Happy Are The Merciful

I wish more men could sit in on the lessons we’re having right now.  Actually, I wish our women could enjoy this time as well.  My heart has grown ten times too big during the last few weeks as I’ve listened to our men teaching the deeper truths of the Kingdom of Heaven.  We’ve been delving deeply into the beatitudes, and each of the men has taken us deeper by steps.  This morning, our Bro. Eric taught on the merciful.  Here is his lesson sheet.

THE MERCIFUL

Matthew 5:7 (NLT)  God blesses those who are merciful, for they shall be shown mercy

.

Definition of Merciful:  Treating people with kindness, and forgiveness: not cruel or harsh: giving relief from suffering.

James 2:13 (NLT) There will be no  mercy for those who have not shown mercy to others.  But, if you have been merciful, God will be merciful when He judges you.

Micah 7: 18-19  (NLT)  Where is another God like you, who pardons the guilt of the remnant, overlooking the sins of His special people?  You will not stay angry with your people forever, because you delight in showing unfailing love. (19) Once again you will have compassion on us.  You will trample our sins under your feet, and throw them into the depths of the ocean!

We all want, and NEED His mercy!!! Show mercy on those around us that also NEED it, so we can live in the mercies of the Lord. 

SHOWING MERCY

Daniel 4:27 (NLT)  “’ King Nebucadnezzar, please accept my advice.  Stop sinning and do what is right.  Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor.  Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.  

                We cannot be prosperous without showing mercy

.

Isaiah 58:6-9 (NLT)   ⁶No, this is the kind of fasting I want: Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you.  Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.  ⁷ Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless.  Give clothes to those who need them and do not hide from relatives who need your help.  ⁸ “Then your salvation will come like the dawn, and your wounds will quickly heal.  Your godliness will lead you forward, and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind. ⁹ Then when you call, the Lord will answer.  ‘Yes, I am here, ‘ He will reply. “Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors.

                God has us on earth to spread His Kingdom by showing others what it is.

Deuteronomy 4:31  (NLT) For the Lord your God is a merciful God; He will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn covenant he made with your ancestors.

                Mercy saves us from destruction!

 BOOM!  A mercy bomb!

Hebrews 13:5  (NLT)  Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have for God has said, “I will never fail you.  I will never abandon you.”

Joshua 1:5  (NLT) No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live.  For, I will be with you  as I was with Moses, I will not fail you or abandon you.

                Relief from suffering seems to be a recurring theme in being merciful.  We need to be in the family business of showing mercy, because he surely will not abandon us!! We are His sons and daughters. 

Psalms 37:5-6  (NLT)“Commit everything you do to the Lord.  Trust Him and he will help you.  He will make your innocence radiate like the dawn, and the justice of your cause will shine like the noonday sun.” 

OTHER VERSES MENTIONED:  Malachi 3: 16-17, Romans 13:8-9, Psalms 33:18,  Ephesians 4:28

Our Brother Eric took this study into a different place than most people would go.  I know his heart, having known him since he was a teenager.  He latched on to the last part of the definition of being merciful, especially :  Giving relief from suffering.  Brother Eric is a merciful man.  He gives of his time, his money, his knowledge, and his skills.  He gives when he has nothing to give.  He gives things that can’t be measured by physical means.   I am so thankful that he went this direction, because in this day, and hour, we need to show mercy.  We need to show the kind, and tender mercies of the Lord.  This lesson was so much more poignant to me in the light of the devastation in the Philippines due to Typhoon Haiyan.  It is easy to look at ourselves and say ‘we’ll pray for you.’  What is demanded of us by the Lord?   What about here in our own backyard.  Can we ignore those who work with us, worship with us, and even live with us?  If we abandon those around us, what will the Lord do when we need him?  

Americans have always been quick to give to those in need.  It doesn’t matter whether it is an enemy we just fought with, or whether it is a people halfway around the world, Americans love to show mercy.  I believe it is why we continue to be blessed, despite our rejection of God as a nation.  God’s principals are never diminished, only our ability to see why they come in the first place.  Mercy is the only thing that keeps us from falling apart as a nation.

As a final note; I’d like to mention some of the off the cuff remarks during the lesson.  “Love isn’t always practical.”  “Giving mercy is a family thing, showing mercy can be especially difficult to family.”  “We prosper when we show mercy, because we are being obedient to the law of love.”  “Showing mercy looses the bonds, and chains of iniquity.”  “You can’t show mercy without love.” 

Doing Church Better

If you haven't figured it out by now, I love the men in our fellowship. I eagerly look forward to any opportunity to be with them. Whether it is during the week, or in the process of doing 'Church,' I thoroughly enjoy every one of them. Yesterday's Men's group only served to reinforce my opinion of them. Last week, I assigned them to read chapter 10 once more and be prepared to explain one way we could “do church better.” It was a trick question, and I knew they would figure out what I was asking.  I also know from experience, that there are groups where the answers would be akin to things like: We could be friendlier. We could tone down or turn up the music. We need to shorten or lengthen the service. Change the carpet, move the pulpit, get a new Pastor. Our men knew what I was asking, and their answers were the kind of answers that reveal how we view ourselves.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time saying who said it, but here is a list of what was said.

• We could be more committed to one another and God. We need to come together to pray more.
• We need to give each other a greater degree of significance.
• We need to increase our devotion to one another, and take responsibility for our own actions.
• We need to strengthen one another and be more concerned with the welfare of others.
• We need to be interested in others.
• We need to do what we can do and stop waiting for others to do it
• We need to love more.
• We need to look outward toward the needs outside of our fellowship.
• We need to listen to the Holy Spirit more, and use His gifts more.

There were more people there, but some of the men repeated what others had already said. We barely made it around the table, so there wasn't much time for me to sew everything up into a nice neat bundle.

Chapter Ten of Bond of Brothers is a tough chapter. If you read my last blog, you know why. All across American, and to some extent, the World, we've faltered in our understanding of what 'Church' is. Church has become a verb instead of a noun. We've tacked it onto the end of our illustrious name we give ourselves, and we expect people to be able to discern the difference between our name and what we do. I believe it is why, except for a chosen few, 'church' is nothing more than two or three hours a week.

The reason it fails as a social experiment, is because you can't 'do' church. You are either the 'called out' or you aren't. You can have the most magnificent building, unending talent, genuinely interested leaders, and fantastic entertainment, but in the end you will have nothing more than an over glorified social club that does wonderful things in the guise of religion. Wes Yoder understands one thing that has somehow been lost in our attempts to 'do' church. The 'Church' is people, and we were made to have relationship with one another through Christ. That is why it is called a 'Body' by the Apostle Paul. The life's blood that flows through us, and holds us together, is the blood of Jesus. It is His Holy Spirit that bonds us together at a molecular level. Without the Holy Spirit, we are nothing more than individuals being held in a 'christian' shaped cake pan. We may have all the ingredients, be completely devoted to one another, and even mingle together, but until we've been mixed together to the point to where you can't tell us apart, we haven't attained.

Don't get me wrong, I believe God loves our unique qualities. You can't make a cake with flour only. A cake is made up of a host of ingredients, but until they are blended together, they are individuals that are barely palatable apart. So, to the men who pointed to our need for more of the Holy Spirit, my hat is off to you. It is the Holy Spirit that teaches us to love (1 Thessalonians 4:9) . Every effort to love by your own strength is noble, but if will fall short of the LOVE that you are capable of in Christ's Spirit. Dinner and Conversations without Christ's Spirit are nothing more than what men and women have done through the ages when they've met around the fire with nothing else to do. As Christians, we are told why we come together, and it would surprise you what that reason is. Why? Because so many fellowships and denominations have missed the point. A matter of fact, Christ never instructed us to meet together once or twice a week. HE EXPECTED MORE! He never provided us a model for how to 'worship' him except for one short sentence, “they shall worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.” That was all the instruction for worship he gave us. Why? Because all the previous instructions were still valid, but unheeded. If you don't do what you've already been told to do, why tell you to do anything more. His instructions were simple; Be Holy, love Justice, Love HIM, and Love one another.

Those of you who argue over form, music, style, size, and a host of other insignificant things, you need to revisit the Holy Spirit. Those things pale in the Presence of God. Even Solomon when he was desiring to build a temple for God, understood that the purpose of the Temple wasn't to house God, but for us to approach Him. Our fellowship, and Worship services, are for us to come to him, gain strength from one another, and then go out into our daily lives with His Spirit within us. The Church is waiting for us to come in, and the World needs Christ to come out with us. Anything less than HIS Spirit is a waste of time.   

What's Wrong With The Church?

Chapter Ten of “Bond of Brothers,” is my second least favorite chapter in the book, and at the same time, my second favorite chapter.  I don’t like the way it makes me feel, but it definitely makes me think.  It’s an awkward love/hate situation.  At one moment, I think I know what Wes is thinking, in another I’m convinced he doesn't know what he wants. Brother Yoder paints a dismal picture of the modern church, and at the same time, holds out hope for the future.  His complaint is that the men in the church are hopelessly isolated, insulated, and without real relationships.  Pastors are in need of friends, the brothers are less than transparent, and love is sadly lacking.  From the master generalizer, (myself) I respectfully say: NO, tain’t true.  I was glad when one of the Brothers in our Men’s group, simply said; “He comes from a different background than us.”     SO TRUE! 

Don’t get me wrong, I fully appreciate Bro. Yoder’s observations. The worldwide church is a conflicted, split personality, working against itself across the spectrum of human endeavor.  All you have to do is watch enough Christian programming on TV, and listen to enough Christian radio shows, and you will pick up on the same issues that Brother Wes is deriding.  The Church has broken off into diametrically opposed factions, who spend their time lobbing canon shots at one another hoping to sink the opposition’s vessel of reason, or at best blow up their self absorbed delusional fantasies.  He paints the picture of a soulless, empty church stumbling along like a blind man groping for the truth.  Most of us would agree with him, if we were half-honest with ourselves. Somewhere in his rants and irritation, is the theme of the book; we have failed to find the power of relationship with one another through the love of Christ. It is a bleak picture, unless you happen to be one of those healthy fellowships.  If you are one of those healthy fellowships, can you endure a thorough self-inspection?  If during the inspection, you discover something is wrong,  are we willing to repent even if we think we’ve been doing things right?  Can the Lord chastise us through the voice of an author who’s never stepped foot in our church?  Are we really alright?

This morning I gave the men a homework assignment that asked; Can we do ‘Church’ better?  I can’t help but wonder if we’ve been doing it this way for so long, we don’t really know that it’s broke?  Maybe a better question would be; is it broke?   So many of the comments this morning were right on the mark.  Is it possible for us to discern when we are messed up?  What if you aren’t messed up?  What if you are doing all the right things, how would you know?  Is the size of a fellowship the measure of its success?   Can you be a ‘mega-church’ and be a ‘real’ church?  Is a small church better?  Is a large church better?  What is the measuring stick?  If size were the issue, then I imagine a church of twelve families would be considered a failure.  Yet, in His miraculous three-year ministry, Christ moved through this life with a core group of twelve men.  In today’s world, he would hardly warrant a listing in the phone book.  There has to be a better measure of whether a church is doing the right things.

Introspection and self-critique are two different things.  Introspection is based upon your own perception of you.  Reading Bond of Brothers, and evaluating yourself by the things Wes Yoder says, will not lead to change, because you are still looking at yourself from your own point of view.  It’s easy to offer up excuses, reasons, and give yourself pardon for who you are.  You can convince yourself that you are already doing things right.  However, if we read books like this one with an open heart to embrace the good things put before us, we won’t need to focus on what is wrong with our church.  When we look at ourselves in the mirror of what Jesus did, if we truly become envious of the life He lived, we will gravitate toward what we desire instead of avoiding what we don’t like.  I am saying this, because I believe our fellowship is  genuinely open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Can we do things better?  Yes.  Are we headed in the right direction?  Yes.   All you have to do is look how far we’ve come in the short time we’ve been a fellowship.  Is it a reason to sit on our laurels?  No.  I am hopeful for the Church.  I am more than hopeful for the church in Harrison, and I am convinced of the viability of our own fellowship. 

Brother Wes, I would like to invite you to our fellowship. We have a Pastor who is more than a friend.  Before we begged him to go ‘full time,’ he owned and worked in his own business.  He knows the savagery of working all day and then coming to church on Wednesday nights dog tired, and beat.  He knows what it is like to live on nothing, work your guts out, and then have someone ask you for more money than you have in your bank account.  He’s not the only Pastor like that. Harrison, Arkansas is filled with men like that.   Bro. Yoder,  I think when you are a man of your professional stature, you move in circles where the clichés abound, and men lose touch with one another.  Our men work hard.  We strive against a failing economy that isn’t of our own creation, to provide for our families with meager incomes.  We openly declare our weaknesses, addictions, and past addictions without fear of judgment to one another. We depend upon one another to be honest and help us grow.  Our men range from those with Masters Degrees, to those with a GED. Yet, we break bread with one another in a sincere desire to give life to one another.   Twelve-year-old boys sit down at the same table with men in their sixties.  We believe that if we ever feel we’ve attained, the Holy Spirit will stop talking to us.  We believe He put his gifts within us to perfect us.  He is the anvil against which we are formed.  I pray that we never say we have arrived, or grow tired of moving beyond the last revelation, but at the same time, I don’t accept the criticism that the Church has failed.  I don’t believe we are on life support either.  Televangelists, and Radio personalities are not indicative of who we are.  I don’t believe they are indicative of 80% of the churches in America.  In our own felIowship, I personally see God’s Spirit moving us to that place in Him where we can be truly effective.  Our men believe that each successive generation needs to know that there is more to add to the equation.  As long as we are here, as long as boys hold the promise of being men, we owe it to one another to seek to be better, to do it better, and to be more like our big brother.  PROOF:  We are reading your book as a study. 

Here at Real Ministries, and at many other fellowships in our fair city, relationship, and friendship have been our guiding principles from the very start. 

For those of you who weren’t there this morning, I asked everyone to read the chapter again and identify one thing we need to do better.  I know, it’s a hard chapter, but it should spur us on to become more like Christ.  

Sorrow's Power

Our study into Wes Yoder’s book, the “Bond of Brothers” stalled out on the topic of sorrow being the hand that shapes us. Most of the time, our men are very animated and talkative about even the most embarrassing parts of their life, but within this discussion, it is almost as if we’ve stepped into forbidden territory.  Are the issues of betrayal, rejection, and pain too much to admit to?  Is Wes Yoder right about men covering up their deepest sorrows with small talk, and religious duty, or have these men truly found the God of all comfort?  Have they discovered the river of life that flows from heaven’s throne and washes clean those who step into its healing flow?  Is there nothing to say, because they’ve already given it to the one who knows, and cares for them?  Is this the point where we split ways with Brother Wes, and admit that some things are best given to the Lord, and left alone?  As I looked around the room at all of the men whom I have come to love like a brother, I believe the latter is true. 

However, for many, the depths of sorrow are never completely plumbed until the moment a mind closes the gate to the pain from which it springs. Insanity, madness, and cruelty are the fruits of a man crushed by sorrows. If you want to explore the power of faith, remove hope.  Hopelessness becomes self-sustaining, till once vital men become shadows, empty husks, without joy, breathing, but dying in the quicksand of their own blackened imaginations.  T.S. Eliot in his poem “The Wastelands,”  said; “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”  The greatest fear in any man is the fear of a meaningless life.  Suicide, self-mutilation, emulation upon the fires of senseless lusts become the antidote for the sorrows without purpose.  For the man trapped in hopelessness, pornography, sexual addictions, chemical dependency, gluttony, physical abuse, emotional abuse, are all just symptoms of a broken heart that has never found joy at the bottom of sorrow. 

If as Wes Yoder wrote in Chapter Eight, sorrow is the hand that shapes us, then every one of us need to encourage one another to keep our eyes fixed on the finish.  However, if the finish we are running toward is only to satisfy the lusts of our flesh, or no greater than our own selfish desires, then we have missed the point of the sorrows.  If we grieve only for ourselves, we become disfigured, cruel, empty, and darkened against all hope of redemption.  Without hope, we become less than we could have been.  In the course of my life, I’ve known men who owned no cloak of invisibility, whose every breath seemed to draw in unspeakable horrors.  My heart would break for them, until I sensed that they enjoyed the sympathy the pain brought them. I’ve also known men who moved through insurmountable obstacles with effortless grace, unwilling to allow the sorrow to throw a handful of dust upon their graves.  In the end, as you face your last breath, it isn’t about your belief in God.  It isn’t whether you succumbed to your worst fears, or stood defiantly upon the blooded hills of your greatest achievements, and laughed at those less courageous than you.  In the end, after every dart has left it’s wound, and every cut has become a healed scar, any man who has a shred of virtue left in him, will wonder if he left anything of value behind.  Those who’ve placed their trust in Christ can be assured they have. 

I can’t help but think of the Apostle Paul, writing to his dear friend Timothy.  Like Paul, have I run the race to win?  Have I fought the good fight?  Every picture the Apostle Paul drew upon, and that we adore as Christian men, is fraught with struggle, sorrow, and bitter disappointment.  The runner fights against the body’s desire to quit, to submit to the effects of fatigue.  We all admire the runner who reaches down from somewhere beyond muscle and sinew into a wellspring that is mystical, and God given.  In the same moment we are rejoicing with the one who found that inner strength, we groan with those who can’t find that place beyond hope, and do not cross the line in victory.  Sorrow trips them up, and they listen to the song of their flesh.  They never reach into the strength beyond knowing .  Let’s admit it dear brothers, we are all in the same race, and the goal is beyond the knowledge of our death warrant that was signed upon the day of our conception.

 

Wes Yoder bemoans the fact that as American Christian men, we don’t prepare one another, or even comfort one another in those times when sorrow is pressing in upon us.  He sees men suffering in quiet agony as God’s mighty hand works to make us greater than ourselves.  As a man who works with tools all day, I know that the tools that shape us seem cruel to the untrained eye, just as the craftsman’s tools must seem cruel to the stone waiting to be shaped.  My reply to Brother Yoder is:  how do you prepare any man for the betrayal of friends, brothers, mothers, fathers, wives, and even children?  How do you prepare a wide-eyed youngster for the cut of despair made at the hands of those he thought he could trust?  What do you say to your child as he prepares for God’s operating table called life?  How do you tell a young man beginning his adult years, that the young woman who trembles at his touch, will one day seem cold and heartless in her rejection of his passion?  What can you say to a man cradling his infant child, that will hold him together when that child becomes a teenager, and angrily storms out of the house in rebellion against the father’s deepest beliefs?  None of us can be prepared for the personal pain that we experience when life throws us the equivalent of a train wreck.   Even if I sat down and made a history of those things that have ripped my soul apart, the truth is that no one will ever experience what I’ve experienced.  You might be able empathize, but you won’t be able to feel it.  Sorry, Bro. Wes, this is where you and I part ways.  You can have all the dinner and conversations you want, but when a man is in the midst of his greatest sorrow, it is between him and God.  The Book of Job should make this clear.  Job’s friends could only make his sorrow deeper.  In the end, it was God Himself, who stepped in and put an end to the fiasco.  There is no sense to betrayal.  There is no reason for abuse.  There are no answers for the innocent who are thrown beneath the bus.  We can only cling to the knowledge, that at the end of our sorrow, there is a God who makes all things work together for good to them who love the Lord, and are called according to His purpose. 

During the class, I hoped to comfort you with the knowledge that you are facing nothing less than what our own precious creator has endured.  Betrayal, rejection, rebellion, heartbreak, pain, grief, and even anger at the cruelty of life’s bitter drink have been inflicted upon the creator of the universe.  We suffer because we are created in the image of a suffering God.

What?  God suffer sorrow? 

More than you’ll ever know in your allotted days.  It is because He has endured them, He understands us.  It is because He knows the depths of our sorrows, that He knows their power to transform us into greater beings than we would be if our lives were empty of any struggle or conflict.  The creator of all life has known every bitter pill we swallow, and in the end, it has made Him a being of love.  Love trumps every aspect of His nature, and allows Him to redeem that which He loves, even though Justice demanded our destruction.  Love became the salve that carried Him through the rejection of a third of the angels.  Love drove Him to call out to fallen man even though He knew before He called out what had happened.  You see, I bring it back to the one truth that I know to be self-evident; all sorrow is born of relationship.  My deepest sorrow is that I betray the Lord almost every day.  Even though my heart is ever set upon Him, He is the one I fail the most.  Still, He desires me, and calls to me in the cool of the day.  “David, where are you?”  In my fear and shame, I can only hold the fig leaf of my betrayal against my nakedness and declare my love for Him. 

That is why Chapter Nine is such a powerful moment of truth.  In it, we have the answer to our own betrayals of the Lord we say we love.  In the end it isn’t about our knowledge, but our relationship.  That is why in the end, HE WILL wipe away every tear.  Who other than our loving redeemer can erase the bitter tears born of sorrow?  We must trust our end to the one who endured more sorrow than we could ever imagine.

I’d like to apologize to my Bro. Charles for the length of this post.  I couldn’t find a point to be brief, and the prose wouldn’t stop.  

HOMEWORK:  Read Chapter Nine- and highlight a passage that speaks directly to  you.  

Mid Week Tune Up: Self-Help verses God-Help, Moving Past the Condemnation

With the hundreds of self-help titles available in Christian books stores and online, it makes you wonder why so many Christian's lives are still so messed up? Why doesn't the words on the page make it to the brain cells that are supposed to put those words into action and make us successful in our Christian walk? Why do thousands of pastors and teachers have to gather every week to recite passages and expound upon thoughts that are clearly written on the page? With all of the wonderful easy to understand translations of the Bible, why do so many of us have a hard time getting the message?

Actually the answer is one word; CONDEMNATION.

The book that is actually meant to help you, has to convince you that you are. . .wr. . .wro... wrong. I don't care how carefully they, or even myself craft the argument, the basic premise is that something is wrong or lacking, and you can fix it. Without even realizing it, you immediately stand in deficiency and inadequacy. The book or teaching immediately puts you in confrontation. You stand accused, lacking, and requiring the help the book or teacher promotes. The implication of the teaching is; “I have the answer, you need the cure.” Religions across the globe are built upon that premise. Psychology and philosophy make their bed in that premise. It is the very thing that Christ came to destroy. The problem with Christian self-help books, is the word 'Self.'

As the Apostle Paul so eloquently argues in every one of his letters, if 'he' (the 'law,' the birthright, the act of mutilation, the act of denial, or any action I can take on my part,) were able to justify his standing with God, there would be no need for Jesus to have died on the cross. Christianity would become another empty religion. Hucksters and charlatans would be able to devise empty fables, and enslave once more. THIS IS THE FURTHEST THING FROM MY HEART!

What brought this train of thought on, was a conversation with a dear brother in the Lord, who approached me with weariness in his heart. “Don't you think that this whole “slave” thing is too much?” he asked. “It just seems like it robs the joy from the walk.”

GASP AND GULP!

Had I passed that point of exhortation to condemnation?

This brother is special to me in ways I can't explain. His feelings and thoughts are important to me. He's one of those people who can beat themselves up just fine without anyone being around to help him. The last thing I wanted to do was add to his condemnation or steal his joy. It's the last thing I want to do to any person. I know the feeling all too well, myself. Condemnation is the joy sapper.

The question still remains, how do I continue to teach “Every Man's Marriage” without putting guilt and condemnation upon my brothers? I've tried so hard to make all of these wonderful men know that I am in this journey with them. The things I've learned from the book, are slowly making their way into my daily life. Never mind that at 56 years old, the questions I face in my own life cause me to doubt the good of what I'm teaching. I wonder if I will ever be able to undo the damage I've done to my wife during our 35 years of marriage. I find myself battling five decades of selfish thinking and desires. My flesh has had its way for so long, I don't even know if I'm changing. Will my wife ever believe that I truly love her? I wish I'd had this book 35 years ago. I wish someone had taught me. . . .

There it is!

My dearest brother in Christ, it isn't about us. It isn't about the knowledge that we were ignorant of those things that could have made a difference in our lives. We didn't know. It's about your son, it's about the sons of all of our brothers who sit down with us at the table every Sunday morning and open ourselves up to criticism and self-evaluation. Our sons have the opportunity to become better men. It won't be for a lack of knowledge if they fail. I can see it in every one of the young men who've grown up in our midst. All you have to do is look at the ones who've grown up and are married. Look at their marriages. You can see how much better they are at it than we were. The things they are learning in “Every Man's Marriage,” and many of the other books we've read, will send them light years beyond us. That alone makes it worth the guilt and condemnation I feel in my own life.

As I mulled your concerns over in my heart, the Lord rebuked me for not practicing a basic principal of learning. The moment of application. I've never taught another man's material before, and I'm not able to discern the exact moment to stop and give you guys a chance to breathe. The Lord brought to my mind the picture of a runner in a competition. Every runner gives their all. They run flat out till they cross the finish line. If you've ever watched the Olympics, you can't help but sympathize with the runners as they collapse after throwing everything they have into the race. It doesn't matter whether they are sprinters or marathon racers, the end is always the moment to breathe. Not that they weren't breathing before, but the breathing at the finish is to restore life giving oxygen to the body that has used its available supply. God demanded that we take one day to cease from OUR labors. He demanded that we breathe in the breath of life that is HIM. He is rest. He is our help. The last thing a runner wants at the end of the race is for someone to thrust a T-bone steak in his face and demand that he eat it. He wants to breathe. The Holy Spirit is our air. He is so important. The time to eat is before the race and a while after it. At the end of the race, when we need to rest from our exertions, we simply need to breathe.

Another problem with so many pastors and teachers, is that we fail to let people cross the line. We're like some kind of crazed maniac who keeps moving the line as the runners run. We don't even realize when we've done it. Then, we wonder why everyone collapses of exhaustion. This isn't God's intent for us. He never moves the line. However, He does start a new race. Last week we were looking at living righteously with our wives, this week we're looking at how to give our wives more time. I failed to let you know you'd crossed the line. The problem isn't with God, as much as it is with this teacher. I'd failed to let all of you have a chance to catch your breath. I'll work on that. Even when God was leading the children of Israel in the wilderness, he would allow them time to rest. I can't seem to find the place to rest in this book. It's not the author's fault. I'm not preparing like I should.

Like the rest of you, I want nothing more than to show my wife that I love her. The tools in “Every Man's Marriage,” help me in that desire. The knowledge in John MacArthur's book “Slave,” help augment that teaching. As teacher and coach along the road of life, I can only hope that I can avoid the trap of making people feel condemned.

BREATHE!