After Easter with Tim Tebow, Tozer, and...

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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    Talk about stealing headlines.

    The Giants win the Super Bowl and everybody's talking about Tim Tebow going to the Jets.

    It reminds me of professional golf.

    No matter who's winning what, all we hear about is Tiger coming back, backsliding, coming back again, sliding further back, coming back again and again and...

    Getting back to TT - you can read more about him in the archives of KD not to mention the gazillion comments/commentaries/kudos/cynicisms at your fingertips by googling his name - it's a win/win for everybody involved.

    The Jets steal the headlines.

    The pressure is off the Giants with everyone expecting even more of Ryan, et.al.

    The Broncos bolt to the top of Super Bowl prognostications with, arguably, the best on-the-field-coach-quarterback in the history of the game.

    Getting back to the Gator who won't follow in the footsteps of Broadway Joe if you know what I mean, he spoke to over 15K in Georgetown, Texas at an outdoor Easter Day worship service (4/8).

    Bringing Romans 1:16-17 to mind which often escapes the noodles of most mainliners these days, he said it's important to be outspoken about faith, urged/admonished athletes to be role models, and said he welcomed the attention of his witness for obvious reasons if you know what he/He means.

    I couldn't help thinking of a fundie classmate at seminary who urged/admonished me just before I was ordained, "Talk about Jesus!  That'll shock 'em!"

    And I can't help but lamenting that I needed to be told that or that TT is scolded by posers in pulpits/pews for doing it so convincingly/compellingly/consistently/courageously.

    Reminds me of Moody responding to a critic: "I prefer the way I do it to the way you don't do it."

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    Now that the posers have gone back into hibernation until 12/24/12, I gotta confess our Holy Week on the corner of Lincoln and Main in Belvidere, Illinois was awesome.

    Yes, awesome in the highest spiritual sense of that word.

    While the bean-counters are excited about our Maundy Thursday service being packed for the first time in years, He showed up in a big, big, big, awesome, awesome, awesome way; bringing to mind what you can hear by dialing 815-544-3535.  It was almost Pentecostal in an Acts kinda way.

    Then came our two services on Easter Day.

    Again, awesome!

    Of course, the posers didn't get it/Him because they were, you know, just doing their little-dab'll-do-ya religious thing.

    But for those who showed up with faith or wanting faith or renewing their relationship with Jesus or inviting Him into their hearts for the first time, it was awesome.

    A funny moment in a horrific way after more thought.

    I preached at the first service and we had an awesome cantata in the second one that aligned hearts with Him in an awesome way.

    After the second service, I greeted an unfamiliar fellah who complained, "I came to hear you because ___ told me to come and hear you; and now that you didn't speak, I guess I'll never hear you."

    "Friend," I said, "you wouldn't have heard me if I spoke; 'cause if you didn't hear Him in the music of the moment..."

    Geez.

    Combining both services, teaching appointments, and so on, people can hear me over 130 times a year.

    When I told my wife about it, she said, "You're right and wrong.  He wouldn't have heard you if you spoke.  That's right.  Of course, that's why he doesn't hear and doesn't honor God regularly.  He's not supposed to come to worship to hear you or anybody else but to hear Him through you and others called to..."

    Whoa.

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    That reminds me of the very, very, very few folks who still don't get the genre of my latest book.

    Specifically, very, very, very few folks don't get some of the language that I quote, reference, and the like.

    They remind me of folks who think Jesus was using Emily Post's best as quoted in Matthew 5:21ff. or the plethora of pret' near expletives directed at the Pharisees throughout the NT.

    Some folks don't know Greek, care about Greek, or flunked it in seminary.  I'm not saying Greek is that important; but it ain't bad in curing posing Biblical literacy/lifestyle/language if you know what, uh, it means.

    It goes back to thesis 4 of Fifteen Secrets: "Trying to be rational with the irrational is illogical; the ancillary being, being wrong invalidates argument and being right does not necessitate it."

    Posers in pulpits/pews who don't get TT, uh, don't get TT and Who makes him...

    Posers on Easter Day(s) and other "holy" days don't get Him because they come to hear...

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    Tozer: "The true worth of a church member is revealed by his life on Monday rather than on Sunday."

    Jesus doesn't want 10%.  He expects 100% if you know what He means.

    Putting it another way, the authenticity of someone's Christianity is exposed by the priority of worship in their lives apart from Easter Day(s), Christmas Eve(s), and...

    Tozer: "Our fruit will follow its native tree."

    Jesus: "A tree is known by its fruit."

    Putting it another way, the authenticity of someone's Christianity is exposed by confession, conduct, and countenance consistent with Christ.

    Tozer: "No man has any moral right to go before the people who has not first been long before the Lord."

    Jesus: "Tarry with Me."

    Putting it another...

    Uh, there is no other way.

    Posers on Easter Day(s) and the like don't get that/Him because they listen to the wrong voices.

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Blessings and Love!