More on Good Bob.
Two days after my post, Good Bob - Bad Bob, I run into Bob at our office. He is sitting in the back in his chair (my chair when he is not there) and overhears a woman up front making an appointment for a road test. The woman who is about 50 years old says to our office person that she is not too worried about being able to pass. I happen to be upfront at the time and introduce myself to this lady because I notice that her test time will be one that I will be doing. Then I head to the back where I great Bob.
Bob remarks to me that he wonders when someone says things like she is not worried about passing that perhaps this is a subconscious sign that she is actually worried about it. I respond by telling Bob that I have noticed that at the beginning of a road test before we head out, if someone has a question about driving, then after I explain to them the proper thing to do it is very likely that they will still make the mistake they expressed concern about. For example, I've had someone ask; "So if I run a stop sign then that is an automatic failure, right?" They guy proceeds to run a stop sign. Another person will ask if they need to check their blind spots every time they change lanes and then during the test they never check any blind spots.
I thought these examples would confirm to Bob that there might be some merit to his original thesis but remember, Bob is a teacher and so his response now is to try and help me do a better job of telling a person not to run through a stop sign. So he says to me; "Just toward the end when I was teaching in the Grand Rapids public schools we were taught about the six ways of learning. Some people do not respond to verbal information. Perhaps you should get out a scrap piece of paper and diagram the proper procedures.and then point out to them during the test where this might come into play"
This makes me imagine drawing an intersection, a stop sign and two cars smashing into each other with flames and flying tires and bloody bodies on the ground. A few crayons would help here. But I am not a teacher, I am a people person and so I answer Bob; "That sounds like a great idea!" He is happy and I am happy that he is happy.
Later that afternoon I'm out with a teen age boy and I ask Corbin if the pick up truck we were in was his. The dad tells me from the jump seat in the back that this is the dad's Toyota Tacoma but that Corbin has his own pick up. He did not bring it because it has a manual transmission and they thought it would be easier to pass the test with an automatic. We are midway through the route and since Corbin has had both hands on the wheel the entire time I feel safe to remark that one of the main problems with using a manual transmission on the test was that a lot of people like to keep one hand on the shifter and that can rack up a lot of points. Wouldn't you know it, from then on Corbin takes one hand off the wheel every time he turns right.
I would like to tell Bob this the next time we meet but then again, no. Maybe it's like the real old guy I saw walking slowly in the residential area yesterday. He is wearing a paisley shirt in brown tones, a pair of bright blue shorts, long neon green socks and brown dress shoes. Sometimes things just don't make sense.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Good Bob - Bad Bob
Our organization is licensed by the State of Michigan to conduct driver testing for automobiles, trucks, buses and motorcycles. I am appointed by this organization but am trained and licensed directly by the state. Because trucks have the capacity to carry goods across state lines (interstate commerce) the whole driver testing division for Michigan is overseen by the Feds. This complicates the heck out of everything, makes it a lot more costly for our state to oversee test organizations (in vehicle and undercover surveillance requirements, etc.) but does result in limiting the number of testers (me) which is a good thing (for me). If I follow the rules and don't upset my employer there will be a demand for my services.
The demand for what I do is not as great as it is in a place like Nepal though. Jackie found out last week from a Nepalese that there are 3 driver testers for the whole country. They come together to a certain place, stay a month and then move on to another part of the country. A person buys a book of tickets for 900 (he didn't tell Jackie 900 what). Each book has 30 tickets. You sign up for your test, give the tester a ticket and drive him around for 15 minutes in a Volkswagen that Nepal provides. If you pass you get your license. If you fail you can give him another ticket and go for 15 minutes more. Since almost no one in Nepal owns a car the Volkswagen trip is both training and testing. Once they leave a person has a least a 6 month wait before the group of 3 returns with their Volkswagens.
There are 6 churches in the Grand Rapids area that sponsor refugees from Nepal. When I remarked to a sponsor one time that it didn't seem that his guy had too much time behind a wheel he told me; "Well, the first time he ever rode in a car was in the trunk with 5 other guys as they were leaving the country."
The business that I work for is also the state's largest for conducting driver's training. Driver's training is regulated by the same division of the Secretary of State that is in charge of driver testing and Michigan takes this quite seriously. Extensive training is required to qualify as a driver trainer here, individuals that teach youths must be licensed and follow established rules but there are no limits on the number of people that can get licensed to teach.
Many people who teach driver's ed are or have been school teachers. At one time driver's ed was taught either during the school year as a class or during the summer by teachers who had the time and the incentive to take the education requirements to get licensed and to conduct training during the summer. This service was provided free to the student but the teachers were getting compensated. Those funds came from the state. When the state came under budget stress the funds were first reduced and then eliminated, resulting in the explosive growth of private driver training business. Most hired the teachers who were already licensed and found ways to use school classrooms and facilities for free.
There are some people who have their license to teach and to test but not the majority. It actually can be quite difficult for people who teach to change mindsets and test because as testers we are just observing how a person does. We can and do offer advice after the test but to do so during would not provide an accurate assessment of a person's knowledge or abilities. I should not be invested in seeing a person perform well during a test. That would invalidate the results. This is not easy. I like people and wish them the best but I am a skeptic at heart. To pass they have to demonstrate to me that they can perform to standards set by the state that provide safety for both driver and others. I understand people get nervous while being tested but after going through thousands of red lights and stop signs, failures to yield while turning or changing lanes and too many STUPID things to recount, I am not their buddy.
Let me tell you briefly about my first 6 tests from yesterday. I start out with 16 year old Jeremy. While doing the Basic Skills test in the parking lot he hits a cone coming into the first backup maneuver, goes forward to change his angle for a second point, hits the same cone again backing in and goes past the back line and cone. On the parallel park he knocks over a cone on both the back and side lines, gets a point for going forward and ends with another point. I explain the failure to both Jeremy and his dad and assure them that if Jeremy takes it half speed next time he will do well and pass. Both understand.
Twenty-four year old self taught Kim is my second client. She is doing average but then enters the expressway at 35 mph. Slow expressway entry's are about the scariest thing for me as a tester and Kim fails. Third is a guy by the name of Haopeng. He is 19 and has taken driver's training but blows right through a 4 way stop in the residential area at the beginning of the test route. He looked both ways but did not see the stop sign. I bring him back early. Thankfully the fourth guy passes.
While checking the permit of my next guy, 16 year old Kelvin, I see that it says "corrective lens" so I ask him if he is wearing his contacts. When he tells me no I ask if he brought his glasses with him. Kelvin tells me no again and says that he only needs his glasses for reading. I reply that while that might be true he must have worn glasses when taking his eye test and that the State of Michigan requires that he be wearing said glasses when driving and while taking this test. He tells me his glasses are broken. Kelvin and his mom had arrived for the test early so I give them 20 minutes to drive home to obtain his glasses. When they get back I notice that these glasses are not broken and that the side plastic frames extend about two inches past his ears. I figure chances were good that he either borrowed someone's or stopped at a drug store and picked out a cheap pair so I needed to be a little extra cautious. We get to the first stop in the early residential area, Kelvin looks both ways, and then starts to pull out into the path of an oncoming vehicle. I've been pretty successful in the past with "Stop - STOP - STOP!!!" and it worked again. Back to base early.
This is now 4 failures out of my first 5 tests and I'm praying for someone normal. The next guy, self taught 25 year old John, is taking his second test with me. The first time he said he failed the parking lot portion because he was very nervous. Today he does very well on that and we get to take our drive. We make it through the residential area, take a right turn, and I give him instructions to turn left at the next traffic signal, about 4 blocks away. This intersection has a left turn lane with it's own light but John stops in the through lane, puts his turn signal on and when the light turns green I tell him (because it is illegal to turn from where we are) that we now need to continue straight. We head back to go and in the process need two left turns where John does not realize that even though the light is green he still needs to yield to oncoming traffic before he turns. I'm actually getting kinda excited now because this has been a record day for me.
There is a driver trainer by the name of Bob who teaches classes at our office in Wyoming. He is a wonderful guy, ex teacher, very smart but also very literal. The first couple of times I made puns when he was around he remarked after some thought; "Oh, that was a joke. Funny." I've seen him in front of the driver's ed students a few times and he is great. Very passionate, remembers their names, calm, knowledgeable and concerned. He has the heart of a teacher. When I see him taking a break he is either reading or eating his healthy food and we have a nice conversation until he has to abruptly leave because he always seems to be in a hurry. After he found out we had the same name I started calling him "Good Bob" and referring to me as "Bad Bob". Each time I great him as "Good Bob" he sincerely assures me that he is a normal guy just like anyone else.
This week I am taking a break sitting in Good Bob's chair in the back of the classroom and I see two little orange safety cones in the area where Bob keeps his materials. These are about 3 inches high with a wide rubberized base and each has a feel good saying printed on it. While I love quotes or sayings from scripture I have never been moved by a lot of the other bumper sticker wisdom you can buy in all those vacation town gift shops, unless I happen to find it funny for some reason.
On one of the cones was the following: "Failure is an event, not a person." What a perfect sentiment for a caring teacher. I thought if I had it I would add the following sentence and then place it on the dash board during my tests. Failure is an event, not a person. Got that ass h.... But that would be Bad Bob. No more tickets for me.
The demand for what I do is not as great as it is in a place like Nepal though. Jackie found out last week from a Nepalese that there are 3 driver testers for the whole country. They come together to a certain place, stay a month and then move on to another part of the country. A person buys a book of tickets for 900 (he didn't tell Jackie 900 what). Each book has 30 tickets. You sign up for your test, give the tester a ticket and drive him around for 15 minutes in a Volkswagen that Nepal provides. If you pass you get your license. If you fail you can give him another ticket and go for 15 minutes more. Since almost no one in Nepal owns a car the Volkswagen trip is both training and testing. Once they leave a person has a least a 6 month wait before the group of 3 returns with their Volkswagens.
There are 6 churches in the Grand Rapids area that sponsor refugees from Nepal. When I remarked to a sponsor one time that it didn't seem that his guy had too much time behind a wheel he told me; "Well, the first time he ever rode in a car was in the trunk with 5 other guys as they were leaving the country."
The business that I work for is also the state's largest for conducting driver's training. Driver's training is regulated by the same division of the Secretary of State that is in charge of driver testing and Michigan takes this quite seriously. Extensive training is required to qualify as a driver trainer here, individuals that teach youths must be licensed and follow established rules but there are no limits on the number of people that can get licensed to teach.
Many people who teach driver's ed are or have been school teachers. At one time driver's ed was taught either during the school year as a class or during the summer by teachers who had the time and the incentive to take the education requirements to get licensed and to conduct training during the summer. This service was provided free to the student but the teachers were getting compensated. Those funds came from the state. When the state came under budget stress the funds were first reduced and then eliminated, resulting in the explosive growth of private driver training business. Most hired the teachers who were already licensed and found ways to use school classrooms and facilities for free.
There are some people who have their license to teach and to test but not the majority. It actually can be quite difficult for people who teach to change mindsets and test because as testers we are just observing how a person does. We can and do offer advice after the test but to do so during would not provide an accurate assessment of a person's knowledge or abilities. I should not be invested in seeing a person perform well during a test. That would invalidate the results. This is not easy. I like people and wish them the best but I am a skeptic at heart. To pass they have to demonstrate to me that they can perform to standards set by the state that provide safety for both driver and others. I understand people get nervous while being tested but after going through thousands of red lights and stop signs, failures to yield while turning or changing lanes and too many STUPID things to recount, I am not their buddy.
Let me tell you briefly about my first 6 tests from yesterday. I start out with 16 year old Jeremy. While doing the Basic Skills test in the parking lot he hits a cone coming into the first backup maneuver, goes forward to change his angle for a second point, hits the same cone again backing in and goes past the back line and cone. On the parallel park he knocks over a cone on both the back and side lines, gets a point for going forward and ends with another point. I explain the failure to both Jeremy and his dad and assure them that if Jeremy takes it half speed next time he will do well and pass. Both understand.
Twenty-four year old self taught Kim is my second client. She is doing average but then enters the expressway at 35 mph. Slow expressway entry's are about the scariest thing for me as a tester and Kim fails. Third is a guy by the name of Haopeng. He is 19 and has taken driver's training but blows right through a 4 way stop in the residential area at the beginning of the test route. He looked both ways but did not see the stop sign. I bring him back early. Thankfully the fourth guy passes.
While checking the permit of my next guy, 16 year old Kelvin, I see that it says "corrective lens" so I ask him if he is wearing his contacts. When he tells me no I ask if he brought his glasses with him. Kelvin tells me no again and says that he only needs his glasses for reading. I reply that while that might be true he must have worn glasses when taking his eye test and that the State of Michigan requires that he be wearing said glasses when driving and while taking this test. He tells me his glasses are broken. Kelvin and his mom had arrived for the test early so I give them 20 minutes to drive home to obtain his glasses. When they get back I notice that these glasses are not broken and that the side plastic frames extend about two inches past his ears. I figure chances were good that he either borrowed someone's or stopped at a drug store and picked out a cheap pair so I needed to be a little extra cautious. We get to the first stop in the early residential area, Kelvin looks both ways, and then starts to pull out into the path of an oncoming vehicle. I've been pretty successful in the past with "Stop - STOP - STOP!!!" and it worked again. Back to base early.
This is now 4 failures out of my first 5 tests and I'm praying for someone normal. The next guy, self taught 25 year old John, is taking his second test with me. The first time he said he failed the parking lot portion because he was very nervous. Today he does very well on that and we get to take our drive. We make it through the residential area, take a right turn, and I give him instructions to turn left at the next traffic signal, about 4 blocks away. This intersection has a left turn lane with it's own light but John stops in the through lane, puts his turn signal on and when the light turns green I tell him (because it is illegal to turn from where we are) that we now need to continue straight. We head back to go and in the process need two left turns where John does not realize that even though the light is green he still needs to yield to oncoming traffic before he turns. I'm actually getting kinda excited now because this has been a record day for me.
There is a driver trainer by the name of Bob who teaches classes at our office in Wyoming. He is a wonderful guy, ex teacher, very smart but also very literal. The first couple of times I made puns when he was around he remarked after some thought; "Oh, that was a joke. Funny." I've seen him in front of the driver's ed students a few times and he is great. Very passionate, remembers their names, calm, knowledgeable and concerned. He has the heart of a teacher. When I see him taking a break he is either reading or eating his healthy food and we have a nice conversation until he has to abruptly leave because he always seems to be in a hurry. After he found out we had the same name I started calling him "Good Bob" and referring to me as "Bad Bob". Each time I great him as "Good Bob" he sincerely assures me that he is a normal guy just like anyone else.
This week I am taking a break sitting in Good Bob's chair in the back of the classroom and I see two little orange safety cones in the area where Bob keeps his materials. These are about 3 inches high with a wide rubberized base and each has a feel good saying printed on it. While I love quotes or sayings from scripture I have never been moved by a lot of the other bumper sticker wisdom you can buy in all those vacation town gift shops, unless I happen to find it funny for some reason.
On one of the cones was the following: "Failure is an event, not a person." What a perfect sentiment for a caring teacher. I thought if I had it I would add the following sentence and then place it on the dash board during my tests. Failure is an event, not a person. Got that ass h.... But that would be Bad Bob. No more tickets for me.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
The Third Baptism
The book of Acts presents a lot of stories of the intervention of the power of the Holy Spirit - KABOOM - right in the midst of a meeting or a talk or even a stoning. The result; lives are changed, the gifts of the Spirit are manifested, people are encouraged, healed or delivered from evil spirits. I can personally witness to this power in my life and in the lives of those I know. He is after all the same Holy Spirit as He was two thousand years ago.
But the problem for me and for us, as it was even from the early days of the church, is that man wants to create a box to put the Holy Spirit into. The Spirit shakes things up. He messes things up. Maybe He even will blow things up. We might say yea, go for it, but in practice we want to be in control. So we have our wise traditions and our sacraments, dolling out the Spirit in small doses or in theory while patting ourselves on the back for presenting the full gospel.
You might be surprised that St. Paul did not teach the 1st century Corinthian church to stifle the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. He was not designing a template which all future churches should use to fit the Holy Spirit into. Instead he advised them to order their meetings with love and maturity. Since that requires that leadership actually have spiritual gifts such as discernment and because it always takes work to help the immature grow and to keep the enemy who wants to disturb things at bay the fall back position is to regulate. We can train anyone to regulate. The result has been for the most part that the Power and the Presence fade away.
Thus it is difficult to talk about the move of God as a baptism without us picturing something like a ritual happening in a church or a church directed setting. Here I want you to think about baptism in the sense of us being immersed or entering into a new type of relationship with with God.
In the 19th chapter of Acts there is a story that talks about three different types of baptisms. The Holy Spirit is present and active in each. The first is a baptism of repentance and should lead to the second. The second is surrender to the presence and lordship of Jesus and should produce the third. The third is a release of the power of the Holy Spirit in one's life and should be the normal result of the first and second. If we get stuck on the idea of three separate ceremonies or two distinct sacraments we will completely miss how the Holy Spirit was moving.
Let's go back to the 18th chapter of Acts to start our story. The apostle Paul arrives in Corinth and hooks up with Aquila and Priscilla. They are tent makers just like Paul and because he needs to work and preach at the same time he stays with them. During this period he teaches them about Jesus and the working of the Holy Spirit. Later on he brings them with him on a missionary trip that eventually arrives in Ephesus. Paul moves on but Aquila and Priscilla stay and start a church that meets at their house.
Eventually a Jewish man by the name of Apollos comes to town - "an eloquent man . . . he was mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;" He begins to speak out boldly in the synagogue, Priscilla and Aquila hear him, take him aside and "explain to him the way of God more accurately."
What was "the baptism of John"? We remember from the gospels that at the very beginning of His ministry Jesus went into the waters of the Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John whose ministry preceded that of Jesus and which ultimately looked forward to Him. The Jewish people went into the waters to repent for their sins and their sinfulness. This was something quite new because their culture and traditions required that a Jewish person go to the temple in Jerusalem to present gifts and to offer sacrifices to repent for sins.
The problem is that religious traditions like this almost always end up circumventing the heart and become in a person's mind a payment that we make to God to try and settle a debt. The holiness of the Father demands something totally different than us making restitution. As the words of the old song go; "I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt He did not owe." The purpose of presenting a sacrifice at the temple was designed by God not as a payment but rather to demonstrate the results of sin. Yes, God required a blood sacrifice but when Old Testament Scripture says many times that God takes no delight in the blood of goats and lambs it is because the blood of innocent lives was shed instead of ours to show us how horrible sin and rebellion is. A religious act by itself does not change anything. It is the desire of the heart that goes with it that the Holy Spirit works with.
True repentance is needed to approach the Father. To prepare the nation for the ministry of Jesus the Holy Spirit moved even from before his birth in the life and ministry of John who becomes recognized by the Jewish people as a prophet of God. It is the Holy Spirit who changes the focus of the people from the mostly corrupt religious center in Jerusalem to the prophet John in the wilderness. Going to the wilderness brings them back to the place where God first gave the Jewish people the tabernacle and the presence of God in the Holy of Holies. In this setting, apart from religious traditions, the people are now free to approach God to repent with an open heart.
Apollos understood the need for repentance to approach the Father and the witness of Scripture that pointed to Jesus as redeemer, One who by the shedding of His blood on the cross could reconcile man with the Father. But he apparently did not yet understand that there was something much more available to man than the Old Testament idea of repentance and forgiveness. Now the very spirit of man could be reborn. Jesus could enter into our hearts and change who we are in Him and our spirits could be a temple where the Holy Spirit could reside. Now the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus at Pentecost and available to all believers, could move through our soul to minister to our needs and to the needs of the community around us.
We get then to Acts chapter 19. Apollos has left Ephesus to preach and Paul eventually makes it back there, finding some disciples.
He said to them, "did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said to him, "No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit." And he said; "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is Jesus."
These were people who were baptized by Apollos into a baptism of repentance but must have been called "disciples" because they believed that Jesus was God who had died and rose from the dead for them. Paul however does not notice any obvious signs that the outflow of the Holy Spirit is evident in their lives and his experience has been that the normal course of events is to see the outflow of the Spirit in a believer's life, including the manifestation of spiritual gifts.
Paul then baptized these disciples in the name of Jesus And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying." Tongues and prophesying is what Paul expected and that is what he got.
It is not the water. It is not the oil. It is not the laying on of hands or the slap on the cheek. It is not Apollos. It is not Paul. It is not the words that are said or the day they are spoken. These are all good things and important because they represent eternal truth and must be taken seriously.
The Holy Spirit shows us the need for repentance and draws us to Jesus. He brings the Spirit of Christ into our hearts to change us and make us a new creation. He then resides in our hearts, working through our souls to reveal the Father's will to us. Our baptism into Jesus should then result in an outflow of the Holy Spirit into all areas of our soul. Spiritual gifts should be the result of our relationship with Jesus. Because this is not the case in much of the Church today some even deny that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are needed now. Isn't tradition wonderful?
The third baptism, the release of the working of the Holy Spirit in our souls, should be the result of our baptism into Jesus. It happened for me when I first believed, alone in the living room of my apartment, allowing me to praise God right then in an unknown tongue. It can happen to you now without any ceremony. Get alone, ask Him for a release of the Holy Spirit in your life, sing to Him in the shower in English, surrender your tongue to the language He gives you. Take time to listen to His direction in your heart.
We become new creations in Jesus but the Father has even more for you. He wants you to surrender your worries and your needs, your desires and your plans, your memories and your talents, your tongue and your control to the move of the Holy Spirit in your life. Is this scary? Yes. Is God good and does He know your personality and does He have a plan for your life that is better and greater than your fears? YES! YES! YES!
But the problem for me and for us, as it was even from the early days of the church, is that man wants to create a box to put the Holy Spirit into. The Spirit shakes things up. He messes things up. Maybe He even will blow things up. We might say yea, go for it, but in practice we want to be in control. So we have our wise traditions and our sacraments, dolling out the Spirit in small doses or in theory while patting ourselves on the back for presenting the full gospel.
You might be surprised that St. Paul did not teach the 1st century Corinthian church to stifle the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. He was not designing a template which all future churches should use to fit the Holy Spirit into. Instead he advised them to order their meetings with love and maturity. Since that requires that leadership actually have spiritual gifts such as discernment and because it always takes work to help the immature grow and to keep the enemy who wants to disturb things at bay the fall back position is to regulate. We can train anyone to regulate. The result has been for the most part that the Power and the Presence fade away.
Thus it is difficult to talk about the move of God as a baptism without us picturing something like a ritual happening in a church or a church directed setting. Here I want you to think about baptism in the sense of us being immersed or entering into a new type of relationship with with God.
In the 19th chapter of Acts there is a story that talks about three different types of baptisms. The Holy Spirit is present and active in each. The first is a baptism of repentance and should lead to the second. The second is surrender to the presence and lordship of Jesus and should produce the third. The third is a release of the power of the Holy Spirit in one's life and should be the normal result of the first and second. If we get stuck on the idea of three separate ceremonies or two distinct sacraments we will completely miss how the Holy Spirit was moving.
Let's go back to the 18th chapter of Acts to start our story. The apostle Paul arrives in Corinth and hooks up with Aquila and Priscilla. They are tent makers just like Paul and because he needs to work and preach at the same time he stays with them. During this period he teaches them about Jesus and the working of the Holy Spirit. Later on he brings them with him on a missionary trip that eventually arrives in Ephesus. Paul moves on but Aquila and Priscilla stay and start a church that meets at their house.
Eventually a Jewish man by the name of Apollos comes to town - "an eloquent man . . . he was mighty in the Scriptures. This man had been instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in spirit, he was speaking and teaching accurately the things concerning Jesus, being acquainted only with the baptism of John;" He begins to speak out boldly in the synagogue, Priscilla and Aquila hear him, take him aside and "explain to him the way of God more accurately."
What was "the baptism of John"? We remember from the gospels that at the very beginning of His ministry Jesus went into the waters of the Jordan to be baptized by his cousin John whose ministry preceded that of Jesus and which ultimately looked forward to Him. The Jewish people went into the waters to repent for their sins and their sinfulness. This was something quite new because their culture and traditions required that a Jewish person go to the temple in Jerusalem to present gifts and to offer sacrifices to repent for sins.
The problem is that religious traditions like this almost always end up circumventing the heart and become in a person's mind a payment that we make to God to try and settle a debt. The holiness of the Father demands something totally different than us making restitution. As the words of the old song go; "I owed a debt I could not pay. He paid a debt He did not owe." The purpose of presenting a sacrifice at the temple was designed by God not as a payment but rather to demonstrate the results of sin. Yes, God required a blood sacrifice but when Old Testament Scripture says many times that God takes no delight in the blood of goats and lambs it is because the blood of innocent lives was shed instead of ours to show us how horrible sin and rebellion is. A religious act by itself does not change anything. It is the desire of the heart that goes with it that the Holy Spirit works with.
True repentance is needed to approach the Father. To prepare the nation for the ministry of Jesus the Holy Spirit moved even from before his birth in the life and ministry of John who becomes recognized by the Jewish people as a prophet of God. It is the Holy Spirit who changes the focus of the people from the mostly corrupt religious center in Jerusalem to the prophet John in the wilderness. Going to the wilderness brings them back to the place where God first gave the Jewish people the tabernacle and the presence of God in the Holy of Holies. In this setting, apart from religious traditions, the people are now free to approach God to repent with an open heart.
Apollos understood the need for repentance to approach the Father and the witness of Scripture that pointed to Jesus as redeemer, One who by the shedding of His blood on the cross could reconcile man with the Father. But he apparently did not yet understand that there was something much more available to man than the Old Testament idea of repentance and forgiveness. Now the very spirit of man could be reborn. Jesus could enter into our hearts and change who we are in Him and our spirits could be a temple where the Holy Spirit could reside. Now the Holy Spirit, sent by Jesus at Pentecost and available to all believers, could move through our soul to minister to our needs and to the needs of the community around us.
We get then to Acts chapter 19. Apollos has left Ephesus to preach and Paul eventually makes it back there, finding some disciples.
He said to them, "did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said to him, "No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit." And he said; "Into what then were you baptized?" And they said, "Into John's baptism." Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is Jesus."
These were people who were baptized by Apollos into a baptism of repentance but must have been called "disciples" because they believed that Jesus was God who had died and rose from the dead for them. Paul however does not notice any obvious signs that the outflow of the Holy Spirit is evident in their lives and his experience has been that the normal course of events is to see the outflow of the Spirit in a believer's life, including the manifestation of spiritual gifts.
Paul then baptized these disciples in the name of Jesus And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying." Tongues and prophesying is what Paul expected and that is what he got.
It is not the water. It is not the oil. It is not the laying on of hands or the slap on the cheek. It is not Apollos. It is not Paul. It is not the words that are said or the day they are spoken. These are all good things and important because they represent eternal truth and must be taken seriously.
The Holy Spirit shows us the need for repentance and draws us to Jesus. He brings the Spirit of Christ into our hearts to change us and make us a new creation. He then resides in our hearts, working through our souls to reveal the Father's will to us. Our baptism into Jesus should then result in an outflow of the Holy Spirit into all areas of our soul. Spiritual gifts should be the result of our relationship with Jesus. Because this is not the case in much of the Church today some even deny that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are needed now. Isn't tradition wonderful?
The third baptism, the release of the working of the Holy Spirit in our souls, should be the result of our baptism into Jesus. It happened for me when I first believed, alone in the living room of my apartment, allowing me to praise God right then in an unknown tongue. It can happen to you now without any ceremony. Get alone, ask Him for a release of the Holy Spirit in your life, sing to Him in the shower in English, surrender your tongue to the language He gives you. Take time to listen to His direction in your heart.
We become new creations in Jesus but the Father has even more for you. He wants you to surrender your worries and your needs, your desires and your plans, your memories and your talents, your tongue and your control to the move of the Holy Spirit in your life. Is this scary? Yes. Is God good and does He know your personality and does He have a plan for your life that is better and greater than your fears? YES! YES! YES!
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
92 Lincoln Town Car
Did a road test this week in a 92 Lincoln Town Car. The front seat was a split bench decorated nicely in 21 year old beige vinyl. On my passenger door there were about a dozen buttons and knobs and above those mid door was a two foot long beige vinyl hand strap - which I needed to grab each time the vehicle rounded a corner.
I don't know if it was the combination of the suspension system, extreme weight and vinyl seats but I could have used yak tracks on my butt to keep from getting to know client Shawn more intimately. It was just like those wedding reception group dances - "Turn to the right, slide, slide. Turn to the left, slide slide."
The Town Car is long. Hit somebody head on and you've got a chance. I was going to ask Shawn after the ride if I could borrow this vehicle the next time Jackie and I needed to move, seeing that all of our bedroom furniture would fit quite nicely into that Lincoln's trunk. We would just need to remember to take all corners nice and slow.
The year 1992 wasn't the best vintage for Lincoln's. Jackie fell in love with a red Continental and one day we saw a used one on the local Lincoln-Mercury lot. It had only 17,000 miles on it, was half the price of a new one, and my gosh came from Florida so rust was not an issue. It was a beautiful automobile. After we got it we drove to Kalamazoo for a nephew's baptism, in a pouring rain, and showed off our now spotty brown and red vehicle to family afterwards. Pride indeed comes before a fall.
The engine blew at 117,000 on the way to Detroit but we were so releaved to learn that this happens quite often with that model. At about 125,000 miles the electronic dash started going funny. There were 16 warning beeps programed into the system and if the car hit a bump (or thought it might hit a bump) we would get the 16 bing chorus. Every once in a while the digital speed would go funny. Since we know we're not doing 10 mph on the freeway we would pull off, shut down the engine, start it up, and everything would be fine - after the 16 bing chorus of course.
This car was not designed for the average guy to work on. The starter went out at my brother-in-laws house and he and another brother-in-law ran down to Pep Boys to get a rebuilt. While I was looking for that left handed wrench they were scratching their heads as to how to remove half the engine so they could get to it. Two hours later a simple job was done (well, I never did find that wrench).
Every time I would bring the Lincoln in my car guy would say; "This style does not have a very good track record. I would get rid of it if I were you." But I kept thinking; "What else could go wrong?" And then I would find out. Anyway, after a lot of what else the air shocks go out. They are extremely expensive to replace. I wonder it there might not be regular shocks that can be used instead and the car guy says that he will research it. Turns out that there are a lot cheaper regular shocks available on line that will work but the amount of labor needed cancels out any benefit.
So someone gives me their old 92 Lincoln Town Car. It has a lot of miles on it and hardly runs but it does have the same air shocks. This comes with a teen age boy that my son-in-law, the youth pastor, knows. All the young men at his rural church work on cars and this one has volunteered (for a small price) to switch the shocks to my car. This is until he actually looks at how much labor is involved just to get the shocks out of the Town Car. The question become moot about a day later when the power steering goes out. I barely manage to drive the Lincoln 5 miles to the junk yard where it dies halfway into the parking lot.
"How much will you give me for this beauty" I ask the manager. "100 bucks" he answers. "Come on" I say. "The tires are worth more than that." It was take it or leave it and since all I could really do at that point was leave it we had a deal. Clean the red 92 Continental was still a beautiful car. But I did not look back.
I don't know if it was the combination of the suspension system, extreme weight and vinyl seats but I could have used yak tracks on my butt to keep from getting to know client Shawn more intimately. It was just like those wedding reception group dances - "Turn to the right, slide, slide. Turn to the left, slide slide."
The Town Car is long. Hit somebody head on and you've got a chance. I was going to ask Shawn after the ride if I could borrow this vehicle the next time Jackie and I needed to move, seeing that all of our bedroom furniture would fit quite nicely into that Lincoln's trunk. We would just need to remember to take all corners nice and slow.
The year 1992 wasn't the best vintage for Lincoln's. Jackie fell in love with a red Continental and one day we saw a used one on the local Lincoln-Mercury lot. It had only 17,000 miles on it, was half the price of a new one, and my gosh came from Florida so rust was not an issue. It was a beautiful automobile. After we got it we drove to Kalamazoo for a nephew's baptism, in a pouring rain, and showed off our now spotty brown and red vehicle to family afterwards. Pride indeed comes before a fall.
The engine blew at 117,000 on the way to Detroit but we were so releaved to learn that this happens quite often with that model. At about 125,000 miles the electronic dash started going funny. There were 16 warning beeps programed into the system and if the car hit a bump (or thought it might hit a bump) we would get the 16 bing chorus. Every once in a while the digital speed would go funny. Since we know we're not doing 10 mph on the freeway we would pull off, shut down the engine, start it up, and everything would be fine - after the 16 bing chorus of course.
This car was not designed for the average guy to work on. The starter went out at my brother-in-laws house and he and another brother-in-law ran down to Pep Boys to get a rebuilt. While I was looking for that left handed wrench they were scratching their heads as to how to remove half the engine so they could get to it. Two hours later a simple job was done (well, I never did find that wrench).
Every time I would bring the Lincoln in my car guy would say; "This style does not have a very good track record. I would get rid of it if I were you." But I kept thinking; "What else could go wrong?" And then I would find out. Anyway, after a lot of what else the air shocks go out. They are extremely expensive to replace. I wonder it there might not be regular shocks that can be used instead and the car guy says that he will research it. Turns out that there are a lot cheaper regular shocks available on line that will work but the amount of labor needed cancels out any benefit.
So someone gives me their old 92 Lincoln Town Car. It has a lot of miles on it and hardly runs but it does have the same air shocks. This comes with a teen age boy that my son-in-law, the youth pastor, knows. All the young men at his rural church work on cars and this one has volunteered (for a small price) to switch the shocks to my car. This is until he actually looks at how much labor is involved just to get the shocks out of the Town Car. The question become moot about a day later when the power steering goes out. I barely manage to drive the Lincoln 5 miles to the junk yard where it dies halfway into the parking lot.
"How much will you give me for this beauty" I ask the manager. "100 bucks" he answers. "Come on" I say. "The tires are worth more than that." It was take it or leave it and since all I could really do at that point was leave it we had a deal. Clean the red 92 Continental was still a beautiful car. But I did not look back.
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