Another loss

My dog died last night. The vet told my mom she’d never seen such a dramatic, overnight demise of an 8-year-old dog who was seemingly perfectly healthy. I got up this morning, threw some things in my suitcase and started home. So, thankfully I got here to Akron safe, my car is okay and my mom and I are coping together tonight as the rain comes down outside.

Here is a list from AARP:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people have not honored even half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they’d made, or not made.

It’s important to try to honor at least some of your dreams along the way. It’s too late once you lose your health. Health brings a freedom very few realize, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

This came from every male patient I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

Related

• 5 Weeks to a New Life. Watch
• 7 Ways to Get Out of Your Comfort Zone. Read
• Can a minister heed his own lessons of death? Watch
• Join AARP today — Receive access to exclusive information, benefits and discounts.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks, and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks: love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called “comfort” of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to themselves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is your life. Choose consciously, choose wisely and choose honestly. Choose happiness.

My brother Murray

This afternoon I was sitting at the bedside of an 87-year-old resident in rehab (following a massive heart attack earlier this month) when she was the one to urge me not to wait another second and to call my mother and get an update on our dog, Murray. What I learned was the worst--he is dying of Leukemia and only expected to a live a few weeks.

Earlier that day, helping this same resident, Wanda, with her paperwork to apply for Medicaid, I told her I just got a call from my mom that our Chocolate Lab, Murray, was just diagnosed with cancer. The day before I just happened to be with Wanda when my mom first called my cell (something she rarely does when she knows I’m at work so I always know it’s something important)  to break the news that something suddenly had gone wrong with Murray, who is my brother and “boyfriend.”

He was acting strange the day before and when my Mom took him into the vet, she said he had a very erratic, all over the place, irregular heartbeat. That was the beginning of the shocking bad news about a pet who, just a month ago when I visited, was in impeccable shape and active as a puppy.

My mom feeds him the very best diet and walks him at a dog park twice a day for at least 45 minutes. She even brushes his teeth every night and gives him his baths herself. She has had Murray since he was given as a puppy by her son-in-law just before her husband died.

For those who know me, they know I still struggle mightily with my sister’s untimely, shocking death two years ago. The sad part is my mom struggles even more, as you would expect.

The sad part right now is knowing how much the two of us, mother and daughter, have relied on Murray to cheer us up.

Here’s an article I found in my files:

Yesterday was the first anniversary of my step-dad's death. My mom is depressed, even though she wouldn't really admit so, and so am I and my sister. We're all lonely. My sister was recently diagnosed with a brain injury by Ohio State University. It's official. It wasn't something she made up in her head, as Wal-Mart would have her believe (she is fighting for a settlement with her former employer).

My mom's close friend that she saw every day at a beautiful, heavily wooded park (only two blocks from my mom's house) where they walked their dogs has moved (as of Oct. 1) to a total different part of town (a 20-minute drive on the expressway). They don't see each other at all really.

My friend in Chicago who I've known since I first moved here in 1990 is moving at the end of November to her hometown of Kansas City. She closed her wedding store, I Do I Do, at the end of October.

Life is lonely and when you know that the people you care about the most, and really your only family, are depressed, it's hard to be happy. It's hard not to feel the constant burden of wanting happiness for them but
not knowing how to help them or yourself.

The big biblical question is, "How do you be happy when you know the person you love the most (in my case it's my mother, who's totally connected with my sister, as they are to each other) is very lonely and suffering?"

That special kind

As promised, here’s an article off of LisaLeland.com from Nov. 18, 2005 on the Greek words “agape” and “phileo”:

Look up the word "love" in the dictionary and you'll notice how many different nuances and meanings are given.

My 50-pounder Webster's Third New International Dictionary from 1961 actually uses Bible verses for one two-part definition among 16 definitions.

Part A reads, "To cherish or foster with divine love and mercy ; ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’—Jer. 31:3 (RSV)

Part B says, "To feel reverent adoration for (God) ‘but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments’—Exod. 20:6 (RSV)

Agape, phileo and eros (from which "erotic" stems) are the three Greek words for love.

Agape love is said to be the divine, supreme, selfless, intense, intimate love of God.

It’s a deep selfless love, whereas phileo is more of a fond and friendly casual kind of love. Phileo actually means "brotherly love" and is the root for Philadelphia ("City of Brotherly Love" in Greek) and the word "philanthropy."

"Agape is that special kind of mental-attitude love; it's not emotional love," explains my pastor, Richard Jordan (Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill.). "It's not a warm, personal feeling. It's not 'luv,' the l-u-v of the world.

“It's not the love of Harlequin Romance novels. It's not the love of the religious system where everybody pats each other on the back. It's not a back-slapping, handshaking, grinning, Madison Avenue kind of love. It's a mental attitude ability of valuing and esteeming things the way God does."

In the New Testament, phileo and agape are used interchangeably. For example, consider this famous exchange in John 21: 14-17 between Jesus Christ, in His post-resurrection supernatural appearance at the Sea of Galilee, and disciple Peter:

"This is now the third time that Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen from the dead.

"So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

"He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

"He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep."

When Peter answers, "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee," he's using the lesser meaning of phileo. The idea is that in the first two times Christ asks, "Peter, do you love me?", He's really saying, "Do you agape me?" and Peter answers, "Yeah, Lord, you know I phileo you."

The third time Christ says, “Peter, phileo thou me?" and Peter answers, “Lord, you know I phileo you.”

Peter was unwilling to commit himself to a deeper relationship with Christ and yet he's grieved when Jesus chooses the lesser term of phileo in His third posing of the same question.

It's like he was thinking, "Oh, great, now Jesus is willing to dumb down my commitment to my level."

But when does the Lord ever dumb down His call for the Believer?

As Jordan explains in a study I have on this subject, "If the Lord starts up here with agape, and it's a higher word, and phileo is a lower word, and Peter stays down there, do you think the Lord would then just say, 'Oh, well, I’ll just go on down to your level'? No, not if He’s calling Peter up to His higher level."

Christ is challenging Peter to love Him in relationship to the leadership position He's given him.

Here are some other interesting examples Jordan gives for the use of the two loves in New Testament verses. Just remember agape means deep, intimate selfless love and phileo means casual, friendly love.

Luke 7:42 (agape): "And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?"

Matt. 10:37 (phileo): "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

John 5:42 (agape): "But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you."

Rev. 3:9 (agape): "Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee."

Rev. 3:19 (phileo): "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent."

John  12:25 (phileo): "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."

Luke 11:43 (agape): "Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets."

II Tim. 3:4 (phileo): "Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God."

John 20:2 (phileo): "Then she (Mary Magdalene) runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him."

I Cor. 16:22 (phileo): "If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha."

Rom. 5:8 (agape): "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

I Cor. 16:24 (agape): "My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen."

Be my phileo, O Romeo

I just came up the handicap ramp to my building, back from a jog on the lakefront, when I encountered a resident. I asked, in the course of our casual conversation, what he thought about the riots in Brazil. He said, “I think it’s all politics.” I responded, “It’s a very corrupt government. People are angry that they’re spending billions on the Olympics but are cutting basic services and increasing costs like for riding the bus.”

He said, “There’s two things I don’t discuss with people: religion and politics.” I said, “Those are two of my favorite things to talk about.” Then, in bringing up my affinity for studying the Bible,” He replied with, “It’s just another book written by a man. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t understand people reading it over and over. That’s stupid.”

So, just another day in my world. It’s lonely out here! Just the other week, I had a co-worker of mine, who I’ve spent the last five years sharing Bible truth with, tell me she’d resorted to putting a St. Joseph statue in her bathroom as a good luck omen to find a buyer for her condo. And she’s not even Catholic!

While jogging, an old number from the Bee Gees came up on my iTunes song list. The lyrics go: “I ain't no vision, I am the man
Who loves you inside and out
Backwards and forwards with
My heart hanging out
I love no other way
What am I gonna do if we lose that fire?

Don't try to tell me it's all over
Can't hear a word I can't hear a line
No man could love you more
And that's what I'm cryin' for
You can't change the way I feel inside

You're the reason for my laughter and my sorrow
Blow out the candle I will burn again tomorrow
No man on earth can stand
Between my love and I
And no matter how you hurt me
I will love you till I die.”

This made me think of Jesus Christ’s use of the words “agape” and “phileo” to tell of His love. Just the other week Jordan gave a study on how most people misunderstand the words’ definition.

Scofield’s Notes, for one, says agape means “deeply loved” and is a word used for “divine love and the love which the law demands.” Phileo, he says, means, “I’m fond; a casual, friendly love.”

Of this interpretation, Jordan says, “That’s a bunch of hooey; I’m sorry. That’s not good Greek by itself, much less good Bible. The problem with saying that the third time (Jesus spoke to Peter) He used a different word and that that word is significantly different than the one He used the first two times is that you can’t say He said, ‘The third time,’ when it’s the first time He said it.

“If He said something the third time, than He had to have had the third time have said in essence what he just said two other times.

“In his dictionary, Bible scholar W.E. Vine goes down through describing the two words and he says two things. One, they are never used indiscriminately in the same passage. When I read that I say, ‘There are verses where they’re used as synonyms and that’s not an indiscriminate use but that’s a synonymous use.’

“Let me read you this definition: ‘The love that values and esteems. The thought of cherishing the object above all else. Of manifesting an affection characteristic of consistency.’

“Now that definition of cherishing the object above all else; that’s the definition generally ascribed to agape. Vines has it listed here as a definition of phileo. And you say, ‘Wait a minute, Brother Rick . . .’

“The answer is they are synonyms. Now a synonym is two different words that have basically the same meaning.

“Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms and you get guys that argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. That’s what these guys argue in these kind of books. I get more fun out of that than watching Jay Leno because you got three guys arguing about something that any six-year-old on the street could look at them and blow them away about.

“But what dictionary synonyms do is give you the shades of meaning within words. And that’s why you have more than one word that means the same thing. Here are the synonyms for love: attachment, affection, devotion, fidelity, loyalty, adoration, worship, to adore, passion, fervor, ardor, enthusiasm, zeal. The verb form is ‘like, enjoy, dote, relish, fancy, adore, worship, idolize, cherish, treasure, value, prize, appreciate.’

“All those words mean the same thing, with just little shades of difference, not really a significant difference. To like something is to regard with favor. To love it is to strongly like; it’s an ardent attachment, devotion and loyalty. Affection is a warm tenderness of sentiment. To adore is to emotionally surrender to the charm and the attraction of the object of your love. Well, that’s the emotional part. To emote is to adore.

“If you can understand how English words can basically … you know, if you say, ‘I love you,’ and if you say, ‘I adore you,’ there’s a little bit of difference if you’re splitting hairs. But if you look at your wife and say, ‘I love you,’ and she looks back at you and says, ‘I adore you,’ as long as both of you said, ‘I love you, sugar,’ and ‘I adore you, sugar,’ you know you said the same thing because the ‘sugar’s’ in there.

“That’s what it is in these Greek words and if preachers have made such a drastic difference in them, well, then, shame on them. The difference isn’t that big in the Scripture and if you wanted to make some kind of a difference between them, agape denotes the cause of the love. Where the value and esteem comes from. Phileo is talking about the expression of the love, kind of a thing. The passion involved in it. That’s really what they’re glomming onto, but boy, when you make big differences between them and don’t make them synonyms, you know, if there’s a difference between Jesus saying, ‘Pete, do you adore me?’ and Peter saying, ‘You know I love you.’

“If there’s a big enough difference in that; a big enough difference to make all the difference preachers say, then He didn’t say it to him the third time and somebody’s wrong and the Holy Spirit was wrong when He wrote it down.”

*****

Just for fun I looked up the word “love” in a favorite synonyms dictionary I’ve used since my early 20s: “The Synonym Finder” by J.I. Rodale.

Some of the entries not named in Webster’s book, and separated by categories, include: adulation, mutual attraction, closeness, intimacy, true love, free love, love of one’s life, one’s all, rapport, affinity, concord, accord, harmony, friendliness, predilection, partiality, inclination, bent, penchant, proclivity, soft spot in one’s heart, mania, need, require, have to have.

I know I once wrote a big article for my blog delineating the nuances of agape and phileo. Since it’s not readily found in my file (I lost a lot of original entries when my laptop was stolen a couple of years ago) I will have to do some digging. Once I find it, I will post it.

'Who are you?'

There are two places in the Bible where that term ‘wiles’ is referred to—Ephesians and Joshua.

Jordan says, “I think when Paul wrote that he had these things in his mind. The Book of Joshua has often been called the Ephesians of the Old Testament. The Book of Ephesians has often been called the Joshua of the New Testament and the reason for that is the Book of Joshua is about Israel going into the land and possessing the land God’s already given them: ‘Go possess your possessions.’

“The Book of Ephesians is a book very similar where God is telling us, ‘Here are your possessions, now go possess them, go stand in the possessions God’s given you, fight the war of not letting them be taken away, moved away.’

“Five times in Ephesians he talks about the heavenly places; the high places. Those five times find an echo back in the Book of Joshua about the land of Canaan with Israel. It’s a fascinating kind of thing to study.

“It’s logical when Paul talks about the wiles of the devil in Ephesians that you’d find an illustration in the book of Joshua.

“Joshua 9 starts out, ‘And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof.’

“Notice the chapter starts with ‘and.’ In other words, what’s going to happen here, these Gentile kings from the hills, valleys, the coasts, they all get together to fight against Joshua in Israel because they heard something. What they heard is about the victory that he won in Jericho (chapter 6). They heard about the victory they won at Ai (chapter 8) and at the end of that, Joshua 8:30: [30] Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in mount Ebal,
[31] As Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings.
[32] And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

“Israel has won this great battle and he goes over here on Mt. Ebal and he’s got a Mt. Rushmore kind of thing and chisels the 10 Commandments into the mountain. He literally takes the Word of God that is prevailed against the enemies of Israel and enshrines it in the mountain there.

Verse 34 says, And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
[35] There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.

“I mean, the Word of God’s prevailed, and the victory that God gave Israel in His Word is a reality there, stark memorialized in front of everybody. And when these Gentile kings saw God’s Word prevailing, their answer, their response, to the victory of the exaltation of His Word was, ‘Let’s get together and fight!’ They had a complete, total hostility toward what God was doing in His Word through the nation Israel.

“So they gather themselves together to fight. They don’t gather together to say, ‘Oh, they’re going to take away from us all of our land. God gave it to them. Let’s surrender.’

“They just saw Jericho wiped out, they just saw Ai wiped out. They say, ‘We need to get together, guys,’ and it’s fascinating (verse 9) they’re in the hills and the valleys and the coasts. You know people in the hills and the valleys don’t get along? That’s why they live in the hills and the valleys.

“People who live on the coast are estranged from ALL of them. They get all these different disparate people…the Hittites and the Canaanites and the other ‘ites,’ they didn’t like each other, folks, but ‘the friend of my enemy is my friend,’ so they get together to fight Joshua and Israel with one accord. They get a league of nations together—the thing that binds them is hostility toward God’s Word and God’s working through Israel.

“Joshua 9 says, [3] And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai,
[4] They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;
[5] And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.’

“Joshua 10:2 says, ‘That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty.’

“Gibeon had a lot to lose. It’s a great city, bigger than Ai. Jericho and Ai were the gateway cities into Canaan but Gibeon was sort of like the plum.

“Satan is a roaring lion but he’s also a subtle serpent. ‘So were going to hedge our bet and before we go out here and attack them, we’re going to do a little shuck and jive. We’re going to use some crafty scheming, some wiles . . .’

“So what do they do? They went and made as if they had been ambassadors—important men, people of peace. Official representatives who can come and say, ‘Can’t we all just get together.’ The verse says they ‘took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up . . .’

“Now that’s a mock, false humility. They’re trying to make it like they’ve come a LONG journey. Verse 13 says, ‘And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.’

“Bunch of liars! They hadn’t gone on any long journey! They lived right next door! They’re practicing deceit. They’re trying to appear to be something they aren’t!

“Now do you remember over in Colossians he says ‘beware lest they beguile you with false humility?’ They transform themselves into the apostles of Christ and unto angels of light but what are they really? They’re deceivers.

“Joshua asked the right question in verse 8: ‘Who are you and from whence come you?’

“God had told Israel in Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 7, ‘The inhabitants of the land of Canaan; wipe them out! Do not make any league, any covenant with them!’ and then He named them. You know who He named? These birds right here!

“Joshua says, ‘Who are you?’ and they don’t tell him. They say, ‘Oh, we came from a long way!’ They dodged the issue and lied to him. They try to deceive him. In verse 12 they say, ‘Look at this stuff!’ They get him going by sight. They say, ‘Come, experience our reality and they focus on experience. And they divert Joshua’s thinking away from the Word and the crux of it is in verse 8:14: ‘And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city.’

“You know how they deceived Joshua in Israel? You go back to Numbers 27 and God told Moses, ‘Take Joshua, sit him over here and put your mantle on him. I’m going to put my spirit on him, and just like I talked to you, I’m going to talk to him.’

“And Joshua had the capacity to communicate with God and get counsel straight from God just like Moses did and Joshua doesn’t do that. He forsook God’s Word! He went and trusted human experience, human wisdom, human thinking.

“Instead of standing in the identity and the blessings God gave Israel, and God had for Israel in His Word, He is deceived into following human viewpoint. That’s the wiles of the Adversary!

“That’s all Satan can do; he can’t change who you are in Christ. He can’t stop you from being complete in Christ. But his tact, his wile, his trick, his cunning craftiness is to do what these birds did! Get you focused on experience, on circumstance, on feelings, on something other than the truth of God’s Word, walking by sight and not by faith.”

*****

God sent prophets to Israel in each one of the five cycles of judgment. He sent His word to them. Every cycle has a major prophet associated with it. The only prophets who actually write their messages down do so in the fourth course.

The name Elijah means ‘Jehovah is my God.’ Jordan says, “Here’s God in Elijah and he leaves Israel. Comes to the Jordan river, jumps in, swims across to the other side and goes away. He’s caught up by the chariot.

“The picture is, and if you trace the places he went, you’ll see the significance of he’s in reverse order, leaving the land in the reverse order that god led Israel into the land. And it’s though God is saying, ‘I’m leaving!’ and He left.

“Now Elisha went with him and then in chapter two, Elisha jumps back in and comes back into the land. So what you have here is a point where God leaves and then comes back in with Elisha.

“II Kings 2:15 says, ‘And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.’

“Now you’re back in Joshua 3 where the Lord comes into the land. It’s sort of like, ‘There He went, here He comes.’ You’re going to move with Elisha to the third course.

“By the way Elisha has the double portion. Elijah did eight miracles. Elisha does 16.”

As near as He

“How do you get through the storms?” says Jordan. “You believe what the Master of the winds and waves said. You realize the storm isn’t the reality. The reality is what God said and when you trust what God says, you know what it brings? Peace in the midst of the turmoil. A peace that passes all understanding. Paul calls it ‘the peace of God.’

“In John 14, Jesus told the apostles, “My peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives; I’m giving you MY peace.’

“If you look for a definition of ‘the peace of God’ it would be John 14:27 when Jesus talked about His peace. He’s God. And His peace was, ‘I’m going to the Cross. Why? Because I’m doing the will of my Father.  I’m trusting my Father and I’m being obedient to my Father.’

“His peace--His complete, relaxed, tranquility was in doing the will of His Father. He said it when He began His ministry. ‘My meat is to do the will of Him who sent me. The thing that sustains me, marshals me, carries me forth and energizes me is the will of my Father,’ and in the shadow of the Cross He said, ‘That’s all I live for is to please my Father; to glorify Him.’

In Luke 3 there’s a wonderful counterpart to what we read in Matthew 3. Luke 3:21 says, ‘Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
[22] And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.’

“Now in Matthew the voice said, ‘This is beloved son.’ It was a pronouncement to the world; to Israel. ‘This is my boy; I’m pleased in Him!’

“But in Luke, Luke adds that personal touch, looking at the personal side of things. And Luke doesn’t just say, ‘The Father says, ‘This is Him!’ That’s Matthew; the royal proclamation. Luke says, ‘There was something more said because the Father looked at His Son and He said, ‘Thou,’ first person, personal address. Thou are my beloved son and in thee I am well-pleased. I want you to understand, son, that I know who you are and that all of my delight is in you!’

“He leaves there in chapter 4 and goes out into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. The first temptation of the devil. Verse 3. The slanderer said, ‘If thou be the son of God, command these stone . . . IF you really believe who the Father said you are . . .’

“But you notice what the devil did? He didn’t say, ‘If thou be the beloved son of god in whom the Father’s well-pleased . . .’ That’s what the Father really said.

“Because the Adversary understood that if Jesus Christ understood, and was going to stand in an appreciation of who the Father really said He was, temptation was going to be of no success.

“The Adversary is trying to move Christ away from the identity the Father had just conferred upon Him. Christ knew who He was but He also knew who the Father said He was and Satan says, ‘If I’m going to tempt Him, I’ve got to move Him away from that.’

“Temptation loses its grip, friend, when you stand in a conscious commitment and faith in the identity God gives you in Jesus Christ. Living, standing, in the reality of who God has already made us in Christ Jesus, stand—refuse to be moved from that. That’s the key!

“If you’re going to proclaim the gospel, and you’re going to defend the faith, it’s going to start with you, preaching the gospel to yourself and defending the gospel to yourself. Standing in who God’s made you in His Son, not the world, the flesh or the devil, and refusing to be moved away from it.

“That’s how victory comes into the experience of a Believer. That’s why you want to put this armor on, so you can stand and withstand the attempts of the Adversary to move you away from that marvelous identity.

So near, so very near to God
  Nearer I could not be;
For in the person of His Son,
  I am as near as He.
So dear, so very dear to God,
  I could not dearer be;
The love wherewith He loves His Son,
  Such is His love to me.

Cut free

Paul writes, “That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

Jordan explains, “Paul says, ‘To be established means you and I share the same mutual faith.’ Christ gives it to Paul, and through Paul’s epistles, it’s given to you.  When you believe and understand the same thing Paul believes and understands, you have that mutual faith. You know, like Mutual of Omaha, where you share it together. That is spiritual establishment.

“You don’t need a college education to get that. You don’t need to know anything about Greek or Hebrew to get that.  You don’t need a preacher with a seminary degree to get that. In fact, those might be a hindrance to you getting it.

“What you need is that Book, a King James Bible, and to study it the way Paul (the way God) tells you to study it. Then it can be Christ in you, living out through you for His glory.

*****

“One of the things I’ve noticed is before you get to Romans 6 you had to read five chapters. Did you ever notice that? It’s strange how Bible study can be complicated.

“Where I find most Christian people who I deal with as a pastor . . . most of the time when someone comes with a problem, you have to go back and start with the first five chapters of Romans, because the first five establishes you in the finality of the Cross. God has completely and totally dealt with your failure and your sin at Calvary.

“Paul says, ‘That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.’ It’s the righteousness provided for you through the Lord Jesus Christ. Not your actions but His!

“The whole issue in you having that right-standing with God is so that you can have His life flowing and controlling your life, reigning, being the controlling factor and influence in your thinking, your actions, your attitudes. How does that happen? It happens through righteousness.

“Your consciousness and understanding of the righteousness of God, the righteousness of faith, is the mechanism that God’s grace uses to control and bring the flow of the life of Christ through you. Without understanding that issue, your Christian life has no basis.

“If believing had to be hard, then there would be merit in the believing. And Paul says, ‘Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.’

“Where is the boasting? Somebody comes along and says, ‘Well, if you believe, then you did something that is merit.’ Paul says, ‘No, that’s not true!’

“You can believe a Calvinist or you can believe your Bible, but if you believe your Bible, Romans 3:27 says there’s no merit in your faith because your faith is trusting the merit of someone else. You see that flies in the face of all kind of theology.

“You ever hear the question, ‘Did Adam have a belly button?’ Well, he didn’t because he wasn’t born. He was a new creature. In Christ, you’re a new species of humanity. With the glorious future God has for you out there. That’s why he says you’re buried with Him by baptism into death. When you died with Him . . . ‘I’m crucified with Christ nevertheless I live,’ Paul said. ‘You're circumcised with the circumcision made without hands and the putting off of the body with the sins of the flesh through the circumcision of Christ.’

“You have an experience there that cuts you free from all that stuff in the past. Death is a liberating experience because the only answer to sin is death. Just like the answer to your sins was Christ dying, the answer for your sin, your nature, is you dying with Him. Then you’re buried with Him.

“The gospel of I Corinthians 15 is that Christ died for our sins and was buried and raised again the third day and that He was seen.

“First time anybody in the Bible was ever buried, Abraham took his wife Sarah, bought a little piece of ground, and he said, ‘I want that piece of ground so I can bury my dead out of my sight.’ The burial with Him is you taking that old corrupt man and putting him away. God’s put him away.

*****

“I recently talked with a man my age who was raised in the same religion I was raised in and taught the same way I was taught that ‘what you do is you grow into it.’ Methodists, we were. He was old enough to have heard about Aldersgate.

“John Wesley came to Savannah, Georgia (in 1735) and was a missionary to the Indians for eight years as an Anglican priest—a lost man. The church called him back home, he got on a boat and is going back to England when a great storm came.

“In fact, when he came to America by boat there was a great storm. There were some Moravian missionaries going to go the missionaries in Pennsylvania on that storm (back to London).

“Wesley is scared to death he’s going to be blown away and destroyed and the Moravians are just having a good time, praying to the Lord and not worried at all, just happy. And he couldn’t understand how he a priest, with all the sanction of the church, could be so miserable and scared and they’re a bunch of dudes over here with no religion at all (perceivably) and yet they’re just rejoicing.

“He couldn’t understand that. He spent eight years on the mission field. He went home troubled by that. And he didn’t get an answer until one night he went down to the little Moravian mission in London on a little street called Aldersgate and went in and there was a Moravian preacher standing there and he was reading the preface to the Book of Romans written by Martin Luther.

“And if you’ve ever read it, there’s a tremendous passage in it about salvation being Luther’s experience of learning that it’s ‘by justification alone.’ It’s by faith alone in Christ that justification comes. And Wesley’s testimony is that ‘that night my heart was strangely warmed.’

“All through Methodist history that expression has wafted down. That was Wesley’s way of saying, ‘That night I trusted Jesus Christ personally as my Savior and all the fear and all the doubt and all the confusion was gone.’ You don’t grow into it, folks; it comes when you trust Jesus Christ.”

Feng-suaded by seducing spirits

The other day I read an article in the New York Times about a new scam that's moved from China to Chinatown in the Big Apple where younger Asians pick on elderly Chinese who sleep on their savings kept in cash under the mattress. Basically, they tell the senior about dire things predicted by a "spiritual doctor" to happen to their loved ones and ask for a bag of cash for a "blessing."

 

"Chinese blessing scams have popped up all around the world in recent months, from San Francisco and Seattle to England and Australia," said the article.      

“They’re clearly preying on the immigrant community who has stronger religious beliefs and customs,” George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney, said in November.

      

Sometimes, one of the first women to approach the potential victim carries a hidden cellphone and a co-conspirator listens in, surprising the victim later by knowing personal information. On Monday, one of the suspects briefly claimed to be channeling the elderly woman’s dead husband.

The scams usually end the same way, with the victim handing over a bag of money to be blessed and the women switching it with an identical bag, filled with newspaper and water bottles.

 

 

Here is a must-read article from the New York Times:

BEIJING-On Wednesday night, the eve of the annual “tomb sweeping” festival known as Qingming, Ms. Zhao, 51, set alight wads of fake Chinese renminbi and American dollars in a street just off a major thoroughfare here in the capital. She also burned ceremonial checks, which her brother could deposit in heaven’s bank. In case he got bored with the immortal realm, she had thrown in a passport for easy interdimensional travel.

“This saves me a lot of trouble,” she said, poking at the flames with a stick. “They probably have the same system as we have on Earth, so now he can buy whatever he wants.”

Qingming, which was observed on Thursday, is an age-old festival in which the living pay respect to their dearly departed ancestors — and in-laws — by tidying graves and burning paper offerings so that the spirits can afford the good afterlife.

Banned by the victorious Communist Party in 1949 for its feudal links, Qingming has had a resurgence in recent years. Since the festival was officially reinstated by the mainland government as a public holiday in 2008, the masses have flocked to their relatives’ graves to sweep away debris and leave behind the deceased’s temporal favorites, like oranges, cigarettes and beer.

Regardless of whether the living believe the dead actually enjoy such tokens, Qingming has become a prime opportunity to celebrate filial piety, the Confucian value that is deeply embedded in the DNA of Chinese society. According to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, more than 520 million people visited cemeteries during the festival last year, up from 420 million in 2011.

In the days leading up to Qingming this year, Beijingers appeared at cemeteries carrying brooms and gifts like flowers and snacks. Last Saturday alone, 133,000 people visited the city’s 20 public cemeteries, some of which drew nearly double the attendance from a year earlier, according to the Beijing municipal government.

For the living, Qingming stirs up an anxiety that goes beyond the question of what happens after death. According to a government report issued this week, China is expected to run out of burial space in the coming decade. The shortage comes at a time when there are already more than 181 million people older than 60, leading many to worry just where their remains will be interred.

The crisis has spurred a growing black market, particularly in large cities. In 2010, for example, about 31 percent of ashes were buried in legal Beijing cemeteries; in the southeastern city of Guangzhou, the number was 6 percent, according to a funeral industry report. Illegal cemeteries are cheaper.

High demand and limited space have made the cost of a final resting place soar. At the well-tended Tianshouyuan Cemetery in Beijing, an idyllic spot on the outskirts of the city that is famous for its feng shui, grave plots for ashes sell for as much as $46,000 per square meter.

While the Babaoshan People’s Cemetery to the south is completely full, those looking for an alternative can store their relatives’ cremated remains at the nearby Laoshan Ashes Hall in a small locker for as much as $140 annually for three years.

The market forces pervading those hallowed grounds are tolerated but not welcomed. “Burial plots are absurdly expensive nowadays,” said a retired public servant leaving the hall last Sunday. “We can afford to spend tens of thousands on a plot, but why? Looking after your elders while they’re alive is what’s important.”

Wanan Cemetery, an hour’s drive from central Beijing, is a tranquil testament to China’s contemporary prosperity. Gleaming marble tombs adorned with floral bouquets, bottles of rice wine and pastries stretch out in rows under pine trees. All is quiet except for the occasional bird song. But amid the expensive displays of filial devotion lie remnants of a past the Communist Party has tried to hide: broken tombstones that were destroyed by Mao’s Red Guards in the 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, are covered in lichen.

Qingming is a rare occasion when the ghosts of that terrible era cannot be ignored. As he repaired the cracks on his mother’s grave, a 75-year-old retired professor who would give only his surname, Yue, because the Cultural Revolution remains politically delicate, grimaced at the memory. “I could see those rogues breaking gravestones, but I couldn’t stop them,” he said.

Some Chinese travel huge distances to pay their respects. Li Lihua, 54, a civil servant, spent 20 hours riding a train from Beijing to the southern coastal province of Fujian because he would never forgo sweeping his ancestors’ graves. “That’s how you judge the worth of a clan,” he said.

For those unable to make the journey home, technology provides a substitute. Dozens of tomb Web sites have sprung up, allowing Internet users to buy virtual flowers and make an avatar bow before a digital grave with the click of a mouse.

Some entrepreneurs have gone all out to ensure that the dead have access to earthly pleasures. An e-commerce site, Taobao, lists numerous paper offerings to be burned for the gadget-loving spirit, like cardboard MacBook Pro laptops, iPhones and iPads.

In Beijing shops on Wednesday, customers could buy sheets of paper emblazoned with jade bracelets, blankets, luxury sedans and a “heavenly villa.” According to the Chinese news media, certain devoted relatives burn paper mistresses to accompany their departed in the afterlife.

Not everyone approves of burning such upscale items. Zhang Xianglong, a philosophy professor at Shandong University, said acts of incendiary consumerism corrupt the true meaning of Qingming. “Burning mansions and cars is too over the top,” he said. “Creating wealth and class divides for those in the next world goes completely against Confucianism’s value of filial piety.”

Still, on the eve of Qingming, Beijing residents took to the streets with paper offerings and matches, despite a ban aimed at preventing the festival’s participants from adding to the city’s already polluted air.

Li Fengliang, 51, who owns a funerary shop, was doing a brisk business in paper currencies and cardboard villas featuring chandeliers and flat-screen televisions. “Everything the living send the spirits receive in the afterlife; otherwise, why do it?” he said. As for his ancestors’ graves, those would have to wait. “I’d love to sweep their tombs,” he said. “But this is my biggest day of the year.”

How John does it:

John is never called “the disciple whom Jesus loved” until chapter 13 and the distinction is only used five times in the Book of John.

Verse19:25 says, “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.”

Jordan explains, “You got three Marys there. Mary is the Greek form of the Hebrew word Miriam. The rebellious sister of Moses. It’s interesting that around the foot of the Cross there’s Mary, Mary and Mary. Bunch of rebellious people and there stands ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved.’

“Again, John can’t help but say, ‘I was standing there. I’m the one he loves.’ That didn’t mean he didn’t love everyone else; John was just conscious of it that that’s what filled his mind. When he describes himself, that’s how he wants you to think about Him.

“The passage continues,’When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!
[27] Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.
[28] After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.’

“The Lord Jesus Christ is dying, his mother’s standing there. Who could He trust to take care of His mother? The disciple who was conscious above everything else of how much Christ loved him.

“You see, that kind of consciousness causes a person to be ready for service. He takes His most precious possession, a mom, and commits it to the trust of this one who was conscious above everything else of Christ’s love for him.

“People have the idea that if you preach grace, if you preach the love of God for people, and make people stand in that wonderful love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus, ‘Oh, they’ll just go out and live any way they want to live.’

“This issue of where service comes from, the grace of God teaches us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously and godly. The grace of God teaches you not just to do it, but how to do it.

“In Chapter 20 you see him at the resurrection and this probably the strangest one of the mentions. The passage begins, [1] The first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
[2] Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.;

“There’s something in that about that love of Christ initiating. The disciple whom Jesus loved was the first one to get there. There’s something about that love taking the lead, stepping out with the dare of faith at a very critical moment.

“Then you come to chapter 21 and you see that he was one of those fellows on the boat there fishing. But he wasn’t just one of them, he said in verse 6, ‘Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.’ It says, ‘They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
[7] Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.’

“He had a spiritual perception to see the Lord-- not circumstances, not himself, not the situations they were in, but the Lord, recognizing him.

“Verse 20 says, and this is like falling off a log, Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; which also leaned on his breast at supper, and said, Lord, which is he that betrayeth thee?
[21] Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
[22] Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me.’

“What’d Jesus tell Peter just to do back at the end of verse 19? Follow me. Pete looks around and sees John, what’s John doing? He’s already doing what Christ just told Peter to do. Pete’s trying to play catch-up here, folks.

“That disciple whom Jesus loved, there’s something in that for you because in Ephesians 1:6, Paul says he’s made us accepted in the beloved. You’re the one He loves. You be loved and there’s a great example of that in that disciple whom Jesus loved.

“When it says he leaned on his breast at supper, and said, ‘Lord is it he?’ if you go back to chapter 1:18, here’s the way book starts out: ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.’

“So the book begins with the Lord Jesus Christ in the bosom of the Father, coming forth to be the Word manifest in the flesh, you behold.

“Now when you come to the end of the book, you find a redeemed man described as leaning on the bosom of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“Back there you had Christ leaning on the Father’s bosom, and here you have one of the little flock leaning on Christ’s bosom. Literally they’ve taken the place of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“They have His place in the Father’s heart by having His place in the Son. ‘No man comes to the Father but by me.’ It’s what’s accomplished by Christ, it’s the love of Christ for them, what he talked about in chapter 13:1, that gives them that position: ‘Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.’

“So what you’ve done is gone from a Christ position over here to His giving that over there to His disciples. In this case, it’s the nation Israel; His sheep. You and I fortunate that God also had a plan to include us.

“There’s a song Down South that goes, ‘Yes, He included me, Jesus included even me.’ We used sing that at the mission and you get the bums rocking on that song. A lot of them are saved, and ‘he included me.’ "

It's all in your focus

John 1:12 says, “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.”

Jordan explains, “The disciples still need the empowering that they’ll get—that power to become. It’s never going to be them. And Peter has to remember that. He took his eyes off the Lord and the purpose God had in Christ, and when he took that away, it’s interesting he looks at John, the disciple whom Jesus loved.

“Now that’s the disciple who focused on Christ’s love for him. He was so caught up in the way the Lord loved Him that he didn’t pay any attention to anybody else. Peter was a guy who boasted about what he was going to do and his love for the Lord. It wound up a failure.

“ ‘Then Peter turned about.’ In other words, he’s getting busy in the affairs of other people. He’s more concerned about the events, the happenings , then the following, and there’s that spirit of competition that comes up.

*****

John 13 says, “When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me.
[22] Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake.
[23] Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.
[24] Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake.
[25] He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it?”

Jordan explains, “They’re in the Upper Room, Jesus and the apostles are there. Christ is in the Last Supper with them before He dies. He just washed their feet, had the great example of serving them.

“The service that Christ performs sprang out of His understanding of His identity of who He was. He understood that everything He was doing was what the Father gave Him to do. He was able to be obedient because He knew who He was in the plan of God and He trusted God’s plan, the word of His Father. That’s where real service comes from.

“ ‘Doubting of whom he spake.’ When you read that you got to remember the other gospels. They began to say, ‘Is it I?’ Now if you were going to betray the Lord, don’t you think you would know it?! They’re not sure they’re not going to. They have enough consciousness of their own failure to say, ‘Is it I? Is it I?’ Only one of them didn’t do that.

“Notice John doesn’t say, ‘Is it I?’ All of the rest of them do, but John says, ‘Who is it? It ain’t me, so who out there is it?’ He’s joined into the consciousness that Christ has in the serving.

“Now when he says ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ who wrote the book? The disciple whom Jesus loved. So when he describes himself as ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved,’ he’s telling you, ‘Here’s how the Lord thinks about me.’ The writer is so caught up in Christ’s love for him.

“Verse 13:1 says, ‘Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.’

“So when the other guys want to know somebody else, he never thinks of himself in any other way than the disciple whom Jesus loved. It wasn’t His love for Christ he was focused on. That’s what Peter was focused on. You go on down in the text and Peter says, ‘Lord, I’ll go to death with you. I’ll go to prison with you. I love you. I’ll prove I love you.’

“So which one of them had the close, personal, intimate relationship with Christ? The one who was talking about what he was going to do for Him or the one who focused on what Christ was doing for him?

“You want to have some intimacy with the Lord? You want to have a personal contact? If you want to have that personal intimate relationship with God the Father that He desires to have, it’s called eternal life.

“If you want to have that in the present experience of your life, don’t focus on what you’re doing because it’s only failure there. Focus on how much He loves you. That song about, ‘O how He loves you and me.’ Well, that’s a good thing to think about it because ‘it’s the love of Christ that constrains us,’ as Paul tells us.

“And John, this disciple whom Jesus loved, had his focus on Christ’s love for him. Because of that, he had this special relationship with the Lord that the others didn’t have.”

22 by 2 (repeat by demand)

Shorewood spent 22 years in the western section of Chicago and a very few of its members go back to Sheridan. Jordan says, “Some of us don’t have what we call institutional memory as others of us do. I want you to appreciate the fact Shorewood has a history a legacy and a heritage.

The assembly was founded in year 1900 and the minutes book from that year reveal the first regular services were held the first Sunday in 1900 in a vacant store on Evanston Avenue. The church building was erected in 1906. The service of dedications of the North Shore Congregational church building was March 31-April 21, 1907.

“Here’s a program from a Sunday School children’s day on June 11, 1911,” says Jordan. “That’s old stuff folks. They paid 95,000 for the corner and the old stone building they put on it that’s still there.”

In April of 1900 North Shore called a pastor, James Stewart Anslie from Fort Wayne. They had their first organizational meeting on May 6 of 1900 with 86 members. By the end of 1902, they had grown to a congregation of about 400 people. They first erected the side building and then the auditorium.

“They paid $95,000 for the that corner and the building they put on it—that old stone building that’s still there,” says Jordan. “By 1910 they had the building completely paid for! Now, you imagine that.

“Here’s a list of the pastors and it’s fascinating there would be a book like this. We don’t do this kind of stuff very well anymore. They’ve got all the members, people added and how they came, profession of faith, movement of church membership, people who were dismissed, the ones who died. All these records, all hand-done, beautiful handwriting. That’s just history but it’s fascinating that somebody kept it.”

In the list of pastors was Stewart, then Paul Riley Allen in 1923. J.C. O’Hair was installed Sept. 1, 1923 and remained the pastor until his death in January of 1958. After him was Cornelius R. Stam (1958-60), Kennedy Sloane (1960-63), Clarence Kramer (1964-71),  Ernest Green (1972-79) and Jordan since then.

“O’Hair and I are the only two who’ve pastored over three decades in the assembly,” says Jordan. “It was under O’Hair’s ministry that they built . . .  in fact, there’s a note here about the doing of that, but in October of 1923 is when they moved out of the congregational denomination. In July 1924, O’Hair started radio broadcasting on WDBY (We Delight in Bothering You). The call letters were changed to WPCC (We Preach Christ Crucified) in Dec. 1, 1925.

“If you know something about the history of the grace movement, you know something about who Charles Baker was, he’s with the Lord now, but Mr. Baker came to work with Mr. O’Hair. He was a  graduate from Dallas Seminary and O’Hair hired him as an engineer to build a radio transmitter that was in the bell tower on corner of Wilson and Sheridan. This was a major North Shore intersection at the time. There were tens of thousands of people who would go by the church, and if you go down there today there’s still the sign on top of the old bell tower, ‘Christ Died for Our Sins.’

Life Magazine in the ’50s took a picture off of the Wilson El station in Uptown looking toward the lake and there’s that sign. That was a gospel witness to tens of thousands of people every day. But they started with the radio ministry and O’Hair wrote over 200 books and booklets. There was a saying back then, ‘Don’t make J.C. O’Hair mad at you; he’ll write a book about you.’ ”

“My favorite of all titles was a booklet, ‘An Open Letter to M.R. DeHahn, Harry Ironsides and other misinformed Baptist preachers. It was day when you could have, not a mean and cantankerous, but a happy discussion of Bible doctrine and O’Hair was a gospel witness who preached the gospel on the radio all across America.

“On his 25^th anniversary in 1948, we have a picture of it in the heritage room, Louis Talbott, the president of Biola in California came and spoke at his 25^th anniversary and talked about how, if you’ve ever heard the tape of that, about going across the nation listening on the radio and hearing O’Hair’s voice while he was traveling on the train across the country preaching the gospel of grace and the privilege and the heritage all that was.

“The first missionaries to go to the foreign fields from preaching the word of God rightly divided went out of North Shore church. In fact, in the early days, almost all of the missionaries who were on the field came out of North Shore church. It was a church of 800 in attendance at the time and they had a great focus on sending people to the mission field.

The thrill of ALL IN

Romans 6: 22-23 says, “But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

[23] For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Jordan explains, “That verse bothers people because they say, ‘Well, I don’t get eternal life until the end?!’ That’s because you think of eternal life as dying and going to heaven and living with God in heaven forever. There’s not a verse in the Bible that defines eternal life that way.

“Jesus Christ defines eternal life in John 17:2-3: ‘As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.
[3] And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’

“Eternal life isn’t just dying and going to heaven and dancing it up around New Jerusalem or kicking up gold dust. Eternal life is to know the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life is to have a personal, intimate, fruit-bearing knowledge of the Father. In the end, the gold of it is that you know the Father in a personal, intimate, everlasting way.

“It’s coming to KNOW the Father, understanding what the Father’s plan is, what the Father’s will is, why did He create the universe, what is the purpose behind it, what is His goal, why did He put man in the earth, why did He form the Body of Christ.

“You don’t just understand it, you say, ‘Woo-hoo, I got it! I got the picture! I LIKE it! I think I’ll just join in and do this! I’ll let the zeal of the Lord of host, the thing that thrills Him, thrill me!

“It’s your faith resting in the truth of God’s Word, and when your faith rests in God’s grace, who God has made you in Christ, it will bring forth fruit unto God, righteousness unto holiness.

“Holiness is talking about your character. Talking about who you are. You’re someone who is set apart for the purpose for which God created you. You’re able now by the grace of God to bear fruit unto holiness. You’re able to bear activity and growth that represents who God created you in Jesus Christ.

“The word ‘holy’ and the word ‘sanctification’ means to be set apart for the purpose for which it’s created. His character begins to express itself through you and the end is eternal life.

“Look at Jeremiah 9. I try to drill this home to our folks in Chicago all the time. The passage reads, ‘Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
[24] But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.’

“Glory in the fact that you understand the Lord and that you have an intimate personal knowledge of Him. You understand what He’s about, what He thinks, how He reacts, what He’s planning, and you understand to the point it brings forth fruit in your life. If you’re going to rejoice in something, rejoice in that!

“That thing about ‘exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight’—the key to knowing the Lord, and to knowing God, is to understand what He delights in! What is it that thrills His heart? What He’s doing in His Son! If you ask the Father, ‘What is it that thrills you?’ He’ll say, ‘There He is at my right hand.’

Psalm 40:7-8 is quoted in Hebrews 10 as being a reference to Jesus Christ, but I want you to see how it says it in Psalms: ‘Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,
[8] I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.’

“When the Lord Jesus Christ came, He says to the Father, ‘I delight in what you delight in. I delight in your will! I know what you delight in, Father, and you know what, that thrills my heart too and I’m ALL IN for what you delight in!’

“Paul says, ‘Let that mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.’ He gives you the privilege of thoroughly, completely understanding what the Father’s thinking is, what He delights in, what thrills His heart, and He says, ‘Come on and delight in that too.’ You come delight in it. Get as thrilled about it as He is. In the Bible, that’s called ‘God likeness, godliness.’ Godliness isn’t just doing what God does; it’s DELIGHTING in it, buying into it. It’s being all into it like He is.”