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I recently watched American Gospel on Netflix. It’s a documentary that compares the gospel of the Bible to the gospel going out from many pulpits in America today. I enjoyed watching, and I agree with a vast majority of its perspectives. I certainly recommend it to anyone who wants a better understanding of what the Bible teaches in comparison to what many well known preachers preach, and I especially recommend it to those newer to the faith who haven’t established a strong foundation of Biblical literacy. The thought that kept coming to my mind as I watched it, was, “Wow! People really need to know the true Gospel themselves.” That’s the only way we’ll be safe from those who would lead us astray. So I want to offer three tips to help navigate the waters that are teeming with preachers with varying degrees of error that our enemy can use to pull us off course:

Tip #1 – Don’t over-delegate your discipleship. The Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Philippi Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only,but now much more  in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. (Philippians 2:12) The main point of this instruction was that they should take responsibility for their own discipleship, and not require someone looking over their shoulders. I believe the most important word in this verse is own. They needed to own their relationship with God and pursue their growth in, and service to, Him. Paul didn’t want that responsibility. It was theirs. He couldn’t assume it. Paul certainly had a role in their lives in Christ. He introduced many of them to Him during his visit there, a fascinating story found in Acts chapter 16. He mentioned in the Philippians 2:12 verse their obedience. They had obeyed Paul’s instruction, and he admonished them to continue in that obedience. But Paul was being used by God to establish timeless doctrine, and his letter to them would be of such authority that it would be included in the New Testament canon. Every Christian should know that no person since the age of the apostle Paul and the twelve apostles present in Acts chapter 2 has the authority to instruct believers in such a way. Ephesians 4:11 makes it clear that God gives some people to serve in the roles of apostles (Paul and the other Twelve of Acts 2), evangelists, prophets, pastors and teachers. Their calling and responsibility is to equip the saints, which means every believer. But those equippers are held to a very high standard and should carry out their ministries according to Scripture.

Tip #2 – Gain a complete understanding of the Biblical Gospel.  At least a dozen times, I’ve heard teachers use the analogy of the counterfeit checkers. The way the checkers are trained is by studying real money for so long that they know exactly what real money looks like. Then, when they see a counterfeit bill, the difference jumps out at them. That’s the way we’ll detect non-Biblical doctrine – by studying God’s Word so thoroughly that a teacher of false doctrine stands out as such. We don’t have to wait for someone to expose the counterfeit because God’s Word, that we’ve hidden in our heart, has exposed them. Being able to detect erroneous teachers isn’t the main reason we study God’s Word, but it’s a good reason. The main reason we study is to get to know God better and to know what He wants for us. By the way, it’s also a great idea to get the counsel and perspectives of other Christian leaders and peers. And most important is the counsel of the Holy Spirit, which He’ll give to us if we ask Him in prayer.

Tip #3 – Discern a Preachers’ Doctrine. I recently had a student at a Christian university ask what I thought about Joel Osteen. One of the student’s professors had warned his students about Osteen and the student’s dad disagreed with the professor. Incidentally, the Netflix documentary put a pretty big target on Osteen’s back, as well. I don’t have as big of a problem with Joel Osteen. He isn’t where I would go to gain a complete understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which includes repentance from sin and full surrender to God’s plan for me – rather than trying to fit God into my plan – as well as His forgiveness and unmerited favor. But when I was recently battling discouragement during a long, slow recovery after suffering a major stroke, I searched out a few Osteen sermons on YouTube and they were just the encouragement I needed. I’m not saying I swallow everything Joel says, but neither do I always agree perfectly with the way many mainstream preachers word things. The key is that I’ve been a student of, and communicator of, God’s Word for many years. I’ve studied academically and devotionally, and that has given me a solid foundation of understanding with which to discern when I run across  some bad doctrine. The point is that we should work to understand God’s Word and be in step with the Holy Spirit so that we can discern truth and non-truth ourselves without having to rely completely on someone else to catch troublesome doctrine for us. Paul also invited his Corinthian church members, Imitate me as I also imitate Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1) This is the man who wrote one-third of the books in the New Testament encouraging believers to imitate his life, but only to the extent that he imitated Jesus’ life. How were they to discern when Paul’s model might part ways with the model Jesus exhibited? They must know the Way themselves. Let us know the Way ourselves, as is laid out in God’s Word. And let us imitate only as the Christ of Scripture is modeled for us.

Dear Class of 2020,

First, congratulations! High school wasn’t easy. Neither were the years of pre-high school, for that matter. We all tend to look at those coming along behind us with very little sympathy. “We went through those challenges, we tell ourselves, “and we made it through, so what’s the big deal? They’ll survive.” Of course, ours were tougher, and so were we, because we had neither shoes nor buses, it was always snowing, and ours was a time when everywhere we walked was uphill. The true story is that those school years were tough. They were tough for me, and they were tough for you. The hard thing about those times was that we were constantly told what to do. Our parents, teachers, school administrators, lunchroom supervisors, librarians, coaches, and upperclassmen took every opportunity to keep us in line. Oh, we’ll still have rules in the post-high school world, and there’ll be plenty of people with the authority  and responsibility to enforce those rules – bosses, professors, law enforcement officers. But we have a little more wiggle room. We still face consequences for bad decisions, but we aren’t quite so micromanaged as  we were in school. Don’t get me wrong. We needed the tight leash during our school years. It kept us on track for development and maturity, and, let’s be honest, in some cases, it kept us alive. But it was tough – the tight leash. Congratulations for graduating from that!

I graduated from Lakewood High School forty years ago on June 6^th. Class of ’80 – whoo-yeah! While your senior year and graduation experience is unique, your class and mine do have a couple of things in common. I entered the first grade in 1968. Segregation of schools according to race had been ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court fourteen years before then. But our school system didn’t desegregate until the 1969-70 school year. My first grade class  of about seventy students consisted of only two African American students, and the rest white. My understanding is that attending a school comprised predominantly of a race different from a student’s own was still voluntary that year. My second grade class was about 55% white and 45% African American. Schools in my area were fully integrated that year. I was oblivious to it at the time.  It wasn’t until  I was an adult studying civil rights history that I remembered the difference between those first and second grade classes. 

Obviously, race was a huge issue in my day. The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 made discrimination illegal, but there was still a lot of racial tension in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I’m sorry to say, Class of 2020, that we never have resolved those racial tension issues. I wish I could say we had, but you know better. The reason we haven’t resolved it is because we never, as a national people, resolved in our hearts to resolve it in our nation. So, my challenge to you is to do that. Do what we should’ve done but didn’t do. Resolve in your hearts to resolve the race problem in our land. Forty years from now, if you write a letter to the Class of 2060, I hope you can say you  resolved the racial tension issue, so they won’t have to.

Class of 2020, I have one more challenge for you. It’s even more important than the race related one, and it’s around another issue I wish I had done differently. The most important question we will ever answer is: what is your relationship with God like? I discovered the love and power of Jesus Christ in 1983, and I surrendered my life to Him. I wish I had done it sooner, and that I had been more completely committed to Him every day of my walk with Him. I ask you, Class of 2020, to ask God to show you who Jesus really is and what that has to do with you. Then, read the Bible (the book of John is the best place to start.) and let Him reveal Himself to you as you read. Once you come to understand who He is, surrender your life to Him. You’ll be entering an everlasting relationship with Him that will include life, peace, and joy. That’s my challenge to you, and this is my letter to you. Congratulations and may God bless you more than you can imagine!

With Love,

Gabriel Tew

May 25

When I picture in my mind what Hell will be like, I see people writhing in pain that won’t go away. They twist and squirm, cry and cry out, but there’s no comfort to be found, just unending struggle. The demons, for whom Hell was created, are both suffering and inflicting the suffering. When I saw the video of George Floyd, his neck being pressed into the pavement of a Minneapolis street, as he kept turning his head trying to find some relief from the strangulation of the kneeling police officer’s knee pressing down onto George’s neck, slowly and painfully strangling him to death, I saw a man going through Hell. A massive demon, his prickly spine under his slimy skin, was perched upon the shoulders of Officer Chauvin. The demon covered the officer’s ears with his massive wings to shut out the voices that were pleading for George’s life. The demon briefly uncovered Chauvin’s ears, and another spirit whispered to him with an eerily gruff voice, “Don’t listen to them! You’re the authority here!” Then the perched demon covered the policeman’s ears again. High above the ground was a cloud of dark spirits swirling like a cyclone, blocking the light of the sun, and covering the whole sky, casting a dark shadow over the entire city. Every few seconds, a different spirit would swoop down to whisper words of hatred, pride and murder, as the one assigned to Chauvin availed Chauvin’s ears for a new hellish message from a cohort. With each demonic message, “he deserves it!“…”show him no mercy!”…”Kneel harder”…”If he dies, he dies!”…Chauvin’s resolve hardened, as did his knee in George’s neck. Finally, George experienced the thing Hell loves most: death.

May 31

Dispatched from the very throne room of God, powerful angels of light streaked downward, leaving a trail of fire behind them. Their orders were to minister life to the city of their destination: Miami, FL. U.S.  They descended to one hundred feet above the earth and formed a fiery, brilliant cloud that illuminated all of Miami. Down below, crowds had gathered on the streets to protest. Dispatched from the city’s highest authority, police officers stood, ready to maintain order. The mighty Michael called seven of the most effective angels: humility, contrition, encouragement, service, friendship, empathy “To the officers! Speak the love of the King!” The seven chosen spirits of light dropped majestically onto seven of the officers of the Miami PD. They landed softly and spoke clearly into their ears, “Humble yourself”…“Feel their pain.”…“Tell them you’re sorry.”…”Comfort them.”… “They’re not your enemy.” The angels spoke not as forceful commands, but as suggestions. And the Miami police officers took their every suggestion. The officers knelt and apologized from their hearts. Michael had also assigned hundreds of angels to communicate to the protesters. Their message? Forgive. And forgive they did. Officers and protesters embraced each other, held each other, showed kindness to one another, and cried together. Michael and the other angels maintained their lofty position to fight off any of the angels of darkness that might come to confuse, but they never came. They knew, from experience with Michael and the Heavenly host, that they were outmatched. The sky shone brighter in Miami that day than anywhere else in the world. And Heaven drank from the cups of the victories it seeks most: Love and Life.

Hell gained a kneeling war victory in Minneapolis last week and Heaven won one in Miami. But the kneeling wars are not over, and I’m enlisting in the service of the Heavenly King. Kneeling, I ask you, God, to help our nation heal, send spirits of love and life and give them voices louder than the ones of their hellish foes. Satan, I have something to say to you! Still kneeling in honor of God, my victorious King, I speak to you in the name of Jesus, the one sent to free us from your hateful clutches, the one who gave His life to completely disarm you and render you defeated. You have no place in our lives or in our nation! I command you with the authority given to me by Almighty God through my friendship with His Son, Jesus, to be silent! You are a false-accusing, destructive deceiver, and your lies are not welcome in the ears of the people of this land! So be silent! And I, still kneeling now, have something to say to my African-American fellow citizens. I’m sorry for the way our country has treated you. Your ancestors were enslaved under a banner of freedom for all people. I’m sorry! I’m sorry that, after slavery was outlawed in our land, several states passed laws to limit your freedom to earn, learn, travel, dine, socialize, own and vote in the way your white neighbors could. I’m sorry your parents and grandparents were held down in a disadvantaged position, unable to give their children many of the opportunities my white friends and I enjoyed. I’m sorry you were stripped of your dignity in front of your families, and I commend so many of my African-American friends for the way you have carried yourselves in the face of discrimination. I’m sorry for the voices of hate hurled against you like a dagger into your heart. I’m sorry for the crimes committed against you, especially the ones that went unpunished and even unacknowledged. I’m sorry for the police brutality and discrimination you’ve endured from our legal system. I’m sorry for the faint voice  you’ve heard that says you’re inferior. You, most certainly, are not! That’s the voice of Satan, regardless of what person’s lips have spoken it, and he is the father of lies. You’re as valuable, as intelligent, as favored by God as any race has ever been! In fact, because of your troubles and trials, you are beneficiaries of a special love and favor from God! He has plans for you! Your tomorrow is Life in God. 

Finally, I’d like to say something to my friends who would criticize me for this post: Don’t bother. Instead, please join me in kneeling for victory.

Acknowledgement: Thanks and credit to Frank E. Peretti, author of This Present Darkness, Piercing the Darkness, Tilly, and The Cooper Kids Adventure Series and more. While I didn’t quote any of his material here, I definitely borrowed his style of describing activity in the spirit realm. I just happened to be re-reading This Present Darkness last week, and its influence on this week’s blog is unmistakable.

Sunday night, a week ago, finished up The Last Dance series on ESPN, a documentary covering the 1997-98 season of the NBA’s Chicago Bulls. That was the last of the six championship seasons for Michael Jordan and the Bulls. Management decided before the season that it would be coach Phil Jackson’s final season and that they would dismantle and rebuild after that season. So, in an effort to unify and motivate his players for one final run at an NBA title, Phil dubbed the season The Last Dance, which was an ingenious way  of creating a very effective us-against-them mindset, even if – or, especially if – the them was the Bulls front office.

The series was really good. No real surprises for me, though. I’m five months older than Michael Jordan, a third generation Tarheel basketball fan, and an NBA fan since I was eight years old. I’ve followed Michael closely from the first time he wore a Dean Smith uniform and saw every game of his pro career that I could possibly watch, even in the nineties, when we had anywhere from one to three at a time in diapers, my wife and me working  full-time, and both of us super-involved in church ministry. So I knew very well Michael’s fierce-competitor, do-whatever-to-win approach to the game, along with his superhuman athleticism and unstoppable skill set. And make no mistake, while other prominent figures – like Phil, Scottie, Kraus and Rodman – were duly featured, The Last Dance spotlight shone warmly where it belonged – on Michael. I count it a privilege to have witnessed MJ play through his entire career, and I’ve honestly thanked God for scheduling my time on earth to correlate with Michael’s. Aside from the beauty of his airness’ artistry of scoring so acrobatically against multiple defenders and the poetry he wrote with his game-winning heroics, he was a perfect model of talent meets determination meets work ethic for anyone from any walk of life.  Someone said in the series You could argue that Michael Jordan was better at his job than anyone has ever been at their job. I agree, with the single exception of Jesus Christ, who is the exception to an undeterminable number of otherwise strong best-ever arguments.

Speaking of Jesus, please read what He said, as recorded in the book of Luke (I added the emphasis on what is the main point of His lesson):

“There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and an accusation was brought to him that this man was wasting his goods.  2 So he called him and said to him, ‘What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.’ 

3 “Then the steward said within himself, ‘What shall I do? For my master is taking the stewardship away from me. I cannot dig; I am ashamed to beg.  4 I have resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.’ 

5 “So he called every one of his master’s debtors to him, and said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’  6 And he said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ So he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’  7 Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ So he said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ And he said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’  8 So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in their generation than the sons of light. 

This is the most difficult to understand of all Jesus’ thirty parables. But it helps to realize that He used a negative model for a positive application. The negative is that the steward used his shrewdness to steal from his master once he learned it was, for his stewardship, the last dance. The positive application is that we should be so shrewd in making life-after-stewardship-preparations for ourselves (life on earth being our stewardship era, and the preparations being giving ourselves completely to serving God and people). After all, life being a vapor, our gig could be up at any time. We could be in our very own last dance.

Jesus’ point is that we can learn lessons from people who are successful in worldly pursuits, and we can apply those lessons to our pursuits in His Kingdom.

Dishonest Steward’s Model: He stole from his master and gave what he’d stolen to his master’s debtors, so they would be kind to him after he lost his position as steward.

Our Takeaway: Be generous with the resources available to us in this life; by doing so, we are making an investment in eternity and our return on investment will be exponentially favorable.

Not Our Takeaway: Obviously, Jesus isn’t encouraging us to ever be dishonest in our dealings. Nor is He suggesting that we ever steal from anyone.

And here are some lessons we can take from Michael Jordan, the greatest of all time (GOAT) in basketball history.

GOAT’s Model: MJ used anything he could find to boost his motivation to dominate his opponents. For example, Karl Malone, of the Utah Jazz was league MVP one year, and Jordan took offense to that, wanting to prove in the championship series against Utah that year that Jordan was the better player who would lead his team to the championship over Malone’s team.

Our Takeaway: Any time our enemy (ungodliness) enjoys some success, we can use that as added motivation to serve and glorify God with great intensity and determination.

Not Our Takeaway: We never want to use another person’s success as motivation to better them. That’s covetousness. As followers of Christ, we can’t find motivation in just anything. Our top priority is to guard our hearts. A pure heart is more important to us than accomplishments superior to another person’s.

GOAT’s Model: It’s well documented that Michael raised his teammates’ level of play by challenging them in team practices, to the point of bullying them.

Our Takeaway: We should look for opportunities to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ in their faith. We all need each other’s help. We’re all members of the Body of Christ and we should proactively help the body by helping a member.

Not Our Takeaway: A domineering approach to motivating someone is not Christlike. Concerning how to become a great leader, Jesus told his disciples, “Whoever desires to become great among you, let him be your servant.” There we go… servant leadership is the style God wants for us.

GOAT’s Model: Michael was single-minded in his pursuit of winning championships and wanted to win at all costs.

Our Takeaway: How awesome it would be if we were so single-minded about bringing glory to God and about helping people come to know Him as their Savior, Lord and King.

Not Our Takeaway: While we are called to deny ourselves and take up our cross to follow Christ, we need to decide that offending others by being unkind to them isn’t a cost we’re willing to pay.

What would my life (and my and others’ eternities) look like if I were as single-minded and all-in concerning the objectives God has called me to as Michael was concerning his objectives? Again, thank You, God, for providing for me such a model as Michael Jordan. Please help me to apply those lessons to my life in Your Kingdom!