Wayne Jacobsen

We arrived home yesterday after two and a half weeks enjoying some wonderful time together in the beauty of the Sierras. Sara and I got lots of time in with family and friends as well as some long walks in the woods with our two dogs. And I got a chance to water ski–something I enjoyed as a young man, but have not had much opportunity to do for the past few decades. I got to ski more in the past two weeks than in my previous 30 years. And it was fun. There’s something about cutting through glassy water on a slalom ski that I find exhilarating to my mind and heart. Especially at my age! And there was something about tubing behind a boat with my granddaughters through rough water that was hilarious funny and quite renewing. I am so grateful for the vacation God gave us this year. So good!

Now we’re home to a very busy schedule. Over the next few weeks we will have a number of guests coming to stay with us. Next week the producer and screenwriter for the movie adaptation of So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore are coming to spend two days working on the script. After that our board will be gathering here for the weekend to sort out what God has in mind through Lifestream. They are followed by a songwriter/author friend of mine who wanted my input on some of his projects, and then I’ll spend another day with someone helping us reformat our website to add some new features that will help us do what we do.

All that aside, there’s a deeper undercurrent to our lives right now. Starting next week, I am also taking a hiatus from The God Journey Podcast for an indefinite period of time. I have no idea if it will be short or long, but don’t worry, there’s no crisis here. I explain all of that on tomorrow’s episode. Given the project I’ve been working on for the last eight months and the new work God is doing in Sara, we both sense that the wind of the Spirit is blowing across our lives inviting us to a different direction. We’re not at all sure what that might mean for us, but we think it will send us on a new tack. We are simply creating some space in our lives to let God speak to us clearly about that, and didn’t want to just plunge ahead doing what we’ve always done.

Honestly, I’m excited even in the uncertainty of what’s ahead. God has heard my prayer. In this season of life, I want to give myself to those things that will most bear the fruit of God’s purpose in the world through his gifts in me. There may be better ways to do that, than simply maintaining the course we’ve been on for many years.

Time will tell.

We will be on vacation around here, until August 16. Sara and I are taking some time off the next two and a half weeks for a vacation of rest, recreation, and hanging out with some close friends and family. We are so looking forward to taking a break. These pages will be quiet in that time and if you can hold your emails until I return, that would be great. (We do have someone filling book and audio orders for us during that time.)

I’ll leave you with this: My dad told us a story from his few days on the front in World War II, before he was injured by mortar fire and evacuated to a hospital in Italy. A new officer had been assigned to his unit and had come up to the front to introduce himself. Unfortunately he had no battlefield experience. He had just been trained at Officer Candidate School. While he was explaining to them who he was and what he expected of them, a mortar round was launched from the opposing army. By the sound it was making all the men knew it wasn’t going to land anywhere near them, but the officer only knew mortar rounds in theory. He yelled “take cover” and dropped to the ground with his hands over his helmet seeking what little protection he could find. The rest of the men just stood there watching their commanding officer huddled on the ground in terror.

Eventually the officer realized he was not in danger and sheepishly stood up and continued on with his presentation as if nothing had happened. The men were smart enough not to laugh at him, but my dad said every soldier knew this was not someone they would entrust their lives to him in battle. Tough he had lots of training on the theory of battle, he had absolutely no experience with what it meant to live in one. They would give him lip service, but they would follow the sergeants who had lived on the battlefield far longer than anyone else.

I meet a lot of people on this journey who are staunch advocates for the “love message” or “grace message”. They can espouse the theory well enough, but they have no idea how to live a life of loving and it’s obvious in the way they treat others. Instead of being honest, gracious and, well… loving, they treat people harshly, especially those who might disagree with them. Then I know, they’ve just jumped on a bandwagon. In the end it’s just a message to them, one they may be genuinely believe, but one they haven’t begun to learn to live.

The world’s bandwidth is filled with people who have opinions and theories they want to force on others. What the world needs is people who will live differently, who love others without trying to exploit them for their own ministry or their own gain. They don’t just expound the theory, but live radically as those who put others above themselves, care for people who hurt or are in need, and demonstrate that love is not a theology but a way of life. When you love that way, the world opens up to you. And you learn it not on outreaches to strangers or speaking to crowds, but by laying your life down for the people closest to you–your spouse, your neighbors and your co-workers.

And I’m glad we have an older brother who fully lived love in this world, tempted in every way like we are and yet found the Father’s love the greatest reality to embrace. We can fully entrust our lives to him and learn from him what he knows so well. That’s how his joy lives in us, and our joy becomes full.

A week ago I let you know about a need at the orphanage in Kenya we’ve been helping to support. Many of the mattresses were completely worn out and needed to be replaced. Some of you responded quickly and your help was greatly appreciated.

Late last week, however, we were informed that an inspection team from the government would be arriving this week and they felt the mattresses needed to be replaced before that team arrived so their condition would not to be a concern. So we were able to send off the $2600.00 to replace all the mattresses and bedding before enough had come in to offset the costs.

These are the pictures they sent this morning:

The mattresses arrive at the orphange

Everyone pitches in to unload them

Finally, a place to sleep!

We are still needing help offsetting those costs as well as with the $2500.00 per month we send to feed and educate the 70 plus children living there. If you would like to help us with a one-time contribution, or a monthly donation, we (and they) would be grateful. If you want to know more about this project or the AIDs recovery home we also support in South Africa, you can see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

“After reading your email the Spirit of God came over me with a joy and freedom that I’ve never had. Please keep up the good work because you are getting through.” That response came a week or two ago after a recent exchange with a man who was concerned about what it meant to be lukewarm. Since I do get the question from time to time, I thought I’d share my answer here in case it might help others.

Here’s his question:

I need to overcome a hurdle so I can let God do a deeper work in me. Can you please shed some light here? In HE LOVES ME you say, no matter how much we try to earn his favor, we will always fall short.

I love that phrase but for years I’ve been hearing in the book of the Revelation it says that there is a warning to Christians about being lukewarm or cold or God will spit us out of his mouth. If that’s true then I am really confused about not being enough. How do we rest and get by this, it seems like a contradiction to freedom? I don’t really understand the whole book of revelation. Could you please shed some light on this?

Before I do, let me make an observation about reading the Bible. I think it’s important to live in the parts we understand, rather than being swallowed up by those parts we don’t understand. Walking in the light means walking in what he’s revealed to me, not worrying about whether or not he’s going to hold something against me that I don’t understand.

Now to your question. Your fear assumes this: Being cold must mean we’re not following Jesus, being lukewarm means we’re falling short in some behavior, and being hot is performing well to some “Christian” standard. I don’t think that’s true at all.

The context makes it clear that a cold person is one that has no heart for Jesus. The lukewarm are those religious people who talk about Jesus all the time but are not learning how to live in his love and follow him. Their journey is mere lipservice and their character is one of arrogance an anger, rather than the fruits of the spirit. The hot are those who are passionate for Jesus and are learning to live in his love. None of this has to do with performance, but passion. And the reason why Jesus would rather have us cold than lukewarm, is because at least those who are cold are not pretending. Those who are lukewarm think they have a relationship they don’t have. They think themselves spiritual, when in fact it is only a pretense. They do lots of religious things, but they aren’t coming to know him and be transformed by him.

How do we know that? Because Jesus already told us that apart from him we can do nothing (John 15), and Paul testified that any confidence in our own flesh will detract us from a vibrant relationship with him (Philippians 3). Life in him is not about human performance, but divine transformation that is the fruit of a growing relationship with him. You can be hot after him even if he’s only begun to set you free.

So, relax. It’s never about performance, it’s about passion to know his love and live in it… With that kind of heart, Jesus can have his way in us.

I’m getting ready to go on a two-week vacation beginning next week and have a lot of things I need to work through before I go, so don’t be surprised if you see a flurry of blog postings this week and then… silence!

Someone sent me a link to this blog today, and I really, really loved this part of it. I know nothing about the blog or Dr. Kelly Flanagan, the man behind it, but this certainly resonates with me and what I’m learning on this journey. The blog is called Untangled, and I love his distinction between happiness and joy. I saw this on a blog today and I couldn’t resist passing it along.

These are excerpts from Licking Happiness and Forsaking Joy:

Happiness is all about circumstance and situation. It’s all about orchestrating events so life is comfortable and pleasurable and fun. Happiness is what happens when all the tumblers fall into place and life just clicks.

But happiness is always fleeting. Because circumstances change.

The furnace goes out and the roof springs a leak, and suddenly the financial margin evaporates. Or the new boss is a disaster. Or the kid comes home after a semester at college because the pressure got to him first and the amphetamines got to him next.

Happiness is an ice cream cone that melts, leaving you with sticky fingers and a constant hunger for more.

But Joy.

Joy is a place inside every circumstance. It’s a constant place, and it feels like peace, and it gives hope, and it looks like love, but it is more than all of these things, and words will always fail it.

Joy is the peace that comes from looking right into the storm and feeling freedom from it.

Joy is the place we stumble upon when we look our deepest pain and greatest fear directly in the eyes, and we refuse to flinch. It’s the place we stumble upon when we decide pain and fear aren’t going to be the final word. It’s the place where we anchor ourselves in something more than the vicissitudes of our material existence. It’s the place of freedom inside every situation, where we realize the things that are happening to us are losing their power to control us and define us.

For me that place is being at home in the Father’s affection. I’m not talking about a love message, or a grace theology, but a growing engagement with him that holds me in every circumstance and allows me rest in his provision and work.

I recently received an email from my dear brother and friend in Kenya, Michael. It seems The Jesus’ Lens is having quite an impact over there. That blesses me a lot, because that is a major reason why we went to the time and expense to video record that nine-hour teaching on reading the Scriptures as a story so that people will come out with a cohesive view of the God behind the Scripture. Because people haven’t seen Scripture as a story of God’s unfolding revelation of himself, culminating in Jesus, too many fail to understand that there were many misconceptions of God throughout history that God continued to invite humanity to see past. That’s why so many Christians see God as an offended deity rather than a loving Abba. Religion seems to have a vested interest in keeping people afraid of God, rather than inviting them into the revelation of his love.

Remember much of Africa labors under false views of God, used to sustain the power of leaders who want their people to be fearful of God’s punishment so they will work hard for him. That’s why this letter was such a blessing:

Receive wonderful greetings again in Jesus’ name. Thank you very much for your support. We have received more thanksgiving from every corner on how The Jesus’ Lens has transformed the lives of people. This is amazing grace! My brother you may not be here with us, but your teaching from the far corner of the world, God has anointed to bring healing and deliverance in our lives. I have just returned to the office and after reading all the testimonies from others around the country who have been touched by your teaching, I cried. I am amazed at what the Holy Spirit is doing across the nations of Africa. We thank God that he joined us together for this time of restoring what the devil has stolen for such a long time on this continent. God is restoring at this time and we praise him more and more

Sometimes when you plant the seed you never know the impact. I have seen more transformation in my life and more revelation, which God himself is adding in my life and so many other brothers and sisters so that we can become more like him. This is not a group of people under an organization, but brothers and sisters who have come together for one purpose of building relationships with one another. This is the church Jesus himself is building around the globe–the called ones, chosen before the foundation of the world. Africa has walked for generations without true direction, but just under the oppressor, which is religion. This false teaching has taken the entire continent into captivity, calling the church an institution and creating titles of position that have created a stronghold in our nation to keep us from God. He is having his own way of restoring this continent back to him again. May the lord God bless you from Kenya.

It sounds to me like they are seeing God in a way that will transform them in his love. How awesome is that? I’m so grateful that God is making this increasingly clear to them. Here are some photos of people discussing The Jesus Lens in small group settings:

I also received an appeal from the folks at the orphanage. We already send $3,000.00 per month to help keep the orphanage operational and the staff paid. To date, we have not received enough contributions per month for that need, so Lifestream continues to cover that out of the extra God has made available to us. In addition, however, there’s a need for new mattresses and bedding. Many of the children still struggle with bedwetting and their mattresses have taken a toll, as seen in some of these photos below. We need 80 sets of mattresses, blankets, and sheets at a cost of$33.00 per child. If you can help with one or more of these (3 kids for $100.00, or all of them for $2600.00), please see the information at the end of this posting as to how you can help. Any contributions will be a blessing, and every dime of what you send will end up benefiting one of these children.

The bedding has seen better days

One of the older children

The children we are trying to help.

If you feel called to help us support these children either with a one-time contribution, or a monthly donation, we (and they) would be grateful. If you want to know more about this project or the AIDs recovery home we also support in South Africa, you can see our Sharing With the World page at Lifestream. You can either donate with a credit card there, or you can mail a check to Lifestream Ministries • 1560-1 Newbury Rd #313 • Newbury Park, CA 91320. Or if you prefer, we can take your donation over the phone at (805) 498-7774.

I often hear from people who read my blog, that have no idea that I post a regular podcast each week. That’s probably because it is on another website, TheGodJourney.com. As I take off for a week’s vacation with Sara and my daughter’s family, I thought I’d highlight the one we did yesterday, because we stumbled on to an essential freedom in this journey that I wouldn’t want many of you to miss it, or the wonderful conversation going on in the “comments” section.

It’s called “Living Beyond Our Transformation” and talks about the frustration people often feel at the freedoms they don’t have yet in their lives, as they struggle with temptation, fear, or anxiety. One of the great realities of knowing we’re loved and engaged in a process with Jesus, is that we get to relax in that process. He’s the one changing us and making us holy so when we come across those “unchanged-as-of-yet places” in our lives, we don’t have to try and outperform our relationship. Attempting to do so will only lead to certain failure and frustration as he has not yet made the inward changes in us necessary to sustain the freedom.

Whether you listen or not, I thought this encouragement is one that’s greatly needed and points the futility of living to a set of standards, that may express God’s holiness, but not the process we must be engaged in with him so he can make us holy. This is his work remember. He told us that apart from him, we could do nothing! I think the greatest failure of religion is to hold up a set of standards and demanding people meet it, without showing them how to engage a relation with Jesus that is essential for us to live in his holiness.

Transformation results from an ongoing engagement with Jesus. When you’re in that process you don’t have to panic when you find yourself unable to be perfect today. Instead you will be drawn back to him so that as your relationship with him grows, so will your freedom.

Today we celebrate American Independence. Do you want to know what I’m thinking today? I don’t often use this page for my political points of view, but I will today and many of you who are not interested are free to ignore it. I have never been more concerned for the present and future of our country. The noble ideal of a country founded on equal rights and equal justice under the law has seriously eroded in recent decades. Just because I don’t often write about that, doesn’t mean I don’t care about what’s being done with the American Promise. I care deeply and as a responsible citizen I speak up in whatever venues I think will be helpful for our country’s future. At the same time, however, my hope is not in humanity or politics. While essential for the public order, governments over time always tend toward rewarding a powerful elite, corruptly so, in hopes that the masses will feel powerless to stop it and quietly go along. We stand at such a crossroads today.

As much as I celebrate the ideal of freedom, I also mourn it’s passing. In 1776 our country threw off the restraints of a distant king who saw fit to tax the populace whenever he saw fit to increase his personal wealth. Our forefathers found the rule of royalty so onerous and unfair that at great personal risk to their lives and fortune, they announced their independence and risked their lives on the battlefield to win it. They established a country based on the idea that all of us are created equal and that government should seek a greater common good with justice for all and not create a ruling class of powerful or wealthy citizens with special benefits.

The last eight years has made it clear that a new royalty has emerged in America. No, it isn’t a royal family, but an incestuous relationship between Wall Street bankers and Washington politicians who consider themselves above the rest of us and thus entitled to great wealth and privilege. In the past two administrations we saw that both Democrat and Republican officials were willing to give billions of dollars to reward those who fraudulently caused the financial crisis, while ignoring those who were victims of it. How many politicians go to Washington hoping to make a difference and instead become part of the problem, while their personal wealth grows exponentially? Even those who go of modest means, soon become multimillionaires and then trade their government contacts for careers as lobbyists when their time is up. Public service has lost its meaning. Washington and New York have become an extravagant culture to themselves with little concern for the problems of middle America. Instead of seeking a common good for all, our politicians continue to manipulate the process for their own power, prestige and fortune. State governments are not exempt from this as well, and perhaps California is the worst of all in bankrupting our state to push for their own gain.

People decry the entitlement culture where people are made more dependent on the state, rather than accepting responsibility for their own lives. But our mushrooming entitlement culture certainly doesn’t begin with the poor, but the wealthy ruling class, who consider themselves entitled to special government protection and perks while their fellow-citizens suffer. They continue to vote benefits for themselves and their cronies while they defraud the American public.

We are no longer a nation of laws that seeks to treat all citizens fairly, but a nation of lawyers, some of whom have helped to rig a political and legal system that rewards the rich and well-connected. The new enemies of the state in my view are those politicians, authors, news pundits, and “news analysts” who trade on polarizing the public by lying about the opposition as well as their own ambitions. Until the American people demand better of their politicians and turn off their 24-hour news channels it will be impossible to rebuild a civil political discourse that actually tackles the large and significant problems that confront our country. It may well take a new third party that ignores those on the far left and far right and works to construct a fair and just society for us all. I have more confidence that most conscientious citizens understand common sense and fair play better than anyone in the upper echelons of our political process.

But I will still vote in the upcoming election and make my voice heard, however small. The only way it will matter is if others also reject the current players in our system and move demand that future elected officials change the climate in Washington and the realities of political service. If America is going to change it will happen because voters are less gullible to the manipulations of our political process and seek out statesmen and stateswomen to send to Washington and our state houses to clean up the mess of our current generation of corrupt politicians. Here’s what I’m looking for:

Will any of these things happen in my lifetime? That is up to the voter, of course, and it will take many election cycles, not just this one. Will we just continue to fall in line with the pandering of both political parties, or will we demand that they change or create a new part with better ideals? Time will tell. If we just keep sending the same kind of people to Washington that we’ve been sending for the past 30 years, we cannot expect anything to change.

But as I said when I started this, my hope in life or in America’s future is not in politics. God’s work is going to continue to go forward in the world even if our society spends itself into bankruptcy and bondage. God does some of his best work in people in times of scarcity and crisis, than he is able to do in times of prosperity and bliss. So while I lament the corruption of our political process and the distortion of our founding ideals, I nonetheless am overjoyed that I am part of a kingdom that is not founded on human greed, but on the love and power of God. That kingdom cannot be shaken no matter what happens in our world.

For your summer reading pleasure, I’m adding a second recommendation to the one I made yesterday. This one is only available as an e-book and at 92 pages almost qualifies as a short story. What I hate about short stories is that if you get attached to the characters, they end too soon. This ends way too soon for me. There is so much more that could have been done with this set-up and there was so much more I wanted to know about the characters in it. But that aside, this is a worthy tale of life in the 21st Century and how technology can so easily distract us from the reality of life itself.

Written by Dr. Stephanie Bennett, Within the Walls on the surface is a story of technology and our humanity. It pits the power of once well-meaning institutions against what is best for the individual. This story confronts us with the possibility that our digital lives doesn’t necessarily enhance our human experience, but can in the end dehumanize us by luring us away from the substance of life itself. What happens when someone begins to see through the illusion, and why do others feel it important to hide the truth at all costs and thus preserve the illusion?

The story is set in 2071 sometime after a nuclear event has destroyed much of the world. Twenty-nine year-old Emilya loves here work as a creator of virtual vacations, until an inner uneasiness begins to plague her. Something is wrong, but what is it? Soon she finds herself ostracized at work and the questions only grow. Then she finds a strange letter from her deceased mother that had never been sent to her. Questions continue to pile up that launch Emilya on a quest for truth that upends her world. Clues that others who’ve gone before her and left behind become the bread crumbs she must read correctly. As an added delight the writings of Jacques Ellul, the French philosopher and Christian anarchist, help bring depth to her pursuit.

Ms. Bennett is a gifted communicator, who quickly grabs our attention and enmeshes us in Emilya’s story. I was rooting for her to find the truth and hopeful that in doing so we’d get some valuable ideas about making space away from the media’s ever-present demands, to find some measure of engagement with what is more transcendent.

Here’s an excerpt:

We were looking for a spacious place where the mind could wander free—-where we weren’t tethered to walls and the constant flow of information. We wanted to use technologies, but started to see that we were inadvertently creating a society that was unfit for human beings. We were creating this new world. It was horrifying to see that we developed these new tools, instead of using them to our best advantage, we were letting them use us!

On the surface this fast-paced novella challenges our view of media and how it seeks to dominate our our attention. However our media rarely lives up to its promise and few question what it crowds out that may be far more meaningful. That, alone, makes this story worth reading. But for those who dare, there’s a more subtle story here of how our mechanized, religious approaches to God have distorted our view of life and robbed us of more relevant engagements with God and his creation.

Thought-provoking, engaging, and satisfying, this story does not disappoint, except in its brevity. And for me to say so, tells you how much I enjoyed this story.

You can order it from Amazon Kindle here. (Within the Walls by Stephanie Bennett • 92 pages • $5.00 • e-book)

There are a couple of new fiction books out I think many of you will enjoy, and because they are self-published, you may not hear about them if you don’t hear about them here. I’ll post up another one tomorrow, but the first has a controversial title (to say the least), but you’ll find out why it’s entirely appropriate when you read the story. It’s about a man living in the painful reality of his own illusions, who is offered a different way to process his struggle.

Written by MC Lang, a friend of mine from Canada. (Yes, I did try to get him to change the title, and no, being a friend doesn’t necessarily get your book reviewed here. I only mention books here I think this audience would be genuinely interested in.) There are many books that I enjoy personally, that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend to others for various reasons. This is the story of a man who is caught in the painful perceptions of his own illusion and has the opportunity to see through them and grasp reality. But which way does it lie? Who can he trust, and what will that reality cost him?

Mike Adams lives a solitary and unassuming life, until a near-death experience shatters it. Awaking as if from a dream, Mike finds himself lost in a bizarre reality where nothing makes sense and two mysterious strangers seem determined to pull him in opposite directions. Arrested at the crossroads of this uncertain new path, the tug-of-war for Mike’s soul hangs in the balance as he struggles with what is real and what is true. As the race for an answer climaxes, Mike is thrust into a world where physical and spiritual realities collide, and the stage is set for an encounter he will never forget.

I wrote this paragraph as an endorsement for his book:

This is a first-rate parable where the line between our material and spiritual worlds blur. MC Lang invites us along for an extraordinary tale of a very common man whose comfort is shattered by the words of a stranger. But that only opens his eyes to a reality greater than he’d ever dreamed. For anyone on a spiritual journey The Bastard Tree will enlighten, inspire, and encourage you to follow the only voice that makes sense in a broken world.

I meant every word of it. I think you’ll enjoy thinking through this book and the themes it wrestles with.

You can find out more about it here: http://www.mclang.net/the-bastard-tree/. You can also order it from Amazon here. (The Bastard Tree by M.C. Lang • 290 pages • $14.99 • paperback)

Tomorrow I’ll going to offer you another…