Defying Explanation

I learned a really cool word that became a big part of my vocabulary sometime in the late eighties. Paradox. A paradox is when something seems contradictory or opposing but in reality expresses a truth.

As I progress in Christian thinking, I learn to love the irony of how a paradox works. If you want to live, you’ve got to give up your life. If a guy wants to receive, he has to be an extravagant giver. The way to the throne room is through the servant’s quarters.

God loves a really good paradox. It’s one of the reasons I figure God absolutely loves the Brewer. Yes, that’s right, I am convinced that the great God of this universe loves me personally. I mean, why wouldn’t He? I am a walking paradox. I am a slob that carries around hand sanitizer because I’m a germ freak. I’m a jamming musician that preaches behind a pulpit on Sundays. I am a hillbilly from Johnson County that loves quantum theory.

There are lots of things about all of us that seem to contradict, but actually make up, our unique personalities. God loves that. He loves it when little children speak simple but profound genius. He smiles when He sees busy people slow down to help and great big guys cry over another’s hurt.

He’s like that because He always operates outside of the box. His ways are not our ways. I heard Graham Cooke say that the only time God has ever been in a box was the Arc of the Covenant, and if you touched the box, you died. God hates the box we want to put him in.

We put God in a box because we want God to be more responsible for being like us so we won’t be held responsible for being more like him. We desperately try to make God about our own agendas so we won’t have to be about His. We really want God to look like us and talk like us, and anything that doesn’t line up with who we are, can’t be God. That’s religion, and it’s really ugly.

Most portraits of God tend to fit Him into whatever culture we identify with. In a way, that’s fine because God loves our diverse cultures and how different people live and look.

In the artist’s defense, there are no scriptures describing the physical appearance of Christ because God knew we were knuckleheads. Had the Bible described Jesus as tall, there would be denominations specifically for people six foot two and above. The church in the Middle Ages would have thought it godliness to stretch people until all their joints popped out of place. Oh wait—the church did do that in the Middle Ages.

I saw a picture of Jesus at a shop in the Hong Kong airport that showed him completely Asian. Who among us hasn’t seen blond haired, blue-eyed portraits of Jesus walking across the water in his lily-white feet? We all recently heard Senator Obama’s Pastor in his ridiculous tirade on how Jesus was a poor black child that grew up under the oppression of terrible white people.

I don’t think God looks like any of us. I don’t think He thinks like us or acts like us. The pattern that Jesus showed is that God is the kindest and most thoughtful person in the universe. He loves deeply and lives passionately. Like King David, He has the heart of a warrior poet that kicks butt on the battlefield and intimately loves His bride. I think He could care less about a lot of the hang ups we church folks tend to have about people, and I think He cares a lot more about people having a true encounter with His heart towards them while they are still breathing planet Earth’s air.

He’s totally holy, yet He loves us. That’s a paradox. He’s completely sinless and separate from everything ugly, yet He thinks we’re beautiful. He hates sin and the darkness of our age, yet His goodness is towards us. That’s a paradox, and I love it.

Let me see if I can’t craft some words together that illustrate how God is oxymoronically supernatural. I’ll fill inn the blanks with contradicting terms explaining how God pulls off what nobody else can.

He is majestically humble towards us and anxiously patient with us. He is altogether separate because He climbed down into hell and slapped death in the face for all of us.

He is naturally supernatural and dangerously safe. He has made Himself the permanent substitute for our sin, and His plan is for us to be alone together with Him beyond infinity.

Mark 4:34

He did not say anything to them without using a parable. But when He was alone with His own disciples, He explained everything.

Contact the Brewer@ www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

Eye Witness

What’s the most unbelievable thing you know for a fact that you have actually seen? Was it the Marfa Lights or something spooky? Did you have a run in with Big Foot, or maybe your friend’s nephew was born with a full set of teeth?

While I have not seen any of those things, except for the Marfa Lights, like any good Texan, I have seen some doosies. In the past ten years, I have had the privilege of visiting around twenty nations throughout the world; I’ve preached in at least 50 different prisons here in Texas and some of those, many times. My missionary journeys have taken me from the trash dumps of Matamoros, Mexico to the temple mount in Jerusalem, Israel.

God has always called people out of their normal environments to do His work, and our life’s journey is full of incredible scenery. When you get out there, and if you stay out there long enough, you are going to see some things that will blow your mind.

I actually saw the King sitting on his throne in Uganda. I saw two men fight to the death with machetes in Havana, Cuba. I saw a barefooted baby boy take his first steps in a horrible trash dump in Mexico while his mother cried for joy and applauded.

I saw elephants crossing the road in front of me near Rwanda. I saw a piece of a train on my front porch after a tornado came by my house in Johnson County.
I have been inside real castles in Scotland, grass huts in India and cardboard boxes under the I-45 bridge in Dallas. I have seen the top floor of the Hilton in Dallas and the morgue of Harris Hospital.

These are first hand accounts of things I have actually seen with my own two eyes. I could begin to tell you about miracles I have seen and changed lives I have encountered. I even wrote a book that tells of some of those events and what the Lord taught me through them.
If you didn’t believe me, I would mostly be okay with that. I might have my feelings a little bit hurt because you thought my character so low that I would print a lie, but nonetheless, I would get over it.

Now consider this, 2000 years ago a couple of hundred people, including the 11 disciples, said they personally saw Jesus after he had been dead—first hand. Not that a friend had seen Him, but they themselves actually saw Him in the flesh. They didn’t say they saw a fleeting glimpse, but rather they walked with Him, ate with Him, touched Him and talked with Him for more than a month after his resurrection.

All of these men went to their graves standing strong with the same original story. Have you ever considered what kind of grave this story took them to?

James was beheaded by Herod in Jerusalem because of his eye witness account. Peter went to Asia Minor, and tradition says he was crucified, upside down, in Rome. Andrew, Peter’s brother, went to Greece and southern Russia where he was crucified. Philip was stoned, drawn and quartered, and then his remains were hung up in Hierapolis.

Bartholomew went to Armenia and was skinned alive. Thomas went to Persia and to India; he was killed with a spear while telling people he had actually seen Jesus resurrected. Matthew went to Ethiopia and was killed by sword while visiting Egypt. James the Lesser, preached right there in Palestine and later went to Egypt where he was crucified by the Romans.
Mark was dragged by horses through the streets of Alexandria, Egypt. Luke was hanged in Greece. James the Just was thrown off of the pentacle of the temple. Mathias, the apostle that took the place of Judas, was stoned and then beheaded in Jerusalem. Paul was tortured and then beheaded by Nero in Rome.

All of these men died alone, separated from the others in different parts of the world, and yet, not a single one said this was all a hoax or a sham. Every single one of these men went to their deaths praising God and declaring to their murderers, “He’s alive! We saw Him, we ate with Him, He preached to us! Jesus Christ is resurrected from the dead!”

The Brewer believes the eyewitness accounts of those world changing people. As your kids are out looking for colorful eggs from an imaginary rabbit this Easter, make sure you all have a peek at the very real empty tomb in Jerusalem. I have looked in there myself. Jesus is not there. He is risen!

To contact The Brewer, visit us online at www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

A Tale of Two Enemies

It was December 7, 1941. The time was 7:49 on an early Sunday morning. Commander Mitsuo Fuchida was leading a squadron of 360 Japanese fighters that would prophetically turn the whole war full circle that day.

Seeing the fleet peacefully at anchor 9,000 feet below his plane, Fuchida dove out of a white cloud then radioed back to the Japanese fleet saying, "Tora, tora, tora!" The attack on Pearl Harbor had begun.

The smoking carnage of the surprise attack left an aftermath of five destroyed battleships and fourteen others sunk or damaged. It was a great day for Fuchida and the last day for more than 2,300 Americans. A day, one might say, of infamy.

On the other side of the Pacific, a sergeant by the name of Jacob DeShazer was peeling potatoes at his base in Oregon. Not long after, DeShazer would have the opportunity to volunteer for a special squadron lead by Colonel Jimmy Doolittle. This top-secret mission would dare to directly bomb Tokyo and the heart of the hated Japanese. Jacob couldn’t sign up fast enough.

By all accounts, Doolittle’s raid was a stunning success, but DeShazer’s B-24 bomber ran out of fuel before it reached a safe place in China. Forced to bail out over Japanese-held territory, DeShazer was captured and spent the next 40 months of his life as a prisoner of war. He spent 34 of those months in solitary confinement and was routinely tortured by his captors. As he watched fellow American prisoners horribly tortured and executed or starved to death, DeShazer remained alive— and so did his hatred for the Japanese.

Fuchida, on the other hand, was celebrated as the undisputed Japanese "Hero of Pearl Harbor." In 1942, he came down with a case of appendicitis and was unable to fly. That attack probably saved his life because he missed the battle of Midway where the Japanese Navy was soundly defeated.

A few years later, Fuchida narrowly missed death again when he was ordered to leave Hiroshima the very day before the nuclear bomb was dropped. The hated Americans were killing everyone he knew, it seemed. Just as Fuchida barely escaped death throughout the war, so did Deshazer in the Japanese prison camp.

Solitary confinement gave DeShazer time to chew on the subject of hatred. Clinging to life, he yearned to know God and begged his guards for a Bible. Two years latter, he finally received one and poured through the pages. When thumbing through the text, his eyes fell on the passage where Jesus cried out from the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” The black ink on the white page became words in his heart that would change him forever.

He later wrote, "I discovered that when I looked at the enemy officers and guards who had starved and beaten my companions and me so cruelly, I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity . . .. I prayed for God to forgive my torturers, and I determined by the aid of Christ, to do my best to acquaint these people with the message of salvation."

On Aug. 20, 1945, a smiling Japanese guard swung open DeShazer’s cell door and said, "War over. You go home now." A few days later Americans parachuted into the camp and sent the prisoners to hospitals where they would slowly recover.

Jacob finally got to go to his beloved home, but he didn’t stay there long. His Christian transformation was so dramatic he went back to Japan, but this time as a missionary. No longer hating the Japanese, he wanted to make a difference there.

Fast forward now to one day in October 1948. While getting off the train in Tokyo, Fuchida, the Japanese war hero, now a farmer, saw an American handing out leaflets in Japanese. The title caught his eye: I Was a Prisoner of Japan. It grabbed his attention, especially the part about Pearl Harbor. Even though they had been enemies, Fuchida had admired the courage of the Doolittle Raiders. He continued reading.

The whole Christianity thing was a big surprise to Fuchida. A friend told him to get a Bible, but Fuchida could not find one in Japanese. Just a few days later, on the same train platform, a Japanese man stood with boxes of books. "Get your Bible. It is food for your soul," the man cried in Japanese. Struck by the coincidence, and despite his Shinto heritage, he bought one.

The opened Bible fell to Luke 23:34, and he read those words for the very first time, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Fuchida later wrote, "I was impressed that I was certainly one of those for whom Jesus had prayed. The many men I had killed had been slaughtered in the name of patriotism, for I did not understand the love of Christ."

He changed from a bitter ex-war hero to a man on a new mission. Fuchida went on to become an evangelist throughout Japan and Asia. He and DeShazer eventually became very close friends.

The Brewer salutes them both as we think about the cross at this Easter time. Good Friday was only good because of the one being executed and the goodness of God still leads men to repentance today.

You can Visit The Brewer online at www.FreshFromTheBrewer.com

He's A Dandy!

My incredible grandfather used to have a saying about people he liked. In his Texan accent he would smile and say, “I like him. He’s a dandy.”

Sometimes I find myself repeating my Papa but didn’t know what I was actually saying until recently. A dandy, the dictionary says, is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance, refined language, and the cultivation of leisurely hobbies.
“Woop-T-Do” is another thing Papa would say. A dandy is an old school term for people living aristocratic lifestyles. When people refined themselves and hung out with the upper class they were known as a Dandy.

In our work to feed and reach out to the poor all over the world, I can’t say that I could call most people I am in contact with, a dandy. My travels have however landed me in places where I could at least breath the same air as super affluent people.

Several years ago my wife and I stayed on the club level at the Ritz Carlton in San Francisco. A couple of friends had gotten together and purchased a get-a-way for the two of us for our tenth anniversary. It was fantabulous!

I wore out every amenity possible. I took 3-hour baths in the giant tub. I made friends with the whole staff. I choked down caviar and pretended I liked it. I even pretended like I was rich and walked amongst the privileged in the exclusive lounge on our floor. There I was, a yahoo from Johnson County, Texas in an ecliptic mix of hipsters, surgeons, jetsetters, lawyers and swanksters. I had finally arrived.

Now I couldn’t let people know I was a preacher. If you let people know that you are a Pastor while having a good time or among luxurious facilities they assume you stole the price of your room from a blue haired retirement fund. So the first time I was asked what I did for a living I perked, “I’m a writer.” But then they had to probe. “I’m a Christian writer of books and a newspaper column.”

“You’re a Christian writer and you stay at the Ritz?” He asked while emphasizing the word “Christian.” He had sniffed me out by his dandy detector. With impugning disdain he loaded his self-righteousness accusation of hypocrisy with a raised left eyebrow and waited for my timid response.

The Brewer is the wrong person to do that to. In a flash I fought back starting off my answer with, “Just out of curiosity, are your parents siblings?”

Instead I gained my composure and said “I wonder how many times Stephen King gets asked the same question? You are a Horror writer and you stay at the Ritz? I wonder if anybody has ever asked Larry McMurtry. You’re a Western writer and you stay at the Ritz.”
Trying to crawfish from my response, He retorted, “Well I guess it’s not about being a Christian, it’s about how you make your money.”
“That’s not what you said.” I corrected.

“You were implying I couldn’t be a writer that wrote about Christ and keep my Christianity while staying at the Ritz.”
He denied it and then tried to change the subject.
“I can see I’ve offended you.” He smirked, still accusing me of hypocrisy.
“No sir, you just expected me to be quiet while you talked long enough in hopes of saying something intelligent. It just didn’t work out for you.” I took a sip of my sparkling Perrier and said “Awkward”. With that he got up and left.

I was a lot bigger than him and so was my mouth. So the next day when someone different asked me how I made my living, I told them I was a mule for the Columbian drug cartel. They were fine with that.

I didn’t have a lot of money then, nor do I now but I would be lying if I said I don’t have hopes and dreams that require a lot of money.
So excuse me for being a Christian while hoping one of my books will sell or a song will hit or my column will be syndicated and bring in revenue streams. As sure as shooting, when I do have money, there will be critics. The Brewer is prepared to take the advice of the late Liberace and cry all the way to the bank.

I think some people are rich, others are blessed and some are richly blessed. The financial motto of every Christian ought to be “Blessed to be blessing.” If that had been the case with other rich Christians, we wouldn’t be raising so many eyebrows when we are not dirt poor.

3 John 1:2
”Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”

The Favor Zone

In the early 1900s, a 16-year-old girl from Alabama gave birth to a baby girl and named her Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner. As if all those names weren’t enough, she went by the nickname “Judy.”

Judy’s Daddy, John Turner, was a hard working and hard living miner from Tennessee that had a knack for gambling. Hard times eventually forced the family to relocate to San Francisco, but things weren’t any better on the West Coast. John and Mildred soon separated.

John’s lack of work didn’t keep him from playing cards, and on December 14, 1930, he won a bit of money from some traveling gamblers. “I’m gonna go buy my little girl a bicycle,” he said, holding up his wad of cash before stuffing it down into his left sock. As he left the table and hit the streets, the other gamblers took note of where he had stashed it

Several hours later, John Turner was found dead on the edge of the Mission District in San Francisco. His left sock was missing. The robbery and murder were never solved. Nine-year-old Judy was devastated. Mildred got sick and was advised by her doctor to move to a drier climate. So, one year later they moved to Los Angeles. That was 1931.

Do me a favor
Six years later, Judy was a 16-year-old sophomore at Hollywood High. She decided to skip a typing class and headed to a drug store, where she sat at the counter drinking a Coke. She didn’t know it, but her life was about to change drastically. She had just entered “the favor zone.”

A few minutes later she caught the eye of the publisher for the Hollywood Reporter who leaned over, introduced himself and said those famous words, “How’d you like to be in pictures?”

Several weeks latter she was connected with famous movie director Mervyn LeRoy, and he cast her in the first of many great films. It prophetically was titled A Star is Born. Melvyn changed Judy’s name to Lana Turner and …well; Paul Harvey says it better than I can.

Party favors
That ability to get noticed and promoted into really cool places is something we Christians call “favor.” Brother Webster, not the little guy that hangs out with Michael Jackson, but the dictionary, defines favor as “approving consideration or attention.” Another understanding of favor could be “good will, acceptance, and the benefits flowing from these.” The Brewer would define favor as the process of getting noticed and getting promoted.

This week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian comes flavored with favor.

You need favor. I need favor and more than ever before. Did you know at the time of Christ there were only two hundred million people on the entire planet? Today there are more than three hundred million in the United States alone. Over six billion people are walking around right now, and scientist’s say that’s more people than have ever lived in history before us.

It’s hard to get noticed and promoted when every day is like the busiest day at Disney World. Sip on this and savor the thought…God sees you.

A little bit of favor goes a long way and contrary to the gospel according to Brooks and Dunn, God is not too busy. Not only do I believe God sees you, but I also believe He would love to call you his favorite.

God’s favorite

We live in a very messed up world, but somehow God is perfectly right there in the midst. God’s presence is everywhere but his manifest presence is not. When you need Him to show up on your behalf, there’s a certain protocol for the King to arrive. It’s not about traditional religious ritual; it’s about the condition of your heart and how you position yourself.

You may have heard it said that God is no respecter of persons, but I promise you, He will favor certain people and things more than others. All you have to do to be God’s favorite is to walk in what God favors. May we find those places of favor in 2008 and go further than ever before. May we continually live in “the favor zone.”

"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22 & 23

Seeing Things

When I was a kid, my parents bought a nice house with all the amenities that 1973 had to offer. Besides being in a pleasant neighborhood, it came complete with a real river stone fireplace. All the rocks that made this fireplace were round, smooth and beautiful except for one. Right in the very center, about six feet high, was a stone that had the spitting image of a sinister face on it.

My little brother and I referred to the face as “The Fireplace Man.” There was no doubt in our adolescent minds that it was evil and watched us as we ran past to get to the kitchen. I’m sure that the builder thought it would make for an interesting conversational piece, but it totally freaked all of us out.

Even my mom was not immune to the terror of the Fireplace Man. one night as she slept in blissful peace, a foreboding vision overtook her slumber. She dreamed the face began to move, and out of the fireplace came the terrible creature her children feared. When she awoke screaming, she also woke up my step dad, and that did it: he had had enough!

Within moments he trotted in from the garage, still clad in only his underwear but with a bucket of ready mix cement in his hands. Like Biblical David and the giant, John Jackson single handedly defeated the demonic creature, and to this day there is cement on the one rock in the center of that fireplace.

Face Off

You've seen a face in a rock here or there. You might have been the only person that thourhg it looked like a face, but you've seen it more than once.

The most famous rock face of all is New Hampshire’s state symbol, The Old Man of the Mountain popularized by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his short story, “The Great Stone Face.” It’s been reproduced on quarters, license plates, stamps, decorative china, and hundreds of postcards. Tragically, it collapsed on May 3, 2005 and is gone forever.

To me the most famous, life-like, stone face

belongs to Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.

Almost human – it’s uncanny.

Face for sale

Right here in J-town two enterprising men have recently made national news. A rock with a really cool face on it was discovered in a local field, and these guys refer to it as “The Miracle Rock.” To me, the real miracle would be if anybody paid the asking price they have requested on E-Bay. Forty nine thousand dollars!!!!

As David Stewart tells the story, he and his buddies were working when it fell off of a trailer. "A piece of the rock sheared off and there was that face, it just stood out,” he said.

The sandstone is big, and Stewart thinks it might weigh about 200 pounds. For the most part, the stone is dark brown; however, the place where the rock sheared off left a lighter color, and now there appears to be the profile of a person’s face. The remaining dark part even looks like locks of hair.

It’s not crazy to see a face in it. I’ve seen it myself on the Internet and to me, it kind of looks like a female Bob Hope. It’s also not crazy to try and make a buck off of it. I mean these are the days where we pay ten dollars for a movie ticket and three bucks for a gallon of gas. There might just be somebody out there wanting this rock for forty nine thousand dollars.

You see what you want

In this week’s confession from a highly caffeinated Christian, I suggest to you that beauty, and ugly for that matter, really are in the eyes of the beholder. I think we see what we want to see. By the Spirit of God, I believe I see the Creator through the creation around me. By the same Spirit, I can find the author when reading the Bible.

I want to see hope and life and goodness and mercy and grace. I want to see love without any strings attached. I have a drive in me to want to know God and experience Him in great big things and even in little bitty things. That’s why I want to see Jesus. The more I want to see him, the more I do. The more I look for Him, the more He shows up.

Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

You can reach the brewer at www.freshfromthebrewer.com

The King’s Heart Towards a Wookiee

When the phone rings at my house it can be anything. We have friends all over the world, orphanages we support on three different continents, a thriving congregation in Johnson County and four kids of which three are still teenagers. So when I say every phone call is a grab bag of feast, famine and the extraordinary, I know it’s going to be anything other than boring.

A few years ago, I got a call from the wife of Chewbacca The Wookiee. No really, I did. The performer that brought the famous Star Wars character to life is named Peter Mayhew. He’s the seven foot, three inch actor behind the mask, and he happens to be married to my cousin, Angelique. Both of them are wonderful people.

Now the phone call was for a specific prayer. I mean, doesn’t every pastor get phone calls from the planet Kashyyyk? Actually, Peter and Angelique live in Granbury when he’s not on the road, and even gentle hearted Wookiees need Jesus.

The situation was that George Lucas was filming the prequels to the original Star Wars trilogy. The problem being that up until then, Lucas had not written any parts for Chewbacca to reappear. It was important to Peter’s career, and to the devoted fans of Chewy, that he would have some part in the new generation trilogy.

Now, filming of Attack of the Clones had just been scheduled and huge disappointment set in. Peter had been left out once again. We only had one more chance, and nobody had any idea what Episode Three would bring. So we started praying.

Another cousin of mine and sister in law to Peter Mayhew, Melanie Guinn, suggested we unify in prayer proclaiming Proverbs 21:1. It’s one of those amazing vertical versus in the very horizontal book of Proverbs.

The King’s heart is in the hand of the Lord. As the rivers of water He turns it withersoever He will. Some translations say, The Lord controls the mind of a king as easily as He controls the course of a stream.

The idea being that just as the farmer might direct an irrigation ditch to bring water where he wants it, so God directs kings and other rulers to do what He wants done. The Brewer likes that.

So that’s what we did. We prayed that God would change the heart of George Lucas and direct him towards a favorable script on Peter’s behalf. It wasn’t long after, the phone rang with an invitation and a ticket to New Zealand. The Lord is faithful!

Not only was the script rewritten with Chewbacca in it, but Peter also shared the same frames with none other than Yoda himself! In a climactic memorable scene, Chewbacca was shown as second in command in a terrible war in defense of his home planet. Chewy was back on the silver screen and a bigger hero than ever!

Since that time, Peter has been extra busy touring the world and making a living. I tell you, God cares about stuff like that and is willing to get involved for people that are willing to ask Him. God loves Peter Mayhew and his well-being was important to Him. Same as you.

If somebody is holding you back from going into better things, I encourage you to not be intimidated by the decision of a king. Go above their head and seek the Lord. What you just might find, in a very tangible way, is that Jesus is the Savior of peasants and the King of kings.

The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. Proverbs 21:1 NIV