Archives by: Gary Hoag

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” Matthew 25:41-46

“The question is not Jesus’ question to persons. It’s the peoples’ question of Jesus. And note both the sheep and the goats ask this same question. ‘Lord, when did we see you?’

His answer is stunning. He effectively says something like, “Remember that time you bought groceries for that family at Thanksgiving whose dad had just been put in prison and then you turned around and made a completely anonymous and extraordinarily generous gift of cash to them to help them with Christmas gifts for their children? Well, I was a member of that family. That was me you helped.”

Note, he doesn’t say, “Great job! You did exactly what I would have done if I had been there.” Jesus is not saying if you are my disciple you should help the poor. He is saying, “I am the poor.” Whatever you did or did not do for one of the least of these you did or did not do to me.

In case what I just said didn’t register, and I admit the statement seems so radical as to not register, let me try it again. Jesus is not for the poor. Jesus is the poor. Wouldn’t this mean that loving the poor is the same thing as loving Jesus?”

J.D. Walt in “Why Jesus Is Not For the Poor—He Is the Poor” Seedbed Daily Text for 21 October 2016. J.D. is a dear brother. I appreciate the wisdom in his Daily Text blog, and yet again, J.D. is spot on!

This post is fitting as Jenni is in Guatemala this weekend as well, though not at my ECFA-related meetings, but at Potter’s House Guatemala. She’s joined by a friend, Donna Hepp from Oklahoma City, and leading a spiritual retreat and training about 80 volunteer teachers who will guide about 2,000 children through the VBS curriculum that she wrote and that Potter’s House translated.

Over the last five years, more than a thousand children have come to faith in Jesus Christ through VBS each November. I am not exaggerating, and the children have been plugged into Bible clubs to disciple them in their faith. As God leads (because all we steward belongs to Him), join us in supporting Potter’s House Guatemala. When you do, you are not sharing with the poor in the garbage dump. You are giving to Jesus!

“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24

“We must not make too much of a distinction between giving and receiving, for too sharp a distinction would lead us to misconstrue worship and thus distort hospitality. Our giving is never just “ours,” nor for that matter can we claim our “receiving” as solely what we do. Christian hospitality is not primarily about what we do. Rather hospitality and worship are better thought of as our participation in God’s own communion, God’s own giving and receiving, made possible in Christ through the Holy Spirit. Hospitality is participation in what God is doing…

Even our giving is not “ours” but a sharing in what God is doing. Our worship is possible only because God gathers us and gifts us with the capacity to worship. Even more, God does not give to us only as individuals (for our own sakes) but God gives to the church as a whole. Truly to receive from God is to be made part of a people, called to worship, to give and to receive for and on behalf of the world…

In worship, we learn to “hang onto nothing.” Worship enables us to embody the fact that our lives, the church, and the created world are gifts from God; we ourselves are totally dependent on giving and receiving the love of God. This dependence is not bad news, our culture’s emphasis on independence to the contrary. Rather, such communion is the way we become more fully the body of Christ.”

Elizabeth Newman in Untamed Hospitality: Welcoming God and Other Strangers (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2007) 59-60.

I am thankful the Lord led me to read Newman in my online reading this morning, as she helped me better understand they work of God in our lives. For example, when we take international trips, we feel like we empty ourselves in service and worship to God and find He fills us with strength and envelopes us with hospitality through members of His Body.

Over the last two months we got to extend hospitality to others who visited us. Hopefully they felt the same divine care through us. In learning to “hang onto nothing” (as Newman puts it), our worship and hospitality reflect both our communion with God and our participation in His work. God’s working down here in Guatemala on this trip through others, and I believe through us too. What a gift to play a part in it!

Hang onto nothing today (and everyday) in your worship. Celebrate everything as a gift from God. Serve as a conduit that gives and receives freely the love of God. Maintain a posture of dependence on God at all times. Do this regardless of what anyone else is doing. In all this, I think you too will find that worship and hospitality is merely participating with God in His work.

The Lord detests dishonest scales, but accurate weights find favor with Him. When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom. The integrity of the upright guides them, but the unfaithful are destroyed by their duplicity. Proverbs 11:1-3

“Fiscal operations in the church or nonprofit religious organizations requires a keen sense of attention to detail on the part of the administrator because of the double-edged sword of trust in the leadership that is inherent in the Christian community and necessity for honest and accurate records the responsibility demands.

Many venues in ministerial leadership can be forgiven when less-than-exceptional performance comes to light, but the administration of the fiscal resources is not one of them — either from the local parishioner’s point of view or from the legal authorities that monitor the contributions to those entities.”

Robert H. Welch in Church Administration: Creating Efficiency for Effective Ministry, second edition (Nashville: B & H Publishing, 2011) 185.

Over the next three days I have multiple meetings in Guatemala City with John Van Drunen, ECFA Executive Vice President. We have been invited here to meet with ministry administrators and financial professionals to discuss Standards of Responsible Stewardship.

Our prayer is that these meetings find favor with God and that the Holy Spirit moves so that national leaders form a coalition (and someday a peer accountability group like ECFA) for Guatemala to champion the faithful administration of God’s work and encourage greater Christian generosity.

Make it so, Lord Jesus!

A huge crowd kept following Him wherever He went, because they saw His miraculous signs as He healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with His disciples around Him. John 6:2-3

“We need to notice something. The crowd didn’t chase down Jesus without reason. They had figured out that bread wasn’t the only thing Jesus could provide. Jesus had proven His power to work a variety of miracles:

– He had changed water into wine at a wedding feast. Jesus revealed power over the elements (John 2:1-11).

– He had healed a paralytic by the Bethesda pool and the dying son of a royal official. Jesus showed His power over sickness (John 4:43-5:14).

– Jesus had multiplied that young lad’s lunch to feed thousands. Jesus displayed His power over all provision (John 6:1-15).

– He had walked on water and met up with His disciples in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus exerted His power over natural law (John 6:16-24).

Can you see what they saw? Jesus had power over every facet of life. If we slip on the sandals of these Bible folk and ponder what they had witnessed, we can dream up all kinds of things God could provide. We could enlist Jesus to rearrange our world and to fix all sorts of situations, both major and minor.”

Ravi Zacharias in Jesus Among Other Gods, Youth Edition (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000) 68.

My daughter, Sophie, taught me something over the last month (that Zacharias notes above): Jesus has the power to fix all sorts of situations, both major and minor.

Long story short, she was in an auto accident about a month ago. The driver who hit her car, a 17-year old young man, claimed the light was green, though Sophie and witnesses said that their turn arrow was green, and his light was red. Consequently, the police officer gave neither person a ticket.

In this “no fault” world, what hope would Sophie have. She prayed and persisted in calling both her insurance adjuster as well as the company of the responsible party about every other day kindly asking for status reports and for the responsible party to cover the repairs.

She called the police department and asked them to look at the traffic cameras and got nowhere. She even spoke with the police officer who was so kind as to call the mother of the driver of the car that hit her. Think how horrible it would be for a 17-year old, a minor, to learn that lying is the way out of a jam!

From my vantage point, all has seemed hopeless. However, after about a month of praying and asking for assistance, Sophie’s phone rang. It was the insurance company of the other driver. Her car would be towed to a shop. They will pay to repair her car (assuming it’s not deemed totaled . . . we are still waiting for word about that).

It’s obvious why I am telling this story! We are praising God today for this blessing. Jenni and I are most thankful that Sophie knows that Jesus can solve any jam, and because of that belief, he chases after Him in prayer with perseverance. We give thanks that our generous God has the power to fix all sorts of situations.

Are you in crisis today? Call out to Jesus for help. Don’t just do it once. Chase after Him and sit with Him patiently. He does not always answer the way we like, and other times we are miraculously surprised. Regardless, when we take this posture, it changes us. We learn amazing lessons at His feet. Thanks for the lesson, Sophie!

When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Everyone is to gather as much as they need. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.’”

The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, the one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little. Everyone had gathered just as much as they needed.

Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. Exodus 16:15-20

“This narrative stands at the center of Israel’s imagination; it embodies and signifies YHWH’s capacity for generosity that stands in complete contrast to the nightmare of scarcity that fueled Pharoah’s rapacious policies. The Israelites were so inured to the scarcity system of Pharaoh that they could hardly take in the alternative abundance given in divine generosity, the purpose of which was to break the vicious cycle of anxiety about scarcity that in turn produced anger, fear, aggression, and finally, predatory violence.

The Israelites, in the narrative, are overwhelmed by divine abundance. They react, however, as though they were still in the old system of pharaonic scarcity. Moses warned them not to save up or to hoard the bread or to keep extra supplies on hand. Take what you need, eat and enjoy! But they did not listen. They filled their pockets and their baskets with extras because there might not be any more tomorrow. That is what one does in the face of scarcity…But such frantic surpluses will not work. Because the “bread of heaven” is not like the “bread of affliction” that the Israelites had eaten in Egyptian slavery. There you could save a crust of bread for the next day. But not here! Abundance is not for hoarding.”

Walter Brueggemann in Journey to the Common Good (Louisville: WJKP, 2010) 16-17.

Would you pray with me today, please.

Father in Heaven, help us wake up the world, and more specifically God’s Church, from the “nightmare of scarcity” that shrouds modern society by helping those around us understand that our “capacity for generosity” is rooted in Your divine abundance. May our lives show others that we have taken hold of abundant life in Jesus Christ. Teach us not to hoard, but to work diligently, and enjoy and share Your spiritual and material blessings. Make it so through our lives by your Holy Spirit we pray in the name of Jesus. Amen!

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen. Romans 1:22-25

“Throughout history the most universally acknowledged problem with money is that its pursuit is insatiable. As we seek money and possessions, observers note, the pursuit grows into a never-satisfied desire that fuels avarice … The insatiability touches two areas — getting what we do not have and clutching on to what we do … People in high pursuit of money think only of making money … Individuals and societies who devote themselves to money soon become devoured by it. Or as the Bible reiterates, we become what we worship. Money almost literally seems to eat people away, drying up the sap of their vitality and withering their spontaneity, generosity, and joy.”

Os Guinness in The Call: Finding and Fulfilling the Central Purpose of Your Life (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003) 130-131.

One project I am working on these days with a colleague, Tim Dittloff, is a devotional called “Imago Dei Living” (Latin for “Image of God living”). When we don’t follow God’s design for our lives — formed in His image — we worship money rather than God and we become fools who chase our desires like animals. When we instead focus our worship on God, as Guinness rightly notes, we exhibit vitality, spontaneity, generosity, and joy.

The word “spontaneity” in today’s meditation particularly struck me because of something that happened in the last couple days. Last weekend while ministering in Florida, we met some wonderful couples. Jenni had a special connection with a woman from Oklahoma: Donna Hepp. When Donna learned Jenni would be ministering in Guatemala this weekend, she asked if she could come too. Then yesterday her husband, Marty, dropped by for lunch en route to a conference. Just like that, we are collaborating in the Kingdom with this couple. I’ll share more about the Guatemala trip in the next few days.

Today I head Kansas City to meet up with EFCA colleague, Garth Warren, for meetings with the leaders of Made To Flourish, a pastor’s network for the common good. This organization provides helpful resources and connects pastors and marketplace leaders in networks linked to the integration of faith, work, and economics. Getting back to the idea of today’s meditation, MTF encourages people work not for compensation or remuneration (“making money”) but for contribution and reflection (“making a difference” and “glorifying God”).

Guinness is spot on in saying: “We become what we worship.”

Tim Dittloff and Donna & Marty Hepp worship God and exhibit the vitality, spontaneity, generosity, and joy of the LORD. We hope people say that about Jenni and me as a couple too. And I am thankful for Garth Warren and my friends at Made To Flourish who are helping pastors point people to God’s design for their faith and work so that they make a difference and glorify God (which is why Garth and I hope to connect their work with EFCA pastors around the country before I fly home tonight).

But what about you? What are you becoming?

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” Revelation 7:9-10

“We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of this world. Instead, we will wish we had given more of ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing the praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship.”

David Platt in Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream (Colorado Springs: Multnomah, 2010) 217.

At the CBMC president’s council weekend, one of the speakers, Bob Doll, shared a quote from David Platt’s book, Radical, so I turned my attention back to that classic book this morning.

It’s fitting to re-visit Radical at this time of year because I have watched a few MLB postseason baseball games. After each half inning (and pitching change), the TV commercials tell me to buy more stuff, store up more money, and spoil myself in luxury.

The commercials are genius! They promise people precisely what they are looking for — peace, security, love, and happiness — except the things the merchants are selling do not satisfy, so people keep looking. This strengthens our resolve that one of the most generous things we can do is live with radical obedience and point people to Jesus.

What about you? Are you living for the day?

Rather, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

The Prayer of Sir Francis Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596) as recounted in No Retreat, No Surrender by Dena Sherwood (Bloomington: WestBow, 2012) ix.

Drake was a famous English sea captain. He undoubtedly saw lots of amazing things in circumnavigating the world. In this famous prayer he rightly reminds us not to be too enamored with earthly things which can cause us to lose sight of that which is eternal.

Father in heaven, thank you for the unimaginable splendor you are preparing for those who love You! Fill us with strength by your Holy Spirit to serve you generously this week and live all our earthly days in light of eternity. Make it so I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I have specifically chosen Bezalel son of Uri, grandson of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. I have filled him with the Spirit of God, giving him great wisdom, ability, and expertise in all kinds of crafts.” Exodus 31:1-3

“God has called you to be a witness for Christ, bringing your expertise to bear on the needs of the world, pointing [those you work with] to Christ, and involving others in the only revolution that will truly transform a person and society, the revolution of the human heart brought by Jesus Christ.”

Paul M. Gould in The Outrageous Idea of the Missional Professor (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2014) 9-10.

At the CBMC President’s Council Weekend that wraps up in Florida today (coastline pictured above), Jenni and I are encouraging attendees to be generous with their L.I.F.E. (Labor, Influence, Finances, and Expertise). Today’s post corresponds to “expertise.”

You and I are workers for God, just like Bezalel. God has filled us with His Spirit and given us expertise to use for His glory and to point others to Him. Often this form of generosity requires great effort but can impact everyone around us. What about you? How are you generous with your expertise?

Therefore show these men the proof of your love and the reason for our pride in you, so that the churches can see it. 2 Corinthians 8:24

“It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving.”

Richard Braunstein in The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations, edited by Martin H. Manser (Louisville: WJKP, 2001) 122.

While at the CBMC President’s Council Weekend, Jenni and I are encouraging attendees to be generous with their L.I.F.E. (Labor, Influence, Finances, and Expertise). Today’s post corresponds to “finances.”

The Apostle Paul urged the Corinthians to demonstrate “proof of their love” by giving. In plain terms, he said, “Put your money where your love is.” Braunstein captures the heart of Christian love: it must be coupled with giving.