Cooper Stuff and Your Sins

"He who tolerates sin in himself, or excuses it in others, is not the friend of holiness, and therefore not the friend of Christ."

I watched the below video today, and wept through about half of it. But it may not be the half you would think.

I heard about the Michael Tait allegations pretty soon after the first exposé article came out. I was shocked, and disappointed, and worried. Shocked that Michael Tait, who had always seemed like a nice, friendly, safe guy and solid representative of Christ (literally, in one case), could do those things and somehow think it was OK to continue to do them for so long. Disappointed, because I've always liked the guy and enjoyed his work in Christian music. Worried that young (and even older) fans might turn away from Christ when they learned that this musician they looked up to had allegedly committed a long series not only immoral, but blatantly criminal acts. On that day I cried for the alleged victims of his abuses. And on that day I cried for the fans. That's who the first half of this podcast is about. I still have the same emotions for those people, but I've cried those tears already.

The second half of this podcast is about me. It's also about you, and John Cooper, and your pastor, and Michael Tait, and your youth leader, and the lady who sits in the row in front of you in church. And you. And me.

"He who tolerates sin in himself, or excuses it in others, is not the friend of holiness, and therefore not the friend of Christ." 

You know what? From time to time I commit sins. But sometimes I cut myself some slack in my mind. "It didn't hurt anyone. Nobody knows about it but me and God, and God forgives me."

But that quote about sin haunts me. It's not from the Bible, but it's from a smart person who knew things (you can find the quote in the podcast video at about 33:55). And even though it's not a Bible quote, it tracks with what the Bible says.

It's a long-ish podcast episode, but it's well worth the time. See you on the other side:

"He who tolerates sin in himself, or excuses it in others, is not the friend of holiness, and therefore not the friend of Christ."

I don't commit sins that would get me arrested. I don't abuse people as the Tait allegations describe. I don't do illegal drugs. But at some point, if the allegations are true, Michael Tait crossed over from being a man of God who shared the Gospel through music, to being a man who does terrible, inexcusable things and keeps them hidden. He was a Christian leader, now disgraced. I'm by no means famous, but I do serve on the worship team at my church. I also volunteer teaching preschoolers in Sunday School. At some level I'm a Christian leader, and I can't imagine myself crossing that line. But I bet Tait wouldn't have imagined himself crossing it either.

There's an old joke that many a preacher has told. A baby monkey found himself falling out of his bed every single night. "Mommy, why do I keep falling out of bed?" the baby monkey cried. His mother answered, "Baby, it's because you stay too close to where you got in!" I do not happen to believe that a person can easily lose their salvation, but in less than a week Tait lost the career he spent decades building, the respect of fans all over the world, and if allegations prove true, he could even lose his physical freedom. On top of that, he took the Newsboys down with him (radio stations across the country pulled their music and they lost their recording contract), and possibly DC Talk too, even though his DC Talk days seem to predate the alleged abuses. He absolutely fell out of his monkey bed. He seems to have repented, and I believe God is able and willing to forgive even these horrible acts, but Tait will never again have what he once had. And I don't want to run the risk of being the next "that guy".

So I'm going to try to sleep a little further from the edge of my monkey mattress. I'm going to edge closer to the center of God's will for me. Sometimes it's tough to live the way I know God wants me to. But I want my own sin to become intolerable to me. Hot, like a stovetop that I avoid touching because I know it hurts. I want to creep toward personal holiness, because I know that I may never make it to the center of the bed, but the closer I get, the less chance this monkey will have of spending the night on the floor!

I have this card sitting on my desk right now. I was looking at it the other day, and something struck me about this verse. Did you notice that it does not say "Trust in the Lord, because you can't possibly have any understanding of what is going on"? No, it says that you will have understanding of your situation, but that shouldn't be your ultimate authority.

God did not make us a race of ignorant fools, unable to understand the world and situations around us. God gave us the gift of thought - we can take in information, process it, and draw logical conclusions. God didn't give us those abilities and expect us to ignore them! But He does expect us to trust Him, because sometimes our understanding doesn't get us all the way there. Sometimes there are factors we don't and can't know ahead of time. Sometimes our perception might be flawed - ask any scientist who studies memory whether the human mind is infallible at recalling important details! We can know a lot, but we can't know everything.

So the next time you are making a decision, try this: gather all the information you can, become informed about the subject or situation, make your best judgement (or narrow it down to several options that seem sensible), and then take it to God. Tell Him that you've done your best to understand the situation, but you want to lean on His understanding. I'm talking to myself here... I have to choose an electrician to look at something in my house today! Let's lean on God's understanding today, you and I. Let's make a great choice!

A Dog's Life

I saved a dog's life this morning!

It was rush hour, and I was driving down a busy street, two lanes going both directions plus a turn lane in the middle. I was approaching what may well be the busiest intersection in our small town at that time of day (the intersection is within a mile of four schools that between them cover all grades from preschool through high school, and it was getting close to time for school to start), and there he was... a medium-sized brown dog, the kind that chases chickens around on a farm or Frisbees around in a dog park. I was in the left lane, and when I spotted him he was walking across right to left - which meant he had two lanes of traffic to cross, and if he didn't get across pretty quickly the light in front of me was going to change and he was going to have dozens of cars bearing down on him. I spotted him in plenty of time to miss him, but there was already one car coming the other way... in the lane the dog was about to walk across! What could I do to help him?

Only one thing. I hit my brakes and leaned on my horn. I didn't just give it a little "beep beep" - I made one long blast that lasted until Mr. Dog was completely out of the street. I could tell it startled him, which was exactly my intention. I wanted him out of the street, and I wanted him to think twice before ever crossing that street again. It also alerted the other driver that something was going on, and he avoided the dog by a wide margin too.

I imagine Mr. Dog was pretty scared by my horn... probably more scared than by my car. He may have thought someone or something was trying to hurt him. But that wasn't the case... in fact, my car and the other cars on the road were far more dangerouns to him than my horn was. My horn was scary, but the purpose of the horn was to save him from something that could potentially hurt or kill him. I wasn't being mean to Mr. Dog; I was showing him compassion and love by making a big scary noise so he would get out of danger.

Sometimes people read the Bible and find places where God said to His people things like "Follow the rules I'm giving you, or else this bad thing will happen to you," and we read that and perceive it as a threat. But if you read more and more of the Bible, you'll discover that God is the God of Love, not attack and retribution. When God says "do X or else Y will happen to you," He's not saying that He will punish you for your sins - He is saying that if you cling to your sins, something bad is going to happen to you because sin is destined for destruction. If you hang out in the street during rush hour, you're going to get flattened by a minivan. God is leaning on His horn, trying to get you to run from sin so you run from the consequences of that sin. If God blows a horn for you today, pay attention! It may save you from getting hurt like my horn saved that dog this morning.