This weekend Pastor Mike Parejo taught from Matthew 5:21-26 and explained how anger can turn into murder. I wonder if some of you are like me and have read this passage and felt that it was wrong to be angry. Jesus says, “I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement.” Judgement implies that someone is being accused of doing something wrong and in this context the angry person appears to be in the wrong. Therefore, it is not becoming of a proper Christian to be angry. After all, we should be known for our love and not our anger, right?

It is not a sin to be angry; these verses clearly indicate that God feels anger!

• 1Kings 11:9 – The Lord was angry with Solomon because he turned his heart away from the Lord.
• 2Kings 17:18 – The Lord was angry with Israel.
• Matthew 21:12-14 – Jesus in anger drives out salesmen from the Temple.
• Mark 3:1-5 – Jesus looks at the Pharisees in anger and heals a man with a shriveled hand on the Sabbath.

I tell my wife that I am an angry, bitter old man and I come from a long line of angry, bitter old men. For most of my life I have not really understood anger or even fully recognized when I am feeling anger. I have seen anger to be expressed as rage in the form of yelling or arguing and even physical abuse. Anger that is not expressed as rage has been confusing to me and has become a taboo emotion that I was taught to keep to myself.

Anger can be a sin when it is expressed as rage and becomes verbal or physical abuse. Anger is also sinful when it becomes resentment and bitterness toward another person and, of course, anger is sinful when it turns to murder! However, anger can be helpful, as it is where we can find assertiveness, strength and energy. When used appropriately, anger can change the world!

I think it is time that Christians are known for our anger! There are 350 children in the state of Arizona whose parents have had their parental rights severed and could be adopted but are in foster care and group homes. Does it tick you off at all that these kids will grow up without a family and that at age 18 the group home will kick them out and 90% of those kids will end up in prison? Does it tick you off that over a million children are forced into sex slavery worldwide and 100,000 of those are in the US? Seriously is this ok with you? In 2010, there were 46 million Americans  living in poverty, the highest number in the 52 years this statistic has been tracked, with poverty being defined as making less that $22,000 a year. There are over 3 billion people around the world that live on less than $3 a day or less than $1100 a year! Please tell me you feel something!

These are all problems that Christians can be known for helping to solve. When will we collectively be angry enough to yell out “THESE THINGS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE?” When will we channel our anger to be assertive and use our collective wisdom and innovative thinking to find homes for orphans, free the slaves and feed the world? When we will collectively act like Jesus and use our anger to bring love to the poor and the oppressed?

I’ve been listening to a beautiful song called “I Give Myself Away“. The author of the song is a brother by the name of William McDowell. He’s an extremely talented and anointed worship leader who has been blessing people all over the world with his music and message. The song is a call to a commitment to follow our Lord and Savior with all that we have and are.

The lyrics are as follows…

Chorus (2x)
I give myself away I give myself away, so You can use me
I give myself away I give myself away, so You can use me

Verse 1
Here I am here I stand, Lord my life is in Your hands
Lord I’m longing to see, Your desires revealed in me

Verse 2
Take my heart take my life as a living sacrifice
All my dreams all my plans Lord I place them in Your hands

Bridge
My life is not my own, to You I belong, I give myself, I give myself to You
My life is not my own, to You I belong, I give myself, I give myself to You

Simple, to the point lyrics and song structure. Beautiful.

William himself was challenged by the lyrical content that God inspired him to write. He said after a year of focused time spent with God, the song was a response to what he felt God was saying to him. William found himself in a place that most worship leaders find themselves in; internally questioning the outcomes of our worship: worship which seems at times to be more focused on responses than results. William’s journey of a year long pursuit to know the heart of the Father, revealed to him that God is still asking the question that He posed to Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6:8 “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” The one reasonable response, “Here am I send me!” Can we all respond that way and truly mean it? Can we long to be one that He can use and that He can send?

William says it like this…

I said that it is much easier to sing/say it than it is to live it. I am not just talking about social justice here. Social justice is not a movement but a way of life. It is a mandate according to Proverbs 31:8-9. That’s good but that’s not giving yourself away. See we all seem to be willing to define giving ourselves away just a few steps away from our comfort zone but let me now say what it means for real. I give myself away means Mark 8:34-38. All of it and particularly verse 35 “for whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” I give myself away means Revelation 12:11 “and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.”

This is what I mean by “A Dangerous Song To Sing”

Singing “I give myself away” is certainly much easier than living it. It’s hard, but it’s exactly what God is looking for from us. Can you or will you sing, say, shout “I give myself away” until it becomes a daily place of surrender that leads to a daily reality? 

Martin Luther once said, “Give me 10 people who hate nothing but sin and love nothing but God and we will change the world.”

I’m challenged by all of this on a daily basis. I want to be a part of what God is doing and be a faithful, committed agent of change to be used by Him, and I pray that you too will join me and sing loudly…

Here I am
Here I stand
Lord my life is in Your hands
Lord I’m longing to see Your desires revealed in me
I give myself away
I give myself away so You can use me

I have spent a lot of time over the past two weeks visiting a friend and church member who is in intensive care at a local hospital. For those of you that know me well, you know that this is not the most comfortable place for me to be. I am not good with needles and really most medical procedures kinda turn my stomach and make me feel faint. The reasons why are long and sordid and frankly we don’t have enough “couch” time together to unpack all that.

My recent time spent in the ICU has been quite different and I have learned a lot about myself and how we all should be preparing to care for each other. My friend was incredibly blessed (or maybe lucky?) in that a “good Samaritan” found him after he experienced a heart attack while jogging in his neighborhood. This good Samaritan called 911 and the EMTs were on the scene quickly and were able to keep him alive.

The story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:25-37 explains how two religious leaders pass by a man who was left beaten in the street.  These men pass by for religious reasons not wanting to defile themselves in order to partake in the evening worship service. A Samaritan man, the outcast of his day, stopped and tended to the man thus keeping him alive and providing the medical care he needed to heal.

Visiting my friend in the ICU has made this story more real for me. I have yet to know how I would respond if I came across someone lying in the street. However, I think I would be more like the two religious leaders who pass by the man in need than the Samaritan. For me, it’s not for religious reasons or culture, race or political affiliation. It’s not about them but it’s about me. I have not taken the time to consider what I should do and I haven’t taken the time to be properly trained (or update my training) in emergency first aid procedures.

The new “Hands-Only CPR” is primarily attributed to keeping my friend alive. Back in the day, the CPR procedure that I learned involved chest compressions then mouth to mouth breathing into the person’s lungs. Today, medical professionals are reporting a much higher success rate with this new hands-only CPR procedure due to the constant chest compressions. We all need to learn this new CPR method as we never know when we will be called upon to be that good Samaritan! You can learn more at the Hands-Only CPR website.

Another lesson to be learned from my visits to the ICU is that we all need a family medical readiness plan! “Family Medical Readiness” will consist mainly of questions and considerations that may help your family during a significant health challenge. Have you had those often difficult, but critically important end-of-life discussions such as life support and organ donation? Have you documented those decisions in an Advanced Medical Directive (AMD) or living will? My friend and his wife took the time to have these discussions and officially document them and because they did, it has taken a lot (and I mean a lot!) of stress from her in working with the hospital staff and administration.

The final lesson that I have learned is how we all can help care for a family in crisis. I am struck by how stressful it is for families in the ICU not only to deal with a loved one in medical crisis but more so to deal with their friends and family that constantly call for updates and encouragement. A great tool that my friend’s wife has been using is a website called CaringBridge. A profile is created for the loved one in crisis and then your friends and family can subscribe for updates as well as leave prayers, encouragement and notes in an online guest book. In my friend’s case, his wife is able to send out emails via her cell phone to close family members a few times a day. She enlisted someone else in the family to take those updates and post them in the CaringBridge journal that then sends out email updates to the subscribers.

Being a good Samaritan starts long before we encounter someone in need. The Good Samaritan was prepared and ready to get involved. I know I’ve got some work to do. Will you join me?

SOPA and PIPA are copyright bills that are coming up to a vote soon in US Congress. SOPA – the “Stop Online Piracy Act” – is the House version, and PIPA – the “Protect IP Act” – is the Senate version. You may have heard SOPA and PIPA mentioned in the news recently. You may also have noticed that over 115,000 sites around the Internet were inaccessible on Wednesday (January 18). Those 115,000 sites were protesting by self-censoring, and on Wednesday alone over 7 million Americans called their representatives in opposition to the SOPA and PIPA.

SOPA and PIPA are intended to protect copyrighted materials and stop piracy (as their names would suggest). However, what they do to combat piracy is to create a national censorship system. On the frontside of the Internet, search engines like Google and Bing would be required to remove listings for any sites accused of containing links to infringing material. On the backside of the Internet, servers known as nameservers would be required to block access to any accused site. A nameserver is the technology that tells your web browser where to go when you type “pccwired.org”. This level of nameserver-level blocking is already prominent in countries like China and Iran.

An earlier copyright law from 1998, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (or DMCA), required copyright owners to request that material be removed from websites and services. In SOPA, that requirement would be directed to the websites themselves. All websites and services would be required to immediately remove links to copyrighted materials, or else their domain would be blacklisted and their site shutdown. Most user-generated content sites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Vimeo and Flickr would be forced to shutdown, as it would be technically unfeasible to keep up with enforcement on such high traffic sites. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ would also likely not be able to continue operations, as any post or comment that contained a link to copyrighted material could potentially shut down the entire site.

If passed, these bills would alter Pantano Christian Church’s online presence. We’re active on Facebook and Twitter, we publish video content to Vimeo and YouTube. We encourage participation on YouVersion, the online Bible that contains user-generated commentary. Here on pccwired.org, we allow user comments on blog posts and weekend videos. We would likely disable all commenting on pccwired, and our social networking participation would be diminished. We would continue to publish weekend videos, but only through a more expensive dedicated, non-interactive publishing service.

Protecting copyright is important, but far-reaching censorship isn’t the way. We can take action and prevent these bills from becoming law. Wikipedia has provided a ZIP lookup tool to point you to the online contact forms for all your representatives.

Starting a blog is something that I have been wanting to do for almost 9 months. Things have continued to get in the way that have given me easy excuses to put it off. The reality is that it can’t wait any longer. So here goes….

The theme of my blog posts will be “Go with Actions and Truth.” During the summer of 2010, I memorized the book of 1John because it is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Reading 1John day after day I discovered that the theme of 1John is found in 1John 3:18. “Dear Children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

1John is famous for boldly stating that God is love. How do we bring God’s love to our community and around the world? Not with words or speech which tickle the ears but with actions and in truth that touch the heart and move us to action. We must get involved, get out of the walls of the church dwelling and into the streets to encounter people who desperately need God’s love. We can talk about ‘loving people to Jesus’ week after week but until we muster the courage to “GO” we are the ones that are truly missing out on the love of God!

Take a look at John’s argument in 1John 3:16-17 that leads him to his statement in 3:18. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?”

We love people to Jesus when we make the courageous step to go against the “selfish” nature and expectations of our culture to love the brothers and sisters in our church family and in our community. So many of us worry about paying the bills and we work harder to have more – the 60″ TV or the new car or the new gadget that both improves our lives and complicates it even more at the same time. Our culture wants us to believe that we don’t have enough and yet we are the richest people on the planet! Half of the planet lives on less than $2 a day! Can we even imagine living on $2 a day?

Do we believe that Jesus is who he said he was and do we also believe that Jesus has called us to follow him and live our lives differently from our culture? When I realized that I really believed in Jesus, it changed my life. I suddenly had “pity,” if you will, for our brothers and sisters who are believing the lies of our culture and I have been on a journey of love ever since. God continually challenges me to love people who don’t “look” like me or share the same values as I do.  This kind of love takes courage and vulnerability and stretches my faith.  Do I really believe that Jesus is who he said he was and do I believe that he is calling me to love others as he loves me – unconditionally?

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth!