I think what is happening here is that we are being challenged to change our thinking about what and who is important especially as it relates to the Kingdom of God.

The book of Matthew records conversation between Jesus and an expert in Jewish law.

³⁴Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. ³⁵One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: ³⁶“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” ³⁷Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^{[b] 38}This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^{[c] 40}All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Mathew 22:34-40

It is funny to me that the Pharisees ask one question but Jesus answers two! He knew what they were looking for but he took it to a Kingdom perspective to show us something that is overlooked.

³⁸This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^{[c] 40}All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Jesus is telling them, “Look, not only is loving God important but everything you believe about the law, the prophets and life hang on how you treat your neighbor and the people around you.

Love God and love people.”

No gimmicks

Not a master plan

No formulas

Just…  love God and love people

The two are inseparable. You cannot truly love if you do not love God. You cannot say you love God and not love the unlovable.

I don’t want to list all the different actions and attitudes we have had over the generations but, just like the Pharisees, the traditional Church has held onto “tradition” and “values” trying to call them godly. They may be historical or traditional but, many times, they are not at all Godly.

There needs to be a change in our thinking about whom and what is important especially as it relates to the Kingdom of God. There needs to be a radical return to authenticity.

• Authenticity: the quality of being genuine.

What God wants is authenticity.

When testing the authenticity of a piece of gold, an Acid Test is performed. This is done by placing a small drop of a strong acid onto the metal’s surface. If it is a common metal, it will fizz or bubble and eat away at the surface but precious metals like gold are unaffected.

God wants the real deal and the real deal starts with us reconsidering who we are. I think that we should all sit down, examine the Sermon on the Mount, and ask ourselves, “How do I measure up?” This will be the Acid Test of your spiritual authenticity.

This can be an uncomfortable process if we are honest with ourselves and let the Word melt away the pyrite and reveal the pure gold. God with remove the superficial and leave what is genuine.

It is a rather simple test. There is no need to get theological or even philosophical because all we have to do is read what Jesus says and do what Jesus did. Then we will pass the Acid Test. Jesus is the only philosophy and He is perfect theology.

Authentic Christian people are all about love, blessing and restoration. Too often we have taken the position to blame, shame and maim.

I have gotten to the point where I truly don’t give a crap about what someone is or does. I have come to understand that my role here isn’t to judge but to be a bringer of change. In other words, be a conduit that brings heaven to earth. We are to be the vessels of change not “the easily offended!”

We can no longer buy into the idea that, because we have been called holy and set apart, this somehow makes us above the rest. That is a blatant misuse of our royal position in the Kingdom.

Do you know who thought like this?

THE PHARASEES!!!

The more I work through this the more I see the Pharisee in me. To be authentic believers we have to break the thoughts that we are somehow better than everyone else is (As if we are not in as much need of God’s grace and mercy as the next guy.). Our Royal position as children of the King is to not to go out into this world and destroy it but to bring people into our Father, the King’s, kingdom.

Tolerance vs. Grace

Every major religion has specific ways to earn approval with God from Karma to Covenant Laws, but with Christianity it boils down to one thing: GRACE.

Grace says that God accepts you and loves you without condition – “as is”…with all the dirt and shame.

The message we have is a message of grace, the amazing life changing grace of God.

It is with this message that we funnel Heaven to earth – We lead the charge as the Kingdom of heaven and God’s grace invades earth. Through us, grace is presented to a world that is starved for Grace. The world in all creative and desperate attempts cannot reproduce grace. The best it can do is Tolerance.

Tolerance is one of those hot-button words that go along with being “politically correct” or compassionate. Tolerance is not grace because all it does is require us to just put up with something that we don’t like. Tolerance, as well meaning as it is, does not value people it only endures them. Tolerance alone cannot accommodate both justice and mercy – it can only look the other way. Tolerance may deal with our differences, but it can’t embrace us in full knowledge of sin and remove our guilt; only grace does that.

Mahatma Gandhi said this:

“Everybody in the world knows what Jesus taught – except for Christians!”

Well I’m calling shenanigans …it’s time to show the world that we are authentic and refute the stigma of being judgmental and intolerant. Live grounded in the truth and be funnels of Heaven and God’s grace bringing healing and His transforming love.

We have to get over some things about ourselves.

We have to go beyond politics, and religion, sexual orientation and race. Grace is to transcend all people to lead them into the Kingdom. That’s the message we carry. If we are people of Jesus then we are people of Grace. Anything less is just fool’s gold.

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me,

if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—

the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

Acts 20:24

Chew on that for a while!

~Rude Dog

I cannot understand the narrow mindedness of people who call themselves Christian. I no longer want to be around church people. The thought of going to church and facing judgment, mean spirited people and awkward situations is beginning to make me sick to my stomach. I am getting to the point where I do not want to hear the word and, even worst, I no longer feel like singing worship songs.”

There is nothing like sitting down to coffee with someone who opens the conversation with a statement like this. I suppose I should feel honored that a person trusts me enough to share this kind of thought but it can make my latte taste sour if you know what I mean! This is mostly because the conversation is going to be filled with stories that I’m not going to like. It breaks my heart when I hear that the very institution that should have helped heal a person has instead hurt them.

In each case, I was able to hear them out and add my “two cents”. Since I have also been through unhealthy relationships with pastors and church people, I suppose I felt qualified to counsel on the matter.

This is some of what I shared:

Right of that bat we have to get something straight in our minds. People are imperfect and since the church is full of people, it is going to be an imperfect place. There is no getting around it. This does not give people an excuse to act in unhealthy or in unfavorable ways, but they will and this can be hard to deal with. This is something that took me a long time to accept and an even longer time to get over.

We have to realize, as people who follow Christ, that distraction is the devil’s chief weapon. If we start worrying about all the ridiculous crap that some of these people in church are doing, we will forget our purpose of remaining connected to and serving Jesus. This is what happened to me and I ended up on a long and painful journey that I didn’t have to take, full was full of anger, bitterness and discontentment.

It’s important to remember that, without Jesus, we are all worthless dirt-bags. Sometimes we just need to let the other “dirt-bags” off the hook. I mean isn’t there someone let you off the hook a time or two? (hint: it was Jesus)

This in no way means that we have to take people’s crap. There is great wisdom in knowing how to set boundaries. There is never a reason to stay in an unhealthy or hurtful relationship with a pastor, a church, a friend or anyone else!

Also, remember that what you focus on is what you are giving power. If you have ever wondered how people get distracted and drift away, it is because of where they are focusing.

Colossian 3:2 says: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” The bible says this for a good reason. It is a simple concept: whatever we are looking at is what we are moving towards.  You cannot look backwards and walk forward…at least not for very long.

I love how Col. 3:2 reads in The Message:

“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.”

Focus on heaven and reap heaven’s reward. Focus on earth and reap earth’s reward. We must keep our perspective focused up!

We have all experienced an unhealthy situation. We have all experienced the wounds of betrayal and have been let down. It’s not really about trying to avoid this stuff because that would be impossible. It’s more about learning to gain some sort of value in it. One of my favorite sayings is:

“It’s not about avoiding the storm. It is about learning to dance in the rain.”

You can’t truly dance in the rain if you focus on the mud puddles. When we learn to take our eyes off the negative, that bad situation becomes completely powerless and the Devil loses the ability to distract us.

Graham Cooke says, “What if every potentially damaging situation was really a shortcut to a brilliant experience with Jesus? Instead of being wounded, we would become more like Christ!” With that in mind, let’s remain connected to Jesus. Letting go of our right to hold on to our wounds and offenses we can be free and healed! That is a Heavenly perspective with a Heavenly reward!

By keeping a Kingdom perspective, we literally drive out the negative with all its sorrow, betrayal and wounds. There is no inheritance in any of that garbage so why keep it around?

Driving out the negative disarms the enemy and sets us free to live as followers of Christ and to be the people we were destined to be before all the hurt. We move into our destiny as His children who are Royalty and joint-heirs to the King himself.

Once we realized who we are in Jesus, and that we have a destiny in the Kingdom, dancing in the rain and stomping through the mud puddles becomes easy!

So…DANCE DANCE DANCE!

~Rude Dog

I have wondered about that from time to time over the years.  I made many assumptions about the reunion and reinstallation of sheep into the fold, but I am not so sure I really understood the significance of it until this month.

Let me explain.

I talk a lot about the Parable of the Lost Sheep for good reason. Next to the Apostle Peter, I identify with the Lost Sheep more than anyone else in the Bible. I know what it is like to be driven away. I completely understand what it is like to be lost and not want to be found. I was the one that wondered off into obscurity with no intention of coming back.

I was the Lost one.

What I cannot get out of my mind is that He, the Shepherd, looks for us in spite of what we want. Out of His great love for his own, he constantly looks for us so that He can restore us.

If you remember my January blog, I spoke about the prophetic word worldwide for 2010 being the “Year of Restoration.” Upon hearing that, my wife Anna went home and began looking, for the thousandth time, for her half-sister whom she had never met. Anna received that word and, you know what, she was on the phone with her sister the next day! A 21-year search ended.  That was a void in my wife’s life and it was restored to her. In February, they met face to face in Idaho. I do not have the words to describe the pure joy it was for me to see that happen.  Finding her was a monumental event in our lives that will forever change us.

This month I took an unexpected trip to Eureka California. My good friend of 20 years, Willy Bowles, was in Las Vegas and, basically, threw me in his car and made me drive home with him. He pastors a church there and also directs the Bethel School of Supernatural Discipleship (BSSD).  Willy won’t pass up an opportunity to let someone live out their calling, so I preached on Sunday morning and I was the guest speaker at BSSD that following week. It was incredible meeting the students and seeing what God was doing in lives of people there. As I spoke that week, I had a reunion with myself. I remembered my destiny. I remembered who I was in Christ. The life that was once sucked out of me by the pain and bitterness of days gone by was breathed back into me. I was back! Revived and renewed!

I am found.

In the days that followed, I was offered a position as a Revival Pastor where I will pastor 65 students and teach at the school. So, this summer, we will pack up and move to Eureka.

We are restored.

He will constantly look for you no matter what the circumstances and He intends to find you.   God continues to leave the porch light on and the door is ALWAYS open. You cannot get too dirty or be too rotten for God not to find value in you.

So…What does He do with the one lost sheep?

“So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.” (Luke 15:20-24)

He throws a party that’s what He does!

“We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found” (Luke 15:32)

This Sunday we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus. It is a perfect opportunity to be renewed, and let God breathe life back into you or maybe someone you know. The Shepherd, the Father is waiting to party with someone. You are invited and you might as well be there since He won’t stop looking for you until you are.

So let the party begin!

~Rude Dog

Her name was Pixie. She was a tiny white Chihuahua who was down and out. Her world had been turned on its end. Pixie’s whole life consisted of her biological father and their owner, an elderly woman. One day in October 2008 Pixie’s father died. Two weeks later her owner was taken to hospice and Pixie was homeless.

We found out about her through a coworker of my dad. Now, the last thing that I wanted was another dog but her story got the best of me and I found myself driving to the other side of Las Vegas to meet her.
She was brownish white and tiny, maybe two pounds. She was very scared. Within minutes she was in the car and heading home with us.

She shook with nervousness and about one minute into the drive we knew there was something terribly wrong with Pixie. The car was filled with the smell of stale smoke, like an old Vegas casino, and the pungent aroma of her rancid breath! I now fully understood what the term “that could gag a maggot” meant. It was probably 30 degrees outside but the windows remained rolled down as we all shivered in rhythm with Pixie all the way home.

Once we got home we discovered that she was more than just smelly. She was very thin and malnourished, her legs were atrophied and she was missing most of her teeth and thus the foul breath. Her fur was coated with cigarette smoke residue. After about 15 minutes, our home began to smell like Pixie breath and stale smoke so it was bath time.

The bath reveled that she was not brownish white she was actually more of a blond white. The newly clean Pixie started her new life in our family and was immediately accepted by all our family including the other animals and the demon cat!

Today Pixie is a 6lb fatty who is pretty much the princess of everything! She has her faults. She loves to sneak in my room and do her business and she must be hand fed or she won’t eat. A princess must be treated like a princess after all. Truth is we all love her and she is very happy here.

No one loves this little dog like my Son and she loves him more than the rest of us for sure.

Nothing like seeing a 6’6” 300lb hulk of a man and his Chihuahua interact on the living room floor! It’s priceless.

For the past two years the two of them have lived happily and uneventfully.

That is, until last Friday.

I put Pixie in the back yard to attend to her business and then forgot about her. Two and half hours later my son and I came home from the store and Pixie did not greet us at the door.

That’s when we knew… she was gone.

She squeezed through an opening in the gate and left. My son and I leaped into Search and Rescue mode and combed the neighborhood. For the next 4 hours we looked between houses, in backyards. We knocked on doors and scoured the desert.

I was searching out of guilt but my son out of love. Not that I didn’t care about Pixie but my son had a deep devotion and commitment that I didn’t really have. To me it was a dog and I was sad, but to him it was like his kid and he was committed to find her. He had blisters on both his feet from all the walking but that did not slow him down.

Sound familiar?

During the whole ordeal I could not help but think of God’s love for us as he searches the darkest places to find his children who have wandered off and are lost. We have no idea why Pixie would walk away from her kingdom or her “royal position”. I mean she had dominion here and if she had just waited we would have opened the door and let her in. There was no need for her to leave the safety of our backyard.

The same goes for an entire people group of people who have done exactly the same thing. They walk away from their royal position and the Kingdom of God.

The thing is, our King is the Good Shepherd and he goes to find his people even though they chose to walk away.
Look at what Ezekiel 34:11-12,15-16:

‘For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep.
15 I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.

He is always looking for his kids who have wandered off and are looking for something real.

This is the God we serve. The king is looking for them. The King is looking for you.

By the way, after a 30 hour search, Pixie has been found and is back on her pedestal safe at home. She is restored to her proper position and her daddy, my son, is overwhelmed with great happiness.

Much like God feels when one of his children is found.

The Princess in all her glory!

~Rude Dog

Now how would you describe a “lost” person?

Well if you are anything like me you probably thought about driving and trying to follow someone else’s bad directions and before you know it, you are in unexplored territory. I can think a few things I hate more than bad directions and being lost. I am greatly gifted in getting lost and, so as not to betray the Fraternity of Male Drivers worldwide, I don’t ask for directions. (Unless my wife is with me then it’s a requirement)

This is why I love the GPS in my phone! It gives me turn by turn directions by just talking to me. I don’t have to read it, look down or even hold it. Minerva, that’s what I named the voice, just tells me where to go and I go. The next thing I know I am at my destination and if it is undiscovered territory, I just follow Minerva’s voice home.

Okay, back to the question.

I like this definition of lost:

No longer to be found; having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, without direction.

Ok, I just merged a bunch of dictionary definitions but it really drives the point home as to what being lost is like while staying clear of all religious and chuchy terms.

We usually describe the lost as people who have never heard the message of Jesus. We focus our attention on them, as we should, but we tend to forget about another class of lost that I refer to as the “Lost Believers”.

Like it or not, there are people out there who have walked away, or have been driven away, from the church. They are without direction, perhaps even bewildered as to place or without direction. If only they had a voice, a Minerva to lead them back.

Wait…don’t they have a Minerva type GPS that can lead them back? If not they should.

In John chapter 10 Jesus talks a lot about sheep and The Good Shepherd.

1″I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. 3The watchman opens the gate for him and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

14″I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”

They all may be lost but there is a voice calling them back, the Shepherd is calling them…by name!

I love verse 16, “I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also.”

He says he “must” bring. He doesn’t say He will try to bring or do his best. He says I MUST BRING.

He is the destination and he is calling but some have lost their way and need to be brought back.

So what is our role?

You are to be their Minerva.

If the Spirit of God resides in you then you are to be a voice of direction. Literally the voice of the Voice! We are the voice in the GPS that is leading them back home to the Shepherd.

We are to recognize them as lost sheep that have wandered off and are scared, alone, and maybe even angry. They will most definitely be dirty with all sorts of issues. That isn’t our concern. We are just to give “turn by turn” directions back to the Shepherd.

Then He takes over and lifts them up on his shoulders and carries them the rest of the way. He will place them back into the “sheep pen” and they will lay down in green pastures.

So… who are you navigating for?

~R-Dog

~ R-Dog