Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 11-1-15: "Catwoman Blues"

"Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment" (John 7:24). Those are the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But it seems my father and I, at least once in our lives, both failed to heed that command.

In 1992, my father was the victim of a hit-and-run that caused considerable damage to his prized Chevette, the little white automobile that dutifully delivered two of my brothers and I to school many a morning. Two doors, and no room for car seats. It was sad to see the Sturguessmobile hauled away by a tow truck. Weeks later, the police found the driver who'd caused the damage and fled the scene, and brought her into custody. On foot, my father rushed to the station. The culprit, as it turned out, was none other than Michelle Pfeiffer, fresh off the triumph of having brilliantly portrayed Catwoman in Batman Returns (eat your heart out, Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and yes, Anne Hathaway). Upon entering the station, and seeing Ms. Pfeiffer, my father adamantly declared, without hesitation or timidity...

"I'm dropping the charges."

But my father said this not out of mercy and forgiveness, but out of little more than the fact that...it was freaking Michelle Pfeiffer.

Cut to twenty-one years later, in a similar situation: I was saddened to learn that actress Emily Deschanel, of Bones fame, is an agnostic. But, I wasn't necessarily saddened because she doesn't know the Lord - I was sorry, rather, because she's such a lovely woman. Fortunately the Holy Spirit convicted me of my shallow thinking. Even if Ms. Deschanel looked like Danny Trejo in drag, my heart should still be pained and stirred by the fact that she doesn't know Christ. As well, believers should be roused with the desire to see anyone who denies Jesus be saved and blessed with eternal life, no matter who they are, or how kind or unkind they are. Faces wither (unless you're Patrick Stewart), but souls are eternal - the souls of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Speaking of biases, we shouldn't show partiality to fellow Christians, or expect them to turn a blind eye when we've erred. We should fully expect - and desire - to be corrected by a brother or sister in Christ when we've done or said something against the word of God. The psalmist writes, "Let the righteous strike me; it shall be a kindness. And let him rebuke me; it shall be as excellent oil; let my head not refuse it" (Psalm 141:5). But if we react with anger, stubbornness, and shouts of "don't lecture me" befitting an angst-ridden teenager, we've failed to grasp Jesus' command of meekness and humility.

The reason I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to stay on the narrow way is not because I have the deluded belief that committing a sin or making a mistake renders one's salvation null and void, or that one is less of a Christian if he or she stumbles. Neither is the reason so that I can make some claim that Christian works make one morally better than the rest of the world (a claim which would forget God's grace). The reason I want my brothers and sisters in Christ to do well is, simply, because I'm weak. I'm among the most habitual offenders and worst backsliders to whom God ever showed grace, and I need my Christian family to keep me accountable.
I need my Christian family to talk me out of dealing three-card monte at the children's hospital; I need them to remind me of what our Lord says concerning covetousness and lust; I need them to have fought that gutsy fight to remove the plank from their eye, so that they can see clearly to help me remove the plank from mine.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-25-15: "God's Will"

One of the "Christian terms" some believers use the most carelessly, without prayer or much discernment, is "God's will." Some even use it as a means to comfort others when someone else has done some horrible thing. "It was God's will" - as if God approves of us doing sinful and destructive things to hurt others and ourselves. When a woman discovers her husband to be unfaithful, there are some who would say, "It was God's will." No, it wasn't God's will that the woman's husband spit on their marriage.

I was doing some research on mass murderers for a YouTube video I recorded about the gun control debate. I read about James Oliver Huberty, who in 1984 killed twenty-one people at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California. When Huberty was a child, his mother claimed she had received a "calling" from God to leave her family and become a sort of street preacher. The abandonment by his mother devastated Huberty, and he spent his childhood - most of his entire life - sullen, angry, and in pain.
I've often said: in His grace, God often won't punish us for our sins - but we sure make each other pay for them.

God can call us to do some very seemingly crazy things. He called the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, as a message to disobedient Israel, who had repeatedly turned away from God, who remained loyal.
God called another great prophet, Jeremiah, to wear a yoke around his neck as a sign to Judah, whose apostasy would lead to their destruction by the Babylonians, and who scoffed at the idea of wearing the "yoke" of Babylon for their own good, denying that Jerusalem could be taken by any foreign nation.
God called the apostles to proclaim the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ in decadent Rome, telling them beforehand that they would be persecuted and killed for doing so.
God can, and will, call us to do some daunting, weird, and frightening things. But He will never call us to sin.

James Huberty's mother's calling to preach may have been from God, but it was not His will that she abandon her son, leaving him to become a bitter loner. God does not contradict Himself, and being perfect, He cannot - He is so pure and good that He is incapable of it. Though we often wait for God, who sometimes remains silent for a season, as we wonder what He wants us to do, what His will for us is, though we often go days or years without answers, we can be sure that He will never call us to do wrong, to do that which is of the devil, who only seeks to "steal, kill, and destroy."
We can be sure God's will includes abundant love and mercy, that His will calls us to show such things, love and mercy so alien to our natural, fleshly state. We can be sure God's will includes sacrifice, for the sake of spreading the Gospel, for the sake of blessing others. We can be sure God's will includes His goodness shining through us, so that we may be a light to the world.

So, while sometimes we feel "in the dark" about God's will, we can be sure it has no association with the works of darkness, and that His light casts every shadow from among those who believe and diligently seek Him.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." -John 1:1-5

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-18-15: "Cain, Abel, and Tom Landry"

After Cain had killed Abel, his flesh and blood brother, committed the world's first murder, God asked him, "Where is Abel?" And we all know Cain's notorious response. We often use it ourselves in a sarcastic manner when we don't feel obligated to care for one another; Cain retorted, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
The answer to Cain's bitter question is: yes. We are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. We have a responsibility to one another that all too often we shun. We think it's beneath us, a waste of our time. But as Christians, we have a responsibility to look out for one another lest we fall into temptation or stray from God. If we also care for those outside of the Body of Christ, for those who don't believe, they too will "by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation" (1 Peter 2:12). If we care for both our brothers and sisters in Christ, and those who have not yet come to Jesus, they will praise God for our compassion if we remain humble and give the glory to Him from whom love truly comes. "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one" (Colossians 4:5-6).

In November 1979, during a game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Oilers, my uncle Mortimer Sturguess ran naked onto the field in an overzealous frenzy when Houston defeated Dallas, 30-24. As Mortimer was dragged from the field at Texas Stadium, coach Tom Landry handed my uncle his trademark fedora hat, saying, "Here son, cover up with this." The gesture stunned Uncle Mortimer sober. Coach Landry hadn't simply handed him a sweaty, used towel with which to cover his nudity, or worse, slugged him in his soggy gut while security held him in place. But with compassion and gentleness, he ruined a perfectly good hat - even if fedoras are really for women - for a man who had humiliated himself and his family on live television.
"For the despairing man there should be kindness from his friend; So that he does not forsake the fear of the Almighty." -Job 6:14 

Mortimer Sturguess never forgot the kindness of Coach Landry. And to me, it encompasses everything about giving. Tom Landry gave of the best of his wardrobe for a total stranger, not merely a used handkerchief. Likewise, when we give to others, we give to God, and must give of the first-fruits of what we have – our very best. This is why God accepted Abel's offering of the firstborn of his flock, and rejected Cain's hasty offering of his fruit. This is why God have His first and only Son on the cross for you and me.

When we give, we must give our best, not our leftovers. And when we bless, just as when we are blessed, we must acknowledge Him who truly gave. Our good deeds should be responses to God's gorgeous command to love. God does not want good deeds done out of guilt and pressure – that's what tipping your server at Applebee's is for. Rather, a good deed should come from the heart, from the desire to walk in Christ's love.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

PS I really do tip, I was just...you know...some people give you the stink-eye if you don't, and that's not the reason to leave a tip. But we should totally tip our servers at restaurants, with a genuine heart for that person and how hard they work.

from the book Sheep Named Spike

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-11-15: "Mocked By Charles Manson"

A follower of Christ absolutely cannot afford to be distressed or discouraged when our beliefs are criticized by the world. There are three reasons for this. The first is that criticism and mockery mean little when one considers that in many countries, Christians are imprisoned or beheaded for their faith. The second is that a person only has so much emotional stamina to spend - energies that should be applied to ministering to those in need and to spreading the Gospel; it would be devastating to our mission if we let wicked words steal our emotional strength.

Finally, a Christian cannot let his or herself crumble under the words of this society given the depraved everyday goings-on in the world from which we were saved and set apart. After all, only the deranged would allow criticism from Charles Manson to tear them down. We must remember when ridiculed for believing in God's role in creation, in a Christ who rose from the grave, in eternity after death, that the same society who ridicules us is the same society in which:

- people deny the Holocaust or the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre ever happened, and claim climate change is a myth,
- unborn human beings are killed without regard and with approval of governments and "rights" groups,
- an entire category of jokes is devoted to dead babies,
- women are sentenced to be raped and paraded naked through the streets of India,
- a nation prioritizes access to firearms over human lives, despite at least 230 public shootings in that nation this year alone,
- professional athletes are paid 90 million dollars a year while single parents work two jobs to support their children,
- Charles Manson has been engaged, and I can't even get a date.

This is not a world from which we should take ridicule to heart, not a society of high learning and evolved thinking. The principalities of this world are evil, but also absurd.

As I mentioned before, we American Christians should acknowledge how abundantly blessed we are in the fact that, in most cases, we only endure criticism and ridicule by peers and media for our beliefs and our Christ, when others throughout the world suffer truly horrible tortures and deaths for proclaiming Him. I think there are much fewer martyrs in America than we might assume. Kim Davis, the county clerk in Kentucky who was jailed for refusing to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples, is no martyr. She made a choice to break the law and make a spectacle of herself, when she could have chosen to resign from her position, knowing she would have to perform duties contrary to God's word; I would not accept a job at which I'd have to sell Nazi merchandise or pornography. If one asks, "Why should she have to quit her job?", they must remember that Jesus never said following Him would be easy - in fact, He clearly states the opposite. And I would ask, "Why should she have to go to jail?" No, Kim Davis is not a martyr. Kim Davis is quite free in America. We should embrace the blessing of freedom to spread the Gospel to as many as we can before, in some dark time in the future, Christians truly are persecuted in America. We should also seek the peace of our land, as God commanded the captive Jews in Babylon through the prophet Jeremiah (29:7).

Before I make my own sole aim to angrily retort, "How dare you, with the blood of fetuses and refugees on your hands, with jeggings on your legs, condemn me for insisting there is one God who loves you?!", I must remember my commission is not to rave at the world, frothing at the beard. My job is to tell the world this: Jesus the Son of God is risen, and desires to remove their sins from them, as He did for an undeserving thing like me. My job is to tell the world that Jesus the Christ is inviting them this very day to eternity in His glorious presence, where there shall be no more dying, suffering, lying, shame, rage, or bleeding.
My job is to love the people of this absurd and wicked world, no matter what absurd and wicked things they say.

Cpt. Bud's Devotionals, 10-4-15: "An Uncomfortable, Inconvenient God"

I've often heard it said and written, as an antithesis to the existence of, or belief in, God, that the concept is much too "comfortable" and "convenient" for Him to be true. That with the idea of a God, we fit too well in the world, in the universe. I've learned, however, after reading the Bible, the Book from which a Christian should derive his or her notions about God, that though He is loving and wonderful, His truth is anything but comfortable and convenient.

How convenient it would be if His holy word did not tell me that life on this earth will be rank with injustices and grief; how convenient it would be if He promised me smooth sailing instead. But He doesn't. How comfortable I'd be in this world if He gave me an explanation of the universe's origin that didn't make Bill Nye think I'm a superstitious bumpkin. But He didn't. How I love to lust, to be angry and spiteful, to hold grudges, to hate. But what a buzzkill that I believe in a God who tells me these things are destructive to myself, and to others.
How convenient to my morality would it be if I had no one to whom to answer, to whom to be accountable, and if all my rotten deeds (and even my few good deeds) rotted along with my corpse after death as I cease to exist, and if those I left behind would wait for the sun to explode and to be like me. But, what an inconvenience it is to my conscience that I will answer to Almighty God for my time on Earth.
How comfortable it would be to blend in with the rest of the world, to be just like everyone else, a world where every fingerprint and snowflake are exactly alike and mean nothing (except when my DNA is needed for a conviction for my embarrassing acts in Santa Fe when I'd stopped taking my Lamictal regimen back in 2011).
How comfortable it would be to go unrecognized in the moral dilemmas we make, to have no conviction from Christ, who the world dismisses and calls a liar. But His Holy and inconvenient Spirit reminds me to speak up, to proclaim Him who died for me and rose again, and who longs for the souls around me in the world - the world in which I don't fit - to be saved as well.

God is beautiful, He is true, He is sovereign, He is merciful, He is good. I suppose He is convenient for me in that respect - that the only real God is the One who took on wrath and punishment on the cross, so that the punishments I deserved would never fall on me, so that I could live abundant life. I am one lucky bumpkin.
But how inconvenient it is for my flesh that the same God convicts me to do good and to shun evil. How inconvenient it is for my flesh that He tells me He loves me, and other gorgeous things that make my cynical mind cringe, when I fail.

I thank God for making me so uncomfortable, for being so inconvenient.
OHMS,
Cpt. Bud Sturguess

"Now when I looked, there was a hand stretched out to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. Then He spread it before me; and there was writing on the inside and on the outside, and written on it were lamentations and mourning and woe. Moreover He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that scroll.
And He said to me, "Son of man, feed your belly, and fill your stomach with this scroll that I give you." So I ate, and it was in my mouth like honey in sweetness." -Ezekiel 2:9-3:3