Month: August 2019

Conversation Signs

…but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,…
1st Peter 3:15 ESV

Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.
Colossians 4:6 ESV

In this day of instant communication, the irony is that in many ways there is less of it now than there has ever been. Within seconds I can tell thousands of people any old thing that enters my head, and as a result you would think that communication, since it’s seemingly so easy to do, would not be the minefield it is. So what’s standing in the way of our being able to relate to each other in meaningful ways, especially as Christians who wish to engage with and affect our world? The issue, as I see it, is twofold, what we bring on board, and what we share.

1) Input
Consider the funnel effect. If you picture all the information we’re exposed to on a regular basis trying to make its way into our minds through a funnel, you can understand that it doesn’t matter how big the top of the funnel is, there’s still a limit on the amount of information we can process at any given time. Because there is so much, it’s probably more important than ever to be discerning in selecting what gets in. Despite our boasts of being able to multi-task, there really is only so much information we can or should give our attention to. At some point you’ll have to decide between the on-base percentage of your favorite infielder from 1997-’98, the relative nutritional benefits of broccoli vs chocolate cream pastry, and how we should pray for the person we just met. Maybe you have more brain cells at your disposal. Me? Something’s getting pushed out. God desires to direct our thoughts and words always. But you can’t share what you don’t know or have a personal interest in.

2) Output
Have you heard the expression, “Garbage in, garbage out?” It relates to the information and instructions programmed into computers. There used to be a joke product you could buy. It was a series of cards attached to a handle, and on the cards were supposedly clever/funny comments you could select to show people in other cars as you made your way down the road. They ranged from somewhat cute to outright offensive. I guess anything that takes your mind off the road AND possibly contributes to road rage is a bad idea. If our focus for relating to the world is more about entertaining people or attracting their attention by showing them how clever or important we are, we’ve lost any handle we ever had on fulfilling the Great Commission.

Christ-centered or self-centered?
I guess there was a time when politics weren’t so acrimonious, but it’s getting harder and harder to recall. Thing is, you can find the same sort of vitriol in newspapers from colonial times. I think it’s just easier to lash out at people we think represent the opposite view from ours when we have ready access to the bullhorn of the internet. Who needs to take the time to consider the ramifications of what they say when it’s so easy to spew, point, and click? Those same attitudes can carry on to our everyday conversations. How does it glorify Jesus when we allow personality based comments, like the ones that use the names of well known politicians, to show our disdain for a particular party or political philosophy? Should we have no opinions? Of course not. Just consider the content of your speech and who or what it emphasizes.

Am I leading myself
to where I think you should go?
Does it vary with the winds of opinion?
Do I lift God’s influence to a high level of importance
only after judging the temperature of the room?
God, direct the content and quality of what I say,
so that it best advances your kingdom.

© Joel Tipple 8/31/2019

Really, God?

I’ve wondered sometimes whether God has ever had occasion to think we all just might be a bad dream. That maybe if he hit the snooze button one more time he might have a better one. A dream where his creation didn’t waste so much time fighting with each other and indulging in ever more imaginative sinful selfishness. But no, God is awake, aware of his creation, including all its flaws, and it’s clear he loves us infinitely, since he sent Jesus to open our way to eternity. We have the freedom, with all the responsibility that freedom entails, to choose a relationship with God on his terms, or to go our own way. I’m convinced the overwhelming crush of evidence supports the argument that God is real, and rewards those who seek him. However, this is a fallen world we live in, where terrible things happen, and not just to people who haven’t chosen to accept eternal life and pursue a closer relationship with God. Although I’m just as susceptible to grief and outrage when bad things happen to good people, I’ve never accepted the premise that being good buys us out of awful stuff. As God’s creation, I believe we never shine more brightly than when we turn to God in the midst of tragedy instead of away.

For the sake of this ministry, we toil tirelessly and are criticized continually, simply because our hope is in the living God. He is the wonderful life-giver of all the children of men, and even more so to those who believe.
1st Timothy 4:10 TPT

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
Romans 1:20 ESV

Some Say

I’ve heard some say, “God is dead.”
How could they be so led?
Look around,
at all he’s breathed to life.

I’ve heard some say, “God can’t see.”
But he’s painted so much majesty,
he must know what delights our eyes.

I’ve heard some say, “God can’t hear.”
But I know he counts our words dear,
and responds,
though we judge his sense of time.

I’ve heard some say, “God can’t feel.”
But he knows our burdens
and we’re not left to deal alone.
Because he lives,
we needn’t fear to be alive.

©Joel Tipple 8/24/2019

Jesus and Jerry Maguire

In 1996 Tom Cruise (Jerry Maguire), Renee Zellweger (Dorothy Boyd), and Cuba Gooding Jr. (Rod Tidwell) starred in “Jerry Maguire,” a movie about a sports agent desperate, after being fired, to stay in the game by taking his best client with him. Zellweger’s character is a single mother who falls in love with Maguire after leaving the same company to work with him. After 23 years some of the movie’s quotes still resonate, and I found myself seeing parallels to the Christian life in a few of them.

“Show me the money!”
Gooding Jr., who won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Rod Tidwell, Maguire’s sole client, reminds his agent to keep his eye on the ball by getting the best deal possible. “Show me the money, Jerry!” Christians need to remember that money isn’t the root of all evil, but the love of money is.  For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
1st Timothy 6:10 ESV

“Did you know dogs and bees can smell fear?”
“Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?”
Jonathan Lipnicki, (Ray Boyd) who played Zellweger’s young, trivia-master son, probably had more memorable quotes than any cast member. Christians can get bogged down in theological debates over trivial issues that may not mean all that much. But, because we’re human, we’ll find ways to fight over almost anything. Case in point, something like 200 protestant denominations. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels.  And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil,…
2 Timothy 2:23-24 ESV

“You make me want to be a better man.”
“You Complete me.”
Maguire’s expressions of love say his life is missing something critical if he’s only about his business. A Christian’s love for God is greater, and more “complete,” than romantic love. Our desire to get closer to God and see others as He sees them becomes the theme for our lives as we become more mature sons and daughters of God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1 John 4:16 ESV

“You had me at hello.”
As Maguire winds up his speech, explaining how any success he achieves is incomplete without Boyd in his life, Boyd cuts him off, saying, “You had me at hello.” God understands what we want to say to Him, even before we say it. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Matthew 6:8 ESV

Father, let me live in the assurance of the love and devotion you displayed, when the world was forever changed by the sacrifice you made.

© Joel Tipple 8/17/2019





What Love Requires

 So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth.  And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power. Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life.
Ephesians 3:14-19 The Passion Translation (TPT)

Earlier this week I was helping a gentleman at work who is one of our regular customers. He’s one of those folks it’s just a pleasure to be around, always encouraging and friendly. No matter what kind of day you’re having, people like this have a way of making it better. On this day in particular I noticed he was wearing a unique cross. It had a sort of steampunk metal look to it, and I told him I liked it. In reply, he said it was a gift from a friend when he moved years ago. Here’s the story. My friend worked for one of those laundry delivery companies that serve businesses. One day, as he was making his rounds, he came to one shop in particular where he had established a friendly rapport with a lady who worked there who happened to be African American. He told her he was leaving the area and this would be his last time delivering to them. She said, “Wait, I have something for you.” She disappeared into the back, and when she came out she had the cross in her hand and asked him to take it. He was surprised, and when he told her as much, she said the reason she was giving him the cross was he was the first white man who had ever called her, “ma’am.” I was both moved and taken aback by the story. Thinking this must have been a very long time ago, not that racism should have ever been the norm, I asked him what year this happened. He said it was 1995. It seems to me our relationships with people of different colors and cultures have been moving forward at a snail’s pace, that is, when they are moving forward at all. I’m concerned that not enough attitudes have shifted since my friend was given his cross.

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit . . . Next to the blessed sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses.
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York; Harper-Collins, 2001, first paperback edition).

Jesus said to love God
with everything you have
and love your neighbor as yourself.
How many days have I begun,
leaving those words on the shelf?
It’s easy to treat well
those who do the same.
It’s easy to not fear
those with similar skin
and names.
Let me be the bridge
to Jesus’ love
even when it’s not natural
or easy.

© Joel Tipple 8/10/2019

I’m Judging You

Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.
Romans 14:10 NIV

Therefore you have no excuse, every one of you who passes judgment, for in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly falls upon those who practice such things.
Romans 2:1-2 ESV

“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these”
George Washington Carver

“Compassion costs. It is easy enough to argue, criticize, and condemn, but redemption is costly, and comfort draws from the deep. Brains can argue, but it takes heart to comfort.”
Samuel Chadwick

Judgment. That’s a heavy word, isn’t it? A Christian’s mind, upon hearing it, would probably go to his/her relationship with God. Our salvation, after all, is based on the relationship Jesus Christ made possible for us by His death and resurrection. The price for our ultimate judgment was paid by that sacrifice. But that’s one kind of judgment at one extreme end of the judgement scale. At the other end might be your spouse’s judgment regarding your decision to wear your favorite Harley Davidson t-shirt to dinner out. You know, the one you bought at that Sturgis rally in ’83? Seriously, throw it away. Its stains have stains. But there are all kinds of judgments we engage in every day. The kinds of judgments that get us into hot water are the ones where we attempt to put ourselves in God’s place. He has that spot wrapped up. Doesn’t need our help. Never did.

Letting go of our need to judge people doesn’t mean they’re released from responsibility for their actions. For all of us, actions always have consequences, though those consequences may not be immediately apparent. This change in attitude frees us to make the energy we’re expending on judgment available for compassion and understanding. Most importantly, it frees up whatever it is we have to be used by God for His purposes.

I’m trading in the robe I’ve worn for judgment.
It looked so sharp the day I put it on.
Every time I chose it, sat down, picked up the gavel,
I felt powerful, superior,
then it dawned…
I’d never be able to let go of my judgments.
One by one I’d have to add them to the weight.
And no robe could ever cover
so much judgment once discovered
as Jesus did by the price he paid.

© Joel Tipple 8/3/2019