Fake News, August 31, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Well, it feels like we’re snowed in one more day in Central Texas. The coronavirus seems to make it feel like that, anyway. People are staying indoors a lot more than they used to. But folks are learning to get around a little better with social distancing. Schools opened in many areas with varying degrees of success – some with masks, some without, some online, and some hybrid in-person and online. These are strange times, indeed. 

At least in San Antonio, our hospital census continues to drop from COVID-19 cases. The danger stays with us, and we can expect another spike with school starting, but we hope trends continue with kids less susceptible to the disease. Then with good hygiene practices, we hope families can keep it from spreading from the schools to their homes. We will soon see. 

Of course, fall and winter are almost here, with the expectation of a second wave of the virus. Scientists talk about a vaccine, but getting one in 12 to 18 months when they usually take 11 to 14 years to pass FDA standards makes one a little leery of what might come out of the laboratories. How effective will they be, and what side effects will they have that are unknown after just a few months of testing? 

The pandemic in this country seems like the good news right now. The thing that fills the headlines everyday concerns the politics of the riots and upcoming elections. What’s suddenly different about the post office that delivery might be delayed by weeks? Why do they need to $25 billion when they asked for $2.5 billion, and their profits and cash flow have been positive for the last five years? But since the newscasts tell us they can’t deliver the mail, it must be true, despite their balance sheet figures and their ability to fill my box with enough junk mail to fill my 70-gallon recycle bin every week. 

I mentioned last week, we need to stop listening to the news and social media and do our homework. This is one of those areas. Find the numbers and the statistics about the Postal Service testimonies that go to the Government Accounting Office, not the questions that make it to C-SPAN, and you’ll see an interesting picture. It’s also interesting to read the Congressional Budget. That’s the legislative branch that spends our money. Talk about fascinating reading! It is unbelievable where taxes go every year.

Enough about that. Time to turn toward the words that hit me from the lectionary this week. Paul wrote to Christians in Rome to talk about how they should act living in that pagan city. The church felt heavy persecution. The Roman government wanted to destroy mystic religions, defined as those worshipers did not bow to idols crafted for their gods. Any invisible god was no god to them. Christians and Jews were particularly singled out as atheists because they believed in a single god. How could one God control the world? It required pleasing a pantheon of gods to make sure things progressed correctly. 

Paul had this to say in Romans chapter 12:

9 Love must be real. Hate what is evil, stick fast to what is good. 10 Be truly affectionate in showing love for one another; compete with each other in giving mutual respect. 11 Don’t get tired of working hard. Be on fire with the spirit. Work as slaves for the Lord. 12 Celebrate your hope; be patient in suffering; give constant energy to prayer; 13 contribute to the needs of God’s people; make sure you are hospitable to strangers.

14 Bless those who persecute you; bless them, don’t curse them. 15 Celebrate with those who are celebrating, mourn with the mourners. 16 Come to the same mind with one another. Don’t give yourselves airs, but associate with the humble. Don’t get too clever for yourselves.

17 Never repay anyone evil for evil; think through what will seem good to everyone who is watching. 18 If it’s possible, as far as you can, live at peace with all people. 19 Don’t take revenge, my dear people, but allow God’s anger room to work. The Bible says, after all, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.’ 20 No: ‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink. If you do this, you will pile up burning coals on his head.’ 21 Don’t let evil conquer you. Rather, conquer evil with good. (Romans 12:9-21 NTE)

The emperor didn’t know what to do with that. How do you persecute people who are feeding the poor, the widows, and orphans? How do you get the populace to turn against individuals who refuse to fight back when attacked? How do you get a Roman soldier to think it okay to run a spear through a mother who gives him a blessing as he does so? 

Love wins. Unfortunately, what we see in social media and on the streets of our cities today is not love. We see a lot of hate. The riots, violence, destruction, disregard for human life in our major cities, says we don’t care about each other. And too often I see some of those actions coming from people who call themselves Christians. I am not God, but I expect many of those will be among that crowd. Jesus turns away and says, “I never knew you.” 

And they will say, “But didn’t we bomb abortion clinics in your name? Didn’t we face the mob in your name? Didn’t we defend our rights in your name? Didn’t we stand up for our laws in your name? Didn’t we march in the streets for your name? Didn’t we scream at midnight as the voice for the voiceless in your name? Didn’t we try to right injustice in your name? Didn’t we try to rid the world of socialism in your name? Didn’t we try to swing the vote right or left in your name? Didn’t we…?”

And he will retort, “Sorry, I never knew you. You might have used my name, but my name means grace, mercy, love, forgiveness, just as I showed you. You never showed those characteristics in your zeal for what was right in your own eyes. Now I stand in judgment. I never knew you. Turn aside.” 

It doesn’t matter which side of the issue you support. Going about solving it in unchristian ways still results in unchristian behavior and brings consequences. Paul tells us to love. Replace evil with good. In fact, he says to go further than that. He says if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him something to drink. Let God be your avenger. He will do a much better job in the end, anyway. His justice is perfect. Ours is not. 

So, here is your homework. It might be really boring, but it is really important. You will hear about some crisis happening in the government today or tomorrow that is about to make some department collapse. Don’t listen to any news reporter or pundit talk about it. Instead, go to the official reports of that department, the one they must give to Congress and the Budget Office. Not their talking notes, but their report that goes into the record. Take the time to read it. See what about their numbers say. You’ll probably find that both sides take pieces out of the report to fit their agenda. They will use one chart or one graph to make their point, whether representative of the whole report or not. 

Fake news? Yep. Both sides of the fence. That’s why this year, more than any before, we have to do our homework for every candidate. Know who they are and what they stand for. Find the one who demonstrates love for their enemies, who returns good for evil. That’s the person you want. But don’t trust the media’s take on who that person is. Find out for yourself. Do your homework. And while you’re at it, pour a little good on your neighborhood.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

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Scriptures marked NTE are taken from the NEW TESTAMENT FOR EVERYONE: Scripture are taken from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011.

Be Transformed, August 23, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The lectionary this week included these verses from Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. 

So, my dear family, this is my appeal to you by the mercies of God: offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Worship like this brings your mind into line with God’s. 2 What’s more, don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age. Instead, be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you can work out what God’s will is, what is good, acceptable and complete. (Romans 12:1-2 NTE)

Paul has painstakingly taken his readers through arguments explaining the fallacy of the leaning on the law and how it can never help us find right standing with God. It can only point out our flaws. It shows us our wrongs; worse than that, it leads us into temptation by enticing us into doing things we would not have known before. 

Paul takes us through a series of steps to find that place of peace, salvation, redemption from the creator. Often called the Roman Road, it begins with acknowledging our sins, confessing them, and realizing we cannot absolve them ourselves. Then asking forgiveness from God, the one who can make us whole, and acknowledging him alone as God and Lord of our life. 

When we confess him as Lord, that means he rules our life. He is in charge. We don’t use those terms much in our day and age because it brings back memories of the slave trades, masters, and slaves – dark days we want to forget in our history. But the relationship Paul talks about between mere mortals, us, and God fits. He is God; we are not. He deserves and demands our undivided devotion and attention. 

We miss that point in trying to cover up the relationship, particularly with the current crises in our land today. With the turmoil broiling across the country, assuming all whites are guilty of racism and all blacks are protesters and rioters, we refuse to talk about slavery in spiritual terms. We’ve let the world hijack so many words we seldom know what generations talk about anymore. Here are just a few GenZers have taken over – extra, snatched, wig, bet, fire, cap, shade, salty, slay, shook, tea. I’ll let you figure out the new meaning, or just ask your teenager. 

What happens, though, is we talk around each other instead of talking to each other. We fail to understand what each side means when we hear words spoken because what we hear is not what is said by the other person. No communication happens because we speak different languages even though the words sound like English. That’s part of our problem with generational gaps. We try to talk to each other but don’t hear each other’s side.

How do we get back to some common ground, so we fix the divide tearing us apart? 

First, go back to Romans 12. Stop letting the world determine how you live your life and how you think. The media too often shapes what we believe, and various outlets are blatantly biased. And we tend to choose our favored side instead of listening to all the facts and deciding for ourselves. We instead let someone else think for us and blindly follow the rhetoric fed to us rather than spend time researching facts. 

So, don’t be shaped by the world, but let God’s spirit in you transform your mind. Allow him to change you. How do you do that? Spend time in His word. Don’t pick favorite verses or the out of context verses each side uses to prove a point but absorb large sections of God’s word each day to understand what he wants to get across to you. Did you know that just spending fifteen minutes a day reading the Bible, you would read it through in a year? 

That’s about the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, so during that next coffee break, open God’s word, and just start reading. Ask him to help you learn from it and how he wants you to apply it to your life today. You will be amazed at what he brings to mind as you go about your day if you really mean those words. You will begin to realize the transformation in your thinking and understand what Paul talks about in knowing God’s will. You’ll see evidence of the change in your life as you see others in a different light. You’ll see with eyes of compassion; you’ll desire others know the truth of God’s word the way you begin to discover it from your time with him. You’ll long to know more of him each day.

Next, make it a point to listen to those around you. But really listen. Don’t just hear words spoken, because we know words have taken on new meanings over time. We can hear words and not know the intended meaning of the speaker because of the changes. Take time to listen and ask questions to make sure you understand. 

I’ve used this illustration before that I shared with officers when they joined my units in the Army. What does it mean to ‘secure the building?’ It depends on your Service. In the Marines, it means storm the building until nothing is left standing. In the Army, it means to surround it with concertina wire, guard posts, and soldiers, so nothing comes near it. In the Navy, it means to find the owner and purchase it. In the Air Force, it means to turn out the lights and lock the doors. 

It’s a humorous illustration, but it points to the fact that misunderstanding a single word in communication between two people can have disastrous results. If, as an Army officer, I gave that command to a Marine without further explanation, I could suddenly find a pile of rubble instead of a heavily guarded building for a headquarters. The same words, but a significant difference in the outcome. 

The same happens in our communications today when we fail to stop and listen, ask questions when there might be some confusion in our understanding. Ask the question, what do I have to believe about that person to think he or she would say or do what I think they said or did? 

Stop and think about that just for a minute, we hear the leftist decry Presidents Trump and Bush constantly. We also hear the right blast Presidents Obama and Clinton the same way. But why would anyone want to become president other than to help the country? Since President Regan, every president always wears a bulletproof vest outside the White House. Secret Service surrounds them constantly, so they have no privacy – ever. The press hounds them as much or more than any Hollywood celebrity. Their opponents take apart every speech and look for any slight to use against them. Worse, statements are edited and twisted to make even the point opponents would agree on turn against them. 

They give up lucrative positions to become prisoners to impossible schedules. Yes, we see them on vacations and golf courses, but what we don’t hear during those “vacations” is the rest of their calendar. The round of golf is sandwiched between hours of briefings, meetings with governors, senators, and other leaders in the area, mounds of paperwork that came with them. We never hear about the fourteen- and sixteen-hour routine they face every day.

Who would want to be president? There are reasons why after eight years in office, a past president looks twenty years older than when they took the oath. The stress and pace of leading the nation take a toll only someone dedicated to making the country better would want. Each party looks at different ways to do that, but the man in the office has the same ideal, make America a better place for the next generation. So, before blasting the person, stop and think. What do I have to believe about him to think he would say or do what is reported. You’ll probably figure out reports are half-truths at best, and if you read transcripts or full reports instead of the snippets from any mainline media, fake news might be a pretty good description of what happens today on both sides.

The Democratic National Convention just ended. Political campaigns for the November elections will start in full force now. I suggest whenever a campaign ad comes on, you mute your radio or television or whatever you might be listening to at the time. Whenever the news talks about something political, I recommend you mute whatever you’re hearing. Whenever someone on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter start a political rant, don’t read it, just skip it or block it. 

“… don’t let yourselves be squeezed into the shape dictated by the present age.”

Instead, do some homework. I know, it sounds like school. But that’s okay. Our country’s future is at stake. When you hear about a speech, find the whole speech, and read it, don’t listen to someone’s abstract. When you hear about legislation, go find out what it says and how your candidate thought about it. If they are in office, why they voted the way they did. Did they vote no because of amendments tacked on to the original bill? We often don’t hear about that, but often, those amendments cause the problems in whether bills pass or not. 

Find out what candidates believe, find out what they say they will do, not what they think about their opponent. Then think hard about whether what they say they will do is realistic. A candidate can promise a lot, but everything costs money, and who pays for it? When they say a corporation will, that sounds good, but corporations aren’t people, they are businesses that make money by selling things to us. We pay their taxes by purchasing their goods. When their taxes go up, their prices go up. We pay their taxes. Free health care sounds good, but someone pays for it? Who? How will promises be kept? Find out about the fine print as you think about the candidates you choose. 

You have time to consider. Do your research. Don’t be stuffed in a box. Don’t just follow the crowd. Don’t pull a party lever. Know the reasons you choose the person and the character behind the person. Mostly, spend time with God every day. Let him help you discern your walk in every part of life, even as a good citizen.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NTE are taken from the NEW TESTAMENT FOR EVERYONE: Scripture are taken from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011.

Unity is Good and Pleasant, August 17, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The verses from Psalms in this week’s lectionary bring back some childhood memories for me. I thought they depicted a pretty disgusting scene. Here’s what the psalmist wrote in the 133rd Psalm:

How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!

It is like the precious oil on the head, running down upon the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down over the collar of his robes.

It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion. For there the LORD ordained his blessing, life forevermore. (Psalms 133:1-3 NIV)

I don’t know about you, but I always thought pouring oil on your head sounded a little weird. But both the Old and New Testament use the act as something extraordinary. It’s the mark of kingship, the beginning of a priest’s official duty, the recognition of God’s anointing on a prophet. The pouring of oil indicated something special about a person. 

You and I would probably run to the shower to try to get all that greasy stuff off us. Or at least that’s what I thought until I started traveling around the world thanks to the Army. My military duties took me to a few countries where people still use oil as a unique mark of distinction. There you saw only the rich and powerful, or religious leaders, or someone paid special tribute covered with oil infused with fragrant spices. 

Reading through scripture, you find the oils used for anointing also had fragrant spices mixed with them. And in those countries, and in biblical times, I discovered why pouring oil on someone held such significance. No one used deodorant. Spices were expensive. People’s body odor can get pretty rank when soap and water are scarce; there’s no deodorant, and nothing to cover the smell. 

So, the rich, those in power, special occasions, like weddings, embalming the dead, anointing kings, prophets, and priests with fragrant oils, made them smell good for at least as long as the oil stuck around. It might be greasy and make us turn our nose up at the practice here, but when you’ve visited a country with plenty of body odor, you relish the anointing oil practice and wish more would participate in it. 

Well, I changed my mind about the oil pouring down a person’s hair and beard as an adult as I read these and other verses like them in the Psalms. But I haven’t changed my mind about that first verse. “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”

Too often, relatives split apart over the most insignificant things. Infighting among siblings happens over something someone says. Or at the death of a parent fights break out over the distribution of an inheritance. But what do those things matter in the larger scheme of life? Material things disappear. The person who left the stuff behind couldn’t take it with them, and neither will anyone fighting over it. It is just stuff, after all. Only relationships last.  

Little things get blown out of proportion. We refuse to apologize to each other. Years go by, and we don’t even remember what the original issue was, but we’re too proud to make a move to restore the relationship, so the divide continues—what a sad state of affairs. 

I don’t think the psalmist talks about just our immediate family, though. We tend to narrow his meaning to include only those within our that small group, or maybe to our extended family of aunt and uncles and cousins. I think, though, that David extends his thoughts well beyond even that group when he talks of unity among kindred. 

David thought of kindred as encompassing at least the nation of Israel, the twelve tribes that descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I believe David even thought further than that, though. David longed for peace for his nation and his sons, who would follow him on the throne. He wanted unity among all those living not just in the land he ruled, but with all those lands around him. 

What a great lesson we could learn by listening to the voice of the psalmist. We experience nothing but violence around the world between tribes and nations. Now we see it in our country. Nightly, a group of radicals damage buildings and destroy businesses men and women spent lifetimes developing. City governments seem either helpless or unwilling to stop the violence in some areas. 

Since the 1970s, we have seen the country’s party rhetoric divide us further and further apart. The left and right get more egregious and today refuse even to discuss what the nation needs. We no longer hear debates, only deafening screams from one side or the other followed by violent outrage ending in injury and death to innocent people. 

I’m not sure what happened to us in the last 40 years. Well, yes, I do. Some will argue it’s because we took prayer out of schools. But that isn’t the problem. Some will say it’s because we compromised and started using “Holiday Season” to describe Christmas. But that isn’t the problem, either. Some will argue the problem started with some of the Supreme Court decisions on abortion and other laws Christians oppose. But even those laws are not the problem that pushed us where we are today. 

I would argue it isn’t even racism or systemic racism or the Jim Crow Laws or the segregation or the Civil Rights movements or any of the things being said by either side in the protest groups today, that caused the problems we face. We are where we are today because we lost prayer in the home. We lost our Christian view. We no longer believe Jesus saves and provides the best answers to life. He says, give all you can to help others; we say, get all you can to help yourself. 

How do we go about finding that unity David finds so precious? First, we need to confess our part in the relationship problem. We live in a broken world. Whether we want to believe it or not, each of us holds some responsibility for the brokenness we see around us. All of us, whatever our color or political persuasion hold prejudices we don’t even recognize in ourselves. But they exist, nonetheless. So, first, we need to let God shine his light in our hearts and confess our part of the relationship problems to him.

Second, we need to ask his forgiveness for our part in the struggle and accept that forgiveness. Will we change our old habits and thought patterns overnight? Maybe, maybe not, but with confession, true repentance, and God’s help, we can begin to change them. We can become less extreme in our views and able to see why the other side thinks the way they do. Then we can perhaps be more understanding. We don’t have to agree, but we can be more understanding. And that begins to heal broken relationships.

Third, we need to learn to listen. Both sides of an argument must stop the screaming, cool down, and determine to listen to each other to gain that understanding and come to a mutual agreement, even if it is to disagree. At least after hearing each other, both sides will know why each takes the position they make, and most often, through collegial discussion, some solutions will rise that will resolve the primary issues at hand. 

While violence, screaming, refusal to dialog, uncompromising demands on either side exist, dialog and resolution cannot happen. And quite frankly, until we bring God back into our homes, little hope exists for healing in our nation or our world. Our country is not a Christian nation; neither was the Roman world in which Jesus died and commanded his disciples to spread his message of peace and hope. 

Perhaps as we watch the events of the past couple of months unfold around us, it’s time to pick up the mantle Jesus gave his followers those many years ago. Perhaps it’s time we spread the message of peace and hope to those who need it most. It made a difference in the pagan Roman world 2,000 years ago. Perhaps it will make a difference today, too.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

What Did We Do? August 3, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Seven months of this year are behind us. Seven months of events hard to believe could happen as the year began with the dropping of that crystal ball atop the tower in Times Square on New Year’s Day. We’ve experienced a pandemic with more than 16 million cases of COVID-19 resulting in more than 650,000 deaths worldwide, so far. It’s not slowing down. Scientists tell us we haven’t started the second wave of the virus yet. That still faces us this winter and spring. We’ve had locust plagues across Africa that destroyed crops. 

Racial tension erupted in our country causing billions in damages and dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries in our major cities. The tensions spread across the western world into Britain, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Australia. New threats of violence rise from Russia as they encroach on the Polish borders and launch satellite killing technology into space. China and North Korea flex their muscles and threaten the Pacific rim, posing their ideologies against their neighboring countries’.

Now we have more news about the bubonic plague coming out of China and a new mutation of the H1N1 flu that proved so devastating to the world in the 1960s. So, we wonder what’s next as we brace for the next five month and maybe look forward to this year ending sooner rather than later. Maybe next year will hold a little more promise than this one. But then again…

As I’ve mentioned before, some of the things we faced this year we could do little about. Pandemics and plagues wash through the world no matter what we try to do to stop them. A new virus or bacteria or mutated something spreads from one person to another and suddenly it is out of control. Look back through recorded history and you will find evidence of plagues and pandemics that touched humanity in frightening numbers. This one, in fact, has been relatively mild in terms of the devastation compared to many. We just have much better communication and our news outlets publish only the worst stories they can find instead of the best. Bad news sells much better than good news.

But some of the things we faced this year we caused. And the more I read and try to understand, the more I see the root causes of some of the issue we face within our nation and our world. I don’t agree with the riots and destruction of property taking place in our cities, but we need to stop and listen to the problems. Is there systemic racism in our country? Begin to read. Search out why things are like they are. Discover the disparities among the cultures. Determine why the divide exists between whites and people of color. 

As I have studied more over the last couple of months and tried to listen to the stories of those not like me, I must admit, I wanted to be defensive and give pat answers to the disparities. Go to school. Get a job. Work hard. Anyone can get ahead in America. What I’m finding is that has not been and still is not true in any fair sense. And it is the policies those in authority put in place to distinguish between races. Before anyone thinks it is one political side or another, both sides of the aisle are equally guilty. Study the legislation of both parties and you’ll find laws, policies, and principally budget discrepancies that put money into the hands of whites at the decrement of not just blacks, but all people of color. 

For blacks, however, it began immediately after the Civil War when vagrancy became a crime, but the law was imposed primarily on black males without jobs. Then jailed black men were leased out to plantation owners. So, freed slaves found themselves working for almost nothing on the same plantations on which they had been slaves, but now the owners had no vested interest in caring for them because they were leased labor instead of property. For many, conditions worsened instead of improved as freedmen.

Redlining, a practice the Federal Housing Authority put in place to determine areas in cities at high risk for federally insured loans under the FHA and GI Bills identified primarily urban, black neighborhoods in those redlined areas. So, blacks could not take advantage of FHA loans or VA loans when those programs began in the mid-twentieth century. It wasn’t until 1980, the Realtor licensing codes allowed realtors to actively comingle races within neighborhoods without risk of losing their license. We created the divisions with our policies.

I’ve even thought about our stories lately as I’ve asked you to sit with someone not like you and asked you to really listen. I’ve mentioned before at my grandmother’s funeral, ninety-six of her family members gathered to honor her. I think at the time, twenty-three of them engaged in full-time ministry. The rest participated regularly in church, not just attending, but teaching, singing in choirs, sitting on boards, and so forth. My family descends from three brothers who came to the shores of this country in the 18th century on a mission to spread the gospel in this new world. 

Now listen to the story of someone my son’s age, but not like me. He has been arrested twice. Once for possession of a marijuana joint, and once for resisting arrest when he refused to lay face down in the mud. He his mom about his father asked about his father when he was younger; he’s in jail for possession of drugs. Second offense laws under the Clinton administration allowed for lifetime sentencing. He was one of those hit with that inexplicable punishment. His grandfather was also an ex-con, but he was killed coming out of a bar he cleaned to make extra money – a robbery gone bad. His widow thinks he was on his way home with his weekly pay of less than $40 in his pocket. 

Then his story gets remarkable worse. His great-grandfather worked as a sharecropper. His share of the crop was 30%, the owner took 70%. The family barely survived in the rundown shack with no electricity or running water. His great-great-grandfather was a freed slave under Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation but couldn’t get a job. The vagrancy laws at time said any black man without a job went to jail. The irony is, the plantation owner who owned him as a young slave took pretty good care of him as his property. As leased labor from the jail, that same plantation owner didn’t have much concern for the welfare of his hired “darkies,” he sometimes called them. His family history goes no further. Families split on the auction block or when sold between plantations. Property goes to the highest bidder when slaves aren’t people. 

I can trace my family history back into at least the middle ages with some proud history and a few dishonorable characters in the mix as well. He can trace his family only to the Civil War and no further. His race wasn’t not considered human, so it was okay to tear families apart, sell working aged boys and girls (six and seven) to others so your bill for upkeep wasn’t so high. Most of us can begin to imagine a history like that. We can’t imagine living in an area marked as dangerous and unfit for home loans or even loans for home improvement because someone decided the color of our skin automatically made us a financial risk. 

My baby boomer generation took advantage of policies that brought great economic boosts to almost every city across the country through federally insured loans, cheap education through the GI Bill, affordable housing in the suburbs, and more. But all those policies also had a dark side most of us never knew existed or most of us would have shouted about the injustice. As an example, in Georgia after WWII, 3200 soldiers received GI Bill funding to advance their education – 2 were black. Of the 67,000 total students receiving funding in the first years of the GI Bill, less than 100 were black. More than 1 million black soldiers served in WWII. The disparity in numbers are not because they didn’t want to take advantage of the funds, it was the discrimination in colleges and universities that kept people of color out. 

Do we have a problem in our country with systemic racism? We absolutely do. I have black friends. That’s not what this is about. I invite my black brothers and sisters to anything I go to or anything I enjoy. That’s not what this is about. I’ve worked with and for blacks with no problem. That’s not what this is about. It’s not even about police brutality or George Floyd. We have a problem in our country about recognizing the rights of all people. 

We did not condemn the Italians to the same fate as immigrants to this country. Nor did we condemn Greeks or Jews or Hispanics or Syrians or Swedish or any other immigrants except those with ebony pigmented skin. Those we segmented as lower-class, less privileged, high risk. We did it starting 400 years ago. 

I’m beginning to understand why the Black Lives Matter movement began and the just cause of its original founders. I’m learning about the inequities my race placed upon other people of color in this country, especially blacks, though policies and laws I never realized until I took the time to stop and study their real affects. I’m beginning to realize why other races talk about white privilege and white supremacy because of advantages my race created for ourselves at the expense of others. 

I still condemn the riots and violence. That is not the way to bring a solution to the problems we face. I condemn the Marxist and communist groups hiding behind the Black Lives Matter movement trying to overthrow our government. This is still the best country in which to live and to be able to resolve problems like this one. But it is huge. Not insurmountable, but it will take all of us relooking at our history and understanding what we did to pe ople not like me. We will need to come to the place Paul came when he said:

Now let me speak the truth as plainly as I know it in the Anointed One. I am not lying when I say that my conscience and the Holy Spirit are witnesses to my state of constant grief. It may sound extreme; but I wish that I were lost, cursed, and totally separated from the Anointed—if that would change the eternal destination of my brothers and sisters, my flesh and countrymen. (Romans 9:1-3 The VOICE)

When we begin to feel compassion for each other and understand the role we all play in the life of this country, good and bad, we can begin to find solutions to our problems. As a nation, we are truly blessed. It’s time we find ways to resolve the internal shortcomings we created while becoming the economic powerhouse of the world. We cannot continue to call ourselves an economic answer for the world if we allow our policies to slight a large segment of our own.

I don’t know the answers, but I know if we stop the violence, sit down and debate alternatives, we can find solutions. Americans are known for their ingenuity and inventiveness. Why don’t we put those characteristics to work and solve this great problem before we tear ourselves apart.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked THE VOICE are taken from the THE VOICE (The Voice): Scripture taken from THE VOICE ™. Copyright© 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. Allrights reserved.

Pray for Wisdom, July 27, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

As many of you who have listened to my podcasts for a while know, I often use a scripture from the lectionary for the focus of my thoughts. I’m amazed how often the scriptures seem to point to the very things I need to hear. And as I hear from others of you, it seems the scripture often relates to something going on in your life at the time as well. It is uncanny the way God works, but he is God after all.

Well, this week’s Old Testament focus was no different. It comes to us from 1 Kings 3 as Solomon takes the throne succeeding his father David. You’ll remember David became the model against whom every other king was measured. He wasn’t perfect by any means. We know about his adultery, his attempts to hide it, and ultimately his plot to murder his mistress’ husband to cover his sin. David’s life wasn’t one spent in dark, hooded robes mumbling prayers in the sanctuary. He was king. A battle-hardened warrior. He expanded Israel’s territory and rooted out it’s enemies from its cities. But God called David a man after his own heart.

Now Solomon has gained the crown. God comes to him and we pick up the story from there as Eugene Peterson describes it in The Message:

4-5 The king went to Gibeon, the most prestigious of the local shrines, to worship. He sacrificed a thousand Whole-Burnt-Offerings on that altar. That night, there in Gibeon, God appeared to Solomon in a dream: God said, “What can I give you? Ask.”

6 Solomon said, “You were extravagantly generous in love with David my father, and he lived faithfully in your presence, his relationships were just and his heart right. And you have persisted in this great and generous love by giving him—and this very day!—a son to sit on his throne.

7-8 “And now here I am: God, my God, you have made me, your servant, ruler of the kingdom in place of David my father. I’m too young for this, a mere child! I don’t know the ropes, hardly know the ‘ins’ and ‘outs’ of this job. And here I am, set down in the middle of the people you’ve chosen, a great people—far too many to ever count.

9 “Here’s what I want: Give me a God-listening heart so I can lead your people well, discerning the difference between good and evil. For who on their own is capable of leading your glorious people?”

10-14 God, the Master, was delighted with Solomon’s response. And God said to him, “Because you have asked for this and haven’t grasped after a long life, or riches, or the doom of your enemies, but you have asked for the ability to lead and govern well, I’ll give you what you’ve asked for—I’m giving you a wise and mature heart. There’s never been one like you before; and there’ll be no one after. As a bonus, I’m giving you both the wealth and glory you didn’t ask for—there’s not a king anywhere who will come up to your mark. And if you stay on course, keeping your eye on the life-map and the God-signs as your father David did, I’ll also give you a long life.” (1 Kings 3:4-14 TM)

What maturity Solomon showed as he expressed his wish. Give me wisdom to judge these people. Help me to know the difference between good and evil. If you want me to lead, then give me a listening heart.

Don’t you wish more of our leaders would pray for a listening heart to know the difference between good and evil? It seems we live in a time more like the beginning of the book of Judges when everyone did what was right in their own eyes. This “cancel culture” that sprang up from somewhere that decided if I don’t like what you say or what you do, you become invisible. We make you disappear from the world. What you stand for doesn’t count. What you believe doesn’t matter. You are hereby cancelled. 

How does that fit into what God wants for us? Do we think we can add him to part of the “cancel culture?” I know there are those trying – pulling down statues of Jesus, desecrating churches, synagogues, temples, and other houses of worship. We see an “I believe in me” culture rising. But God cannot be cancelled. Nations tried before to their destruction. We can try to rewrite the past. We can try to remake a belief system. We can declare we will rise on our own strength. Many tried. Many failed. 

A relatively small group decided they want a different government here. I’ve heard too many times, “We’ll burn it down if we don’t get what we want.” How does that help anyone? If everything has been burnt to down, who will rebuild? Who will expend the energy to watch it come tumbling down again? Who wants to risk the threat of careless vandals destroying a life’s work again? And who will have the funds to do so? When the government changes, so does the money. The meaningless coins and paper that we pass to one another in exchange for something. We think money has value, but it doesn’t. 

If you think money has value, ask the Argentinians who went through month after month of triple digit inflation when prices became so high the last three zeros on every price tag were removed. But salaries didn’t change. Income didn’t rise with the same inflation. Ask the Venezuelans who experienced triple digit inflation not so long ago. Money didn’t mean anything anymore. Did the government help? No. Did the change in leadership make things better? No. 

It seems to me we have an awful lot of people trying to get into this country for it to be such a terrible place to live, work, and raise a family. I see millions trying to come in every year, but I don’t see millions trying to leave to go to some other country. Why is that? Maybe it’s because in the past we thought about more than ourselves. Maybe in the past our elected officials remembered their office wasn’t about making money or becoming popular or even getting reelected. Their office was to pray Solomon’s prayer and ask for discernment so they might have a listening heart. 

As I watch most votes in the House and Senate, it seems no one has a listening heart anymore. Most votes split across party lines. Why? Because no one listens. Is every Democrat good? No. Is every Republican bad? No. We will find good and evil among every party, every race, every economic stratum. We will find racism in the same places. No section is exempt. I will say, or write, or do something that I’m sure someone will think is racist. So will you. Why? Because we are. We think in the culture in which we live and work and play. And whenever we come in contact with another culture, it doesn’t matter what color their skin or what language they speak, we will do something someone in that culture could take as offensive. 

But when do we act like Solomon and stop and listen with a discerning heart? When do ask the question, “What do I have to think about the person I know to believe he or she said or did whatever it was to intentionally hurt me?” 

When we ask that question before we blurt out a response, most of the time, we know the answer will be they didn’t intend harm. I took something wrong. I didn’t understand. There is miscommunication between us. How can we learn from each other so we can avoid bitter feelings? Then talk to each other and listen to each other – but not on Facebook. Pick up the phone. Go to lunch. Really communicate. Don’t scream that you know what the other person thinks. You don’t. 

Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived knew he needed a listening heart to discern the good from the bad. How much more do we need to pray for such a thing in this day? How much different would the streets of our city be tomorrow if all of us sincerely asked for a discerning, listening heart, then sat down with those not like us and heard their story. Maybe we would learn something. Maybe we would care. Maybe we would find some directions to take that would ease the growing tension in a country where millions come to find freedom from oppressive governments. 

Is our nation perfect? Not by any means. Is it terrible? Talk to those who escape from those nations led by dictators and politburos. Can we make improvements? Not until we stop and listen to each other and decide we want to do what is right, not what is politically advantageous. As we begin to approach elections in the fall, I encourage you to get information about the candidates. Don’t listen to the news or social media or the campaign adds. Find out about their character. How did they vote on critical issues and why? What do they say they believe and do their actions support it? 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked TM are taken from the THE MESSAGE: THE BIBLE IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH (TM): Scripture taken from THE MESSAGE: THE BIBLE IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH, copyright©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group

Weeds and Seeds, July 20, 2020

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2020-07-23-devotional-Weeds and Seeds

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The headlines haven’t changed. Two things dominate our attention; the coronavirus, and the riots. Both tragic events consume us with the number of deaths created in their wake. The pandemic, we can do little about in the short term. It will ravage the world until we either build enough herd immunity from victims or a vaccine. The early rhetoric that a few weeks and it would be over have been proven false, and we seem to be in this pandemic for the long haul. Many predict at least two years, and some say five or more. 

The second event does not have to continue, though. We can do something about it if we want. The problem is that, for the most part, I don’t think we do. In this country, the divide grows more extensive, and we refuse to enter into reasonable debate with each other. We no longer know how to listen to each other. We yell our position in each other’s faces and refuse to stop to understand the other side of an issue. 

What’s happening in the protests when no opportunity presents itself for a reasoned dialogue appears on our screens and in the newspapers daily. Screaming at each other. Vandalism. Burning. Riots. Violence. Innocents dying. And what is all of that accomplishing? A deeper divide between the factions. No good will come out of the continued violence happening across the nation. 

I expect the majority of us agreed with the brutality involved with the arrest and death of George Floyd. How many innocent people died since then? How many more must die before we stop? In some of our major cities, the cry to defund and dismantle the police, those called to protect the citizenry, found traction. The results in each of those places where city councils chose to reduce budgets stagger us. Crime increased in staggering amounts, double and triple the number of violent crimes from just a year ago, or even just before the pandemic began. 

We can blame whatever we want, but I think the real answer is found in a parable Jesus gave found in Matthew 13. His disciples asked him to explain it after he was alone with them. Here is what he said:

36 Then Jesus left the crowds and went into the house. His disciples came and joined him.

‘Explain to us,’ they said, ‘the parable of the weeds in the field.’

37 ‘The one who sows the good seed,’ said Jesus, ‘is the son of man. 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom. The weeds are the children of the evil one; 39 the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels.

40 ‘So: when the weeds are gathered and burned in the fire, that’s what it will be like at the close of the age. 41 The son of man will send out his angels, and they will collect together out of his kingdom everything that causes offense, and everyone who acts wickedly. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their father. If you have ears, then hear!’ (Matthew 13:36-43 NTE)

Somewhere along the way, intermingled among us came those ready to fight at the slightest criticism or perceived wrong. Our “it’s all about me” culture assumes everything said or written or created aims specifically at me. And I can interpret those words or artistry any way I choose because the world is all about me. 

The world is not about any of us. God created it. It is his. He chose to create human beings with a mission in mind. From the first, he commanded us to take care of his creation. He created us to live in relationship with him and each other. (We don’t do any of those things very well.) He came to live among us and show us how to do it. We hung him on a cross rather than accept what he said. Why he still loves humanity and wants to have a relationship with us, I don’t understand, but he does. 

Jesus told us his kingdom is near. He ushered into this world with his death and resurrection. He sent his spirit to live in us. Where he is, his kingdom reigns. So, here we are as his followers, good seed among weeds. What are we to do? What can we make of the mess going on around us? 

First, recognize God still sits on his throne. Nothing happening now, in the past, or in the future surprises him. He doesn’t need to confer with anyone to determine how to handle the problems. He is in control. We may not see it. We may not understand. But we can be assured God is still God and loves his children. 

Second, remember Paul’s words from Romans 8:

18 This is how I work it out. The sufferings we go through in the present time are not worth putting in the scale alongside the glory that is going to be unveiled for us. 19 Yes: creation itself is on tiptoe with expectation, eagerly awaiting the moment when God’s children will be revealed. 20 Creation, you see, was subjected to pointless futility, not of its own volition, but because of the one who placed it in this subjection, in the hope 21 that creation itself would be freed from its slavery to decay, to enjoy the freedom that comes when God’s children are glorified.

22 Let me explain. We know that the entire creation is groaning together, and going through labor pains together, up until the present time. 23 Not only so: we too, we who have the first fruits of the spirit’s life within us, are groaning within ourselves, as we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our body. 24 We were saved, you see, in hope. But hope isn’t hope if you can see it! Who hopes for what they can see? 25 But if we hope for what we don’t see, we wait for it eagerly – but also patiently. (Romans 8:18-25 NTE)

 The world is groaning under the problems we see today. Creation waits to be freed from the decay that began with that first act of disobedience. It is on tiptoe with expectation waiting for the harvest when the weeds will be cast away, and the wheat will be gathered. And we eagerly await our adoption, the redemption of our body. We were saved in the hope of the resurrection. All this will come to an end one day. And Paul says, “The sufferings we go through in the present are not worth putting in the scale alongside the glory that is going to be unveiled for us. 

I don’t know how that looks. I don’t know what awaits us. I don’t know what he has in store for us. But until then, we have a mission to share the good news with as many as we can. To do that, though, we must stop and listen to the story of those around us. They won’t listen to our story if we are not willing to listen to theirs. But when we do, we will hear how God can work in their lives and give them the peace and joy only he can bring to them. The legacy of peace Jesus promised. 

What happens next with the two major events in our headlines? I don’t know. I hope God sees fit to slow the first about which we can do little. I hope we, who call ourselves followers of Christ, will listen to the stories of those not like us, and from there, share the good news that can heal our land and bring peace to our world. 

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NTE are taken from the NEW TESTAMENT FOR EVERYONE: Scripture are taken from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011.

It’s Time to Rest, July 6, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

This week marked the 244th birthday of the United States, but the way things look in some of our larger cities, anarchy may replace democracy before the year ends. Rioters still take to the streets with cries that they will burn down our cities if they don’t get what they want. But will giving in to the demands resolve the issues? The answer is no. It just puts a different bully in the seat of power. 

Are the actions taken by some of our authorities right and fair? No. Will the world ever be fair? No. Can you have a fair and just system in place while we struggle with race, gender identity, religion, social injustice, political ideology, and a host of other issues that plague us? Not while people are involved. Whoever is in power puts their spin on what is right, and the opposition will complain about injustice. 

The framers of our constitution began an experiment in democracy that the world had never seen. It worked when we elected statemen more interested in the good of the whole than in their reelection and party politics. Unfortunately, over the last four or five decades, we failed to elect statesmen. We now choose between politicians who advance their careers instead of their communities. It happens on both sides of the aisle. Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all leave their state and federal posts significantly wealthier despite their meager salaries from those seats. 

What is the answer to our dilemma? First, we need to become educated individually and as a nation. Few of our high school graduates can point to any given state on a map if asked to name them other than California, Florida, New York, and Texas. Many think Chicago is a state instead of a city. Many are confused when told Washington, DC is not a state and has no Senators. Most do not know how the House determines how many of its 435 seats each state and territory get. Most think the President spends tax money – he doesn’t; he only approves the budget. The House is responsible for the budget, which they continue to handle poorly. 

When we understand how a representative government works, and that real change comes through discourse and the ballot box, not from rioting in the street, change can be made. The thuggery that destroys private property only inflames those who would willing sit across a table from them, try to understand, and make real change. As long as violence seems the only answer, it will only receive violence in return. 

We see the same thing happening in Jerusalem as Jesus proclaims a new way of perceiving God’s kingdom. The Pharisees see violence against Rome as the way to find release from the Roman empire. Self-proclaimed messiahs had come before Jesus to lead revolts against the empire, and their tombs showed their failure. 

Jesus came with a new message. His disciples declared him as Messiah. But then, his friends abandoned, denied, and betrayed him. He willingly gave himself to the unjust trial before the chief priest and the Sanhedrin. He endured the torture and cruel crucifixion of the Romans. He bled and died in the most excruciating and humiliating way men could die. 

Not just in his trial and death, but throughout his ministry, many around him mocked him. His words in Matthew’s Gospel show us how fickle protests like we see today can be:

16 ‘What picture shall I give you for this generation?’ asked Jesus. ‘It’s like a bunch of children sitting in the town square, and singing songs to each other. 17 This is how it goes:

You didn’t dance when we played the flute,
you didn’t cry when we sang the dirge!

18 ‘What do I mean? When John appeared, he didn’t have any normal food or drink – and people said “What’s got into him, then? Some demon?” 19 Then along comes the son of man, eating and drinking normally, and people say, “Ooh, look at him – guzzling and boozing, hanging around with tax-collectors and other riff-raff.” But, you know, wisdom is as wisdom does – and wisdom will be vindicated!’ (Matthew 11:16-19 NTE)

That’s what I see in the autonomous zones and the call to disband police in our country. No cops, then they cry about injustice when a murder happens in the zone and help doesn’t come. Protesters were injuring innocent bystanders, then standing behind the police for protection from citizens who want revenge on the perpetrator. We are fickle. We don’t stop to think. We fail to sit and listen to each other. Our politicians and especially our media, take the worst events and blow them out of proportion to enrage each side of any argument until no middle ground can exist. 

We need to stop. We need to look to the cross. We need to remember a Savior came to show us how to love the unlovable. He died for us all to forgive and finally defeat sin and death and the grave. The kingdom of God came in the form of a human, King of kings. His power usurps all powers, not through violence, but love. His grace overshadows all injustice, not through overthrow, but servanthood.

Believing in Jesus as Messiah, God come to earth to deliver us, and following him results in his spirit residing in our hearts, directing our actions. Those actions will not end in violence against our neighbor but acts of love and kindness. Those actions will demonstrate the fruit of his spirit as Paul enumerates:  “love, joy, peace, great-heartedness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. There is no law that opposes things like that!”

When we let his spirit work in and through us, our world will change. We can be part of its renewal. We can see “God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” We can exercise his will wherever we might stand. And in doing so, we can hear the words Jesus prayed and his promise to those who struggle in this life. Listen to the prayer from Matthew:

At that time Jesus turned to God with this prayer: ‘I give you my praise, father, Lord of heaven and earth! You hid these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to children! 26 Yes, father, that’s the way you decided to do it! 27 My father gave me everything: nobody knows the son except the father, and nobody knows the father except the son – and anyone the son wants to reveal him to.

28 ‘Are you having a real struggle? Come to me! Are you carrying a big load on your back? Come to me – I’ll give you a rest! 29 Pick up my yoke and put it on; take lessons from me! My heart is gentle, not arrogant. You’ll find the rest you deeply need. 30 My yoke is easy to wear, my load is easy to bear.’ (Matthew 11:25-30 NTE)

Do you want to rest from your struggle? Do you want help with your burden? Do you want real change to happen in your life? It won’t change the world, yet. It might not change our country, yet. But it will change you when you give yourself to him. Today is the day of salvation. Call on his name and let him take the load, and he will give you rest.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NTE are taken from the NEW TESTAMENT FOR EVERYONE: Scripture are taken from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011.

Show God’s Grace, June 29, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

The headlines scream about injustice, slavery, equality, and freedom recently. I wish the world could get rid of the first two and understand the last two. I fear we will never do either. We ended our ability to stop injustice and slavery when Adam and Eve decided they wanted to exercise the knowledge of God and found they fell far short. Cain killed his brother for offering a better sacrifice than he. Lamech murdered a young man who hit him. Violence and injustice plagued humankind ever since their rash actions.

Read every account of every nation, and you’ll find slavery rampant in its history. The seven wonders of the ancient world probably came into existence on the backs of slaves from conquered nations. Aristocrats in Greece and Rome had as many as 600 slaves attending their individual properties. Many of those providing sport for the spectators in the magnificent Colosseum in Rome were slaves. The great temples and palaces discovered in South America attributed to the Incas and Mayans were the result of slave labor from captured tribes.

Our nation and the western world owes its success to slaves working in fields and homes. The advances throughout history are principally the result of labor provided by conquered people. Is it right? No. Do I condone it? No. Does it still happen in the world? Unfortunately, it does. The drug and sex trafficking that goes on in the “civilized” world under our blinded eyes is nothing less than slavery. The child labor in certain parts of the world certainly borders on the same. We enjoy the benefits of their work while they live in squalid conditions. We think nothing of their slavery and injustice.

The question is, what can we do about it? Is the redistribution of property and wealth called for in some of the recent protests the answer? Examine countries that have tried it in the past, and you’ll find it doesn’t work. That ideology is known as socialism or communism, take your pick. The Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China are the best examples of those ideologies. Dissenters of the government policies don’t survive long within their borders. Government officials live in relative luxury compared to the rest of the populace, and even their luxury does not compare well to our upper-middle-class lifestyle in this country. Legislation cannot break the myth of equality we hope to find in our broken world. 

But we have hope. There is a way if we will but take it. We will still be slaves, but we are slaves now. All of us. Paul talks about it in his letter to the church in Rome in these words:

12 So don’t allow sin to rule in your mortal body, to make you obey its desires. 13 Nor should you present your limbs and organs to sin to be used for its wicked purposes. Rather, present yourselves to God, as people alive from the dead, and your limbs and organs to God, to be used for the righteous purposes of his covenant. 14 Sin won’t actually rule over you, you see, since you are not under law but under grace.

15 What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Don’t you know that if you present yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you really are slaves of the one you obey, whether that happens to be sin, which leads to death, or obedience, which leads to final vindication? 17 Thank God that, though you once were slaves to sin, you have become obedient from the heart to the pattern of teaching to which you were committed. 18 You were freed from sin, and now you have been enslaved to God’s covenant justice (19 I’m using a human picture because of your natural human weakness!). For just as you presented your limbs and organs as slaves to uncleanness, and to one degree of lawlessness after another, so now present your limbs and organs as slaves to covenant justice, which leads to holiness.

20 When you were slaves of sin, you see, you were free in respect of covenant justice. 21 What fruit did you ever have from the things of which you are now ashamed? Their destination is death. 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and enslaved to God, you have fruit for holiness. Its destination is the life of the age to come. 23 The wages paid by sin, you see, are death; but God’s free gift is the life of the age to come, in the Messiah, Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6: 12-23 NTE)

We are either slaves to sin or slaves to God. He gives us the freedom to choose which we will follow, but we can’t be in the middle. Obedience to him or sin, those are the choices with no middle ground. You say, “I want to be free to do whatever I want.” 

Can I tell you that is not freedom. Obedience is real freedom. It’s like driving a car. I’m free to drive on the wrong side of the road. I’m free to drive off a cliff. I’m free to run into a tree. I’m free to drive 100 mph. I’m free to do all of those things, but I probably won’t live very long or at least will pay a very high price doing so. But if I obey the rules set out by an authority higher than me – stay in my lane, drive the speed limit, obey the traffic laws – I am likely to have a much more pleasant experience and drive my car for years without unpleasant consequences.

It’s the same with the laws God sets in place. We sometimes act like dumb animals and try to stick our heads through the fence to get to the grass on the other side. When we do, we get stuck or shocked, or the barbed-wire leaves horrible scars to remind us of our foolishness. But inside the fence, God placed luscious green pastureland, full of nutritious food. We are free to run and frolic in the field all day with him with no fear.

Why do we push through the fence? Like Adam, we think we are smarter than God. We want what we think is freedom. We want to do what we want to do. That is not freedom. It leads to addiction, pain, suffering, the penalty of sin is death. You can choose who you will follow but think about where real freedom lies. It’s not in breaking the rules, but in following them. It’s not in ridding the world of injustice but ridding my heart of injustice. It’s in making myself a slave to righteousness.

The problem across our country and around the world is not one of inequality and injustice as much as our thinking we can be equal with God. He is God; we are not. When we figure that out and let him be God in our lives, his love will begin to show through us. The violence will stop. The injustice will end. Slavery will no longer exist. Evil will be defeated. Unfortunately, I predict broken humanity will continue to enjoy its brokenness until Jesus returns. Some will follow him; many will not. 

Those who listen to God’s spirit must share his love, demonstrate the kind of humanness God intended from the beginning, show not justice but grace to a world in desperate need of God’s grace now more than ever.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NTE are taken from the NEW TESTAMENT FOR EVERYONE: Scripture are taken from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011.

Should We Sin More? June 22, 2020

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

What’s happening around the world reminds me of a situation Paul addressed when he wrote his letter to the church in Rome. As I watch the nation tire of the pandemic, people forget the disease has not been conquered. It is still as contagious and as dangerous as ever. The spread has not stopped. 

Federal and state officials gave us some pretty drastic measures to slow the spread, and it worked while we implemented them. We stayed in our homes, and instead of the predicted hundred million infected, we stand at just over two million. Instead of more than a million dead, we are just over 115 million. But we tired of staying at home. We decided we didn’t want to wear masks or keep our distance. 

The number of cases across the United States is showing our dislike of being told what to do. Some are saying the increase in numbers is the second wave of the pandemic. Unfortunately, it is not. It is our failure to do what would stop the disease from spreading. The second wave will not come until late fall, October or November, when the virus will again race through the world with another equally virulent strain, just like a flu season. We understand how coronaviruses operate. This virus is just a new one, more contagious, more deadly. 

In our haste to get out of our homes, we forgot the rules about what keeps the disease at bay. It’s not that we can’t get out of our homes, but we have to do the things that keep us safe. Masks to stop asymptomatic carriers from spreading the virus to the vulnerable in our population who then take it home to the rest of the family. 

Scientists estimate that 85% of those infected, now, are infected by another family member. That happens because someone carelessly goes out without thinking about risks to others and spreads the disease. The unmasked share the virus, and one of them takes it home to their family, and more than half of that family will end up in the hospital. Those are the current statistics.

So why does that careless transmission remind me of Paul’s letter to the Romans? Because there were some, who received God’s grace, his forgiveness, and thought they could just take advantage of it. Here is Paul’s answer to them.

What are we to say, then? Shall we continue in the state of sin, so that grace may increase? 2 Certainly not! We died to sin; how can we still live in it? 3 Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into the Messiah, Jesus, were baptized into his death? 4 That means that we were buried with him, through baptism, into death, so that, just as the Messiah was raised from the dead through the father’s glory, we too might behave with a new quality of life. 5 For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

6 This is what we know: our old humanity was crucified with the Messiah, so that the bodily solidarity of sin might be abolished, and that we should no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 A person who has died, you see, has been declared free from all charges of sin.

8 But if we died with the Messiah, we believe that we shall live with him. 9 We know that the Messiah, having been raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has any authority over him. 10 The death he died, you see, he died to sin, once and only once. But the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way you, too, must calculate yourselves as being dead to sin, and alive to God in the Messiah, Jesus. (Romans 5:1-11 NTE)

The more I read and study Jesus’ words, the more I understand his kingdom is already here. Jesus’ death and resurrection inaugurated the coming of the kingdom to earth. He is the king of the kingdom of God. God invites us into his kingdom as his children when we believe in Jesus as Messiah, the one sent by him to redeem us from our sins. When we ask for his forgiveness, his grace is abundant and he gives it freely, recreating us for his kingdom. 

There will be more to this re-creation to come when he returns. Our physical bodies will be transformed into something we don’t yet understand. We will obtain a physical form like his resurrected form. One that you can see and touch, yet can appear behind locked doors and disappear without warning as Jesus did during those forty days after his resurrection. We don’t understand the physics of how that can happen, but if the early Christians willingly gave their lives for the story of the events, I expect we can believe in their authenticity. 

To those who would say, “It’s just not possible.” I would retort, “Neither was flight 150 years ago. Neither was the thought of traveling to the moon 100 years ago. Dark matter was thought a ridiculous hypothesis when posited by Lord Kelvin in 1884. It almost ruined his career as a physicist. It did no better for Henri Poincaré in 1906 or Jacobus Kapteyn in 1922. And the hypothesis wasn’t taken seriously until the 1960’s and 1970’s when nothing else could explain some of the action of subatomic particles physicists saw in cyclotrons. 

So what else don’t we know about the universe? For one, we don’t understand how creation happened. Let’s assume for argument’s sake there was a big bang. How did the big bang happen? Where did the material come from? Who compressed into a form that made it bang in the first place? Genesis doesn’t say how. It just says out of nothing, God spoke and there was light. We can find as many arguments as there are people as to how things evolved from there. But it seems few want to argue backward from the bang. 

How will God re-create a new heaven and new earth? I don’t know. Will we all “go” to heaven. The more I read, the less I think we will. The more I read, I think heaven will “come” to earth. Remember Jesus’ message? The kingdom of heaven is near. God’s kingdom is near. This is what the kingdom of God is like. He tells us to pray, “Your [God’s] kingdom come, on earth…” 

So what does that mean for us? I think it means we need to prepare for his coming when he will reign in his new kingdom here. Will he remake it and restore it? Yes. But maybe, just maybe those who follow him will be left to help re-create it into God’s original design for his kingdom. And what was that original design? Humanity caring for all of his creation – tending the animals; caring for the plants; helping each other; living in harmony with each other and with God; God walking in his kingdom with humanity. 

I think it also means the more we mess up this place now, the more we will have to clean up when he comes. I’m not sure he will wave a magic wand and make everything go away. Could he do that? Sure. Will he do that? I’m not so sure about that. “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop,” cannot be found in the Bible, but Solomon and Paul imply it. James almost tells us the same thing. It may be that 1,000-year reign Revelation talks about is the time it will take to put everything back the way it’s supposed to be. 

So now that I’ve rattled your theology with some things to contemplate for the next week or month or lifetime, I invite you to read carefully Jesus’ words. Don’t just skim through them the way we usually do because they become so familiar to us, but really read them. I think you’ll find that nowhere does he say his followers will “go” to heaven or his kingdom, but rather the kingdom will “come here.” Think about what difference that makes in how you live day to day.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked NTE are taken from the NEW TESTAMENT FOR EVERYONE: Scripture are taken from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011.

A Formula for Hope, June 15, 2020

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Today’s Podcast

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

We will remember 2020. Many said that about 1963, the year President Kennedy was shot. And 1967, the year we Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. And 1990, when the world faced off against Iraq after they invaded Kuwait. And 2001, when the Twin Towers fell in New York City. But this year, wow! Coronavirus has infected two million Americans and seven million globally. More than 110,000 have died in this country, and we are approaching a half million around the world. 

Then the murder hornets invaded the west coast. Shortly after, protests against racial injustice swept across the country, turning violent in too many places, causing millions of dollars in damages and the deaths of innocent people of all colors. The economists already declared a recession. Stocks almost recovered to pre-COVID heights, but only because of speculative trading if you read the tea leaves correctly. Companies that have already filed Chapter 7 and 11 bankruptcy stocks are exploding because uninformed traders think they will bounce back. They probably won’t, which means those stocks look artificially and dangerously high. Those traders are about to lose their investments when the stock market stabilizes in the next few weeks and months.       

Unemployment stands almost as high as during the depression. And this phenomenon isn’t limited to the US. It reaches around the globe because of the pandemic that, except for a handful, affects every country. Suffering is everywhere. You see hopelessness in the eyes of millions. But there is an answer to the desperation that seems so pervasive in the situations that predominate this year. Despite the terrible events that keep piling one on the other, I can assure you; there is hope.

That hope isn’t found in another stimulus check, though. There isn’t enough money in the world to buy hope. You won’t find hope in legislation that brings equality to every race, we’ve tried that. It failed before and will fail again. Defunding police departments won’t stop police brutality, but it will unleash an unbridled criminal element on a defenseless citizenry. Vaccines won’t stop pandemics. Another disease will sweep through the world in a few years just as virulent as this one with devastating effect. 

We can do nothing to provide hope to the world because we created the chaos that plagues us. But we can find hope. The Apostle Paul tells us how in his letter to the early followers of Jesus in the church in Rome in the first century. He writes:

Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness,[a] we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. 3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope. 5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 While we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. 7 It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person. 8 But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (Romans 5:1-8 CEB)

I don’t care much for the formula Paul gives us, but through the centuries, Christians prove it true. Trouble produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope. We stand firm on that hope; it doesn’t put us to shame, we know it to be true, we boast in the hope of God’s glory because the Holy Spirit poured God’s love into our hearts.

Let’s backtrack through Paul’s formula in these verses. Despite that fact that we were God’s enemies, sinners, disobedient toward him, he showed his love for us by dying for us. He took my sins and your sins to the cross so heaven and earth could join together at that spot. He died for ungodly people, sinners, us. 

Why? So by accepting his forgiveness, his spirit could live in us and his love could energize our actions and our love toward others. He enables us to love those we could not love without him. The Holy Spirit pours God’s love into our hearts. We see others differently. We love with his love. His spirit enables us to live a life of love and hope for his glory. 

The hope in the Christian throughout the centuries sparked incredible action. Not cathedrals and churches and edifices with stained glass windows, but hospitals, schools, orphanages, shelters for abused women and children, food and clothing pantries, and thousands of other ways men and women help the hurting. Christians run toward the hurting, not away from them. 

Please remember, not everyone who says they are Christian have Jesus in their heart. That is the problem with much of Christendom today. Many know the words to say, but have never experienced his life-changing power. Despite their declaration, they are no more Christian than I am a neurosurgeon, even if I said I am. You certainly don’t want me to open your scalp any time soon. 

God’s love drives Christians to act because God first loved us, forgave us, and pour his love into our hearts giving us hope for tomorrow. People recognize those loving actions as character. It’s not the money given or the legislator trying to get elected or the pharmaceutical company passing pills. It’s the man or woman standing in the breech helping the needy, getting their hands dirty, disregarding what others might think of them for doing so that defines character. 

And helping those in need means getting involved in life and life is messy. It always means endurance. Life is not a sprint, but a marathon. In the church we often remark methods change, but the message never changes. It’s the same with life. Involving ourselves with others is always messy, always emotional, always painful at times, but it is the work God calls us to do if we love as he loves. Imagine if God had given up on you the first time you did something wrong. Where would you be? Can we do any less for those he puts in our path? Endure.

What do we endure? Problems. Trouble. Suffering. Life. We face all the issue of life good and a lot of bad because we, humanity, brought sin into the world and every one of us contributes to that pile. None of us are free from it. Each of us brings our little piece of selfishness to the table and until we give ourselves completely to Christ, we continue to contribute to the mess call life. Even then, our imperfections in this world will cause pain and suffering to those around us. We can’t help it. We will be misunderstood, misinterpreted, abused, maligned. But we also don’t need to complain about it. Jesus went to the cross misunderstood, misinterpreted, abused, maligned. He died for us. 

We have access into God’s grace, his unmerited favor, by faith through Jesus. Because we have access to God’s grace, we have peace with God through Jesus. And because of his faithfulness we are made righteous before God. That is not a small thing.

Remember what Isaiah said when he saw God behind the cherubim seated on his throne? “Woe, I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips.” God put his hand over Moses so he would not see his face and die. He did the same with Elijah. We cannot stand in the presence of a holy God. But because of Jesus sacrifice on the cross, we are made righteous before him and invited into his presence. How awesome a privilege that we should never take for granted. 

2020 is an unforgettable year. Make it so not because of the problems highlighted in the news, but because of a renewed relationship with the King of kings. Meditate on Romans 5:1-8 and remember that “while we were still weak, at the right moment, Christ died for ungodly people. 7 It isn’t often that someone will die for a righteous person, though maybe someone might dare to die for a good person. 8 But God shows his love for us, because while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day. 

Scriptures marked CEB are taken from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE (CEB): Scriptures taken from the COMMON ENGLISH BIBLE copyright© 2011, 2012. Used by permission.