“If Only He Had Worn His Halo…”  

Don’t you just love the Christmas cards portraying Jesus and his earthly mom and dad wearing halos? Mary and Joseph are confined to a stable, probably a cave like structure underneath a motel. Had I been Mary, I would have said, “What do you mean, I can’t get into this inn? Don’t you see my halo?... What’s the matter with people anyway?”

 I’ve seen halos on Christmas cards for years and have still not figured out how I can get one. I want one. I need one. But then again, if those halos couldn’t get Jesus’ family into the inn, they probably wouldn’t work for me; and if they don’t get you into places, what good are they?

What is a halo for? Does it set you apart from other, more ordinary people? Is it like a clerical collar which lets people know who the boss is here at the church? One time when I was speaking at a church in England, a pastor, Wes Boxall, revealed that a lady had visited his church and told him that she could see an “aura” about him.( He doesn’t even wear a collar.) I was jealous. Why would someone see this aura around Wes? Can you imagine what Wes’s wife, Sharon, thought? If that had happened to my husband, he could have had a lot of fun with it! Imagine waking up in bed, turning to your wife and saying, “Honey, other women can see my aura, why can’t you?” or the minister’s wife saying, “Were you wearing your halo at church today, Honey?- Then how is the church board going to raise your salary? “

You may be asking how a person earns a halo. The early apostles must have known. They knew everything about God and Jesus. When you see their pictures in church windows, they all have halos. Do you get a halo by graduating from seminary or by being a martyr? Does the preacher know how to get one? If he does, then why isn’t he wearing one?

 I’ll bet the President of the United States knows. As a matter of fact, I recently saw a painting in someone’s office of President Obama literally wearing a halo. That’s going too far—even if you are a democrat. But what are the requirements for a halo? How many credits in heaven’s university do you have to have before one starts to appear?

Does it signify perfect attendance at Sunday school? Maybe it’s like those Sunday school attendance pins we used to get in the Baptist church. I remember one of my classmates, Ronnie Rogers, had a string of bars on his pin so long he could have tripped over it. But when I saw him recently at a class reunion, the attendance pin and its plethora of bars hadn’t yet converted into a halo.

I doubt that Jesus’ family wore halos, and I am sure that Jesus didn’t, either. It would have foiled the Father’s plan to disguise His Son as an ordinary person to save the folks who knew they didn’t deserve a halo. What a clever disguise for God: an ordinary person! That way, He could sneak up on people and do wonderful things to them, and they wouldn’t even know what hit them—until later. Can you imagine the stir if people had only known that it had been God who was standing next to them all along? Maybe they wouldn’t have executed Him if they had known…  

It was the disguise, after all, that killed Him. If only He had worn His halo! Instead, He trusted His Father so much that He wouldn’t tell anyone much less wear a halo. Had He worn His halo, we would have all died in our sin. But trust me, Honey, He’s got one now; and if you believe what I’m telling you, you have a halo, too.

So before you put your halo on today to alert the public as to how holy and important you are, remember that you didn’t earn it. In fact, it is better that you do not wear it here. Instead, go out and disguise yourself as an ordinary person like Jesus did and do wonderful things in His name. That way people won’t look at you, they’ll look at Him. Maybe He’ll give them a halo just like yours!

Melinda Fish <>{

"Four Little Lines"

FOUR LITTLE LINES


By Melinda Fish

I wish I were talking about lines of print. None of my books, magazine articles and blogs has drawn the immediate attention like the four little lines to which I’m referring now. I would have been happy to have had such a fuss over something I said. I’ve always wanted my small life to have some impact on others. Instead, what drew international attention happened over something more cataclysmic—four lines, a total of about 3.5 inches of permanent eyeliner.

In May of this year, Bill and I flew to South America, to our favorite country there, Brazil, to teach at the school of ministry in Ministerio Coelheita in Sapiranga, R.S., Brazil. It is important for you to know that not only is Brazil a blazing hotbed of glorious churrascarias and deep spirituality, but Brazil is the plastic surgery capital of the world. It’s the nation where I left my fat and part of my sagging belly in 2005, thanks to Dr. Ramilani@hotmail.com. It was destination of my “more of You and less of me” trip.

Before 2005 I had always teased congregations with, “OK girls, are we going to have the tummy tuck or the facelift.” Ironically or prophetically, I mean, it happened. God provided a way for me to have them both! My friend, Vania, the pastor, patiently explained, “Melinda, you are so thin here and here,” referring to my pencil-like forearms, but here no” (referring to my tummy swollen from the births of 2 babies who weighed 8 and 10 pounds respectively). I may as well tell you now that in two outpatient surgeries, the results of which are praised each year by my gynecologist who himself has over 36,000 patients, Dr. Milani dispensed with my belly fat and along with it, the wrinkles around my eyes and my sagging “jowls” which had prompted queries about what was wrong when nothing was. He reduced other things, too. All the surgeries were at a fraction of the cost of what even one of those surgeries would cost in the US.

But don’t be telling me it wasn’t God’s will. During my month-long recovery, I found a friend, a gal who served me during this period, Ana. One day as she helped me creep to the shower I casually said, “Ana, why don’t you come up to Pittsburgh and see me?”

She did. A few months later, she walked into the embassy in Sao Paulo and walked out with a visa to the US. She had such favor that the authorities who stamped her passport did not even examine her paperwork. Ana organized our Katrina outreach and started hanging out and absorbing what life in our congregation was like. Last year she graduated magna cum laude from a university a few miles from our home and then married Josh, a rocket scientist from our congregation. They now live in Waco, TX. I often reflect on what would have happened if I hadn’t gone to Brazil for plastic surgery. Could it be that God was not as put off by my plastic surgeries as others were?

So this year, recalling that truly “uplifting” experience, I asked Vania to make an appointment for me to have permanent eyeliner applied. The technical term is “microdermabrasion,” which being interpreted means “tattoo.” Before we left for the appointment, I logged on to my Facebook profile and asked for prayer from anyone who happened to be watching the news feed. I’d heard that having your eyeliner tattooed on was painful, and I wanted strength to have it done without needless suffering.

Was it painful? It depends on what “painful” means in the Greek. While the aftermath posed only minor discomfort; (remember that you are talking to the tummy tuck queen here) the discomfort of the procedure reminded me of the time I took childbirth classes. My instructor made a living by luring hapless mothers-to-be into the childbirth experience unmedicated, talking all about contractions and not pain. In my opinion, on the scale of 1 to 10, one being a mosquito bite and 10 being an amputation without anesthetic, the eyeliner application was a 9.5, childbirth, a clear 8. It was a strange form of pain, too, full of apprehension created by my mother who was careful to warn me not to run around with a pencil in hand, “You could poke your eye out!” Now 55+ years later this was the closest I had come to that cruel event.

I survived---barely. I am used to suffering, though, as a servant of the Lord.

I returned from my first microdermabrasion experience to have a look at my Facebook profile. My request for prayer had become an international controversy! People from the UK, Africa, New Zealand, South America, Canada, the Netherlands and the US from New York to California were all expressing either praise for my courage or rebuke for my obvious foray into the world of sin. For the next two weeks, people from a parade of nations were weighing in on my experience, but mostly weighing in on others who were weighing in. I couldn’t resist jumping in myself.

I love Facebook. Where else can you discover the answers to probing questions like, “What are my ‘friends’ in other countries having for lunch?” It’s a place to be normal and silly on an international scale. I remember being a pen pal to a little girl in Japan when I was eight. I took several weeks between letters. Now, in seconds, people in Asia were able to remark about my eyeliner.

You won’t want to believe it, but I had to have the whole eyeliner process done a second time because the first didn’t take. One “friend” saw that as a judgment of God. Others urged me to press on bravely in the face of adversity. Friends from Canada soundly rebuked the folks who accused me of not caring about the poor but having the gall to squander funds on myself. A couple of folks from the UK struggled with the knowledge that someone who was a servant of God could so quickly bow and with such abandon to the god of vanity. One person “unfriended” me having realized that they had obviously fallen in league with a person whose influence for Christ had been utterly compromised by this foolish act. Two days into it a “friend” from the UK realized that it was not his business to act as a judge in the matter. He wound up apologizing to me for judging me. I made friends with him. Folks who are able to admit getting carried away can emerge from the claws of legalism.

That’s what it was, the ancient controversy about matters of conscience and what is “legal” for a Christian to indulge in and what isn’t. That’s one of the dangers of Facebook: failing to realize that you may offend someone’s conscience by posting the fact that you are participating in something that someone else feels is wrong. It is now possible to offend people across the globe. Isn’t it great?

Inquiring minds want to know why I had to have my eyeliner tattooed on. The answer is that I have worn eyeliner since I was a teenager. When I look in the mirror, I feel “naked” without it. Two years ago I had a brain hemorrhage. I woke up one morning to find my right arm dangling and my right leg numb. God blessed me with a total recovery. However, I can’t apply my eyeliner as well as I used to. I thought what a blessing it would be not to have to go through this challenge every morning. I asked the Lord who gave me total peace about having the procedure as He did when I inquired of Him whether or not to have plastic surgery or go on a mission trip to Africa. ¬

Even with God’s approval, I had to have the whole thing redone. I do not know the cosmic reason I had to have it redone. I do not believe that reading judgment into disappointment is the way to discern the will of God. I don’t believe that events such as tornadoes, hurricanes, accidents and random acts of violence by human beings are the judgment of God, either, at least not since Jesus died on the cross. If I were God, having to have eyeliner applied and reapplied is pretty low on the vengeance scale when you are talking about mass murders and holocausts.

If God “concluded all under sin that He might show mercy to all,” maybe He’s more interested in turning my life experiences into opportunities for redemption. Do you think He (I’m talking about the God who created the images we behold through the Hubble Space Telescope) could use His creativity to turn them into something that suits His purpose –even permanent eyeliner? By His own admission, Jesus didn’t come into the world to judge the world, but He came to save it. So is He going to change His mind about me because I want to have eyeliner tattooed on?

I realize that in the Law of Moses, God told the Jews not to have tattoos. Way back then, tattoos were permanent signs of ownership, of slavery. For some people today, they still are. Samuel reminded Saul one day, “Man looks on the outward appearance; the Lord looks on the heart.” That admonition is fraught with meaning. God is able to look at a person and see more than the outward appearance. We can’t do that. Instead we usually stumble over the outward appearance because we can’t see the heart.

In light of the eternal scheme, a tattoo is only semi-permanent. One day, if Jesus tarries, I’ll be a pile of dust. In that dust pile will linger molecules of my semi-permanent eyeliner. Those molecules will merge with the dirt waiting for the resurrection. I am not commenting on the theological possibility of our tattoos showing up on our resurrected bodies, I’m thinking that the Lord doesn’t really care about whether or not my eyeliner was applied permanently. I think He cares much more that I wear the “tattoo” He gave me. It is the true mark of ownership, and it’s on my heart. I used to have an old “boyfriend” named Lucifer. He tattooed my dead soul with words that told the world that he owned me: hatred, jealousy, pride, self-righteousness, judgment. These are only a partial list. The words wouldn’t rub off no matter how hard I tried. They were permanent. But I got a new boyfriend named Jesus. He erased all those tattoos free of charge—you can’t even see the scars now. My forever tattoo is shaped like a big heart. Inside it is written, “Jesus + Melinda.”

(By the way, I have to have the lower lids redone!)

Hubble pic

http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr1995044a/

Twas the Night Before Easter

Hubble pic of Eagle nebula

Twas the night before Easter this year, and I was lurking in the back of our congregation's auditorium. As usual, it was our Saturday evening meeting; and I was half in and half out of the experience. As I stood looking at a huge map of the world, I gradually sensed the presence of God filling me in the way I always know Him. As His love spilled in, I heard God laughing with me and at me. Meditation started sputtering. It was that wonderful melding of God's thoughts with mine. Christ Himself was flowing through me in a river of thoughts.

I thought, how many CSI's have I watched on TV?! The likenesses of human remains could turn anyone's stomach. Everyone reaches a moment when he or she is not just "mostly dead" but is "all dead" (to quote the movie, "The Princess Bride.") After the last breath, deterioration accelerates until each person becomes nothing more than a small pile of dust. The king and the street bum all have the same end.

When it comes to the matter of resurrection, how silly to think that in such a time, a person can offer God the slightest bit of help. How many times do we ask dumb questions like, "Who will roll the stone away from the door?" Yet how often do I think God needs my help in everyday matters. I assume I know what to do and say, "Thanks, God, I can take it from here!"

My next thought was of images from the Hubble space telescope. I kept hearing laughter in my heart. If you have trouble worrying, get a book of those photos. As you look at them, ask yourself, "I wonder if there is an intelligence gap between God and me?" As you look at the Eagle Nebula, ask the question, do I really think He expects me to figure it out?

After these thoughts, I heard a word, "Look over your lives at the things that are dead, things that are withered, things that are hopeless. Do not say, 'I don't have faith for that.' You already have enough. I will work for you; and this time you cannot help Me. I will do it. I will do what you can't for I am the God who raises from the dead."

Those things that God does are forever, even if they are only piles of dust right now. Do you know whether or not what you are doing right now is God initiated or simply man generated? It's important to know it because your time and resources need not be wasted on what will not rise from the dead.

Isn't it good to know that God is in control, the same God who created the places we see in the Hubble telescope?

Maybe you have done all that you can do. Perhaps you are so tired that you cannot do anymore about it or carry its weight. If you are in doubt about the origin of anything, go ahead, let it go into God's hand. If it is eternal, He will apply His unmistakable seal of loving approval: resurrection.

Don't try to make futile attempts to help God by resucitating things that do not have God's mark. They are no more useful to God's Kingdom than dust. Only that which Divine love generates goes on forever. If you want to see Him work through you, love Him and love people. That is enough. Perhaps now it is time to pay God the highest compliment that you can give Him, trust Him.

"I Have a Voice"

It's ironic, isn't it, that this year the academy award for best picture went to "The King's Speech"? It is the true story of King George VI (father of Queen Elizabeth II), his accession to the throne and his struggle to overcome a speech impediment that would have paralyzed his influence at the same time Hitler's voice was controlling much of Europe. Lionel Logue, an Australian man living in London, had no formal credentials as a speech therapist, but he had great success helping ordinary folks overcome speech impediments by using unconventional methods. He became the king's first true, lifetime friend even though he was a commoner. One of the king's vocal exercises was to keep saying, "I have a voice." The king found his voice by becoming a normal guy! He eventually became a beloved king and helped inspire England to survive World War II, which became, as Churchill described it, "their finest hour."

This is the day of the voice of "regular person." People have had it with dictatorial oppression. It's hard to "keep 'em down on the farm" when they can see 'Paree' on the Internet! They are asking why does our country have to live in poverty under a ruthless, maniacal dictator while other people are free and prosperous?  Operating via the Internet's social networks is increasing the momentum of any cause. At no time in history has it been possible for any individual to be able to influence any person in the world on such a vast scale and with such speed. It's possible to generate a "flash crowd" in minutes. Just "tweet" the location, and you have an instant protest march. Whereas in the past, a person had to pass through the right connections and have enough money to raise his or her voice loud enough to attract listeners, now it is no longer necessary to acquire the permission of the powers that be or to have big money in order to have a voice. Anyone can speak to another person anywhere in the world via the Internet by creating a Facebook profile or a blog.

So now "stars" no longer occupy the exclusive place they once did; and as political stars are falling from the sky, the powers of the earth are shaking. God is causing every mountain and hill to be made low by multiplying the ability to have influence through having a voice. In the words of Oscar Hammerstein, "If everybody's somebody, then no one's anybody." When anyone can do it, it is common and no longer "special." Multiplying the ability which was once afforded to only an elite few levels the playing field.  Now a worker can have the same voice as a king.

The ability of anyone to have a voice is affecting the church, too. Hierarchies no longer have the influence they once enjoyed unless they can do so through fear or other forms of manipulation. The voice of the regular person is flattening the hierarchical structures that exist as people no longer need antiquated forms of leadership that quench healthy voices rather than empower them. Now there is a whirlwind of voices clamoring for attention. It's not about "office" or title anymore. Anyone can learn to hear for himself the voice of truth above the cacophony. Yes, there will always be hierarchies and titles that go with them, but now you can get your message out by simply bypassing them.

I want to have a voice worth hearing, don't you? I want it to be encouraging and carry a message that glorifies Jesus Christ. I want my voice to be recognizable because it speaks truth, but also because it speaks it the way my heavenly Father would. The only way to have a voice worth hearing is by listening to His.
 
Our friend, Joe Gregorian, has found his voice. He has a website where for over a decade, he has influenced people in Iran by sharing the simple gospel of Jesus Christ with them. He doesn't advertise his ministry and is not a speaker at conferences. He is a financial advisor by trade, but he's a missionary from his living room. He and his wife, Anna were born in Iran and are Americans now. He immigrated here before the shah was deposed in the late '70's. In Toronto in 1997 at the renewal meetings at TACF (now known as Catch the Fire), Joe was receiving prayer and resting in God's presence when he saw a vision of Jesus dragging His cross. Then he saw the map of Iran. He heard the Lord say to him, "My compassion."

Reeling under the influence of the Lord's voice, Joe began using contacts he already had to send New Testaments in Farsi to his homeland at his own expense. When their government tried to thwart him by opening the parcels and substituting copies of a gnostic gospel in its place, he pressed on anyway. Now he sends them pdf and no one can stop him. (You cannot edit a pdf file.) Almost every day someone contacts him from Iran, someone who has prayed the "sinner's prayer" and who is hungry for more information about Jesus. Inquiries are increasing as spiritual hunger is hitting Iran. (See the English website: http://www.evangelizeiran.org/ to contact Joe.) Joe's ability to speak to the common people of Iran came as a direct result of hearing His voice and following the Lord's simple instructions. How many others are like Joe, walking through the walls of dictatorial oppression by making their voices heard through the Internet? Exciting, isn't it?

But here is a negative side to this phenomenon. Now that everyone is speaking, exercising your privilege to listen for what is true is more important than ever. The Christian wants to know above all things what the Lord is saying. So with the playing field level, how do I recognize His voice amid all the others?

It is not necessary to have any other mediator other than Jesus Christ, because to hear His voice is the privilege of any believer. It is within you because the eternal Holy Spirit has "wadded Himself up" and lives inside you, and He can talk. You will learn to hear that voice and distinguish it from your own like a child learns to hear and obey His parent. You will learn it gradually, and will probably make errors in discerning it sometimes, but the struggle to hear Him is worth it.

God's voice is recognizable because it is kind and says the truth with wisdom that creates a sometimes irrational peace in your soul. Even in rebuke, His voice brings hope. His voice is not selfish, boastful or rude, off-color or even heard constantly. It's not usually formal and is sometimes downright humorous. To hear his voice is the privilege of any believer who has the Holy Spirit within. You will sometimes hear Him speaking to you through others, and you will hear it because of its familiarity-- it confirms what God has already been speaking to you. And if a Christian has wisdom, he will observe the outcome of the speaker's life before he heeds his voice or imitates his faith.

Jesus died and rose from the dead to give each member of his body a voice. "If any man speaks, let Him speak as the oracles of God..." (I Peter 2:10-11) Perhaps you have heard many voices in and out of the body of Christ claiming to speak for God. Some of those voices sound like a stutterer learning to relax. They say nothing profound, but they are useful mainly to the one learning to exercise his own voice! Other voices carry some of the truth but only briefly. Some of the voices sound selfish and proud and have an irritating clang as though the speaker were saying the right words but hadn't spent enough time being with God before trying to speak in His behalf.

To have a voice like your heavenly Father's, you have to listen long enough to not just hear words, but possess the authority of someone who knows Him well. It's like a son growing up in his father's presence. The son's voice, regardless of his age, is precious to his father; but it  will have a different quality when the son is 30 years old than it does when he is six or twelve. Your voice is as distinct as your DNA and is different from any other voice in the world. Doesn't knowing this fact add new meaning to King David's words, "In the morning, O Lord, you will hear my voice..."? Your voice produces a natural sound, and I'll bet it has a distinct spiritual sound, too, one that your Father longs to hear. He wants you to talk to Him, and He wants to talk to you, too.

Learning to hear and recognize the voice of your father is part of growing up into the image of Jesus Christ, the model Son. It takes years of learning to hear that familiar voice so that your own voice sounds exactly like His. Speaking for God is more than imitating His voice like Cecil B. DeMille in the movie, "The Ten Commandments." It is more than repeating scriptures or relating concepts you've learned. It is learning to speak from the position of being in Him.

Jesus, your Saviour, was and is the voice of His Father. In these last days, He has spoken to us in His Son.( Hebrews 1). He used to speak in many different ways but in these days, He is speaking to us in His son, Jesus Christ. Anything God says will glorify Jesus because He is the superior revelation. All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge reside in Him. What the writer of Hebrews meant was that now that the Word has become flesh and accomplished redemption, there is nothing left to say. Jesus Christ is the final word. God the Father can't say enough about Jesus. Other topics don't deserve the same level of attention that He does. That's why the writer of Hebrews goes on to say, "To which of the angels has He ever said, 'Sit at My right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet..." The Father has given all things to the Son, and human beings do not have the authority to change the subject.

Jesus said of Himself, "I am the way, the truth and the life; no man comes to the Father but by Me." It wasn't the voice of pride; it was the Father's voice, and what He said is true. On the mount of transfiguration, Peter saw the vision but tried to speak its interpretation before He had anything to say. The Father rebuked Peter. "This is my Son; listen to Him." (Aren't you glad He did? Peter was interpreting the vision as a mandate to build 3 temples and two of them were to Moses and Elijah! That's way too big a building program!) Peter didn't understand that Jesus is the superior revelation, the other figures he saw that day were of lesser importance yet they were widely recognized as the greatest prophets who had ever lived. Moses spoke the word he heard from God which became law to the Jews. Elijah spoke in supernatural demonstrations of God's power. God vindicated them both with signs and wonders and a following of proteges. It is possible that neither Moses and Elijah died naturally but were 'caught up.' However, they were only foreshadows of the Living Word of God, our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. God vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead in a body that would never die again.

If you have seen or heard anything in these days, ponder it. Maybe you are like Peter and what God has said to you or shown you is part of some bigger picture; and He's not finished talking to you. The puzzle piece doesn't have the same value as the whole picture.  Maybe He's just started talking to you, but He is not ready for you to say it yet. You need the right context. Let what you have seen, read and heard ferment long enough to become good wine. Otherwise, you'll be spreading the cheap stuff around so often that no one will want what you are peddling. If you really trust Him, listen to Him, for years maybe; and He will turn what you've seen and heard into the best wine.

I believe that God is teaching each one of His children to hear from Him and to speak for Him, and He is causing walls against His voice to drop. He is leveling the playing field not so that we may draw attention to ourselves, but so that our voices will draw attention to Jesus.  If you have been denied your voice by men, know that they cannot stop God from speaking. Perhaps you feel like you are stuttering right now in order to gain a voice. Don't despair. It is God who will give you a voice. Just listen to Him.