DO YOU HAVE A CONSCIENCE?

“Do You Have a Conscience?”

Reading: 1 John 1:9

It must have been a blistering sermon. In fact, to this day I don’t remember the topic or the text. I do remember Jody coming by me in the receiving line and saying, “Do they teach you guys in seminary how to make people feel guilty?”

“Yup,” I quipped. “Guilt 101!”

As she headed past she responded over her shoulder, “You must have gotten an A.”

To this day I don’t know whether that was a complaint or a compliment. Whatever it meant, it told me, “The woman has a conscience.”

People do not like being made to feel guilty. Heck, I understand that. I don’t like feeling guilty. It is one of life’s more unpleasant experiences. But it also may be one of life’s more important experiences.

Rebecca Manley Pippert says “Human beings have an infinite capacity to rationalize or to deny.” It is perhaps because we believe the lie that human beings are basically good. More likely it is because we know we’re not. We just don’t want anyone else to know it.

Yet living daily in the presence of sin, we come subtly under its influence. Undealt with over the long haul, it begins to change us. Like a virus that makes a subtle connection with your computer, it alters things and changes it so that it does not function properly. It corrupts the original design. It may even introduce new and even more unwelcome elements into our lives.

Our conscience is a gift from God. It is that spark of God’s image that the Holy Spirit breathes on to ignite a fire of holiness within us. It is God’s tool to help us remember that originally we were created in His image and intended to reflect His goodness and unconditional love.

I love this quote from one of this nation’s Founders and Framers.

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience."
--George Washington

That’s where guilt comes in. It pricks our conscience when we step across the line. Sometimes it hits us between the eyes to remind us that there is a line. Christians believe that acknowledgement of our guilt is the first step towards transformation into new people, better people, God’s people.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins,
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” – I John 1.9

A pastor once asked his flock, “What must we do to receive the forgiveness of sin?” After a bit of silence a little boy responded, “First, you gotta sin.”

Frankly, we have no problem meeting that requirement. Our conscience remembers that by allowing us to feel guilty. People of no or little conscience steal pension funds, abuse children, pollute the environment wantonly, manipulate elections, ignore the poor and needy.

Thank God we have a conscience and thank God it reminds us to feel guilty. For more often than we’d like to think – we are guilty.

(c) 2010 by Stephen L Dunn

DOUBT AND FAITH

 ¹ To you I call, O LORD my Rock;
       do not turn a deaf ear to me.
       For if you remain silent,
       I will be like those who have gone down to the pit.  ² Hear my cry for mercy
       as I call to you for help,
       as I lift up my hands
       toward your Most Holy Place.- Psalm 28:1-2

 Have you ever had a moment of doubt? I'm not speaking of sudden and utter disbelief about something you had previously affirmed. I'm speaking of that wave of uncertainty or that gnawing thought that robs you of your peace and makes you want to pause and get your bearings.

Some Christians believe that any expression of doubt, any entertained question about their foundations for believing will cut them off from God.  I always thought that was a little extreme.  Yes, they can pull out a text or two that standing all by itself on the platform of examination affirms their need for blind faith. But against the whole backdrop of scripture and what scripture affirms about the nature and intentions of God, such a position crumbles.

I appreciate this quote from John Ortberg:

“Theologian Lesslie Newbigin writes that we live in an age that favors doubt over faith. We often speak of “blind faith” and “honest doubt.” Both faith and doubt can be honest or blind, but we rarely speak of “honest faith” or “blind doubt.” Both faith and doubt are needed, yet it is faith that is more fundamental…I must believe something before I can doubt anything. Doubt is to belief what darkness is to light, what sickness is to health. It is an absence. Sickness may be the absence of health, but health is more than the absence of sickness. So it is with doubt and faith. Doubt is a good servant but a poor master.”
–John Ortberg, Faith and Doubt

Doubt enters into the mind of every person - both seeker and true believer.  Doubt may disturb those around us who want to remain undisturbed; but moments of doubt--honest doubt--often drive us back to the foundations of what we believe.  It reminds us that we do not and will not have answers to every question of our mind but we cannot stop living while we sort it all out.

A good friend of mine, Doug Nolt, used to have a sign on his door during his days as a campus minister:

I do not know all the answers

but I know the One who does.

For ultimately our faith is not rooted and grounded in our intellectual abilities or our prowess at securing unassailable answers.  Our faith is rooted and grounded in a person.

And that person is Jesus Christ.

PS - I love this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt "Never doubt in the dark what you have seen in the light."

(C) 2010 by Stephen L Dunn

'WHAT IF?"

"And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions." - Joel 12:28

Wednesday night at our BURN Student Ministry worship gathering, Jeremy (our Youth Director) began a series called "What If?"  He challenged the kids to expand their vision of who God is, what God is doing, and "what if" the kids decided to truly let God work in and through them. The results were very amazing in terms of the kids' response to this challenge. One girl wrote:

"I came home so pumped up about what God's gonna do through the burn ministry that while telling my mom every little detail of the night I had to pace around my kitchen to keep my thoughts strait (sic)"

More awesomely, a young man texted Jeremy with these words:

“I was praying for my cousin. He is one of the people I wrote on my on paper that I want to see come to GOD. He is going through a tough time right now and it felt so good to pray for him cause I felt like God was right there in front of me. It felt like I was talking to my best friend face to face and then I felt the pain of my cousin and what he is going through. It was unlike anything else and it was incredibly awesome.

Jeremy's response:
ALL OF BURN— YOU HAVE YOUR MISSION, WILL YOU EXCEPT THE CHALLENGE….? WHAT IF…?

---

When was the last time we sensed that challenge in our lives as adults? When was the last time we actually prayed that God would lift us from the familiar and the comfortable, to step out on faith and really see who God is and what He is able to do?

GOD'S HEART FOR THE BROKEN-HEARTED

“A broken and a contrite heart you will not despise.” – Palm 51.17

Back in the office this morning after an all-too-quick “end of the summer” vacation. Spent a nice time with Christi, Tim and Jake in Florence KY. I was in Fort Wayne IN Friday after through Sunday morning at one of my previous churches, Anthony Wayne Church of God, to unite my cousin Kelly and her fiancée Michael Gomes in marriage. They are a unique couple—Michael is a truck driver and part of a motorcycle club of men who were once on drugs and now many of them live boldly as Christians. Kelly was my Music Director at AWC and teaches elementary music. She has an incredible voice and has sung with Kenny Rogers. Here’s a photo of the happy couple, both members of First Assembly of God in Ft Wayne and who have a heart for people others often write off.

Visiting with their wedding guests – soldiers and their wives, a Starbucks barrista, highly educated teachers, bikers who had been married for more than 40 years, Vietnamese refugees, and the chef of a five star restaurant, former drugs addicts who could sing Amazing Grace with great gusto and pray The Lord’s Prayer with great heart – I was reminded of the call of Christ to be people who build redemptive relationships with all kinds of people so that you might influence those friends to find Jesus Christ. Both Kelly and Michael have stories to tell—stories of brokenness and stories of God’s healing grace. Who are we building relationships with? Are we willing to tell our stories of brokenness and grace? Who are we influencing to turn their lives over to Jesus?

HAVE A LITTLE FUN WITH MARK LOWERY MEETING AN ATHEIST

I've been on vacation and my creative juices have been a little thin. Enjoy Mark Lowery until I am back on track. - Steve

CLASSIC CARS

Reading: Jude 3

"Earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints." - Jude 3

I love classic cars.  There is something fascinating about these road warriors.  There was a time they owned the road--providing transportation to grandmas, gangsters, doctors making house calls, families taking a Sunday drive, salesmen trying to ply their wares.  They have a uniqueness and an elegance that stands out in the box-like family vehicles, the monster trucks and sporty SUVs, and the lookalike family cars occupying the road today.  Some of them were short-lived in popularity.  They bore names that today have little meaning - but they are really neat.

Unfortunately today, you have to be very careful with these cars.  Their "age" and uniqueness put them at great risk on the high-speed highways of today. You even have to ration the amount of road miles because their parts are no longer being produced.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is very ancient.  It has a beauty in its original form that makes it even more precious today with the trendy and sometimes indistinguishable religious imitators.

Fortunately, the gospel wears well on today's highways in today's world. It is not fragile, needing protection.  It is robust, needing faithfulness.  The gospel is not intended to be kept in a warehouse as a remnant of other times.  It is intended to engage the world where the rubber meets the road.

A classic car may have been built well, but only a few people have the means and opportunity to drive it.  The gospel today is for everyone--it is durable for eternity.

(C) 2009 by Stephen L Dunn, reprinted 2010

WHEN LIFE GETS MESSY

For years we had this poster hanging in our kitchen.  My wife Dianne had retrieved it from her younger brother Sam.  On a whim we hung it next to our kitchen table.  It stayed there a long time.

I really identify with the little guy in the photo. (In fact, if you compare this photo to one of my baby pictures, the resemblance almost appears genetically ordained.) Someone once said, "Life is tough and then you die."  At times this life would be an argument for staying out of hell come eternity. This life is difficult enough.

Life gets messy.  That's a given living in a fallen world. G.K. Chesterton once spoke of God's "terrible gift of freedom."  Because God has chosen to give humankind the freedom to choose to live in a right relationship with Him and experience the blessing, or choose to be our own god and experience the consequences; that collision of sinful choices has collateral damage on believers and  unbelievers alike.  God has delivered us from the penalty of sin and enabled us with the power to overcome sin, but we still live in the presence of sin until Christ returns to establish the Kingdom in its fullness.

Life gets messy -- and will get messier until this fallen world is redeemed.

In the time until that occurs, it does me little good to constantly lament the suffering and the frustration of living for God in a world that still wants to keep Him out of sight, out of mind, and out of work.  That just makes me a whining prophet.  What I need to do is to face the presence of sin with the promise of God.

That promise is best summarized by the apostle Paul, writing to the Church of God at Rome, which knew what it was to live in the messy, destructive presence of sin.

"If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." - Romans 8:31-39 New International Version.

(c) 2010 by Stephen L Dunn 

 

This post also appeared yesterday in my new blog for Christians taking the faith seriously in a fallen world called IMMEASURABLY MORE