“Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish him with the rod, he will not die” (Proverbs 23:13 NIV).

“Spanking teaches children that the larger, stronger person has the power to get his way, whether or not he is in the right. Some spanked children then feel quite justified in beating up on smaller ones. The American tradition of spanking may be one reason that there is much more violence in our country than in any other comparable nation” (Dr. Benjamin Spock).

“You march yourself right over here, young man!” My Mom said, while waving a maple switch in her hand, pointing at the ground in front of her.

“But Mahhmmm…” I whined, my eyes focused on the implement of discipline that she waved at me.

“Don’t ‘Mahhmmm’ me! You come here!” She repeated.

And so, I began the long walk down the even longer hallway in the ranch style house that was our family home. Mom stood in the kitchen at one end of the hall, having just reached to the top of the fridge to get the switch (That’s where she always kept that despised device). I was standing at the other end of the hall where the Family/TV room was. I kept my eyes on my feet as I slowly trekked down the hallway, not wanting to look at the image of her steely eyes, patting right foot, and “keen” maple switch in hand.

By the way, my Mom taught me the word “keen.” She would say, “If you don’t behave, I’m going to get a keen switch and spank you!”

The dictionary defines “keen” as, “sharp, cutting, quick, intense.” But I didn’t need Webster’s to understand what she meant. The sound of my mother waving her “keen” switch was like the sound of Zorro’s rapier cutting a “Z” in the air. That thing stung like bees!

Back to the hallway scene… I arrived at Mom’s end of the hall. She grabbed my hand and began switching my legs. I danced a jig around her, secured by her grasp. I circled her like a whirling dervish, calling out prayers for forgiveness. She struck me with a combination of corrective words and disciplining pain.

“The… next… time… I… tell… you… to do… something… you… better… do it!” She said while punctuating each word with a strike of her keen switch upon my tender legs.

“Yes Maammm! I prommiisse!” I said with a tearful voice, begging her to stop.

Then she took a seat at the kitchen table, pulling me towards her by the hand she had not yet released. She lay the switch on the table and took me by the shoulders, looking into my eyes.

She said, “Now you know I don’t like to punish you. I love you. But I can’t let you disobey or disrespect me like that. Do you understand?”

“Yes maam.” I stuttered, glad the pain was over and the hugging had begun.

When my mother spoke to me, her words had weight. Her words carried authority. She made sure of that. I’m glad she didn’t read Dr. Spock. She just followed the Word of God. She taught me to respect her words and she taught me to respect God’s Word too.

When Robin and I had kids of our own. We kept a “keen” switch for discipline. Where? Well, on top of the refrigerator, of course.

“Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Proverbs 20:5 KJV).

“What were you thinking?” I asked my middle son, Jonathan, after reading the note he brought home from school that day, banning him from the bus for two weeks.

“I don’t know.” He responded with a pleading look in his eyes that said, “What answer is Dad looking for here and how can I get out of this without further trouble?”

I was angry and frustrated with him and he knew it. I was tired of his clownish behavior at school. It seemed he stayed in trouble that year.

But my frustration wasn’t just with him. I felt like a failure too. I couldn’t seem to help him change. Jonathan’s behavior problems at school seemed to be getting worse instead of better. I had tried spanking, grounding, taking away privileges (No TV, no video games, etc.), but nothing was working.

“What am I going to do with you?” I said. It was a rhetorical question that slipped out of my mouth with a long sigh. I wasn’t really looking for an answer.

But Jonathan responded, “I don’t know Dad. I just can’t get it right.”

As I looked into his lowered eyes, his defenses had dropped. He wasn’t just trying to get out of trouble here. He was frustrated too. On top of that, of my three children, Jonathan was always the most sensitive to my opinion of him. He really wanted me to be proud of him. He couldn’t stand to disappoint me.

“What should we do about this note?” I asked.

“I guess you should spank me.” He said, with a voice resigned to its fate.

“No.” I said. “That hasn’t been working. Today, we’re going to do something different.” So, I put my hand on his shoulder and pulled him close and started praying over him.

“Lord, reveal to us our hearts. Show me as Jonathan’s father how I can help him today. And God, show Jonathan where his behavior is coming from. Help him to give you control over his actions. Lord, give him self-control, so that his teachers, fellow students, and especially his bus driver can see that he is a Christ-follower.”

As I took my hands off of Jonathan and raised my head, I noticed that his head was still bowed. Then I heard him pray,

“Jesus, I’m sorry. Please get the devil out of me, so I can stop getting into trouble and so my daddy won’t be sad about me.”

After praying, he raised his eyes, looking at me to see what was next.

“No punishment today, Son. Let’s see what happens after we asked God to help us understand His heart and our hearts better.”

“OK, Daddy.” He said, with a sound of profound relief in his voice.

As he left the upstairs bedroom that I was using as my home office, I could tell he was confused. He kind of backed out of the room with a “What just happened?” look on his face.

Something did happen that day. I can’t say that Jonathan suddenly became the perfect child, but we never had another school year like that one again.

God helped us both with our hearts that day.

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18 NIV).

We tend to let our sufferings and longings identify us, but Christ’s resurrection means that we can follow Him into our true, glorious identity.

When we suffer, it leaves scars. Many of us find our identity in those scars. We lose a loved one and we spend our lives embittered and grieving. We never get over it.

Death, divorce, or defeat leave similar scars. They all may lead us to lower our gaze and wrinkle our brows in bitterness. Our present sufferings become our identity. We say to ourselves, “I am a widow. I am an orphan. I am a divorcee. I am a failure. I am hopeless. I am a victim.”

The groan of our longings can identify us too. We have sexual longings, so we identify ourselves by those desires. We confuse our sexual desire with our true identity, reducing ourselves to our hormones. We have an appetite for that which distracts or medicates our pain, so we become addicted to alcohol or drugs. Then, we become identified with our addiction. We become addicts.

When Jesus Christ rose from the grave, there was no smell of death upon Him. Sure, He had scars on His hands, feet and side, but they bled no longer. His wounds are healed. His scars are like badges hanging on a heroic soldier’s chest. They remind us of what He has overcome.

His resurrection from the dead verifies His identity as the Son of God. It also gives authority and credibility to the Bible’s claim that we were made in the image of God. Christ’s resurrection restores God’s original intent for those who believe.

Because of Christ’s powerful resurrection we can find our true identity in Him. We no longer have to struggle with an identity crisis due to our “present suffering.” Our true, glorious identity will one day be revealed when Christ returns.

When that Day comes, whatever we think identifies us now, will fade in comparison to the glory that is revealed.

“I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 1:19-20 NLT).

God’s incredibly great power is “for us who believe.”

I don’t think any of us get this. If we did, we would never despair, never worry, never doubt.

Sure, we get it that God is powerful. We’re believers. We believe that God is Creator, that He formed the earth and hung the sun and moon in space. We believe He made everything.

We believe that God not only made everything, but He can do anything. We believe that He is omnipotent, all-powerful. Jesus demonstrated this divine capacity. He commanded the winds and the waves. He multiplied the fishes and loaves. He walked on the water. He died, was buried, and was raised from the dead.

We get all that. What we don’t get is that this power is “for us.” We don’t understand that this resurrection power is available to us. Maybe it’s fear that God’s power is against us. Or maybe it’s just ignorance. We don’t know about the power of God. But for many, it’s an old habit of self-sufficiency. We keep living in our own power, experiencing the stress and joyless struggle of self-effort. We live by the flesh, while Christ offers to empower us to live by the Spirit.

If we ever understand that the power that raised Christ from the dead is “for us,” then we’ll finally live the abundant life that Christ offers.

Do you get it?

“And they spread among the Israelites a bad report” (Numbers 13:32 NIV).

In nature, the following factors affect momentum negatively:

• Inertia – The resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion. As Newton observed, “An object at rest tends to stay at rest.”
• Friction – The resistive force acting between bodies that tends to oppose and damp out motion.

In the church, spiritual momentum can be negatively impacted too. We see a similarity between the physical and the spiritual laws of momentum.

Spiritual inertia can be seen in churches where the people have become comfortable and set in their ways. They are resistant to change. They want to sit in the same pews and sing the same songs from the same hymnals and listen to the same sermons and leave at the same time with the same people. In a fast paced and ever changing world, people don’t want any change in their churches. They see the church as a static and safe place, rather than a dangerous, faith-provoking movement of God.

Even after their churches become stale and lifeless, they resist change for fear of losing that which is known. Like the Israelites, they would rather live in the past and return to the “Egypt” they know, than risk going into the promised land they don’t know.

But fear alone doesn’t entirely explain this spiritual inertia. Confusion is the other factor. Those resistant to change have often taken what was a movement of God in their generation and turned it into a monument. They confuse God’s methods with His message. God’s Word will never change, but His methods are new for every generation.

God doesn’t do encores. Moses learned this when God told him to “strike the rock” to bring forth water the first time, but to “speak to the rock” in the second instance. Moses struck the rock both times. In the first, he was obedient, in the second he was not. God still gave the people water, but Moses never entered the promised land. God is on the move. He wants us to follow.

Spiritual friction is seen when a movement of God has already begun. This is an opposing force that damps out spiritual momentum. In nature, it is between bodies or objects. In churches, it is between people. Invariably, when a church begins to see God move, they will also notice an increase in people arguing and complaining about things. Their disagreement may or may not be with the direction of the church. Often, they just find themselves offended or hurt by someone in the church and they react by hurting back.

When Moses had to address the complaining of the Israelites, he and Aaron “fell facedown” before them. When the leadership of the church has to turn to address the bickering and relational friction of its members, the church loses momentum.

The church is vulnerable to this opposing force for a couple of reasons. One, because we have not learned to become unoffendable like Jesus. We are like walking wounded, easily hurt and offended by the slightest word. And two, because there is an active and evil opponent in the world. Satan hates the church and will do everything possible to stop it. If he can’t do it directly, then he’ll stop it through manipulating us in our relationships. Spiritual friction is spiritual warfare.

I think WCC is experiencing a season of spiritual momentum right now. But I’m praying really hard against spiritual inertia and friction. I’m praying against fear of change and a tendency to build monuments out of the past movements. I’m praying against us being easily offended and manipulated by Satan.

If you sense that one or both of these factors that hinder momentum is affecting you, will you make it right? Will you trust God? Will you forgive your friend? Will you stay unified with God and with one another?

Will you join me in asking God to “shake” things up in our world?

“And they asked each other, ‘Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?'” (Mark 16:3 NIV).

“…I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26:17-18 NIV).

A great amount of energy is expended when changing the velocity of an object at rest to an object in motion. The greater the mass, the greater the inertia. The stone that covered the tomb of Jesus was of great mass and rested in a carved out stone groove, sealing the grave. It would take incredible strength to move it.

When the women went to the Lord’s tomb early on that first Easter morning, they worried along the way about how they would move the stone. They knew that they didn’t have the strength to move it. They went hoping that someone would move it for them.

Someone did.

With resurrection power God raised Jesus from the dead and moved the stone of separation between God and man. God put into motion a movement that continues to gain momentum until this very day.

God didn’t move the stone so Jesus could get out. He moved the stone so that the women could get in.

We still need God to move in order for people to come in to faith in Christ. As we desire our lost neighbors, acquaintances, relatives and friends to hear the gospel and believe, we must recognize that there is still that which keeps them out. There is a kind of stone in their lives that only God can move. Our best evangelistic efforts will fall short without God moving in their stony hearts.

“What does this mean for evangelism? It means quite simply that evangelism cannot possibly succeed. However clear and cogent we may be in presenting the gospel, we have no hope of convincing or converting anyone. Can you or I by our earnest talking break the power of Satan over a man’s life? No. Can you or I give life to the spiritually dead? No. Our approach to evangelism is not realistic until we have faced this shattering fact and let it make its impact on us. Regarded as a human enterprise, evangelism is a hopeless task” (J. I. Packer).

I agree with Packer. But like the women who walked to the tomb, we can pray, “Who will roll away the stone?”

We can pray that God would move in people’s hearts as Jesus instructed the apostle Paul when He commissioned him. We can pray, Lord, move to …

• Open their spiritual eyes (because they are dead in their sin)
• Lead them into light (because they walk in cultural darkness)
• Free them from Satan’s power (because they are enslaved and deceived)

Evangelism begins with prayer. Prayer plows the hard soil of human hearts to receive the seed of God’s Word. Prayer rolls away the stone that separates the living from the dead. Prayer is not an evangelistic afterthought, it’s a necessity!

After praying for God to move, we can run to tell the good news that God has moved the stone and that Jesus is risen!