Spiritual Lessons from The Three Amigos

There is so much the church can gain from a classic like The Three Amigos (from 1986!). I have been running a fever today, so I may be out of my mind a bit, but enjoy the posts below:



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Look up here!
Lip Balm?
Real Bullets!

Look up here!

Amazing how we frequently fail our spiritual math... we can't put 2 and 2 together. So often God leads and we just don't hear the signal - or we hear but never know its from the Lord. And yet He beckons, over and over again, but we just ignorantly wait in the squat position. When we hear the voice of the Lord, look up! He is ready to lead.

Lip Balm?

There are people in the church dying of the thirst out there and sometimes we don't have eyes to see it. And so we cast aside what the people need and offer them something attractive instead. Water may not be the fanciest product available - maybe its not as pretty as lip balm - but the Scriptures are the only thing that can satisfy someone dying of thirst.

Real Bullets!

Sometimes we just stroll through our spiritual walks in "playing" mode. We play church, we play husband, we play father, we play... and then we understand that all along it was never a game. There is a real enemy who uses "real bullets" in order to kill us, to destroy churches, families...

Are miracles present?

How often do you see the miraculous? In many ways miracles are like parables in that they are designed to deepen the faith of those with faith and harden those without faith. Look no further than the resurrections of Jesus and Lazarus to understand this.

But many do not experience the miracles we read about in Scripture. There are only a few reasons why:

1. God can withhold miracles for HIS purposes. God has the right to this. And if He does, He has not abandoned us. Yet maybe you agree with Gideon (Judges 6:13):
"Where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, "Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian."

2. God can withhold miracles because of a lack of OUR faith. Like Matthew explained about Jesus' lack of miracles in Nazareth (Matthew 13:58):
"And He did not do many miracles there because of their unbelief."

3. God IS giving miracles and we do not have the eyes to see them. We see miracles but do not perceive them - or we explain them away to science or coincidence. This is perplexing...as if God is saying, "You tell me you want the supernatural, I give it to you, and you explain it away to the natural!"

4. God IS giving miracles, we DO experience the miracles, YET our hearts remain hardened to God's purposes. Like what Moses told the Israelites (Deuteronomy 29:2-4):
And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, "You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land; the great trials which your eyes have seen, those great signs and wonders. "Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.

Unfortunately I simply cannot believe option 1. I have to believe much of the church falls into 2,3, or 4.

O Lord, increase our faith! Open our eyes! We want to enjoy the blessing of participating in Your works!

No Mr. President...

This exerpt from a John Piper sermon should be watched:

Useless to God

Ezekiel 15 is a tiny chapter with 8 verses that are not short on power. In fact, reading these verses make me shiver.

God tells Ezekiel a little parable about how useless the vine is, especially compared to the strength of a tree. Can you take a peg from a vine? No. Can you build on a vine? No. Even though the vine is made from wood it is useless to build anything sturdy from it. But because the vine IS made from wood it is profitable for one thing: to fuel a fire.

So God concludes the parable by saying these scary words to Jerusalem (Ezekiel 15:6-7):
Therefore thus says the Lord God: As the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so have I given up the inhabitants of Jerusalem and I set my face against them. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I set my face against them.

Wow. A few thoughts:
1. God despises a useless people.
2. How powerful is God that He can, in an instant, bring judgment against His people. Wrath is at His fingertips. He is not a distant God - He is near and He wants glory.
3. God defines uselessness with His own words: "Then you will know that I am the Lord." Why does God set His face against the people? Because they did not turn their faces to Him. So in this case, the "use" that the people were designed for was to know that God is LORD. If they do not know this, they are not accomplishing their "use," making them useless. God passionately wants His people to know that He is Master. And look at the lengths He will go to make that happen.
4. O how I want to be useful for my Master; how I want my Master to be confident in my usefulness.