Ministry In Mexico

I arrived home last night, having been in Mexico since Thursday. I was there with our national leaders for Grace Walk Mexico for a time of team-building and teaching how to disciple people one-on-one. I spent four days in the city of Cuernavaca and spoke in a church there on Sunday morning. Gerardo Vasquez (GW Latin American Director) and I returned to Mexico City on Sunday afternoon along with Omar Pena, our ministry leader for the state of Quintana Roo .

I have returned with what apparently is a bad case of "Montezuma's Revenge." I am always careful about washing my hands and what I eat and drink while there, but sometimes you just misstep and get nailed by it. It's a miserable feeling with symptoms you wouldn't want to hear about, so I'll spare you.

The photo was taken with Gerardo Soberanis (Grace Walk Mexico National Director) and Gerardo Vasquez. There was also a young man there who works with us named Armando. He has been discipled by Gerardo Soberanis, who was discipled by Gerardo Vasquez, who was discipled by me. So, there were four generations of us there - an encouraging realization. The young guys kid me about being their old grandfather, but I love it. It brings me real joy to see the grace walk message being transferred to the younger men who will continue to carry the message forward after I'm gone.

Ministry in Arizona

I just returned from Arizona, where I spoke at the Word of Grace Men's Retreat. The church is in Mesa and the retreat was held at the Bison Ranch Retreat Center in Overgaard, Arizona. It is a beautiful place situated about 7000 feet above sea level. The scenery there is awesome.

The topic for the weekend was "Transforming Grace" and that is certainly what we experienced. The whole weekend was enjoyable, but I particularly enjoyed Saturday night when I spoke on the love of our Father. As Jesus revealed Himself to us, I asked the men to share what the Lord was saying to them. One after another described what they were hearing and, of course, it was all words of love and freedom. Some expressed how Jesus was telling them they were free from anxiety, guilt, fears. One man wept aloud and said, "The Lord is telling me that I don't have to do drugs anymore!" The whole weekend was a powerful time with a fun group of guys.

The retreat ended on Sunday morning and I spoke at Grace Community Church in Phoenix on Sunday evening. The group there is fired up about their identity in Christ and walking in grace. It was a pleasure to "preach to the choir" since Pastor Dave Cornejo lays the foundation of grace there every week.

On Thursday of this week, I'm off to Mexico where I will be training the leaders of Grace Walk Mexico in living and sharing the message. I'll be in Cuernavaca, about 50 miles south of Mexico City. It's exciting to see so many people in so many places hungry to experience the grace walk.

The Most Frequently Taught Law In The Modern Church

The danger of legalism in church is real in large part because legalistic lies sound so correct. On the surface, they make a lot of sense . . . until they are scrutinized under the authority of God's Word. By the light of Scripture, many a right-sounding-lie has been exposed for what it is.

There is one legalistic teaching that echos through the walls of the modern church every week in a multitude of churches. The fallacy of the statement is so subtle that even a seasoned grace walker might easily miss it. I contend that the statement is legalistic, in the sense that it is grounded in Old Testament Law. What is this statement that pulls so many unsuspecting Christians into its snare? It is this: You should love God more. "Wait a minute!" you may protest. "How can it possibly be said that to say we should love God more is legalistic? We should love God more!"

Hold on for a moment. I ask you to calm whatever emotional knee-jerk reaction you might feel right now and consider, not what you feel or have always thought, but instead consider what the Bible says. Can we agree that the Bible has the final word on the matter?

One time some Pharisees (the legalists of His day) came to Jesus. Matthew 22 says, One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, 36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" 37 And He said to him, " `YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' 38 "This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 "The second is like it, `YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' 40 "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.

Look at the question asked of Jesus: What is the greatest Law? What was the answer Jesus gave? "You shall love the Lord." The reason, then, why I insist that to teach that we must love the Lord is legalistic is because Jesus, Himself, said it is the greatest of the Laws.

What does the Law do in a person's life? Paul said in Romans 7:5 that it "stirs up sinful passions." In other words, it provokes the opposite response from what it tells us to do. He gives an example by pointing out that coveting wasn't a problem for him until he learned that the Law says "Don't covet." Suddenly, he found himself coveting like crazy. (Read it for yourself in Romans 7:7-8)

So the Law, then, works like reverse psychology. It motivates you to do the exact opposite of what it tells you. So what happens to people when they are told that they should (There's the definitive word.) love God. Just the opposite arises within them. That's why so many Christians are literally praying for God to help them to love Him more. It's because they are experiencing the predictable outcome of trying to live up to the Law, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God."

What is the answer of grace to this dilemma? It is to teach people how much the Lord their God loves them! 1 John 4:19 says, "We love because He first loved us." There's the answer. To love Him more we only need to understand how much He loves us! As we grow in the understanding of His unlimited, unconditional love, our response will be to love Him!

Every week Christians are being told in churches all over the world that they should love God more. That kind of teaching will never yield the fruit we want. On the other hand, if they are clearly taught the Father's love for them, you can't stop them from growing in love for Him.

It sounds good, on the surface, to say that we ought to love God more. The question is "How?" The answer to loving Him more isn't to be taught the greatest Law ever given. We don't live under the Law anymore. The answer is to be told the good news that He loves us. That's New Covenant teaching. The subtlety of the Law that teaches we should love Him more is keeping people under the curse of guilt and condemnation for not succeeding in that area. Let's embrace grace and share it with others. The Lord your God loves you! That fact is the only thing that can produce genuine love in us.

What do you think?

The Power of a Preposition

An old man and his wife were sitting in their rockers on the front porch one day when the man said to his wife, "Ma, I'm proud of you." "Eh?" she responded. "I said I'm proud of you!" he shouted a little louder. "What?" she asked again. "I said, Ma, I proud of you!" he yelled as loud as he could. "Well, I'm tired of you too!" she snarled back at him.

Missing one little word can make a big difference some time. No where is that fact more true than when it comes to a discussion of the grace walk. While none of us want to be guilty of nitpicking each other's words to pieces, the other side of of issue is that the words we use do matter. One wrong word can change the whole meaning of a statement. Consisder these examples:

I've been in the flesh lately.
This is the kind of confession a Christian might make in confession that he hasn't been acknowledging Jesus Christ as his life source lately. Maybe he has willfully lived independently, doing his own thing by gratifying the flesh instead of walking in the Spirit. What's wrong with the statement?

The fault with it is that no Christian is ever "in the flesh." In Romans 8:9, the Apostle Paul said, "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him." So no Christian is "in the flesh" then. At all times we are "in the Spirit."

A biblical way to express those times when we behave fleshly would be to say that we walk after the flesh. We aren't in the flesh, but we are following after it. (See Romans 8:4-5,12-13, 2Peter 2:10) "In" or "after" - small words that make a big difference when we're talking about our relationship to the flesh.

Here's another example of the importance of using the right word:

As Christians, we live for Christ.
What's wrong with this one? The fact is that we don't live for Christ. We live in Him. In fact, the whole message of the New Testament could be summarized in the two words "in Christ." To say that we live for Him lends itself to a performance based mentality about our Christian life which suggests that it's all about what we do. Confessing that we live "in Christ" points toward our identity and acknowledges Him as our very Life-Source. Two small words with very different meanings when used in this context.

Sometimes people say to me that the differences they have with what I say "is just semantics," but that's not true. Words mean something. Considering the widespread tendency people have to misunderstand the message those of us who share the message of the grace walk constantly face, it is important that we grow in the ability to use the best words when we communicate the message.

"In, after, for" - small preposistions, but important words when we want to make the message clear.

Happy Birthday Melanie

Yesterday was my wife, Melanie's, birthday. This picture was taken last week at our daughter's house. Our grandchildren really liked the fact that the cake had so many candles on it.

I met Melanie when she was a fifteen year old girl. If you have ever heard me speak, you probably know that she is the only girl I ever dated. We went out on our first date in 1970 when I took her to see "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever" (Barbara Streisand) and then to Pizza Villa. Three years later we married, when she was 18 and I was 19 years old.

When people meet Melanie for the first time, they often tell her that they feel like they already know her because I mention her so many times in my books and when I speak. I mention her often because I can't keep from it. Sharing her life with me for all these years has been the greatest grace-gift I could ever receive in this world. For all these years, Melanie has been my best friend and strongest spiritual advisor. She has seen me at my best and my worst and has never wavered in her commitment and love for me. I still feel thrilled to know she is my wife. She is a beautiful and wonderful woman in every way.

Why I Don't Pray For Revival Anymore

Revival: the restoration of a living creature from a dead state to a living state; an evangelistic meeting intended to reawaken interest in religion.

I grew up attending “revival services.” Even when I was young, I enjoyed these meetings at church. The services usually included zealous singing followed by a fiery preacher sharing a sermon that moved many of us to rededicate our lives to Christ when the evangelist invited us express our commitment by coming forward at the end of the service. At the altar, we would repent of our sinful or slothful ways and promise God that, with His help, we would do better.

These revivals were invigorating and motivating, but they weren’t self-perpetuating. We had to schedule revival meetings twice a year, because as surely as autumn came, our spring revival would have worn off and we would need to do it all over again. We didn’t mind, though, because it felt so good to “get right with God” and start afresh and anew.

It isn’t my intent to scoff at the tradition of my childhood. We were all sincere and our scheduled revival services came from a noble desire to please God. As a pastor, I carried the tradition forward for many years in the churches I served. But, like many things I did as a legalist, my efforts were misguided.

The word “revival” isn’t even found in the New Testament, but more importantly, neither is the concept. Revival is an Old Covenant experience. Once the New Covenant became effective, we received something better – resurrection. Understanding our new life in Him is the only catalyst for a godly lifestyle that lasts. The Apostle Paul didn’t pray for revival in the church, but prayed for the revelation of the meaning of the love of God and what it means to walk in His power. (See Ephesians 1:17-19)

What the church needs today isn’t another revival. What we need is a revelation of who God is in us and who we are in Him. Understanding His unconditional love and unwavering grace brings something so much greater than revival. It produces reformation. It restructures our understanding of what it means to be in Christ and reorders the way we live our lives by causing us to give up on the silly notion that we can live up to the promises we make when we rededicate ourselves to God. A revelation of our identity in Christ brings us to the place of total dependence on Him, understanding that it is only by His grace that we will ever be able to live a lifestyle that truly honors Him.

Revival happens when we make promises. Reformation happens when we believe His promises. Revival is short-lived. Reformation is permanent. Revival is taught in the Old Testament. Reformation is the message of the New Covenant. Revival produces motivation. Reformation produces transformation.

What we need is a reformation that comes through the revelation of grace. Grace is the divine enablement for us to be all that we have been called to be and do all that we have been called to do. It isn’t about us and our dedication to Him. A grace reformation is grounded in understanding our Father’s dedication to us, as evidenced by the finished work of Christ.

I understand the reason people pray for revival, but it’s time to stop that. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11). Maturity in grace brings us to the place where we realize that what we need isn’t another revival. What we need is a revelation that produces a reformation in God’s church -- a reformation of grace.

What do you think?

Grace Walking Tourists

Before returning from California, Melanie and I had the better part of the day free in Los Angeles yesterday. Being the movie buffs we are, we had to visit Hollywood. We watched the movie "Next" at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the most famous movie theatre in the world. It is a beautiful, eighty year old theatre and rich in history. (It's first movie in 1927 was "King of Kings") You can spend a long time just looking at the almost 200 sets of footprints and handprints of Hollywood's greatest actors from the past and present.

Before going to the theatre, we ate breakfast at The Beverly Hills Hotel, where we saw Randy Jackson, of American Idol. Then, in the afternoon we watched a taping of "America's Got Talent." Some of the talent was very good and some of the acts were totally ridiculous, but overall, it was a fun experience. Jerry Springer is the host and two of the judges were David Hasselhoff and Sharon Osbourne.

Melanie spoke briefly with Sharon Osbourne after the taping and told her that we had prayed for her during her fight against cancer. (See my devotional called "Ozzy Osbourne And Peace" on my web site at gracewalk.org) Sharon took Melanie's hand and said, "Thank you so much. It worked!" On a much less spiritual note, I won't comment on Melanie's thoughts or comments about David Hasselhoff!

After more than a week of constant and busy ministry, it was fun to ramble around Hollywood for a day. Melanie is like a big kid in settings like that and, to her credit, brings out the childlikeness in me too. It was a fun day with the love of my life, (assuming that David Hasselhoff stays out of the picture.)