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“The word seared means “cauterized.” Just as a person’s flesh can be “branded” so that it becomes hard and without feeling, so a person’s conscience can be deadened. Whenever we affirm with our lips something that we deny with our lives (whether people know it or not), we deaden our consciences just a little more. Jesus made it clear that it is not religious talk or even performing miracles that qualifies a person for heaven, but doing God’s will in everyday life (Matt. 7:21–29).” Weirsbe

There is no greater or more dangerous example of this than what happens when our marriages are at risk. We begin to see a problem and instead of recognizing and dealing with the problem…we ignore it, run away, hide, or deny it. Guys we will not always get it right. In fact, we will often fail. Yet, we pretend in polite circles that all is well. We will even go so far as to put on a pretty nifty show to our friends about how amazing our marriage is…the funny thing is that the one most surprised by it all is our wife! Oh yeah, she is listening. I’m pretty sure she is floored by your evaluation, especially since your last 20 minutes in the car to your friends party were spent screaming at each other, or maybe in your situation it is a bone chilling silence that magnifies the facts of the problem.

Either way, as Godly men we cannot afford to ignore the problem. We must man up both relationally and spiritually and tell our wives we need help. Yes! That’s right, we need help. It is wise to seek help when we can’t find solutions to our own problems. It is insanity to think that ignoring them will make them better. It is dumbfounding how often we think that one more screaming match will do the trick. We will do everything BUT admit a need for help.

So, here is a tip. Ditch the acting job, silence the screams, and wake up your marriage by leading the charge for you and your wife to see someone who can help navigate the shark infested waters you have grown accustomed to living in for so long. Take you wife to a counselor. But don’t just take my word for it. Read this great article by a friend and counselor: My Advice To Husbands on the Topic of Counseling…GO!

What do you think? What keeps you from seeking the help you know your marriage needs? Why, if you know it would help won’t you take that step? Men, let’s start to lead our families…and let’s start by asking our wives if they want to see a counselor for the troubles in our marriage. In fact, here is a radical idea: instead of waiting for the problem to be a major issue, try heading it off at the pass and catch it early. I have a feeling your wife will love you for leading like this…don’t believe me? All you can do is test it out!

Ephesians 1:16-20 “16I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, 18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places…”

First this prayer continues the theme we explored from Luke 11 (and credit to Andy Stanley) About Ask, Seek, Knock, Repeat. Then we see a bold request for the essential and mysterious. Wisdom, Our Hearts wide open to the Hope we have in Christ, and a sense of God’s immeasurable greatness and power.

Ephesians 3:16-19 “14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to xthe riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Humility marks this prayer with reference to bended knee before our Heavenly Father. Then From a humble position we see a petition for strength and power…but having that grounded in love. Then a jump to understanding the scope and scale of our God and His love so we may be full of nothing more than Him alone. I will say that we fill ourselves with a lot of things these days that are far from character of God and it has to sadden the heart of Jesus when he sees that happening. This is a prayer that will reorient our lives…pray it if you dare!

Philippians 1:9-11 “9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

Love, Love, and More Love. Then love in partnership with knowledge and discernment. All for the purpose of ordering our steps in a blameless manner. Purity is something to be grasped but many pastors and churches sell you short in this area because they don’t want you to be crushed when you don’t achieve it. Why? Wouldn’t God be crushed if we sinned and strayed from purity? Let us pursue righteousness and when we settle for anything less, let’s pray this prayer and return to righteousness for His name’s sake!

Colossians 1:9-12 “9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”

A repetition of many of our earlier themes with a bent on thanksgiving. Pray with a thankful heart these 4 big prayers and strive for the elements in each. Pray them for yourself, others, and even strangers and let’s anxiously await the work of God through His prayerful people!

The first impact to understand is that of the impact on communication. A Christian humorist once described this challenge as “being an 8-track guy in an iPod world.” It is a fact that developing communication technologies are creating a real generation gap between the old and the young. We are finding that there is not an overlap and sharing of the generations, without the conscious choice to choose to communicate. To choose to communicate with the other generation, you may have to choose to use the technology they use. You will probably never find you 92 year old grandmother communicate with you on Facebook, although there are notable exceptions. A 69 year old grandmother told me she is now never without her QWERTY keyboard messaging cell phone because she now has communication with her grandchildren almost every day.

The second impact to understand is that on media. We live in a time of an explosion of entertainment opportunities. This has brought an explosion of competition for people’s attention and sharing of ideas. In terms of the mission of the church, this impact on media gives us an expanded marketplace for ideas in our culture. We have to choose to take the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ into this entire expanded marketplace of ideas.

This impact of media leads to the third impact, the impact of entertainment. Because of the impact of technology and media we have more options than can be imagined, including an ever-expanding development of escapism through virtual realities.

Again, the impact of changes in mass media and entertainment, leads to the fourth area of impact: political interaction. Political ideas and philosophies can now be shared all throughout the mass population more quickly and extensively then anyone could of ever imagined. The last presidential election was profoundly impacted by the use of mass messaging through President Obama’s “Blackberry” to his supporters daily. People now turn to Facebook as much as they do to websites to learn about things. A video showing a gaff by a politician can be uploaded to YouTube and within hours millions nationwide have seen it. Things are really changing on how we share and learn information. Even I am now on Facebook and about to start Twittering my tweets all over the place.

The final area of impact to be aware of and understand is the impact on socio-economic issues. Today we find the entire world caught in a tension of things verses people. In order to get things, people become insensitive to other people. Then when they get things, they realize that the satisfaction they expected is missing. People are torn between the two ways of measuring success in our world today. Some look to things and power accumulation as proof of success. Others look for their satisfaction in life to come from their relationships and stable lives.

Globally, cultures around the world are struggling, often in dramatic ways, to learn to cope with some or all of these impact areas. Developing nations such as China have moved rapidly into the status of a developed nation, and the tension for example, between things and power vs. people and relationships, is now seen to dominate the Chinese culture. The growth of new car owners, who have never had a car before, is the greatest in the nations of East Asia.

It seems that the world today as never before is struggling with how to have meaning and purpose in life. It is time for you and I to take the purposeful message of new and eternal life in Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world. It is a world waiting for the good news and real change that is only given by Jesus.

Hey, that sounds like the mission of the Great Commission, doesn’t it?

One of the main struggles with globalization, and a source of its many complexities, is that at the same time of the developing interdependency the global context is increasingly torn by ethnic, cultural, and economic tensions. An added radical Islam in the ethnic and cultural tensions increases the complexity. In these global tensions we find clans of ethnic definitions and differentiation dominating some nation-states and the thinking of many. There are fears of cultural and economic survival by many. Such is our emerging global society, that we are called to take the Gospel into all of its parts.

I don’t want to get too “wonky” as the politicians and “talking heads” say, but, to understand this emerging global society, we need to differentiate between philosophical globalization verses business globalization trends.

• Philosophical globalization is a comprehensive consciousness of one earth, and one world, and one planet and people. This definition is used in various cultures in understanding socio-political trends, especially in post-modern Europe, European and American liberalism, and those involved in the New Age eastern philosophical religions.
• Business globalization, in its various dimensions is a comprehensive consciousness of interdependency and codependency in shared economies, currencies, and business markets now being brought together by new technological paradigms of travel and communication.

The reality today, is that rather than 3-6 month ocean voyage, I can be on the other side of the world to do business, and see people in 16 hours. Internet communication allows me to do business and personal conversations, print communications by email, have meetings with others in various locations globally by teleconferencing, all at no special costs. We are just beginning to see just how much impact in missions can be had by the changing paradigms in business and communication. We are just now starting to visualize how we can use social networking sites, digital documents and videos, and online training to accomplish the task of making disciples globally.

Back in the 1950’s a very famous teacher of evangelism concepts and methods wrote a book called “Every Member Evangelism.” His premise was that the great commission meant that every member of the local church was to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone their lives touched. That was true then and it is true now, but now it has global implications. The business person who now travels internationally is a missionary wherever they go, rather than just in the town where they live, and work. I guess it’s true, with the changes in travel and communication; it really isn’t such a small world after all.

As for the missions of the Great Commission, the two aspects of globalism, philosophical and business globalism, present both a threat and an opportunity. Philosophical globalism with its absolute lack of absolutes and demanded inclusiveness, argues directly with the exclusivity of the gospel, as seen in John 14:6. “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.” (ESV) Business globalism on the other hand is a source of great opportunity to take the gospel into all nations, even allowing entry into the so called “closed nations” to missions.

It seems that globalism is a reality of the 21^st century. It is not just a political opinion, political option, or a cultural issue. It is a fact that humankind today lives in a world of globalism. Yet, this 21^st century needs the unchanging Gospel of Jesus Christ just as all previous generations have. Globalism is the world view you and I live in today, and the fact is, that it’s not your father’s world anymore. But, it is ours!!! Let’s be in it with the Gospel it needs so desperately.

The first major challenge of the 21^st century we have to face today is the reality of massive urbanization in our world. There are now hundreds of “Mega-Cities” around the globe, all crowded with the full spectrum of socio-economic demographics. The ultra-rich and powerful live within a few miles of the poor and powerless. As a friend of mine serving in East Asia said to me on my last trip to the area, “Missions ain’t no thatch huts in a jungle by a river anymore.” He said this while he and I were having lunch in the downtown area of a city of 3 million that is considered a smaller city in that nation.

With the new urbanization centers, we have an industrial and commercial, instead of agrarian emphasis that now controls life in the urban complexes. With the massive urbanization, technological paradigms have changed. For example, 31 billion searches on Google are done every month now. That fact makes me wonder, before we could Google our questions, who did we ask about these things? The internet has become the basis of business, retail, marketing, and communication globally.

The changes in communication are astounding. My 91 year old father in law asked me the other day what texting was. I pulled out my mobile phone and showed him, realizing just how much change he must have seen in his life time. The first commercial text message was sent in December 1992. Today, the number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the total population of the planet. It took 38 years for radio to reach a market audience of 50 million. It took television 13 years, and it took Facebook only 2 years to reach the 50 million mark. The number of internet devices in 1984 was 1000, and in 2008, there were over one billion devices. Without a doubt, regardless of what you think about it, the internet, and all that it brings, is here to stay.

This massive urbanization that the church must face in our global mission is really simple to understand as to its cause. In the past decades we have experienced a global population explosion that is shifting the centers of power, money and influence into new and developing areas. The facts are as follows: During the last 9 minutes…

• 67 babies were born in the USA…
• 274 babies were born in China…
• And 395 babies were born in India.

It is our mandate to share the life giving Gospel of the Lord Jesus with each of these children and their parents. The question we will explore together in the weeks ahead is just this: how in the world are we going to do it?