The Other Jesus

In his book The Other Jesus Lloyd J. Ogilvie describes Jesus this way:

“Who is this other Jesus? He is not a different Jesus; rather, He is the forgotten, neglected, overlooked Jesus. This other Jesus is often a stranger to our self-concerned, narcissistic, me generation. He is not the Jesus we have created of our own making and faking – an easy going, good natured Jesus who’s on call when we want Him to help us deal with our personal agenda. Having only this culturelized, benevolent, but somewhat weak “errand-boy” Jesus stunts our spiritual growth.

The other Jesus is the biblical Jesus – the robust challenging Jesus who is more than just a comforter. He also confronts us, and He will not accept second place in our lives. He calls us to an exhilarating adventure of dynamic discipleship. Though He meets us as we are, He loves us too much to leave us as we have been.

The authentic Jesus tenderly cares for us when we hurt, but He tenaciously exposes anything that keeps us from being His faithful servants. His love and forgiveness are unqualified, but His demands are unequivocal. He is the Master who holds the mandate for the King and the Lord of all life who calls us to commit all we have to Him.”

I just thought this was worth sharing. I hope your Jesus is having His way in your life!

Pressing On:
Dale

Intamacy Issues

A couple of weeks ago I made one of those classic preacher bloopers. You know the kind of thing that comes out of your mouth seeming so innocent, but makes your face turn the color of a fire truck when your brain realizes what you just said. The text for the day was Matthew 5 and we were talking about safeguarding our marriages so we would be the salt and light Jesus instructs us to be in our worlds.

I had been working on an acrostic for the word GIFTS as something spouses could give to each other. I had good ideas for G, F, T, & S, but was stuck on the “I”. My wife and a friend were in the office doing some work for an upcoming event and I asked for their input. Immediately my wife’s friend, Ann Marie, suggested Intimacy for the “I” of my acrostic. I was overjoyed having completed the acronym, and thanked them for their help. That Sunday as I got to that part of the talk, I wanted to give credit for the help I had been given so I thanked Ann Marie for her help in filling out my acrostic. If I would have stopped there, things would have been fine, but I didn’t. When I got to Intimacy in my acrostic I said, “And I’d like to thank Ann Marie for giving me Intimacy this week.”

You could have heard a marshmallow fall into a down quilt. It was so quiet every where except inside my head. A moment later I tried to back up but it was too late the snickers started and they gave way to laughter and in short order I just had to move on to the “F” as there was no hope of redeeming anything from Intimacy, at least in that moment and with that group of people

Well here’s my point in all this…it’s what I didn’t get out (I was too busy laughing myself) about intimacy. The idea behind the word is having nothing between two people. It means not wearing a mask, putting up a barrier, or placing anything between you and another. While it’s not practical or even wise to have this kind of emotional transparency with everyone, it should be the goal in our marriage relationships. Unfortunately too many people wear too many masks, have too many barriers, and have placed so many things between them and their spouses that there is little if any real chance of intimacy ever taking place.

The answer is learning to trust someone enough to be real in their presence. No masks, barriers, or smokescreens just being the person you are and trusting others enough to accept and love you in spite of all that you are. If we are really honest most of us would admit that we’re not transparent with people, even our spouses, because we’re afraid of how they’ll respond if we are. And the saddest truth in all this is that these feelings carry over into our relationship with God. Just like Adam and Eve in the garden we try to hide from God. We put on masks of religion, or try to distance ourselves from Him with questions, all because we are afraid we can not trust God with the real us.

Let me share a part of one of David’s Psalm’s about trust…It’s worth a read


3 But when I am afraid, I put my trust in you. 4 O God, I praise your word. I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? ...13 For you have rescued me from death; you have kept my feet from slipping. So now I can walk in your presence, O God, in your life-giving light

Ps 56:1-13 (NLT)

David discovered that he could be totally transparent with God because God can be trusted with the real us. I hope that you discover that God can be trusted with the real you. And I hope that you discover real intimacy with those closest to you.

Pressing On:
Dale

What's In a name?

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!”

Words are powerful things. They can give us great joy and they can cause us to feel overwhelming pain! For example if someone calls you great, wonderful, or a hero you will most likely feel pretty good about life and the part you are playing in it. But if someone calls you lazy, stupid, or useless it’s very possible that you could start feeling worthless and wonder if there is any point in continuing to live life at all.

When I was six years old my parents got divorced and by the time I was seven my mom moved my sister and I to Oregon from Oklahoma. We moved at the end of summer, so we could start a brand new year of school, and I remember being very excited about my new school and all that came with it. Unfortunately the excitement didn’t last much beyond the first recess of that first day in school. You see people from Oklahoma, even young ones, talk differently from people in Oregon which is pronounced “Oreygone” if you’re from Oklahoma. During that first recess I learned how painful words can be. I was called a hick, a hillbilly, and a couple other words I won’t put in print. What I learned was that I was different, I knew it, they knew it, and they wanted me to know that they new it. By lunch time I was completely isolated and felt all alone. Every time I opened my mouth it gave people something new to make fun of, or a new name to call me.

That night my mom told me that “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” In all honesty I didn’t believe her. I wondered if she had ever been called a stupid hillbilly, or if anyone had ever made fun of the way they pronounced “Four Square” (Squair if you’re from Oklahoma). The next day was worse. Now they weren’t just making fun of they way I talked, they also made fun of the way I dressed, the way my hair was cut, and even the shape of my head. It was amazing how absolutely stupid everybody thought I was. For seven years I thought I was a fairly normal kid and now in just a couple of days I had been convinced that I was probably the least intelligent person on earth.

I might have continued feeling that way about myself if it wasn’t for a neighbor who lived across the street. His name was Mr. Stratton. He had three kids Susan, who was in my class, Sally two years younger than me, and His oldest son Jim. Mr. Stratton (Dick) became the a constant source of encouragement for me. He told me how funny I was (When I told a joke), how hard I worked, and what a good football player I was. He taught me how to play chess, asked me to join his Cub Scout pack, and even taught me how to play ping pong. Each step along the way making me feel like I really did matter and that I had something to contribute to the world around me.

Well here’s the point. Each and every one of us have different kinds of people in our lives. Some of them tear us down and some of them build us up. One of the most powerful tools used to do either are the words we speak to others. Those words have tremendous power to build us up and they have devastating power to tear us down. The world we live in wants us to believe that we are insignificant, unimportant, and worthless, but the God and creator of this world wants us to hear a different message. He wants us to know that we are loved, important, and priceless. God is telling us all that we are His kids, that we are smart, that we have value, and that we can make a difference. Listen to His words:

6 For somewhere in the Scriptures it says, "What is man that you should think of him, and the son of man that you should care for him? 7 For a little while you made him lower than the angels, and you crowned him with glory and honor. 8 You gave him authority over all things." Now when it says "all things," it means nothing is left out. But we have not yet seen all of this happen.
Heb 2:6-8 (NLT)

I hope you have a Mr. Stratton in your life, but if you don’t or even if you do, I pray that God’s words will serve as a source of hope for you. He loves you, thinks you’re priceless, and He has great faith in you. And what’s more He’s willing to tell you so!

Pressing On:
Dale

What If?

A couple of Summers ago Mary and I got to take a 4600 mile trip around our country. We got the chance to visit a bunch of very interesting places along the way, and gave our Chevy’s AC a good work out. Some of the more interesting places were, the Devils slide, Dodge City’s Boot Hill, Old town Albuquerque, the “Painted Desert & Petrified Forest”, and the Gloss mountains of Oklahoma. As we traveled across this country we saw lots of what looked as if it had been an atomic bomb test site, but we also saw some farms that were producing everything from Apples to Zucchini

These farms gave me pause to wonder about God’s family the church and how much like a farm it really is. You think about a lot of weird things when you’re driving 500 miles in a day. But what would happen if a farm was run like many modern day churches?

¨ Farming would be more about barns than fields.

¨ Farmers would stay around the barn and do almost all their work there.

¨ The best farmers would be the ones with the biggest barns

¨ Farmers would only plow and plant inside the barn

¨ Farmers could be voted off the farm just like the TV show Survivor.

¨ Wandering farmers would look for barns with no farmer in them.

¨ Because all activity is inside the barn they’d start to stink.

¨ Due to the barn focus the fields would grow wild

¨ Activity outside the barn would be more like hunting.

¨ Success would be measured by what the farmers knew about farming, not by the crops they have produced.

Ok maybe it’s a good thing farming isn’t like the church, but I think there are a number of things that we can learn from farming that will help us all be more like God’s vision of His Church:

¨ People are God’s fields

¨ God only uses good seed

¨ Our job it to plant, water, and cultivate, God causes the growth

¨ Workers are in short supply for God’s fields

¨ God prunes us to help us be productive A question we must each answer is what kind of crop are we allowing God to produce in our lives, our ministries, and on His farm? The prophet Isaiah describes God’s work this way… 2 He plowed the land, cleared its stones, and planted it with choice vines. In the middle he built a watchtower and carved a winepress in the nearby rocks. Then he waited for a harvest of sweet grapes, but the grapes that grew were wild and sour. Isa 5:2 (NLT). God has done is doing and will continue to do a great deal of work to produce good fruit in each of us! What would happen if we let Him?

Is there something in your life that’s keeping you from becoming what you might be? What if you let it go and let God work within you to produce something good?

What if…

Pressing On:

Dale Phipps

We All have a made by… tag on us

In John Ortberg’s book, “Love beyond Reason” he tells the following story about a Fortune 500 company CEO and his wife out on a date…

The couple pulled into a gas station after their dinner and night on the town. The CEO went into the station to pay for their gas, and when he came out he noticed that his wife was engaged in a very deep conversation with the service station attendant. It turns out that she had gone to High School with him. In fact during those years she had actually dated him before she ever met her eventual husband.

The CEO got into the car, and the two drove off in silence. He was feeling pretty good about himself when he finally spoke: “I bet I know what you are thinking. I bet you are thinking you are glad you married me, a Fortune 500 CEO, and not him, a service station attendant.”

His wife responded, “No, I was thinking if I had married him, he would be a Fortune 500 CEO and you would be a service station attendant.”

Funny how many times we, like the CEO of the story, fall into the delusion that we are self made. That somehow we have arrived at our current position in life on our own. Maybe it’s pride, or self-protection, or just plain failure to recognize how many people have helped us get to where we are today. Here is a short list of the kind of people who I’m grateful for in helping me get to where I’m at today…

 My parents: who brought me into this world, supplied me with all my needs, and many of my wants. Who taught me, sheltered me, and freed me to live life.

 My Wife: who makes me better than I am by loving me, holding me accountable, and challenging me to never stop trying to improving..

 My Kids: who have given me unconditional love, and been a source of laughter in my life, and shown me why a warm plate of cookies is always better when shared with those you love.

 My Teachers: who have poured their wealth of experience and knowledge into my life. They have helped me to see life from many different vantage points without having to live so long in order to make the same discoveries on my own.

 My Mentors: who have had the wisdom to show me how to take the knowledge I’ve been given and apply it to the life I’m living.

 My Accountability partners: who have shown me grace, mercy, and forgiveness. They have helped me weather many storms in my life, and shown me that failure doesn’t have to be fatal or final if you’re willing to change and grow

 My Lord and Savior Jesus: who is really responsible for giving me the chance to make the most of all that He has provided. After all He is the one who created life that I might learn to live. He is the one who created all the different temperaments that I might live as I was designed to live. He is the one who designed all the different skills and gifts that I might fill a specific need in this world. He is the one who designed the mind that I might have the ability to use it. He is the one who came up with the idea of community that I might be a part of one. And He is the one who paid the ultimate price that I might truly live!.

When you stop and think about it, really think about it, we are all a combination of input from a wide verity of sources. There are lots of people who lay claim to the person we are or are becoming. My question is, are you willing to give credit, thanks, and even appreciation to those who’ve helped you along life’s journey to this point? Or are you really a self-made individual?


14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous-- and how well I know it. 15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. 16 You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. 17 How precious are your thoughts about me, O God! They are innumerable!
Ps 139:14-17(NLT)

Pressing On
Dale Phipps

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Most of you reading this have probably at one time or another had some experience with a dog or a cat, and I’ll bet you have an opinion about them. Your opinion may be based on found memories of a loved family pet, a not so pleasant memory of stepping in something you had to clean off your shoe, or even the kinda weird memory of waking up from a nap to find your four legged friend asleep right next to you (or on you if they are small enough). You may, like me, have more than just a past experience; you may have a cat looking over your shoulder right now as you’re reading this, or a dog that is laying beside you hoping you’ll give it a moments attention before you go off to do something else. Regardless of your past or present experience with dogs and cats I’d like to ask you to think about them in terms of a spiritual gauge with me.

In his book “Everybody’s Normal Until You Get to Know Them”, John Ortberg Makes the distinction between approaching God and others as a dog or a cat. In a nut shell here’s the difference.

Cats: A cat looks down on you with an air of superiority, somewhere between mild to total disinterest, and as if you exist to meet it’s every need. When you feed it, clean up after it, buy it toys, do nice things for it I wonder if a cat thinks to itself, “Why wouldn’t you want to do all those things for me after all I am a cat and you are just my master. You’re so lucky to have me around, I deserve all you’ve done and more. I deserve your love and respect.”

Dogs: a dog looks up at you with love in its eyes, total devotion in its heart, and a willingness to follow you wherever you go. When you feed a dog, play with a dog, clean up after a dog, or buy a dog a toy all it wants to do is be with you. When the dog sees all these things that you have done for it I wonder if it thinks to itself, “Why would my master do all these things for me, I’m just a dog. I love my master and would do anything for them. I’m so lucky to be loved by such a wonderful master.”

Here’s an awesome truth. God loves you and me more than we know, and more than we will ever deserve. God’s love for us is nothing short of amazing. Look what the writer of Hebrews says about God and what He thinks of us.

6 For somewhere in the Scriptures it says, "What is man that you should think of him, and the son of man that you should care for him? 7 For a little while you made him lower than the angels, and you crowned him with glory and honor. 8 You gave him authority over all things." Now when it says "all things," it means nothing is left out. But we have not yet seen all of this happen. Heb 2:6-8 (NLT)

Now here’s the tough part…When you approach God, are you more like a cat or a dog?

Pressing On:
Dale Phipps

A Fish Out of Water: a parable of modern life

Many years ago in a secret laboratory in the Northwest part of Oregon several scientists undertook a very bazaar experiment. The decided to create a fish that could live out of the water. They began by taking some healthy red herring, and then they bread, and cross – bread these fish. Then they adjusted and re-adjusted the very chromosomes of the fish till they had a fish that could live out of the water.

The project director was not satisfied however. He was sure that deep down the little fish still had a desire to live in the water, so he said, “Re-educate it, change its very desires!” They worked day and night until finally they had achieved their goal. They had created a fish that would rather die than get wet. Even the slightest increase in humidity would fill this little herring with dread. The director of this project was proud of their accomplishments, so he took their new air breathing fish out on tour.

While they were on tour something horrible happened. The reports said that it was an accident, but there were many who didn’t think it was an accident at all. According to the reports, what happened was that during a demonstration in Seattle the fish was accidentally dropped into the Sound. Of course this sent the little fish into a state of panic. It closed its eyes, clamped its gills shut, and sank straight to the bottom. As it lay there hoping that someone would rescue it from its watery prison, its eyes starting to bulge from lack of oxygen the little fish knew that it must breath or die, and even though everything in it hated the idea it took a small gill full of water. Then it took another, and another, and another until it was breathing as its body filled with oxygen it flipped its tail and glided effortlessly through the water. What a feeling! There was such joy and enthusiasm the little fish had never experienced anything like this. It felt like, like, it was home. That was the last anyone ever saw of the little red herring…


1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice-- the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2 Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. Rom 12:1-2 (NLT)

Like the little fish we were created to exist in an environment created just for us, a world surrounded by God’s love and grace. However, there’s a project director (satan) that has been trying for a long time to reprogram each of us to believe that we were not designed to experience God at all, and if we do that we should be afraid of Him. The truth is that God wants each of us to experience the freedom and joy of living as we have been created to live. Living as His beloved children!

In closing, are you living your life like a fish out of water, or are you living the way God created you to live?

Pressing On:
Dale Phipps