministry, myself included. Because of his story of redemption, Ron eventually became known as 828 Ron. Naturally, the name of the new church he would lead would be 828 Church.
As he does every year on Redemption Sunday, Ron preached a masterful message about
how God redeems everything for all of us in Christ. (Watch that sermon below.)

After hearing Ron’s message, I noticed that aforementioned spark in my mind. After the sermon was concluded, my wheels continued to turn all afternoon about the idea of redemption.
From an economics standpoint, redeem means converting something valuable into
something useful. God redeems not only the things in our life; He actually redeems us. He
considers us of great value, but we can be infinitely more useful to Him once He redeems us. He converts us into being supremely useful for His divine purposes. That’s what happens when wesurrender to Him and put our trust in Jesus Christ. We’re born again. The old is gone (the condition we had before we became supremely useful), and the new has come (now given the Divine Spirit who births in us a very useful new love for God and for people). We’ve been converted, redeemed.

A hundred dollar bill, in itself, is useless to us. But when we redeem it by purchasing something useful – converting it into something with one hundred dollars’ worth of
usefulness – it’s been redeemed. That’s us. We’re the ones who, because we’ve been
redeemed, love God back and embrace the purposes He has for us. What’s cool is that He
doesn’t stop by redeeming us, but He continues to redeem everything for those who have
allowed Him to redeem them. He redeems all things for all the redeemed. This week we
celebrate that. Happy Redemption Week!

And we know that God causes everything to work together for those who love God and are
called according to His purpose for them. – Romans 8:28

God created the universe and all it contains. To the ones He created in His own image He gave the instruction to be fruitful and multiply. The message from the heart of the Creator is essentially I want more of you. That God wants there to be more of us is a surprising idea if we view Him as being displeased with us and ever poised for pouring out His wrath in judgment. So maybe He isn’t as displeased with us as we’ve come to believe. God knew when He issued the commandment to fill the earth with people that Adam and Eve would eat the forbidden fruit, that their son would kill his brother, that by Noah’s generation people’s intentions would be continually evil. Yet He still wanted more of us.

So the history of mankind’s actions is tarnished with disobedience and rebellion against God. But there’s one natural and passionate obedience that abided in them. So many evil intentions, so much sinfulness, yet this one passion seemed as natural to them as their need for food and air. They possessed a natural longing to procreate.

Consider Lot’s daughters. Their hometown of Sodom had been decimated by the fires of judgment, only they and their father escaping to the mountains. Both of his two daughters possessed such a yearning to have children to promulgate their father’s heritage that they did the unthinkable. They got Lot drunk and took turns from one night to the next sleeping with their own father to produce sons from him. (Incidentally, Lot is the only person I know of in history to be both father and grandfather to the same children.) Whatever appalling reasons anyone can think of for those women to do what they did, it was trumped in their minds by their desire to produce children.

Then there’s Tamar. This lady was so desperate to have a child that she tricked her father-in-law, Judah, into sleeping with her by posing as a prostitute after never having become pregnant by either her first or second husband, Judah’s two now dead sons. She actually risked her life to become pregnant, since being found with child as an unmarried woman would have gotten her stoned in her culture, and it almost did. That was the power of her natural drive to have a child.

Look at the anguish of Hannah. One of her husband’s two wives, she being the one he loved dearly, she was barren and could find no comfort as long as she was childless. Her desire to birth a child was so strong that she promised God she would literally give the child up for His service if He would make her womb fruitful. That child was Samuel, and Hannah was good for her word.

Boaz demonstrated the priority of producing children by his willingness to marry Ruth and have a child with her that wouldn’t even be his heir, but rather Ruth’s first husband’s who had died and left her childless. He held a desire to be fruitful, not just to promulgate his own legacy, but to fulfill the God-given desire to bring children into God’s world.

Fast forward more than a millennium and Jesus, the original Creator all things, issued a new command not that different fom the original one. Instructing His disciples to go and make disciples, He’s still saying I want more of you.

Then we see a very similar innate desire to reproduce themselves in the disciples that we saw in the earth’s earlier inhabitants. Peter preached passionately at Pentecost to win three thousand newbies, those in whom old things had passed away and all things had become new. They’d been born again.

Soon there was trouble. Of the persecution persuasion. But the persecuted Christians didn’t stop everything and put their heads between their knees. No, the simply took the life-giving gospel all over the known world as they fled to keep themselves and God’s kingdom alive. They continued to make disciples everywhere they went. The sense in the early church is that Christians had a passion to reproduce themselves.

Now let’s fast forward two more millennia. Where is that very natural passion to birth new believers? Something has perverted our very natural desire to cooperate with God in making more of us. The literal meaning of pervert is to turn completely away from the goodness of God (vert: turn. per:through or thorough) Our enemy, the devil, would pervert any and every one of us. And I doubt there’s a higher priority for him than to pervert our producing more of us for God.

The most direct antonym of pervert is repent. It means to turn all the way back around to God (pent: turn. re: again.) So our response to becoming perverted as agents of reproducing is to repent.

How do we repent? We turn back to God. But in what way, exactly? There are a couple things that need to happen. First, we need to walk according to the Spirit. God has given His Spirit to those who follow Him. It’s the Spirit from whom we’ll regain our natural passion to see more people become followers of Jesus. That’s the most important change we need to make. It isn’t about trying hard to implement a method. It’s about being in step with the Spirit who makes anyone new.

And yet there is method we need to follow, and it’s surprisingly simple. Maybe not always easy, simple to understand. It’s simply love.

 First it’s Jesus followers loving each other. That means we don’t criticize each other, but speak highly of one another. It means we don’t neglect one another, but we come to each other’s aid when they need help. 

That’s it. It’s that simple. Onlookers who aren’t following Jesus yet will have their interest piqued and decide to follow Jesus themselves. We can get back on track with helping God have more of us. And it’s simple: the Spirit and love of Christ. Be fruitful and multiply!

Lot’s daughters

Tamar

Boaz

Hannah

Make disciples

Acts (Pentecost, dispersion, Paul)

How: Love inside and out

It was more than twenty years ago now that I was serving as associate pastor at a
church in Dunn, NC. I was fulfilled in my role there, but at the same time, I longed for an
opportunity to do more than I could do in that role.
I saw Chris, the leader of our denomination, at a meeting and conveyed my sentiments to him.
“If something comes up that you think may a good fit for me, please let me know; I’d love an
opportunity to take on more.”
He said he’d keep that in mind and called me one evening a few weeks later. He told
me there was a church in the town a half hour from ours that needed a lead pastor, and he
thought I could be effective there. He told me the likely salary, which was a step up from my
current salary at that time.
I told him I’d like a night to pray about it and that I’d give him an answer the next
morning. He seemed surprised at my response. Maybe he thought I’d jump at the opportunity especially since I’d recently conveyed my desire for a change and it seemed like a natural next step for a pastor on their ministry journey. But he agreed to give me the night to seek God about it.
I hung up the phone and immediately got on my knees beside my bed. I said, ”Lord, I’m
not sure what to do, so if I don’t hear otherwise from You, I’ll call Chris in the morning and tell him I’d like to pursue that lead pastor role.” I told my wife, Sharlene, what had transpired and went to bed.

I’m not a person that often has meaningful dreams. I usually can’t remember my dreams
longer than fifteen minutes after I wake up, and even then struggle to make sense of the
jumbled abstract pieces I can recall at all. But the night I prayed about how to respond to Chris, I had a dream that was vivid when I awoke and still is to this day. In my dream, I was standing in a freshly plowed field; the hand of God came down and made three furrows in the dirt. The first one was relatively shallow, the second one deeper and the third deeper still.
Then, God asked me, “Which one do you want?” I can’t describe how I knew, but I knew
the first furrow represented staying where I was. No change, no risk, just remaining in my
comfort zone. The second furrow represented the lead pastor role Chris invited me to consider. The third one represented planting a church, going into “Satan’s territory” and helping people find freedom in Jesus and live as citizens in God’s kingdom.
“I want the deepest one, Lord,” The answer seemed obvious to me.
And the Lord’s reply made me think it indeed should’ve been obvious. “That’s the one I
want for you, too.”
I woke the next morning excited to have heard from God in such a vivid dream, that He
had answered my prayer, and that He wanted me to do something that would have deep
impact. I could hardly wait for Sharlene to wake up so I could tell her what I had experienced. I knew she’d be excited too, and I was right – she was!

A few months later we moved to Wilmington, NC and led a team to launch a church. Our
new church, Grace Harbor Church, had an intense focus on outreach into the underprivileged, underserved community, many of whom struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. Out of GHC, we helped launch Christian Recovery Houses, a discipleship ministry for people recovering from addiction. CRH just celebrated its fifteen year anniversary. Many times over the past several years, CRH’s founder and president, CJ, has reminded me of my dream and choosing that deepest furrow.

I grew up on a farm and have spent a lot of hours on a tractor pulling a bottom plow
over hundreds of acres. When you use a bottom plow, it’s called breaking land because the bottom plow point breaks through a low layer of soil and turns it up (kind of like a surfer’s wave rolling water up and creating a tunnel) toward the top of the ground. It’s important to go slow enough for the plow point to reach deep below the top layer of soil. So you can’t go very fast when you’re breaking land; you have to go slow, sometimes annoyingly slow. If you go too fast, the plow will just ride along on top of the bottom layer of soil and defeat the purpose of using a bottom plow. When you plow deeply enough, it creates a deep furrow in which you drive the wheels on one side of your tractor each pass you make through the field. Shallow furrows mean you aren’t plowing effectively.
Once, when I was about thirteen years old, my dad was planting corn when he whistled
and motioned for me to come over to him. I ran across the field and got up on the tractor with him and rode along standing on the footrest. The tractor and planter were bouncing along as we rode because the ground was bumpy.
“You feel how bumpy this ground is?” my dad asked me.
“Yessir.”
“That’s what happens when you’re in too big of a hurry, and you go too fast for the plow
to go as deep as it’s supposed to.”
I had no defense. I was busted.
“Now some of these corn seed are planted deep enough and some of them ain’t.”
All I could do was ride along, embarrassed, not daring to look him in the eye.
“If you ever do this again, I’ll…” (I’ll spare you the unpleasantries.)
He never had to… I learned my lesson.

Deep furrows take time to make. They go at a different pace than we’d often prefer to
go.
When I chose the deep furrow in my dream, I was choosing to invest deeply in the lives
of people, helping them overcome difficult barriers and learn to walk in the profound freedom God offers us through Christ Jesus. Real ministry – serving people – takes time. It can be tempting to glide over the difficult issues people need help with, but that’s when I usually remember the deepest furrow commitment. That dream has come to mean more than launching Grace Harbor Church or helping lead Christian Recovery Houses. I now know God was inviting me to a lifelong lifestyle of working in the deepest furrow. I’m so thankful He led me to that choice. I deeply recommend it to anyone.

Jesus came to our small group Christmas party. He just showed up.  Everyone was so excited to see Him in the flesh. After sharing a wonderful meal together, we all took turns sharing our answer to the question: What does Christmas mean to you? It was embarrassingly obvious that everyone was trying to impress Jesus with their answer. One guy’s clever answer was, “To me, Christmas is about Jesus, and I really sense His presence tonight.” 

It drew laughs from all around the room. But Jesus was quick to reply, “Any more corny jokes like that and you’ll sense His absence.” Then He reassured the jokester with a smile.

The question made its way round the group as four or five others shared their perspective on Christmas.

The lady next to Jesus said, “I hate to sound holier than thou, but I truly do feel closer to the Lord than anybody else in our group.”

“That’s it! I’m outa here!” Jesus rose from His chair and started moving toward the front door.

“No! No! Stay! Please! Don’t go! No more jokes, we promise! Staaayyy!” we all begged.

Jesus stopped two or three steps from the door and turned around, “I’m just kidding.” He went back to His seat and sat down, “I’d never leave you nor forsake you, especially at My birthday party.” He smiled and everyone laughed.

It’s Your turn,” several people reminded Him.

Jesus looked across the room into the flames in the fireplace. Then He gave His much anticipated perspective:

“To Me, Christmas is like Heaven.  In the beginning of the season, the parents tell the kids, ‘We’re gonna celebrate Christmas in a few weeks!’ The kids get so excited. As the days go by, their anticipation grows. Eventually, it’s all they can think about. Their parents give them hints about their coming gifts. The kids can’t wait. Will they really receive what they’ve asked for? It’s a lot! Could life really be that perfect for them? ‘Only one week ‘til Christmas!’ Mom and Dad remind their children. Then, ‘Can you believe Christmas is in two days!?’ The kids feel like they’re in Heaven! Christmas is so awesome! And it’s almost here! Then, on Christmas morning, one of the kids wakes up before the rest of the family. She jumps out of bed and runs through the house shouting to her family, ‘It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas!’ Her little brother comes romping down the hall behind her, “Let’s go downstairs and see our presents!’ They’re down the stairs in a jiffy, almost flying like angels. ‘Look! I got it! It’s just what I wanted!’ ‘Me, too! Look at mine!’ The kids run to their parents’ bedroom, screaming to them what they’ve gotten for Christmas. ‘That’s great honey!…Wow sweetie, that’s so cool!’ is all Mom can get out before fading back into her Christmas morning coma with her husband. Eventually, they get out of bed and make their way downstairs where the kids are dancing and shouting and jumping, exploding with joy. The whole family looks at the kids’ gifts. It’s the most perfect morning.”

After the party and the last of the guests had gone home, Jesus and I were cleaning up the kitchen. He was washing, and I was drying.

I couldn’t resist, and worked up my courage, “That was a great story tonight about Christmas. But will You please explain it to me? I’m not sure I completely understood it.”

“You didn’t understand that story? How, then, will you understand any of My parables?” He cut His eyes at me and curled up one side of His lips into a half-smile. Then, full of grace and mercy, came His explanation:

Thousands of years ago, God announced that Christmas was coming; He spoke it to Adam, and to Eve. Then he foretold it to Abraham, then to Moses, and then to David. Through many prophets He told of the Christmas gift – where and how He would come. Finally, God sent word to Zechariah, to Mary, and to Joseph. Then on Christmas morning, the first Christmas morning, Heaven was so excited they could hardly contain themselves. Angels burst through the night sky, announcing the Christmas gift to shepherds near Bethlehem. Heaven shouted and praised God as earth received her King. The shepherds went to see, and then ran down the streets announcing what they’d all gotten for Christmas. It was Heaven’s gift to earth, and the greatest gift ever given.

Jesus washed the last pot, gave it to me to dry, and said, “Gotta go.”

I dried the pot, bent down to put it away, and turned to see Him standing facing me with arms spread wide. I stood and we embraced.

“Merry Christmas.” He whispered into my ear.

“Thank You.” 

It was all I could say…