Walter Brueggemann: Obligation and Opportunity

You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached — how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how He went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with Him. Acts 10:37-38

What follows here is a study of some of the dimensions of faith that are front and center when we consider the materiality of our faith. That material aspect of faith is grounded in our conviction about creation: the world is God’s creation that God has called good. It is further grounded in our conviction concerning the incarnation, the confession that God has come bodied (“became flesh,” John 1:14) in Jesus of Nazareth, who “went about doing good” (Acts 10:38) of a vigorously material kind: The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them (Luke 7:22).

That materiality performed by Jesus is not to be confused with materialism, because the gospel accent on the material is grounded in the conviction that the truth of our life summons us to hope-filled obedience, an obedience that is always referred back in gladness to the goodwill of the creator God. Nobody called Jesus a “materialist” because He healed the sick or brought good Jubilee news to the poor. I judge that, after the manner of His ministry, attention to the material dimensions of our common life and our capacity for critical, honest, faithful thought and action is urgent in our cultural context.

I intend to suggest that the church, and most particularly its leadership, have both an obligation and an opportunity to reengage the materiality of faith after a very long run of avoidance. In what follows I explore aspects of our shared bodily existence wherein all of the gifts and tasks of evangelical faith are deeply operative. I can readily think of five dimensions of this materiality – money, food, the body, time, and place – and readers may think of many others as well. The aim is that we may ingest “solid food” and become more “mature,” with skills and faculties for moral thought and moral action in the real world. I have no wish to deny the personal or the otherworldly aspects of our faith, but I have no doubt that redress about the centrality of the material is urgent among us.”

Walter Brueggemann in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), Introduction.

I board a plane for Newark, then Dubai, then Hyderabad, India, were I will serve until 30 August. Thanks for your prayers. In the meantime let’s lean into our obligation and opportunity.

Rather than allow those we serve linked to the gospel to fall into materialism, let’s challenge them to a life of doing good everywhere with materiality. And notice why we can do this from today’s Scripture.

Jesus did good everywhere, the text says, because God was with Him. God is with us too. And Jesus said the same power at work in Him to cause Him to rise from the dead is at work in us.

I go to India expecting to do good, to bring healing to broken lives, and to bring deliverance from the power of the devil. Why? Because I know that God is with me.

Let’s do this. Let’s make this journey from materialism to materiality. Let’s invite others to explore money, food, the body, time, and place. And let’s do this not just as an obligation but making the most of the opportunity!

In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:12-14

“In the Early Church, Christian congregations and their bishops paid generous and deliberate attention to the plight of the poor and managed to give relief. In the sixth century (long after the much-maligned Constantine) there was a rather abrupt turn away from this attentiveness, as the church became private about wealth and otherworldly in its hope. The cause of this abrupt turn, Peter Brown has shown, was that the wealthy population became dominant in the church and did not want its wealth subject to the needs of the poor in the church. This turn toward the private and otherworldly is evident, as Brown documents, first of all in the erection of grand mausoleums as hope for another life and as an ostentatious exhibit of wealth. And second, there was an “othering” of the clergy, so that priests and bishops were distanced from “the real world” and assigned to be representatives of the sacred.

Brown writes: “Hence we witness a progressive “othering” of the clergy. They became a sacral class. Their dress, hair style, and sexual behavior were increasingly expected to be sharply different from that of the laity. Religious dress became sharply distinguished from lay dress. The tonsure was taken on as a sine qua non of both the clerical and the monastic state. It is notable that the origins of the tonsure did not lie in any clerical regulations. It came from the ground up. The cutting of hair (both of beards and of the top of the head) had long been treated by Romans as a sign of special dedication. The tonsure emerged as a response to lay demand for such a sign. Those who interceded for the laity, as a sacral class, were to be clearly designated by means of a ritual of shaving the crown of the head that had deep roots in the ancient folklore of hair.”

In effect the church gave up its preoccupation with material matters and became busy with spiritual matters of “soul-making” for the next world. That turn away from the material has continued in wealthy churches to this day, as is evidenced by the gentle admonition often made to pastors, “Don’t become political.” This familiar mantra of course is not against being “political,” but only against the type of “political” that disturbs the comfort zone of the parishioner. It is much preferable to have the pastor confined to matters “sacral.” (Shades of the sixth century!) The matter is very different in the churches of the poor that do not hesitate to address matters of materiality.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, the writer generally appeals to the addressees of the letter with positive encouragement to greater faith and bolder testimony. In 5:12–14, however, the writer chides the addressees because they “refuse to grow up.” They continue to rely on “baby food” of the gospel and so wish to remain “infants” who lack skills to address urgent matters of good and evil. It is my thought that in the contemporary wealthy church (most of the Western church!), by happenstance or by intention many members remain “infants” in faith about matters of materiality. They prefer the “milk” and pabulum of a convenient, private, otherworldly gospel about “souls” rather than the solid food of informed critical thought about the materiality of our faith. As a consequence, much of the church is resistant to engagement in real-life material issues of faith and is quite content to settle for “innocent religion.” And in much of this the pastors of the church collude because it often too hard and too risky to do otherwise. The result is a church that is weak or lacking in moral passion about the great issues of the day.”

Walter Brueggemann and Peter Brown in Materiality As Resistance: Five Elements for Moral Action in the Real World (Louisville: WJKP, 2020), Introduction.

I head to India and Nepal tomorrow. I got a new book to read on my trip. Enjoy the journey with me.

From the introduction we note that the Church today looks nothing like the Early Church. Brueggemann and Brown highlight a key difference: care for the poor.

Christianity has become private and otherworldly and lost connection with the granular nature of the gospel.

Let’s learn from Brueggemann, a prolific Old Testament scholar who went home to be with the Lord back in June. He ranks among of the most influential Christian writers of the last century.

Track with me if you want the Church to grow up, to go beyond baby food.

To live, give, serve, and love generously means exercising our Christian faith with materiality. And today I want to shout out happy birthday to my sister Heather. I thank God for the materiality of her faith.

As we start this journey, be prepared to care more about more than souls. Our sacred faith should permeate all corners of our lives and society. Let’s aspire not to be a rich church but a global Church rich in good works.

Praying for materiality. And Happy Birthday Heather.

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3

“Vedanayagam Samuel Azariah was born on 17 August 1874, in Vellalanvilai, Tirunelveli, South India. Few Westerners have heard his name. But not only did Azariah found two successful missionary societies to bring the gospel to India, not only did he help bring about the unification of India’s Protestant churches, but he also grew an impoverished diocese of 8,000 Christians to over 200,000.

Azariah’s father was an Anglican evangelist and his mother a devout laywoman. Azariah himself trained for the ministry at Madras Christian College. One evening, while visiting a mission work in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Azariah was deeply moved thinking of India’s lost souls and the little work that its own Christians did among them. He prayed and wept under the stars. Back in India, he organized young churchmen into the India Missionary Society of Tinnevelly.

Making an intensive study of the 1901 India census and contacting the leaders of foreign mission societies, he discovered that one hundred million Indians were out of the reach of the Gospel. He invited India’s Protestant denominations to form another mission society. The result was the National Missionary Society of India with Azariah as general secretary.

Azariah soon became convinced he should resign his leadership posts and become a missionary himself. His took as his field the small Diocese at Dornakal, one of the poorest regions of India. People lived on an average of five cents a day. When he was appointed bishop, he was the first native-born Anglican bishop in India. His diocese numbered eight thousand Christians, six Indian ministers and one hundred and seventy two laymen coworkers.

By his death on 1 January 1945, Dornakal had one hundred and fifty ministers and two hundred and thirty thousand Christians. Despite India’s fundamental hostility to Christianity and the opposition of Gandhi to Christian evangelization efforts, his diocese of Dornakal averaged over three thousand baptized converts a year. Astonished by the “impossible” transformation of outcasts, thousands of higher class Indians in Dornakal also joined the church.

Azariah was shocked by the lack of unity among all Christians and the arrogance of Western missionaries toward Indians. “Unity may be theoretically a desirable ideal in Europe and America, but it is vital to the life of the church in the mission field,” he told the 1927 Lausanne ecumenical conference. “The divisions of Christendom may be a source of weakness in Christian countries, but in non-Christian lands they are a sin and a scandal.”

In 1919, Azariah organized the Tranquebar Conference. It issued a manifesto which declared: “We believe that the challenge of the present hour…and the present critical situation in India itself, call us to mourn past divisions and turn to our Lord Jesus Christ to seek in Him the unity of the body expressed in one visible Church. We face together the titanic task of winning India for Christ—one-fifth of the human race.” Two years after his death, the Union Church was inaugurated.”

“V. S. Azariah: India’s Amazing Home-Grown Apostle” in Christian History Institute blog post on 17 August 2025 shared with me by Pat Tennant, a faithful Daily Meditation reader.

I loved it because of the quote and because I fly to India this Thursday and will serve as a speaker to the India Missions Association conference.

I really appreciated what he wrote about the negative impact of divisions and the importance of unity.

For example, the India Missions Association serves 317 agencies who send 60,000+ international missionaries from India and who serve 300,000+ home missionaries across India. That’s a lot of gospel spreading workers.

But the agencies have given little attention to administration and governance and are struggling.

Pray for me that my call to serve as faithful stewards who follow standards will bring order and oversight, strengthen unity in the community of agencies, and that our pilot group will shine.

Working closely with Rebecca Nilanjana, the NobleRank Growth Strategist (NobleRank is the peer accountability group I helped establish there like ECFA in USA) to help 10 of the 317 agencies get accredited to standards.

Imagine their testimony at the conference. Pray with me they inspire their peers to put their houses in order.

May God help us spread the gospel to millions who need to hear it across India like Azariah.

Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by His Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh — though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ — the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Philippians 3:1-9

“In order to take a man into his wound, so that he can heal it and begin the release of the true self, God will thwart the false self. He will take away all that you’ve leaned upon to bring you life.

In the movie The Natural, Robert Redford is a baseball player named Roy Hobbs, perhaps the most gifted baseball player ever. He’s a high school wonder boy, a natural who gets a shot at the big leagues. But his dreams of a professional career are cut short when Hobbs is wrongly sentenced to prison for murder.

Years later, an aging Hobbs gets a second chance. He’s signed by the New York Knights – the worst team in the league. But through his incredible gift, untarnished by the years, Hobbs leads the Knights from ignominy to the play-off game for the National League pennant. He rallies the team, becomes the center of their hopes and dreams.

The climax of the film is the game for the championship. It’s the bottom of the ninth; the score is Pittsburgh 2, Knights 0. The Knights have 2 outs; there’s a man on first and third when Hobbs steps up to the plate. He’s their only chance; this is his moment.

Now, there’s something you must know, something absolutely crucial to the story. Ever since his high school days, Hobbs has played with a bat he made himself from the heart of a tree felled by lightning in his front yard. Burned into the bat is a lightning bolt and the words “wonder boy.” That bat is the symbol of his greatness, his giftedness. He has never, ever played with another.

Clutching “wonder boy,” Hobbs steps to the plate. His first swing is a miss; his second is a foul ball high and behind. His third is a solid hit along the first-base line; it looks like it’s a home run, but it also lands foul. As Hobbs returns to the plate, he sees his bat lying there … in pieces. It shattered on that last swing.

This is the critical moment in a man’s life, when all he has counted on comes crashing down, when his golden bat breaks into pieces. His investments fail; his company lets him go; the church fires him; he is leveled by an illness; his wife walks out; his daughter turns up pregnant. What is he to do? Will he stay in the game? Will he shrink back to the dugout? Will he scramble to try to put things back together, as so many men do?

The true test of a man, the beginning of his redemption, actually starts when he can no longer rely on what he’s used all his life. The real journey begins when the false self fails. A moment that seems like an eternity passes as Hobbs stands there, holding the broken pieces, surveying the damage. The bat is beyond repair.

Then he says to the bat boy, “Go pick me out a winner, Bobby.” He stays in the game and hits a home run to win the series. God will take away our “bat” as well. He will do something to thwart the false self.”

John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 66.

Much like Robert Redford in the movie, the apostle Paul could have gotten the label, “wonder boy” on his proverbial bat. He had credentials and opportunity to “put confidence in the flesh” but he would not do it.

Neither should we. In today’s post, we start the week realizing that sometimes the best thing our generous God does for us is take away our bat. He removes that thing (or things) that we put confidence in instead of Him.

As Eldredge writes, some people trust in investments. Others put confidence in a job, health, or human relationships. Trust placed anywhere but God is misplaced trust. Don’t wait for God to take away your bat.

Surrender it to Him. Then do what Roy Hobbs did in the movie. Go to God and say, “Go pick me out a winner.” He will. He has good plans for you. For me too. But we must put no confidence in the flesh.

Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, “I am strong!” Joel 3:9-10

“Summers in the eastern Oregon sagebrush are hot, dry, and dusty. When the sun was high the temperature could soar into the 90s, so whenever possible we saved most of the hard labor on the ranch for the early morning or late afternoon and evening, when the cool air drifted up from the river valley below. Sometimes we’d fix irrigation ditches during the heat of the day, which for me was a great excuse to get really wet. I’d tromp along in the ditch, letting the warm muddy water soak my jeans. But most of the time we’d head back to the ranch house for a glass of iced tea. Pop loved his tea sweetened with a healthy dose of sugar, the way they drink it in the South. We’d sit at the kitchen table and have a glass or two and talk about the events of the morning, or a plan he had to sell some cattle at the auction, or how he thought we’d spend the afternoon.

One day late in the summer of my thirteenth year, Pop and I had just come in for our ritual when he stood up and walked over to the window. The kitchen faced south and from there gave a view over a large alfalfa field and then on toward the pastureland. Like most ranchers Pop grew his own hay, to provide feed for cattle and horses he kept over the winter. I joined him at the window and saw that a steer had gotten out of the range and into the alfalfa. I remembered my grandfather telling me that it’s dangerous for a cow to stuff itself on fresh alfalfa; it expands in their stomach like rising bread and could rupture one of their four chambers. Pop was clearly irritated, as only a cowboy can be irritated at cattle. I, on the other hand, was excited. This meant adventure.

“Go saddle up Tony and get that steer,” he said, sitting back in his chair and kicking his boots up on the one in front of him. His demeanor made it clear that he was not going with me; he was, in fact, not going anywhere. As he poured himself another glass of tea my mind raced through the implications of what he’d said. It meant 1 first had to go catch Tony, the biggest horse on the ranch. I was scared of Tony, but we both knew he was the best cattle horse. I had to saddle him up by myself and ride out to get that steer. Alone. Having processed this information I realized I had been standing there for who knows how long and it was time I got going. As 1 walked out the back porch toward the corral I felt two things and felt them strongly: fear … and honor.

Most of our life-changing moments are realized as such later. I couldn’t have told you why, but I knew I’d crossed a threshold in my life as a young man. Pop believed in me, and whatever he saw that I did not, the fact that he believed made me believe it too. I got the steer that day … and a whole lot more….

A young man recently lamented to me, “I’ve been a Christian since I was five-no one ever showed me what it means to really be a man.” He’s lost now. He moved across the country to be with his girlfriend, but she’s dumped him because he doesn’t know who he is and what he’s here for. There are countless others like him, a world of such men-a world of uninitiated men. The church would like to think it is initiating men, but it’s not.

What does the church bring a man into? What does it call him out to be? Moral. That is pitifully insufficient. Morality is a good thing, but morality is never the point. Paul says the Law is given as a tutor to the child, but not to the son. The son is invited up into something much more. He gets the keys to the car; he gets to go away with the father on some dangerous mission.

I’m struck by the poignancy of the scene at the end of the Civil War, just after Appomattox, where General Robert E. Lee has surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant. For five years Lee has led the Army of Northern Virginia through some of the most terrible trials men have ever known. You would think they’d be glad to have it over. But Lee’s men hang upon the reins of his horse and beg him not to go, plead for one more chance to “whip those Yankees.” Lee had become their father, had given those men what most of them had never had before-an identity and a place in a larger story.

Every man needs someone like Robert E. Lee, or that brigadier general from the 29th: “You’ve seen how to take a house. Do you understand? Do you know how to do it now?” “Yes, sir.” We need someone like my grandfather, who can teach us how to “saddle up.”

John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 60-62.

As I feel gifted by God to serve as an apostle and prophet, I love echoing the words of Joel in today’s Scripture: “Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors!’

At GTP part of our work relates to multiplying faithful stewards. We want to rally warriors for God, men and women, around the world. And our focus links to this phrase in the text: “Let the weakling say, “I am strong!”

We invite people to take a course called Journey of Empowerment. On the journey you fix your identity in Christ, you discover how to turn brokenness into blessing around you by practicing the disciplines of fasting, confession, and prayer.

And you discover so much more. The current cohort of about 100 stewards from 40 countries is learning this now. The next cohort for Journey of Empowerment runs in October. But why mention it?

Wherever we are, whether or not we take the course, changing our situation links to rooting our identity in Christ, setting aside our desires, and confessing that we are the problem and God is the solution.

And from there, in prayer, we ask God to come do a new thing. But the reality is, the evil one does not want that to happen, and he will do everything in his power to stop it.

We are in a battle and the weak can proclaim they are strong, not because of the size of their muscles but because of the size of their God. But, the reality is, that most people are just scared, moral people.

They do what society expects of them. They don’t ruffle anyone’s feathers. As a result, they will never saddle up Tony and never wrangle any steers. Where do you fit in this picture?

As for me, my job is to “Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors!’ If you care to join me, first you need to saddle up!

Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. Revelation 2:17

“Who can give a man this, his own name?” George MacDonald

“A man needs to know his name. He needs to know he’s got what it takes. And I don’t mean “know” in the modernistic, rationalistic sense. I don’t mean that the thought has passed through your cerebral cortex and you’ve given it intellectual assent, the way you know about the Battle of Waterloo or the ozone layer—the way most men “know” God or the truths of Christianity. I mean a deep knowing, the kind of knowing that comes when you have been there, entered in, experienced firsthand in an unforgettable way. The way “Adam knew his wife” and she gave birth to a child. Adam didn’t know about Eve; he knew her intimately, through flesh-and-blood experience at a very deep level. There’s knowledge about and knowledge of. When it comes to our question, we need the latter.

In the movie Gladiator, set in the second century A.D., the hero is a warrior from Spain called Maximus. He is the commander of the Roman armies, a general loved by his men and by the aging emperor Marcus Aurelius. The emperor’s foul son Commodus learns of his father’s plan to make Maximus emperor in his place, but before Marcus can pronounce his successor, Commodus strangles his father. He sentences Maximus to immediate execution and his wife and son to crucifixion and burning. Maximus escapes, but too late to save his family. Captured by slave traders, he is sold as a gladiator. That fate is normally a death sentence, but this is Maximus, a valiant fighter. He more than survives; he becomes a champion. Ultimately he is taken to Rome to perform in the Coliseum before the emperor Commodus (who of course believes that Maximus is long dead). After a remarkable display of courage and a stunning upset, the emperor comes down into the arena to meet the valiant gladiator, whose identity remains hidden behind his helmet.

COMMODUS: Your fame is well deserved, Spaniard. I don’t believe there’s ever been a gladiator that matched you … Why doesn’t the hero reveal himself and tell us all your real name? (Maximus is silent.) You do have a name?

MAXIMUS: My name is Gladiat:or. (he turns and walks away.)

COMMODUS: How dare you show your back to me?! Slave! You will remove your helmet and tell me your name.

MAXIMUS: (Slowly, very slowly lifts his helmet and turns to face his enemy) My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius; Commander of the Armies of the North; General of the Felix Legions; loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius; father to a murdered son; husband to a murdered wife; and I will have my vengeance, in this life or in the next.

His answer builds like a mighty wave, swelling in size and strength before it crashes on the shore. Where does a man go to learn an answer like that-to learn his true name, a name that can never be taken from him? That deep heart knowledge comes only through a process of initiation. You have to know where you’ve come from; you have to have faced a series of trials that test you; you have to have taken a journey; and you have to have faced your enemy.”

George MacDonald, Maximus Decimus Meridius, and John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 60-62.

“Who can give a man this, his own name?” Every one of us is in a battle and Jesus promises those who overcomes, the one who is victorious some rewards – among them, a new name.

I love the movie Gladiator, so I loved the scene Eldredge recounts. Maximus Decimus Meridius had overcome trials and tests and made it to the Colosseum.

What’s the point today and how does it relate to generosity? I have had the privilege of spending three days with John and Wilma Pickrell. At 87 and 85 they have faced many challenges.

They have trusted God and navigated more battles than they can count. Surely Jesus has a new name for each of them. Only time will tell what those names are and as the Scripture reads, only they will know their new names.

If we give people the truth that rewards await those who overcome, we embolden their courage to press on. And the idea of hidden manna is best understood as getting sustenance only found by standing fast in hard times.

Because we need unspeakable courage in the times in which we find ourselves, Eldredge calls us to initiate young men and women. We did that with our son and daughter. We had a special event when each one turned 13.

For Samuel David, we invited their grandfathers and men in their lives. For Sophie Victoria, we invited their grandmothers and women in their lives. We urged guests to simply bring a verse of Scripture and word of advice on a note card.

Some brought gifts, but the highlight was the sharing from the cards.

I recount this today to challenge parents and grandparents out there to prepare our sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters to stand fast and overcome, and ironically, they will find their names in the process.

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against His anointed, saying, “Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. He rebukes them in His anger and terrifies them in His wrath, saying “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery. Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and celebrate His rule with trembling. Kiss His son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in Him. Psalm 2:1-12

“Let me come back to the second lesson of the parable from D-Day plus one. The other reason those men were lying there, pinned down, unable to move is because no one had ever shown them how to take a house before. They had been trained, but not for that. Most men have never been initiated into manhood. They have never had anyone show them how to do it, and especially, how to fight for their heart. The failure of so many fathers, the emasculating culture, and the passive church have left men without direction.”

John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 55.

Today’s post won’t make sense unless you read yesterday. Click below to read yesterday then read this one today please.

Every time I enter a country on behalf of GTP, we not only pray Joshua 1:3 – “I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.” I read Psalm 2 with my co-workers.

Psalm 2 is my favorite Psalm (though Psalm 103 comes a close second). While most people fancy Psalm 23, 46, 100, 121, or 139, I love this Psalm! Why do I appreciate it so much? I like it because it gives direction, like Brig. Gen. Norman “Dutch” Cota in the story yesterday.

It gives direction how to take a country for Christ, how to claim hearts for God and give men their hearts back. Look at the imperatives in the text. They teach us what every man (and woman) must do!

Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. … Serve the Lord with fear…. Celebrate His rule with trembling. … Kiss His son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction.

Ask…Serve…Celebrate… and Kiss… We must teach people like Brig. Gen. Norman “Dutch” Cota taught the soldiers how to take the farmhouse filled with enemy soldiers shooting at them. Ask God…Serve Him…Celebrate His rule…and Kiss His son. That’s how you take enemy territory.

Wherever you live, give this direction to claim the space for God. And live out those four imperatives.

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Proverbs 4:23

“To give a man back his heart is the hardest mission on earth…

“Let’s say it’s 6 June 1944, about 0710. You are a soldier in the third wave onto Omaha Beach. Thousands of men have gone before you and now it is your turn. As you jump out of the Higgins boat and wade to the beach, you see the bodies of fallen soldiers everywhere—floating in the water, tossing in the surf, lying on the beach. Moving up the sand you encounter hundreds of wounded men. Some are limping toward the bluffs with you, looking for shelter. Others are barely crawling. Snipers on the cliffs above continue to take them out. Everywhere you look, there are pain and brokenness. The damage is almost overwhelming. When you reach the cliffs, the only point of safety, you find squads of men with no leader. They are shell-shocked, stunned and frightened. Many have lost their weapons; most of them refuse to move. They are paralyzed with fear. Taking all this in, what would you conclude? What would be your assessment of the situation? Whatever else went through your mind, you’d have to admit, This is one brutal war, and no one would have disagreed or thought you odd for having said so.

But we do not think so clearly about life and I’m not sure why. Have a look around you — what do you observe? What do you see in the lives of the men that you work with, live by, go to church alongside? Are they full of passionate freedom? Do they fight well? Are their women deeply grateful for how well their men have loved them? Are their children radiant with
affirmation ? The idea is almost laughable, if it weren’t so tragic. Men have been taken out right and left. Scattered across the neighborhood lie the shattered lives of men (and women) who have died at a soul-level from the wounds they’ve taken. You’ve heard the expression, “he’s a shell of a man?” They have lost heart. Many more are alive, but badly wounded. They are trying to crawl.forward, but are having an awful time getting their lives together; they seem to keep taking hits. You know others who are already captives, languishing in prisons of despair, addiction, idleness, or boredom. The place looks like a battlefield, the Omaha Beach of the soul.

And that is precisely what it is. We are now in the late stages of the long and vicious war against the human heart. I know— it sounds overly dramatic. I almost didn’t use the term “war” at all, for fear of being dismissed at this point as one more in the group of “Chicken Littles,” Christians who run around trying to get everybody worked up over some imaginary fear in order to advance their political or economic or theological cause. But I am not hawking fear at all; I am speaking honestly about the nature of what is unfolding around us … against us. And until we call the situation what it is, we will not know what to do about it. In fact, this is where many people feel abandoned or betrayed by God. They thought that becoming a Christian would somehow end their troubles, or at least reduce them considerably. No one ever told them they were being moved to the front lines, and they seem genuinely shocked at the fact that they’ve been shot at.

After the Allies took the beachhead at Normandy, the war wasn’t over. In some ways, it had just begun. Stephen Ambrose has given us many unforgettable stories of what followed that famous landing in Citizen Soldiers, his record of how the Allies won the war. Many of those stories are almost parables in their meaning. Here is one that followed on the heels of D-Day.

It is 7 June 1944: Brig. Gen. Norman “Dutch” Cota, assistant division commander of the 29th, came on a group of infantry pinned down by some Germans in a farmhouse. He asked the captain in command why his men were making no effort to take the building. “Sir, the Germans are in there, shooting at us,” the captain replied. “Well, I’ll tell you what, captain,” said Cota, unbuckling two grenades from his jacket. “You and your men start shooting at them. I’ll take a squad of men and you and your men watch carefully. I’ll show you how to take a house with Germans in it.” Cota led his squad around a hedge to get as close as possible to the house. Suddenly, he gave a whoop and raced forward, the squad following, yelling like wild men. As they tossed grenades into the windows, Cota and another man kicked in the front door, tossed a couple of grenades inside, waited for the explosions, then dashed into the house. The surviving Germans inside were streaming out the back door, running for their lives. Cota returned to the captain. “You’ve seen how to take a house,” said the general, still out of breath. “Do you understand? Do you know how to do it now?” “Yes, sir.”

What can we learn from the parable? Why were those guys pinned down? First, they seemed almost surprised that they were being shot at. “They’re shooting at us, sir.” Hello? That’s what happens in war – you get shot at. Have you forgotten? We were born into a world at war. This scene we’re living in is no sitcom; it’s bloody battle. Haven’t you noticed with what deadly accuracy the wound was given? Those blows you’ve taken-they were not random accidents at all. They hit dead center. Charles was meant to be a pianist, but he never touched the piano again. I have a gift and calling to speak into the hearts of men and women. But my wound tempted me to be a loner, live far from my heart and from others. Craig’s calling is to preach the gospel, like his father and great-grandfather. His wound was an attempt to take that out. He’s a seagull, remember? All he can do is “squawk.” I failed to mention Reggie earlier. His dad wounded him when he tried to excel in school. “You are so stupid; you’ll never make it through college.” He wanted to be a doctor, but he never followed his dream.

On and on it goes. The wound is too well aimed and far too consistent to be accidental. It was an attempt to take you out; to cripple or destroy your strength and get you out of the action. The wounds we’ve taken were leveled against us with stunning accuracy. Hopefully, you’re getting the picture. Do you know why there’s been such an assault? The Enemy fears you. You are dangerous big-time. If you ever really got your heart back, lived from it with courage, you would be a huge problem to him. You would do a lot of damage … on the side of good. Remember how valiant and effective God has been in the history of the world? You are a stem of that victorious stalk.”

John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 53-55.

Since this post is long, I will keep my remarks short. The phrase that struck me, and perhaps stood out do you, was this one: “his men were making no effort to take the building.”

Someone asked me recently where I would love to travel, if I could go anywhere. They said to name three countries. I paused, and I replied, “Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq.”

The person looked dumbfounded. “Are you kidding? He replied.” I said. I want to go to these countries and declare Joshua 1:3 in each one. It reads, “I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.”

Who wants to go with me. We need to storm the building where the enemy has made a stronghold not because we are strong, but because God is looking for courageous people.

I count it a privilege to spend the three days with my wife’s parents. This post seemed fitting as Jenni’s dad served in the Navy. Hat tip today to veteran soldiers and courageous people willing to claim countries for Jesus Christ.

Give your life to that and you will not lose it. You will find it. Or just stay back in your comfort zone and do nothing whilst the evil one, like a bunch of Nazi German troops, destroys the world.

But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8

“God’s relationship with us and with our world is just that: a relationship. As with every relationship, there’s a certain amount of unpredictability, and the ever-present likelihood that you’ll get hurt. The ultimate risk anyone ever takes is to love, for as C. S. Lewis says, “Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.” But God does give it, again and again and again, until he is literally bleeding from it all. God’s willingness to risk is just astounding — far beyond what any of us would do were we in His position.”

C.S. Lewis as cited by John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 27.

God took a risk, despite our sinfulness and unpredictability and showed matchless generosity toward us. How might we do that toward others in your life. Think of one person.

Whenever I ask my students to the think of generosity toward the most undeserving person in their life, the keen ones admit they are that person. Imagine what Jesus did for you. Now go do likewise toward others.

I am home only a few hours and pivoting to California with my wife to visit her parents. We give thanks for every opportunity to see them. I plan to thank them for their predictable love.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6:10-18

“William Wallace, if you’ll recall, is the hero of the film Braveheart. He is the warrior poet who came as the liberator of Scotland in the early 1300s. When Wallace arrives on the scene, Scotland has been under the iron fist of English monarchs for centuries. The latest king is the worst of them all — Edward the Longshanks. A ruthless oppressor, Longshanks has devastated Scotland, killing her sons and raping her daughters. The Scottish nobles, supposed protectors of their flock, have instead piled heavy burdens on the backs of the people while they line their own purses by cutting deals with Longshanks.

Wallace is the first to defy the English oppressors. Outraged, Longshanks sends his armies to the field of Sterling to crush the rebellion. The highlanders come down, in groups of hundreds and thousands. It’s time for a showdown. But the nobles, cowards all, don’t want a fight. They want a treaty with England that will buy them more lands and power. They are typical Pharisees, bureaucrats … religious administrators.

Without a leader to follow, the Scots begin to lose heart. One by one, then in larger numbers, they start to flee. At that moment Wallace rides in with his band of warriors, blue warpaint on their faces, ready for battle. Ignoring the nobles — who have gone to parley with the English captains to get another deal — Wallace goes straight for the hearts of the fearful Scots.

“Sons of Scotland … you have come to fight as free men, and free men you are.” He gives them an identity and a reason to fight. He reminds them that a life lived in fear is no life at all, that every last one of them will die some day. “And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!” He tells them they have what it takes. At the end of his stirring speech, the men are cheering. They are ready. Then Wallace’s friend asks, “Fine speech. Now what do we do?” “Just be yourselves.” “Where are you going?” “I’m going to pick a fight.”

Finally, someone is going to stand up to the English tyrants. While the nobles jockey for position, Wallace rides out and interrupts the parley. He picks a fight with the English overlords and the Battle of Sterling ensues—a battle that begins the liberation of Scotland.

Now — is Jesus more like Mother Teresa or William Wallace? The answer is … it depends. If you’re a leper, an outcast, a pariah of society whom no one has ever touched because you are “unclean,” if all you have ever longed for is just one kind word, then Christ is the incarnation of tender mercy. He reaches out and touches you like Mother Teresa.

On the other hand, if you’re a Pharisee, one of those self-appointed doctrine police … watch out. On more than one occasion Jesus “picks a fight” with those notorious hypocrites. Take the story of the crippled woman in Luke 13. Here’s the background: The Pharisees are like the Scottish nobles — they, too, load heavy burdens on the backs of God’s people but do not lift a finger to help them.

What is more, they are so bound to the Law that they insist it is a sin to heal someone on the Sabbath, for that would be doing “work.” They have twisted God’s intentions so badly they think that man was made for the Sabbath, rather than the Sabbath for man (Mark 2:27). Christ has already had a number of skirmishes with with them, some over this very issue, leaving those quislings “wild with rage” (Luke 6:11 NLT).

Does Jesus tiptoe around the issue next time, so as not to “rock the boat” (the preference of so many of our leaders today)? Does he drop the subject in order to “preserve church unity”? Nope. He walks right into it, he baits them, he picks a fight.

Let’s pick up the story there: One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Woman, you are healed of your sickness!” Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised and thanked God! But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. “There are six days of the week for working,” he said to the crowd. “Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath.” (Luke 13:10-14 NLT)

William Wallace as cited by John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2001) 21-22.

Though this was another long Scripture and long but powerful post, it seems fitting to share as I depart Colombia. Thanks for reading this far.

In short, I came to give an identity to a new full-time staff member and a new part-time contractor and to “pick a fight” with the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

What do I mean? Our purpose and presence picks the fight. So, we prayed every day for God to strengthen us to stand and see Him work and turn Colombia from a place of chaos to a place of order. He did!

Our battle is neither against flesh and blood, and nor did we come to fight. we came and God knit our hearts together and helped us discern next steps to launch Palmful of Coffee. We stand fast in Him and let Him fight for us.

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