From Pops' Workshop

Category: General

  • Pentecost

    Pentecost

    Pentecost is this Sunday, June 4th, and I am feeling a need to write about why we should care about Pentecost. I need to be honest.  I am a little intimidated to write about Pentecost.  It’s been written about many, many times by people much more clever and much more learned than I am. Do we really need something else? Yet, I am hearing the call from my Pops to write why Pentecost is important to me.  Nothing God asks for is without a purpose, so I trust that something I have to say will be what someone needs to hear.  Perhaps it is you?  If you are thinking, “I already know all about Pentecost — no need to read and further”, spend a moment in prayer to see if God move you to keep reading.

    If you don’t know what Pentecost is, here it is in a nutshell.  For Christians, Pentecost celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell believers. It is seen as the birth of the Christian Church.  After his death and resurrection Jesus spent time on earth with his disciples before ascending to the Father.  Ten days after his ascension, was Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given:

    1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they [Jesus’ disciples] were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2:1-4, English Standard Version

    For me, Pentecost belongs right up there with the “big” Christian Holidays of Christmas and Easter.  Christmas: when God became incarnate in the birth of Jesus; Easter:  when Jesus was raised from the dead and thereby conquered death that we may have live; and Pentecost, when the indwelling of Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, began for  believers.  That indwelling of Holy Spirit within us continues through today.

    It may be tempting to focus on (and debate!) the “[speaking] in other tongues”,  But that is not the central message of Pentecost.  If is a story of transformation and empowerment.  Peter, as an example of the early believers, who had denied even knowing Jesus on Good Friday; who had seemed to give up and returned to his job as a fisherman prior to meeting the resurrected Jesus; who, on Pentecost, after receiving the Holy Spirit, preaches an impromptu sermon that results in three thousand people becoming Christians!  That seems like a a pretty significant transformation.

    In some ways it reflects my own transformation. Not that I’m a world changer by any stretch of the imagination. But the very fact that I am writing this is an indication of my transformation.  My “natural self” would just as soon be left alone and leave you alone.  I would ponder the meaning of Pentecost, come to my conclusions, and then keep them to myself.  You can do your own pondering and conclusion drawing!

    However, I have the spirit of God dwelling within me.  And that spirit trumps and transforms the “natural me”.  He calls me to share my thoughts, in this blog, in the book I am writing, and in sermons I preach.  He calls me to share and to help guide others through the ministry of Spiritual Direction. It is not what I wanted to do; it is what I am called to do.  Jesus told his disciples Holy Spirit is the power given to us, so that we might make him known.

    But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8, English Standard Version

    How important is the Holy Spirit to the Christian believer?  It is important enough that Jesus told his disciples it was better for them to receive the Holy Spirit then to have him remain with them.

    Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. John 16:7, English Standard Version

    Holy Spirit is not an optional extra to have along with your Jesus. He is the very spirit of Christ given to empower and enlighten us.  If you don’t know Holy Spirit, perhaps this Pentecost would be the time to invite him to make himself know to you!

    (If you were one of the people who needed to read this, and it spoke to you, would you be kind enough and brave enough to leave a comment?)

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • Vows and the Need for Healing

    Vows and the Need for Healing

    In a previous note I talked about how vows can hold us back and keep us from stepping into all the Lord is calling us to and wants for us.  My friend, Pastor Joe Johnson reminded me of the importance of understanding and healing the wounds that sometimes cause us to make vows in the first place.  He teaches on vows as part of emotional and spiritual healing and points out, “We wouldn’t need vows or run to vows to protect us from pain if there wasn’t a wound.”   (In all likelihood, I first learned about vows from Joe’s excellent teaching.)

    We don’t just wake up one morning and vow to never again allow ourselves to be hurt emotionally (as an example).  There often is some deep wounding that has happened, something so painful and traumatic that we seek to banish it forever with our vows.  Very often we are no longer aware of the the circumstances that precipitated our vows in the first first place.  They may simply be forgotten, or more likely, the the circumstances were so painful to us that we have buried them deeply, so deeply that we can’t even access the memories any more. The vows we made can be important clues to our past wounding.  Emmanuel Prayer can be an important avenue to discovering our often hidden wounds and bringing Jesus’ healing presence to them.

    If you are interested in Emmanuel Prayer (also know as the Immanuel Approach), Dr. Karl Lehman, a Christian and a psychiatrist, is a great place to start.  His website provides helpful resources for those seeking emotional healing.  On the topic of vows, two downloadable PDFs may be of interest: Vows: “Clutter” That Can Hinder Emotional Healing and a Sinful Vows Worksheet.

    Not all vows stem from past emotional trauma, but for those that do it is important to seek healing from those wounds with caring and qualified assistance.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

  • The Trouble with Vows

    The Trouble with Vows

    Have you ever made a vow?  Most of us have.  If you are married you made vows to God and to your spouse.  If you have ever given legal testimony you made a vow to tell the truth.  If you served in the military you made a vow to protect and defend the constitution.  In a few days I will be commissioned into the ministry of Spiritual Direction in my church and will vows to God about how I will function in that ministry. These are a few simple examples, you may have others in mind.

    These vows are not bad things, when entered into soberly and intentionally.  Quite the contrary, they can be very good things. A vow to keep yourself “only unto” your spouse may make it easier for you to remain faithful in the face of temptation.  Our legal system would quickly fall apart if we couldn’t count on honest testimony.  My vows as a Spiritual Director can help keep me grounded and pointed in the right direction.

    But there are other vows we make, often without sober consideration and sometimes without realizing what we are vowing.

    I will never be like my father!
    I won’t treat my kids the way my mom treated me!
    I’ll never hurt anyone the way I’ve been hurt.
    I won’t let myself be hurt again!

    These are vows that we make to ourselves. We make them when we are angry, hurting, and vulnerable.  Often we make them when we are young, when we lack perspective and don’t realize the power these  vows can claim. We repeat them over and over to ourselves.  They become part of our internal wiring, exerting control over us long after we have forgotten we even made them.

    Still, you may be thinking, “what’s so bad?”  Indeed, if you are trying not to carry forward hurtful behaviors that is, on the surface, a good thing.  But here are a couple of reasons why they may be hurting you spiritually today.

    First, the enemy can use them against us.  The vows we make to ourselves are very hard to keep.  We will almost certainly fail in them, at least to some degree.  When we do, Satan, the enemy of our souls, is quick to jump in and remind us that we are failures and are doing the things we vowed we wouldn’t; we are failing ourselves and failing others.  If we are not well connected to the heart of the Father, Satan will likely be able to convince us that our failure to keep our vow is an affront to God, above and beyond any sin we may commit, even though the vow was one we made only to ourselves.  Those rashly made, often broken vows become needless sources of accusation and condemnation.

    Second, they cause us to limit ourselves. One of the threads that is common to many of the vows we make to ourselves is that vow what we are not going to do or become or allow to happen to us.  When those vows we’ve made, that have been entrenched in our psyches, they tell us only what not to do, not what to do.  We pay so much attention to what we don’t want to do and limit what we will do.  We fence ourselves in.

    In our spiritual growth terms, those vows limit our spiritual freedom.  Spiritual freedom, means that we desire nothing above knowing and following the Lord’s will.  The vows we make, ingrained as they are, become our primary focus, over knowing and following the Lord.

    An example from my own history of vows may help here.  My father had many good qualities but he also had some not so go qualities.  Like many people with challenging parents,  I vowed that I would never be like him.  Part of that meant that I vowed to not be manipulative.  My wife and children could easily attest that my failure to live up that vow was epic.  However, as I matured in my faith and became more aware of my own sinful adoption of my dad’s ways, those vows kicked in anew.  My vow to not be arrogant or manipulative to shape as a desire to melt into the background. I so wanted to not be arrogant I actively rejected much of what I was being called to do and become.  I was hesitant and reluctant to engage in the preaching and teaching I was called to.  Being in the background is not inherently bad, but it was not what I was being called to in this season.  My vows were limiting my spiritual freedom.

    What is the solution?  It is to learn to pay attention to your interior life, to learn what it is that motivates you.  Where you find vows that are not appropriate to your growth and freedom, take them to Jesus.  Acknowledge them, disavow them, and ask Jesus to guide you into the freedom he desires you have.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.