It’s the 4th of July, so I did the most American thing I could think of today: I went out and bought the new Johnny Cash CD, A Hundred Highways. It’s appropriate that the final recordings of the quintessential American, Johnny Cash, should be released on the 4th of July.

Here’s the Amazon.com editorial review of A Hundred Highways.

The ethical questions surrounding this final album in the American Recordings series are as unavoidable as they are, ultimately, peripheral. While the vocal tracks were recorded in the months just prior to Johnny Cash’s passing in September 2003, the arrangements weren’t undertaken until two years later. And though producer Rick Rubin had become a trusted friend, the Man in Black wasn’t around to approve or disapprove, let alone guide, the final sessions. However, if the pure power of these recordings doesn’t quiet the skeptics, nothing will. With Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench and slide guitar session pro Smokey Hormel on board (all three of whom appear on earlier Cash albums), along with guitarists Matt Sweeney and Johnny Polansky, the sound is stately and acoustic, but rarely staid, even as the dynamics of earlier recordings in the series are absent. Instead, the songs have a measured, elegiac intensity, the sound of musicians choosing their notes carefully and making just the right choices.

The songs Cash sings are, unsurprisingly, confessional and reflective: his mortality and his mistakes, his maker and his salvation. The loss of his wife June and the end of his career may have weighed on his mind, but in these songs he both embodies and transcends his personal history. On “God’s Gonna Cut You Down,” as the musicians clap and stomp behind him, his voice cuts through the air like that same avenging hand. On the new original “Like the 309”–the last song Cash ever wrote–he cops to being short of breath, and that voice becomes a metaphor for what each of us will one day face. On Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Read My Mind,” Rubin flirts with overwhelming the damp bittersweetness of Cash’s phrasing in tasteful atmospherics, but the voice is implacable, hitting and finding notes one never expected he’d have the will to find. Likewise, it’s hard to believe this is his first recording of Ian Tyson’s “Four Strong Winds”; the elemental narrative seems to have been written for him. Two songs, however, Cash has recorded before: the born-again hymn “I Came to Believe” and the final spiritual, “I’m Free from the Chain Gang Now.” The latter especially is a definitive testament, as is his version of Bruce Springsteen’s “Further On (Up the Road).” “One sunny morning we’ll rise, I know / And I’ll meet you further on up the road,” he sings. If only, John, if only.

If you’re interested in Johnny Cash the Christian — an imperfect, but very real Christian — I would recommend, The Man Comes Around: The Spiritual Journey of Johnny Cash. I read it a couple of years ago and thought it was excellent. I liked it way better than the movie Walk the Line.

What am I reading right now? A nuclear bomb of a book: Provocations: The Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard. It’s some of the hardest hitting stuff I’ve read in a long time. If you decide to try to tackle this book (and I’m not necessarily recommending it), keep in mind two things: 1) Reading Soren Kierkegaard can be hard work. 2) Kierkegaard’s audience (or I might say, target) was the 19th Century state church of Denmark which was in a deplorable condition. But if you can plow through Kierkegaard’s dense writing and make allowances for him being a man of his times and keep in mind who he was writing to, Provocations yields some tremendous rewards. The book is certainly aptly titled; it is definitely provoking me. Jason Upton recommended this book to me and I have thanked him for it.

Here’s a sample “provocation”…

“The greatest danger to Christianity is, I contend, not heresies, heterodoxies, not atheists, not profane secularism — no, but the kind of orthodoxy which is cordial drivel, mediocrity served up sweet. There is nothing that so insidiously displaces the majestic as sentimental cordiality. Perpetually polite, so small, so nice — the result is that majesty is completely defrauded…Christianity does not oppose debauchery and uncontrollable passions and the like as much as it opposes this flat mediocrity, this nauseating atmosphere, this homey sentimentality, where admittedly great crimes, wild excesses, and powerful aberrations cannot easily occur — but where God’s unconditional demand has even greater difficulty in accomplishing what it requires: the majestic obedience of submission.”

Whoa! Here’s another one…

“A sparrow is an object of God’s concern. It is not a wasted or lost life. But masses of mimickers, a crowd of copycats are wasted lives. God has been merciful to us, demonstrating His grace to the point of being willing to involve Himself with every person. If we prefer to be like all the others, this amounts to high treason against God. We who simply go along are guilty, and our punishment is to be ignored by God…What faith it takes to believe that one’s life is noticed by God and that this is enough!”

Rock on Kierkegaard!

So on the 4th of July it’s Johnny Cash and Soren Kierkegaard. That’s the eclectic Kingdom of Jesus for you. An American iconic Country singer and a Danish eccentric philosopher. I’m going to enjoy meeting both of them some day.

BZ

I’m preaching Wednesday and Thursday at Church on the Rise in Cleveland. I’ll see you Friday.

I’m hanging out with Saint Augustine on this beautiful Monday. We’ve been sitting on my deck since 9:30 this morning. Saint Augustine has been doing the talking and I’ve been doing the listening. I love that old saint. It was six years ago this month that an encounter with Augustine provided me with a new spiritual direction and drew the “come with me” out of my heart.

Two weeks ago when Peri and I were in Scottsdale, Arizona, we went into a Borders Bookstore to get some coffee — of course Peri and I cannot enter a bookstore without leaving with a few books. I bought a new translation of Augustine’s Confessions. Since Augustine wrote in Latin, I need a translation, and a new translation can help you see something in a fresh way.

I was particularly moved by Augustine’s account of the conversion of his friend Ponticianus. Ponticianus’ conversion brought Augustine under conviction and contributed to his own conversion a short time later. Here is how Augustine relates the story of Ponticianus’ conversion (the year was 386, Augustine was 31 years old):

Ponticianus began to say that he and three other comrades — I know not when — at Treves when the emperor was busy with circus chariot races, went walking in the gardens near the city walls; and it so happened that they separated into two groups, one walking with him and the other two going off by themselves. But as these two were wandering up and down, they stumbled upon a certain house where dwelt some humble Christians, and they found there a book in which was written the Life of Anthony. Ponticianus began to read it, to marvel and be inflamed, and while reading to ponder his own living of such a life and forsaking his military pursuits and serving God. For these two men were both officials in the emperor’s civil service. Then suddenly filled with holy love, and a sober shame, angry with himself, he looked at his friend and said: “Tell me, I beg you, for what post of honor are we striving with all our labors? Can our hopes in court rise higher than to become the emperor’s friends? And is not such a place insecure and full of danger? And how long will it take to get there? But if I want, I can be the friend of God now, this moment.” He said this, and, perplexed in the labor of a new life to which he was giving birth, he looked again at the book. He read on and was inwardly changed. He said to his friend, “Now I have torn myself from those hopes of ours, and have decided to serve God; and this — from this moment in this place I shall undertake. If you are unwilling to imitate me, do not dissuade me.”

And thus Ponticianus became a Christian, and shortly thereafter Augustine joined his friend in following Jesus.

I love to read of how people become followers of Jesus.

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The Confessions of Pastor Brian

Sometimes I look at other servants of the Lord and find myself wishing I could be more like them or have what they have.

Today I heard the Lord say this: “Do you think, perhaps, I have prepared you to be something else?”

When Peter observed how Jesus dealt with John and Peter questioned Jesus about John, Jesus said this:

“What is that to you? You follow Me.”

Amen

BZ

Busy. I’ve been crazy busy. But that’s not a bad thing, if you’re busy about the right things. He not busy being born is busy dying. The right stuff to be busy about is God and people. I’ve been busy with God in the secret place and I’ve been busy meeting a couple of people the last two days: Jonathan and Jason. Let me tell you about them.

Jonathan is Jonathan Whistman. I met him Wednesday. Jonathan is 33 and he has a remarkable story. Jonathan was a major leader among the Jehovah’s Witnesses. In December Jonathan left the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization because he is on an honest quest for truth and spiritual reality. The last two Sundays he’s been at Word of Life; he heard me preach on grace (Christians) and worship (Give It Up for God — which I should have called God’s Cup of Tea). It was a new experience for him and he wanted to meet me. We had a wonderful time together and I can tell you that God is at work in his life in an awesome way. I will share some of Jonathan’s story Sunday morning and Jonathan will be with us in both services. You can check out his blog site at Jonathan’s World. Pray for Jonathan; pray that he would continue to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ; pray that God would use him to bring light and salvation to those bound in Jehovah’s Witness deception.

Jason is Jason Upton. Jason has been at Word of Life the past two nights for The Uprising Youth Conference (which has been fantastic!). I had met Jason briefly at a conference a couple of years ago, but today Jason and I spent a couple of hours together and we really connected. Jason is smart, an avid reader and best of all, a passionate worshipper of Jesus. We talked about music (Dylan and John Prine), we talked about influences (Keith Green and Rich Mullins) we talked about philosophy (Kierkegaard and Nietzsche), we talked about movies (Jason recommends Nacho Libre) we talked about books (Dallas Willard, C.S. Lewis and Henry Nouwen) and we talked about grace. Jason talked with me about the grace of the cross, where Jesus was carried between earth and sky and how the cross is not just a place of death but a place of birth. I shared with Jason about how our lives are a tapestry of grace; how the final work of grace will be that ultimately we will be able to say, “nothing bad has ever happened to me.” It was rich, real and refreshing; it was fun and fulfilling. It’s always great to make a new friend. So much of life in the Kingdom is about friendship: Friends with God and friends with each other.

Jason asked me to recommend some books for him to read. This is the list I gave him.

The Son of Laughter by Frederick Buechner

Confession by Leo Tolstoy

Prophetic Untimeliness by Os Guinness

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

Rumors of Another World by Philip Yancey

The Spirit of Early Christian Thought by Robert Louis Wilken

The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun

The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton

Chronicles by Bob Dylan

The Lost Virtue of Happiness by J.P. Moreland

Grace and Peace to Jonathan and Jason.

Grace and Peace to you, my friends.

BZ

I’m sitting in my kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and reading my Bible.

I just heard a song on “The Loft” on XM radio. The song is “Philosophia” by a group called The Guggenheim Grotto. I don’t know anything about them except that they are a new three-piece band from Ireland. But their song “Philosophia” caught my ear. Check out the lyrics…

Philosophia

When we’re young we set our hearts upon some beautiful idea
Maybe something from a holy book or French philosophia
Upon the thoughts of better men than us we swear by and decree a
Perfect way to end the war of ways the only way to be a…

A work of art, oh to be a work of art

That song is sermon! Or at least the set up for a sermon. The lyrics are really worth thinking about.

I believe in beauty.

I believe in art.

I believe in The Way.

I believe in absolutes.

I believe we can be a work of art.

I believe Jesus is an artist.

I was born to battle devils.

Martin Luther said that.

And it was true. I’ve read numerous Luther biographies and the thing that really defines the Great Reformer was his raw courage and reckless faith in his fight with the devil. The devil was a real enemy to Luther. On one occasion when Luther was hard at work translating the Bible into German the devil appeared to him. Think of that. What would you do? I know most Charismatics would tell how they would rebuke the devil in Jesus’ name…and maybe they would, but then again a lot of that might be empty bluster. Do you know what Martin Luther did? He threw his ink well at him. I love that! Martin Luther’s response to Satan showing up in his chambers was to attack the fiend with the nearest thing at hand.

Luther really hated the devil.

Luther was also known to be a little bit bawdy. He had a habit of each morning sitting in the latrine with hymn book in hand singing praises to God. When one of his students suggested that perhaps this was somehow inappropriate, Luther replied, “Not at all. What goes up is for God, what goes down is for the devil.”

Yeah, Luther hated the devil. And he fought the devil all his life.

I remember being with R.W. Schambach in a hotel in Mexico City. T.L. Osborn had just flown in flown in to help with the Mexico City Crusade and when he walked into the room he greeted Brother Schambach with these words, “Well, Bob, we’re old men now. But when we die, we’ll die happy because we gave the devil a hard time.” I took note of that.

I was born to battle devils.

We’ll die happy because we gave the devil a hard time.

I feel the same way. I was born to battle devils and I’m going to go down swinging. Sometimes I get a little bit tired of having to always fight devils, but what else can you do? Devils can’t get saved so all you can do is fight them, fight them, fight them!

The past two days I’ve sensed the Holy Spirit stirring me up to be more aggressive in spiritual warfare. I get the feeling the Holy Spirit is about to launch a summer offensive against the powers of darkness, so strap on your armor and get ready to possess new territory for the Kingdom of Jesus!

Pray for me.

These battles aren’t fun and games…they’re life and death.
These battles aren’t pretend…they’re all too real.

A gypsy with broken flag and a flashing ring,
Said son this ain’t a dream no more, it’s the real thing.

Jesus is Lord.

BZ

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A fierce spiritual battle is raging for Iran. I got an email from an Iranian friend two days ago telling me that 120 pastors in Iran have agreed to fast and pray for 40 days. They began last week on Ascension Day (May 25). They are asking the Body of Christ around the world to stand with them in prayer. We made Iran the focus of our praying in the Upper Room today. Check out this excellent website for information on the 40 Days of Prayer for Iran, information on the spiritual condition of Iran and daily guides on how to pray for Iran: PrayerForIran.com

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Friday night I will be doing some verse by verse teaching through the 8th Chapter of Acts. My topic will be “Living the Supernatural Life.”

Sunday morning I will preach a message on the conversion of Saul of Tarsus entitled, “Crash.”

Sunday night at 6:00 we will be dedicating the Millennium Youth Center. This will be a very prophetic event and I sure hope you will be there.

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Sea breeze blowing there’s a hell hound loose
Redeemed men who have escaped from the noose
Preaching faith and salvation waiting on the night to arrive
All around the world people caught in a snare
We can’t just leave them to die out there,
They’re going down slow, just barely staying alive.

Probably the most popular sermon I’ve preached in recent years is the Tapestry of Grace sermon. Even though I preached it over two years ago, I regularly receive comments from people on how it has helped and encouraged them. In that message I show how the greatest work of grace is the promise of Romans 8:28.

“For we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

The final work of grace in your life will be to produce a happy ending…a happy ending to all things. God does this by taking every event, each and every “thread” no matter how dark or coarse, and as a master artisan working at His loom of grace, He weaves each thread into the tapestry that is the story of your life in such a way that in the end you will be able to say, “nothing bad has ever happened to me.” This is the greatest work of grace; grace that reaches into the past and weaves even the bad in such a way that in the end it’s all good. It’s a revelation of the ultimate triumph of grace that enables us to say, “Everything’s going to be all right.” For the Christian those words aren’t an empty platitude, but a powerful confession of grace-based faith.

It’s all right.

Simple words and easy to say. But for a Christian who has the promise of God to back them up, they are profoundly powerful words. Even mysteriously powerful. I’ve learned there is something inexplicable about how profoundly comforting those words can be. So let me say them to you…

It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.

I got an email this week from a friend who put my mind back on this topic. Let me share it with you:

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On my way to the airport, earlier this week, I popped in the “Tapestry of Grace” CD. I had some need of hearing the “everything is going to be all right” message within that sermon. As always, it proved a great blessing.

Then on the plane, I read the following passage excerpted from Madeleine L’Engle’s The Summer of the Great-Grandmother:

Then she turns toward me, reaches for me. “I’m scared. I’m scared.”

I put my arms around her and hold her. I hold her as I held my children when they were small and afraid in the night; as, this summer, I hold my grandchildren. I hold her as she, once upon a time and long ago, held me.
And I say the same words, the classic, maternal, instinctive words of reassurance. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. It’s all right.”

“Something’s wrong. I’m scared. I’m scared.”

I cradle her and repeat, “It’s all right.”

What’s all right? What am I promising her? I’m scared, too. I don’t know what will happen when Hugh [her husband] goes to the neurologist. I don’t know what’s going to happen to my mother this summer I don’t know what the message may be the next time the phone rings. What’s all right? How can I say it?

But I do.I hold her close and kiss her, and murmur, “It’s all right, Mother. It’s all right.”

I mean these words. I do not understand them, but I mean them. Perhaps, one day I will find out what I mean. They are implicit in everything I write. I caught a hint of them during that lecture, even as I was cautioning against false promises. They are behind everything, the cooking of meals, walking the dogs, talking with the girls. I may never find out with my intellectual self what I mean, but if I am given enough glimpses perhaps these will add up to enough so that my heart will understand. It does not; not yet.

How good is it to KNOW that He causes ALL things to work together for GOOD to those who love God? We all have some innate sense that it ought to be all right. But, only the grace of God allows us to know it and to know it when we most need to know it.

What a gloriously sustaining message!

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Amen.

It’s all right.

I’m reminded of a song by Bruce Springsteen that he wrote about 9/11, it’s called Lonesome Day. The lyrics go like this.

Once I thought I knew
Everything I needed to know about you
Your sweet whisper, your tender touch
But I didn’t really know that much
Joke’s on me, it’s gonna be okay
If I can just get through this lonesome day

Hell’s brewin’ dark sun’s on the rise
This storm’ll blow through by and by
House is on fire, viper’s in the grass
A little revenge and this too shall pass
This too shall pass, I’m gonna pray
Right now I gotta get through this lonesome day

It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.

Let kingdom come I’m gonna find my way
Through this lonesome day.

It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right, yeah.
It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s all right.

There really is something about hearing those words — “It’s all right.” Not to analyze it too much, but in writing a song about 9/11 Bruce Springsteen can say “It’s all right”, but only if he weaves in some spiritual/Christian references like, This too shall pass, I’m gonna pray and Let kingdom come I’m gonna find my way. I’m sure he does this only by intuition and not consciously, but that’s the way artists operate…by intuition. What an artist my pick up by intuition — that with God everything can be all right — Christians can know with assurance from the Word of God.
It’s all right.

BZ

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You will notice there is now a function which you can use to email this blog to your friends. Why don’t you do that…it just might be an email rhema for them.

I’ve been working very hard this week on my Friday night message on death entitled, Death Is Not The End. I think it will be very helpful to you and answer some questions you may have had. I hope you are planning to be in church with us Friday night.

It’s 9:30 Wednesday night and I’m sitting in my study following the Grand Opening of our new $3 million Millennium Youth Center. Oh, man, it was big time! We had 550 teens here, the placed looked awesome, Chris and the worship team were in top form and Pastor Shea preached a fantastic prophetic message on what’s to come in MYC and then gave a great altar call with lots of kids responding for salvation. Peri and I took the stage at the very end and exhorted and encouraged our youth for a few moments before turning them loose into the parking lot where a truck load of pizza awaited them.

What a great grand opening of a place dedicated to nothing less than full-on youth revival!

I believe we are seeing the beginning of a big time move of God among young people here at Word of Life. And I know how God can move among young people. I’m a product of the last major move of God among young people in America — the Jesus Movement of the 1970’s. I got saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, called to the ministry and received a vision to build a church…all in my teens. In some ways Word of Life Church is the fruit of seeds that were sown in my heart when I was a teenager.

The youth culture is the front lines in the contemporary culture war that is the battle for the soul of a nation. Youth are combustible, they are highly flammable. They can be set on fire for sin or they can be set on fire for God.

Some may think that the hope of revival among young people in the 21st Century is a lost cause, but I know better.

I keep two old issues of Time magazine in my study:

The famous Is God Dead? issue from April 1966 that suggested God had become irrelevant in American culture.

And…

The Jesus Revolution issue of June 1971 that documented the astounding spiritual awakening among young people in America.

I dare to believe that God is going to do it again and that we are going to be right in the middle of new move of God among American young people…big time!

BZ

It’s a Sunday evening. I’m usually a little bit worn out on Sunday evenings and I’m tired tonight — tired but happy, the good kind of tired. It was a good day in church. I forgot how fun it is to tell the “Brothel Story.” You don’t know what that is? You should have been in church today! It’s the last fifteen minutes of my “Book of Acts Boldness” message. You need to hear it. You can get a CD or tape at Solomon’s Porch, or you can stream it from the WOLC website in a few days, or you can sign up for the free podcasts and we’ll cast that pod your way by Tuesday. Anyway, it’s a great story, a real life adventure.

I just got back from KCI. I took Peri to the airport. She’s going to Atlanta for a seminar and won’t be back till Wednesday night. This is a very unusual experience for me. Peri takes me to the airport all the time and then I’m gone for a few days (or sometimes longer)…but now the tables are turned. I’ll have to fend for myself…I think she’s already worried about me. Haha!

So, it’s a Sunday night and I’m tired but happy.

Stay full of hope my friends and you will stay happy. Everybody wants to be happy, so go ahead and be happy. It’s easier than you think.

Everybody wants to be happy so the pharmaceutical companies try to sell you happy pills. I read about an antidepressant yesterday that has a bad side effect (besides dizziness, nausea and that other stuff) — it seems this pill will make you happy, unless it makes you suicidal. That seems like a pretty bad side effect for an antidepressant if you ask me. Here, take this pill, it’ll make you feel better…unless it makes you want to kill yourself.

Everybody’s looking for the miracle drug…and I’ve got it: HOPE. Hope in God.

Why are so you downcast, O my soul?
Hope in God.
-Psalm 42:11

Hope is God’s miracle drug for your brain…and it won’t make you dizzy, nauseous, or anything other than happy. Hope is the thing for happiness. Your future is good and everything’s going to be alright — you’ve got God’s promise on it. Tell your soul everything is going to be alright and tell you soul to hope in God. If you’ll tell your soul to do that, it will, and you’ll get happy. Read those Psalms on hope…say them out loud…make them yours. Try it with a cup of coffee. Hope and a cup of coffee. That’s my miracle drug.

BZ

Yes! I’m making a blogger’s comeback.

I blogged 68 days in a row…without missing once! Then Peri and I had our little get-away to the mountains far beyond the crazy reach of the internet. And then this week…well, I just didn’t do any blogging. So shoot me. Blame it on blogger’s fatigue. I’m sure there must be such a thing. Anyway, I’m ready to make a comeback…so stay tuned.

It’s just past 8:00 P.M., I’m still in my study, but I’ve got my message ready for Sunday. It’s from Acts chapter 4 and I’m calling it, Book of Acts Boldness. It’ll be red hot!

So now I’d like to go home before I come back at 6:30 tomorrow morning (Sunday’s a working day, you know).

I’ll get a real deal blog out to you some time Sunday evening.

See you in church in la manana.

Dios le bendiga!

BZ

P.S.

Here are a few pictures from our time in mountains…

# 1 Chasm Junction on the Longs Peak Trail
We were going to hike all the way to Chasm Lake, but weather forced us to turn around.

# 2 Twin Sisters Mountain
The western peak of Twin Sisters is visible in the background.

# 3 Twin Sisters trail
It was snowy about 10,000 feet.

# 4 Twin Sister’s summit
It was too cold to stay very long.