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Month: March 2021

Saved For Unity

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 26, 2021
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Unity is not an add-on to the gospel. It is not something in which we say, “Well…if it works out that’s great, but if not…oh well.” Paul writes in his letter to the church in Ephesus that God’s “plan for the fullness of time is to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10).

As you continue to read on in Ephesians, you will observe Paul write that God is bringing together both Jew and Gentile. As I’m sure you are aware, the Jews did not necessarily see themselves as equals in regards to the Gentiles. This is especially true in regards to religion. After all, it was to the Jews that God gave the law. They were the chosen privileged people. They were the “circumcised.” Those “uncircumcised,” that is the Gentiles, were considered outside the circle. Yet Paul is declaring that God is creating one new body out of the two. He is birthing a new family and building a new temple. And it will include both Jew and Gentile. TOGETHER!

So salvation is not just personal. It is a remaking of the people of God. It is about God bringing together all things to the praise of his glory. There is no privileged group. No social hierarchy in which one people are better than another. It is about unity. And when such togetherness takes place, it produces an aroma in which the world stops and takes notice.

We are a world divided at the moment. I’m sure this is not a startling revelation to you. In fact, if you are entangled in social media these days, it doesn’t take long to witness just how disjointed we are. But when we as the people of God come together and realize that what we have in common, that is, Christ, is greater than any differences we might have, the world turns it eye toward us and marvels.

Now this unity thing is not easy. It takes work. Just as becoming like Christ is a journey, so is getting along with one another. So we need to be patient with one another. We need to listen to one another. And we need to lighten up at times and give others a break. Why are we so hard on others who don’t live up to our ideal of what we think they should be? Why do we demand forgiveness and acceptance when we sin but talk down to and alienate those who commit a similar or lesser sin?

“Be kind to one another,” Paul writes, “tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Eph 4:32). These are words we need to tack on our bathroom mirror, our fridge, the dash of our car (not to where you can’t see the speedometer however), the background on our phone along with our computer screen saver, and our coffee cups and water bottles.

The truth is that if we are going to live like the “together people” God is creating us to be, then Ephesians 4:32 is going to have to be our mantra. It is going to have to be fleshed out in our daily lives for when it becomes so, our divided world will see that there is another Kingdom which is more true and rich and wholesome and beautiful than any kingdom they have ever witnessed. And they will then want to be a part. And when they do, we will say, “WELCOME!”

So it is unity for which we are being saved as God is creating a people for himself. And it is a people who are to show his kindness and grace by the way they treat one another. A people in which the light of their living in unity together so shines before others “that they see [their] good deeds and glorify [their] Father in heaven (Matt. 5:16).

"I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." -Jesus (John 17:21)
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A Bit Of A.W. Tozer

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 19, 2021
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I have just started re-reading A.W. Tozer’s book The Pursuit of God with a group of students. It’s been quite a while since I have read much from Tozer so I was excited when our reading group at the Baptist Student Ministry at Texas Tech wanted to tackle this book.

If you don’t know much about Tozer, I encourage you to look him up. Though not having a formal theological education, Tozer still is known as a “theologian, a scholar and a master craftsman in the use of the English language.” His heart was to know God and so his prayerful study of Scripture and other literature (especially the evangelical mystics) moved him to become a man whose heart burned with and for God.

At the outset of The Pursuit of God, it is obvious that Tozer is concerned with the superficiality of much Christianity in his day (Pursuit of God was first published in 1948). He writes in chapter 1:

The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all.

page 23-24

Has much changed? Well, yes and no. But regardless, our need continues to be one to know God. In the midst of a pandemic and all the anxieties and struggles it has produced coupled with the past election and its creation of walls of division, the people of God, that is, the church, must hunker down and seek God and the story of peace he establishes.

Personally, I find myself listening to the wrong story at times. I get caught up in the panic of the hour rather than the narrative of our Creator. I get sidetracked by the 24 hour news instead of getting oriented by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I must allow God’s story to rewrite my own as well as allow it to help me see the reality behind what is put before me by the kingdoms of this world.

I’m not writing that we should not pay attention to what’s happening in the world around us. We most definitely should. But as we do, it’s not the narrative that defines us. We as the church must live and make our way by diving into into the grace, mercy, goodness, and love of God for as we do, we can then offer the world what it most desperately needs. We can then show the life of peace and unity offered in the true Kingdom of God.

We must know God! As Tozer makes clear, we must pursue him. We must pray for a hunger and a thirst to know him and to be content with nothing else. Let us taste and see that the Lord is good today (Psalm 34:8). Let us grow deep in our pursuit of him knowing that it is God’s presence for which we were created. And it is by his presence in which we go deeper and hunger for more.

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The Gift of Healing

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 12, 2021
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Do you have the gift of healing? Well, according to Scripture you do. We all have it! We are born with it. The problem is that we don’t use this “gift” to heal, but to destroy. Proverbs states it most clearly: There is one whose rash words are like sword thrusts, but the tongue of the wise brings healing (Prov. 12:18). A half-dozen chapters further states it even more distinctly as it is written that “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21).

In addition to these proverbs, there is the clear-cut style of James. He writes that with [the tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing” (James 3:9-10). For James, one’s speech was an indicator of whether his/her religion had any value or not (see James 1:26). James does not hold back from the truth much does he?

Now I know what you might be thinking. People need to hear the truth even if it hurts! Just look at James quoted above. He was pretty cut-throat with his writing. And so was Paul at times. So we don’t need to hold back from speaking the truth to others! But who’s and what truth are we talking about here?

You can agree that 2020 was a most interesting year. Pandemic. Election. Race issues. Masks vs. no masks. Trump vs. Biden. Black Lives Matter vs. everyone’s life matters. And to top it all off, there was the hoarding of toilet paper. So many opinions that led to so much hatred. Opinionated groups claimed “THE TRUTH” to the extent that those who didn’t agree became the enemy.

I don’t believe that folks should be banned from having opinions and thoughts on whatever topic they feel passionate about. It’s good to hear from others. But there has seemed to be a loss of civility. And it’s not just that we have stopped listening, it’s that we have taken the next step and have begun to verbally belittle our opponent as well. And BTW, the fact the we use the word opponent already says something about how we view “the other side.”

This is probably an understatement, but we need healing. And I think it can happen from speaking life instead of death. It can begin when we learn that what we say can be either cancerous or healing. And this must start with those of us who are Christ-followers. I’ve heard so much hateful speech come from the lips of those who claim to be Christian. As James wrote, “this should not be” (James 3:10).

So will you heal? Will your words be the fresh water amidst the bitterness? Will your tongue produce the fruit of life rather than the fallout of death? You may wonder how to begin. Can I suggest something that I learned from my grandfather when I was a kid? He told me, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.” I realize there is more to having a life-giving tongue than this…in fact…there is much more. But for some of us, we need to start by learning just to “shut up” and “listen.” And as you do, you might come to find out that you have something nice to say after all.

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Some Questions About Prayer (Final Round)

Published by Jeff Kennon on March 5, 2021
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Why do we tend to remove the mystery out of prayer? I guess I could rightly ask why do we remove the mystery out of anything? The truth is that prayer is not some sort of philosophical phenomenon we need to solve in order to get God to give us the answers we want. Prayer is more than a barter system with God. Or at least I hope it is.

The craziness about prayer is that the God who creates, sustains and saves listens to us. In fact, he begs us to come to him. If you really think about it, it sounds as though one would have to be outrageously naive to believe such a thing. “How can God listen to all the people in the world at one time?” “And what kind of a God wants to hear from his creation?” We can answer questions by saying that God is “big” and God is “loving,” but is it not still a bit mysterious?

I’m not sure our questions about prayer are going to end, but that’s ok. Let’s embrace the mystery of it. And I guess I should note that when I write of prayer as being a “mystery” I’m not talking of some spooky or mystically weird type of experience. What I mean is that we are not going to figure it all out. Therefore, our questions of it should not inhibit our praying. Perhaps they might lead us to pray more.

So when it comes to prayer and our continued questions about it, I hope we keep in mind a a few things. First, I hope we never lose the wonder of it. To be beckoned to approach God with confidence (Hebrews 4:16) as we are told ask, seek, and knock (Matthew 7:7) should at times, lead us to a stance of awe. Oh how sweet the hour of prayer “that calls me from a world of care, and bids me at my Father’s throne.”

Second, we need to realize that prayer is more than just spouting words. It is about being in the presence of God. The Psalmist writes: One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple (Psalm 27:4). To be in the presence of God is that which we must cherish. It is that which we must linger. We must not let our world of speed and obsessive productivity rob us of our need to sit at the feet of Jesus.

Finally, we need to keep in mind that praying is about being honest before God and to God. On an episode of Pete Enns podcast, he interviewed Sarah Bessey about prayer and her book on the subject. One comment stood out to me. Sarah said, “There was something about the honesty and the rawness and even the anger and the joyousness and the earthiness of prayer that I saw in the psalms that I didn’t really see in a whole lot of places around me.” I’m afraid many of us are like Sarah and have not been shown that we can come to God and speak openly and plainly about life’s ups and downs.

One more thing: If there is an area in my life that I feel undisciplined in, it is prayer. Perhaps you might feel the same. And yet as I think about why I feel this way, I wonder if it’s because I have viewed prayer as only a morning ritual to complete a daily “quiet time” instead of a relational presence I embrace as I go about my day? This is not to say there should not be disciplined times of prayer, I believe there should be. But when I move prayer from a check list of things to do to a walking with God in the mundane tasks of life, things change for me. Prayer becomes an hour by hour dialogue and a posture of gratefulness for God’s continual presence as I acknowledge God’s mercy in meeting me right where I am. Again, this does not eliminate the need for discipline in my life of prayer, it just frames it with a new end in mind.

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