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We are getting settled back home after an incredible trip first to Spain to share with believers there, and then to Rome where we took a walk back through time to the beginning stages of western civilization. We started our trip there among the ruins of ancient Rome—the Colosseum, Palatine Hill where the rulers built their palaces, and the Roman Forum where they ruled. Later in the trip we visited the Vatican and St. Peters, a underground excavation of a 4th century basilica for early believers, and St. John’s Cathedral that was near our hotel and was the first seat of the papal authority for the Catholic Church, and it continues to be so even though St. Peter’s Basilica is nearer the Vatican.

As someone fascinated by human history experiencing these sights firsthand was amazing on a number of levels, many of which were conflicting. I could admire what mankind was able to create in ancient times, but that would be consumed by the fact that they could only do so by conquering people in far-off lands, stealing their treasures for themselves, and bringing them back as slaves to do their work. At home they created a society that sustain an elite class of the privileged at the cost of keeping everyone else impoverished. As long as they pacified 99% of the population with food and entertainment, the 1% could continue their privileged lives with little consequence.

To help me make sense of these things I saw there I also took two books along to read: Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire by Simon Baker and History of the Popes: From Peter to the Present by John O’Malley. I am still reading those now and am finding them fascinating, in both the achievements and atrocities of mankind and how in most cases how those two are directly linked.

What amazed me was seeing the juxtaposition of the pinnacle of pagan culture (Rome) and what is supposed to be the crowing glory of Christendom (the Vatican). But they are exactly identical in what they loved and treasured and in what they were willing to do to establish their authority and to manipulate the common man. In fact one could say that the priorities of the Roman Empire didn’t vanish with the fall of the culture, they simply rolled over into the defining realities of the hierarchical structures and facilities of the “church” in that day. Whether it was a small group of Romans wanting to conquer the known world to satiate their desire for power and extravagance, or a small group of religious leaders wanting to do the same thing. Moving from the Roman Forum to the Vatican it was obvious that both cultures were created and sustained by the same preoccupations with:

And through it all one phrase kept coming to mind: “What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.” (Luke16:15) That’s what Jesus said to the Pharisees about their attempts to serve both God and mammon, and he gave them a firm warning that mammon would always win that contest. And so it has, even down to the present day.

As a culture we are still impressed with magnificent-if-gaudy buildings or fascinated with celebrity. It’s the same worldly vices reborn in our generation. So many seek to find significance through fame or finances even if they have to trample on others to gain their illusion of success. It all begins with the simple deception that God’s gifts make me better than, more deserving than, more right than the people who live around me. It takes that delusion to treat people the way you have to treat them to be at home in the upper reaches of society. And even those that don’t have that kind of “success” either spend their life striving to find it, or live frustrated with God that he didn’t make them as successful or as well-known as they think they should be.

What saddens me most here are those who expound the message of grace but don’t know how to live in it for others. They take advantage for themselves, but don’t know how to extend it to the closest people to them. Jesus reminded his first disciples not to exalt any person above others, and certainly not to place themselves there. “You have one Father and you are all brothers,” he reminded them. And, “The greatest among you is the servant of all.” Once our sense of success is based in the world’s priorities of wealth, visibility, and success we have already traded Jesus’ kingdom for another, no matter how much lip service we pay to his. God’s gifts are not for personal privilege but for serving others.

After seeing the vanity and emptiness of so much opulence and false notions of power and influence, I came away even more committed to the wonderful simplicity of relationships with others as brothers and sisters, in the simple wonder of God’s gifts and graces imparted as freely to others as he has done so for me.

“What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight.”

“We finished up our retreat in Malaga on Sunday afternoon with a bit of sharing. If you’d like to see some pictures from our time with a smaller group under a fig tree, you can see it here. This discussion began with a small group of women under a fig tree who wanted to ask more pointed questions about how to help people who have suffered great abuse or pain connect with the reality of a Father’s love they had never known. I reminded them that this is God’s job not ours. We can encourage, we can help share the Truth, but it is God’s to reveal his love, even through periods of great pain. And he does it so well. I encouraged them to ask the people they are helping in turn to ask the Lord to show them his love. This is God’s work, not ours to prove by logical arguments.

As we talked the discussion grew as more people joined in. Eventually we started debriefing from the weekend. They wanted to hear Sara’s story and how God brought her into a new place of freedom. It was wonderful and connected with so many. Then we talked about how each of us can relax more into God’s freedom every day.

As is the case with so many stops I make, it is difficult to leave those God knits our hearts to even over a weekend. On Monday our hosts took us to Gibraltar and some time on the mountain with a group of monkeys. On Tuesday we flew to Rome to meet up with our friends from Switzerland to spend some days in fellowship as we explore the city of Rome. Yesterday we saw the Spanish Steps and the area around Trevi Fountain. This morning we wandered around the Coloseum together and explored the Roman Forum and archeological digs on Palatine.

Tomorrow we are headed to the Vatican. I’m looking forward to it, even though it will bring a number of conflicting emotions to bear. Breathtaking art, amazing architecture from long ago, and all of that provided for by an often-oppressive religious institution that accomplished these things with so-called offerings to God. Tomorrow ought to rock!

Yesterday we drove from Madrid to the south coast near the city of Malaga for a weekend retreat. (The picture at left is from our tour in downtown Madrid.) We are on the Mediterranean Sea, and even got to dip our feet in last night. This morning we had one of those amazing discussions about the cross, and eyes were opening around the room like I rarely witness. People were in tears, and even my translator could hardly contain himself. God just dumped an amazing amount of his grace into the room.

I sat there amazed, knowing that this was a very special moment in some people’s lives and that it had nothing to do with me, but what God wanted to share with some people. When we dismissed at the end not a soul moved. Finally one person said, “We are undone!”

And it was true. I am amazed that God lets me be part of stuff like this. But we have truly been taught an inadequate view of the cross that makes God the angry judge, rather than the loving Abba. Some people love it that way and will fight to the death to preserve what they believe to be an adequate view of God. The cross was not God crushing an innocent victim, but substitutionary atonement in the truest sense. Jesus took our place in the healing of our sin and shame, so that we could draw near to his Father, our Father, without fear and without shame. It is truly the most amazing story.

Sara and I landed safely this morning in Madrid, Spain. This is our first trip here and yet we got off the plane to familiar faces—people we met in the States a little over a year ago. We’ll be gathering with people tonight and tomorrow in Madrid, even though people have come from all over Spain, Portugal, and even France. Oh, yeah, we’ll also be working through jet lag since we only got a couple of hours sleep on the flight in.

Tomorrow we are going to see a bit of downtown Madrid and then Friday morning we will be driving five hours south to Malaga on the south coast. We will be gathering for a weekend Then for the weekend we will be gathering in Malaga on the south coast. If you’d like to join us you can get the details here.

Then next Tuesday we’ll be moving on to Rome, Italy to meet some of our dear friends who will arrive from Switzerland and to sample the sites and sounds of the city, it’s history and nearby Vatican City.

I’d like to invite you to visit our new Lifestream home page, which has just been redesigned to give visitors a quick overview of what’s going on in my life. Originally designed to be a welcome page for new visitors, it now includes the most important information coming out of Lifestream. You’ll find a section for the latest Lifestream News, Wayne’s most recent blog, the current podcast at The God Journey, what’s next on Wayne’s travel schedule and quick links to the most visited pages at Lifestream.

You can now bookmark this page as the one to go to to get caught up on what we’re doing around here. Rather than checking multiple pages to get the information you want most, you can now find it all in one place with links to get more detail on those portions that most interest you. We hope it is more convenient and helpful in making available the thoughts and ideas that I am involved in.

And as I prepare to head out for a trip to Europe I am blessed by the comments and interactions I am already getting from those who are listening to the new Jesus Lens series. We are also preparing the videos of this as well. It is an eight-hour, twenty-four part overview as to how to glean the truth from Scripture by reading it through the lens of the revelation of Jesus Christ. We are making it available free of charge both by audio and soon by video as well. Eventually we’ll have CDs for the audio and DVDs for the video available through Lifestream.

Finally, in our corner of the world, tomorrow is Father’s Day and I’m looking forward to sharing some time with my incredible kids and grandkids. I realize this is a mixed-bag in our culture. While most celebrate the joy of fatherhood and their appreciation for the incredible men who loved, taught, and cared for them, it can also pick at the wound of those whose fathers either were absent or abusive. Regardless of how awesome or awful your earthly father might have been, I hope we can all celebrate this one reality, we ALL have a Father that outshines any human father on the planet. He is more loving, more gracious, more real, more fun, and more caring than

Jesus walked with that Father when he was here. And then taught those who were closest to him, it wasn’t just his Father, but our Father. May you know the love and care of that Father with ever-increasing reality and joy!

Students sharing a meal at the Living Loved Children’s Centre in Eldoret, Kenya

I interrupt The Jesus Lens for a special new bulletin: East Africa has been hit with incredible food shortages this spring and our brothers and sisters there are asking for our prayers and our help. I just wanted to put the word out for prayer and if any of you would like to help with donations, that would be awesome as well. Less than 50 percent of the expected rainfall in East Africa came during this year’s long rains from March to May. That resulted in an 80 percent shortfall in crops in East Africa, and now the people are in desperate need of aid. You can read more about it in the Mission Network News.

Last week I received this email from the brother I spent some time with last year in Kenya:

Dear brother in the Lord, we have been so busy in many regions for sharing the loving Gospel to our brothers and sisters. Continue praying for us especially for the orphans in other Centre as well as the widows in the following areas—Mt Elgon, upper and lower Endebes,some parts of Eldoret, Langas as well as Moi’s Bridge and north Pokot and Garsen. We are praying and encouraging our brothers and sisters there to contribute something for this people. The maize and the beans have gone to 4500 Kshs. ($50) for a 90 kgs sack and beans 9000ksh ($25) for 90kg. This is so terrible situation.

So, continue praying for millions of Kenyans affected by hunger and drought. Death is being reported in more villages. So, prayers, medication, food is highly needed to save more life, especially widows, orphan,s and disabled. Even the president and our Prime Minister had declared it as a national disaster. In our church in Forkland and Bungoma North, many who have been affected has run for refugee to our churches. More than fifteen families are staying with us. But locally, IGEM members who have ability are now contributing food to help them. Many families are running to our home churches to get a meal. Those who are more affected are HIV widows and HIV orphans and this situation might be continuing into October, 2011. Death is more reported in many places due to hunger.

Michael

Michael, as director of IGEM (International Gospel Equipping Mission) helps facilitate outreaches and equipping for more than 9 million believers throughout East Africa. I have found him to be a man of incredible integrity and immense generosity toward the people God has given him a heart for. He has coordinated our help building the Orphanage in Kitale and his heart is breaking for the immense need in his country. Anything you can give would be of help. As you might imagine, this has also added to the cost of caring for children at the orphanage. They need about $2,800.00 per month to pay the staff and care for the children at the orphanage. We have paid them through June if this year and we’re hoping some others will continue to help here. We committed to provide the first two years of help for the orphanage and they are looking for ways to self-fund that going forward. However, with the needs in their country so overwhelming, that may not be possible then.

For more information on our orphanage there, you can read this earlier blog. If you would like to be part of this to support these brothers and sisters and see the Gospel grow in this part of Africa, please 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 received this question in my email box today and thought many others might care about my answer:

What I would like to know from your perspective, is there a clear and growing warp in the teaching on grace that is, overtly or covertly, connotatively or emotively, saying that behavior does not matter? I realize that has been a Gnostic teaching of our history, but I am wondering if it is back in the form of this “free grace” teaching. I believe that if our experience of God’s grace is the real McCoy, our heart, mind, emotional makeup, and behavior will begin a rest-of-our-life change to conform to what we can see in the Man, Jesus. What degree of that progress is by grabbing our own bootstraps and getting going on… that I truly do not know.

My Response: I do not ascribe to any view of grace that suggests our behavior doesn’t matter. As I read Titus 2 a real engagement with grace will “teaches us to say ‘No’ to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” Those who think grace washes out the impact of our failures on ourselves and others have a very shallow relationship with God and no real concept of sin and how it damages humanity and human relationships.

But, yes, I do know some people who claim to embrace grace, even teach it, and live unapologetically in selfishness and duplicity without a concern as to what their actions do to other people. They claim it does not matter since it is all covered by grace and God will ultimately accomplish his will in the world anyway. So, yes, that seems to be a growing conclusion some people are grasping for in their reaction to religious performance and obligation. But no one growing to know God as Father would ever use grace as an excuse to hurt others, tell lies, or pursue the indulgence of their flesh.

The problem stems from people only seeing grace as a theological concept. They try to parse out their beliefs about grace, sin, and repentance, but it all leads to nonsense outside of a growing relationship with Jesus himself. Grace is the portal to engaging him without guilt or shame. But engaging him brings transformation to our lives. Those who teach a theology of grace that does not embrace a relationship become quite destructive in the world. Finding out God is not holding their sin against them seems to negate the only motivation they had for holiness. How sad is that?

My contention is that if they grow to live loved by the Father, they will begin to learn how to love others around them and that will begin to transform their existence in the world. That’s why I do not talk of “unconditional love”, but of “transformational love”. Living loved will transform you. Embracing a theology of grace without a relationship of love will only mess you up. That transformation, however, does not come by human effort (the ol’ bootstraps) seeking to make itself conform to God’s ways. It actually begins when we lose confidence in our own ability to change ourselves and seek his help. And it is a process that comes over time out of a growing relationship with God that first learns to rest in his love, and then to grow in trust for him and the way he works in the world.

No, I don’t know any way to measure that, but I don’t think it takes a long time in being with someone to sort out whether their passion derives from a theology they only espouse, or whether they are truly getting to know the Father of our Lord Jesus. If the latter, then I give them a wide berth. I know transformation takes time and if I push them to conform to some external principle that isn’t rising out of their relationship I am pointing them down the wrong road.

In my view, our bigger problem today is not those who abuse grace, but those who are captive to shame and condemnation, who are trying to do in their own strength what only God can do. That’s why Paul talked about the righteousness that faith (or trust) produces, and the passion he had for that. And in the same breath he is admitting that he has zero confidence in his own flesh to promote that transformation.

I don’t know how to describe that outside of a relationship with Jesus. In him these things make sense and we find a pathway of growing trust that transforms us in his love. Outside of that we are in the ever-constant search for the illusive balance between legalism and licentiousness and I don’t think we’re good enough to define that on our own terms. Those who truly know God as Father will want to be like him and will find themselves in honest dialog with God as that transformation unfolds.

Yes, there are many who teach a grace doctrine that is only an excuse for their unrepentant living. I see that as much a problem as the legalists who think they can engage God through their performance.

We are adding to the Lifestream blog a new podcast component that will allow us to add audio here and for people to subscribe to it through iTunes or other podcast aggregators if they so desire. I’m going to begin by putting up the Transition series so that people can access it from their iPods and other mp3 devices more easily. Then I’m going to begin to load up The Jesus Lens audio recordings we recently did in Indianapolis about reading Scriptures relationally instead of religiously.

You can use the link above to see the web pages we’ll be using for that and download the notes that will accompany that series. Most of the links are not active on those pages yet because we’ll be turning them on as we get the audio and video finished and uploaded. Some will not be active for some time. We appreciate your patience as we roll this out incrementally. As part of that we will also take questions from people who listen to it early on and then do a Q&A podcast to further the dialog especially on the parts of this series that people have not been exposed to before.

After that we will continue to use the podcast component to add other audio from speaking engagements where appropriate and we will also do occasional original occasional podcasts whenever we can to help encourage people on the journey of living loved.

You can continue to monitor new posting here, but you can also subscribe to any new audio postings via iTunes. You’ll notice some podcasts already there from past links to some of my .mp3 files. Some way want to give those a listen, others may not. But we’ll begin to post Transitions and then Jesus Lens as podcasts.

I hope this is all helpful.

Staff and students at the Living Loved Children’s Centre in Eldoret, Kenya

I’m sorry I’ve not written in awhile. Life has been pretty complicated over the past few weeks as we’re hard at work on the Jesus Lens and a few other projects. We are trying to pace ourselves here, but at times it seems a bit overwhelming. We do appreciate the support and encouragement so many people send our way. We should have some new announcements about the recent recordings in the next few days. But we’re going to enjoy a long holiday weekend and find some rest before we get too deeply into that process

Before we do, I wanted to update you of the ongoing need in Kenya. I’ve been blown away, as have the folks in Kenya at the generosity of so many who have helped get this new facility purchased, built, and staffed. A look at the picture above shows such joy and promise as these children are at a school assembly and are beginning to learn in their new environment. Unfortunately the government requirements of setting up this facility and purchasing curriculum and school supplies for the students has used up most of the money they needed to feed the children and support the staff. My commitment to them was that we would find them two years worth of staff support and food, while they looked for ways to support the children beyond that time-frame.

We need about $2,000.00 per month for the next 22 months to help make that happen. And that isn’t a hard figure. Costs for food have risen significantly just in the past few months and by what I can tell they are not at all being feed extravagantly. So, I thought I’d mention it again for those who want to support this project with us. We send them additional funds today beyond what we have received from others as our way to help them through a tough spot. If you can join us, please let us know.

For more information on our project here, you can read this earlier blog. If you would like to be part of this to support these brothers and sisters and see the Gospel grow in this part of Africa, please 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 had lunch today with some of the people who came from out of state to be part of our recording in the Indianapolis area. We had a great time. I enjoy conversations so much more than lectures…

Anyway, during lunch one of those present wanted to thank me for my involvement in helping bring Bo’s Café into print. Here’s what he said:

What The Shack did for my relationship with God, Bo’s Café did to help me find freedom from my anger.

He went on to tell us the story of how God unplugged a deep-seated anger in his life after reading the book three times. He’d been looking for this freedom all his life. What a great story and a great comment about the book.

That’s why I was excited about Bo’s when I read it. Here was a man trying to control everyone else out of his own fears, and then he comes to face to face with grace. It changes him in a wonderful way. If you haven’t read it, you might want to check it out.