GLORY MEETING IN THE DESERT

I slept until 5 o’clock this morning—great progress.

I do not actually sleep with the giant pink pillow in bulbous tennis shoes shaped like a heart with the jolly disposition (I know you have been wondering), but I do lean it against the wall opposite the foot of the bed where I can fellowship with it should the nights wax lonely. Loneliness is, so far, deferred, for each night passes (short as the nights may be) without my awareness. I have been so exhausted I cannot even remember—on any given night—closing my eyes.  

By the time I get adjusted to Pacific Time, I will be back East.

I worked out yesterday at YMCA on Durango Street, and so did the Newmans. I am a member of the Y in Johnstown, PA, where I go five days a week for my dose of uphill treadmill sprints, indoor track running, resistance training, and swimming. With my Johnstown membership, I get ten free visits to any Y in the country. While Joe and Matthew played basketball, Melinda and Hannah and I hit the treadmills.

I showed Melinda how to do the uphill sprints, and for how long. I told her it’s better to exercise smart, than long. “It’s all about stressing the body for limited periods of time, followed by rest,” I told her. I think she may have hated me for that at first—sweating, breathing hard, finding out how long 15 seconds can be—but in the end, she saw the benefit of doing it right and getting it over with.

We then went to the weight room and I showed her my “Power of 10” routine: slow, controlled, concentrated reps (no more than six), with heavy weight. The concept is to bring the muscle to failure in the shortest period of time, and then push against the failure for one or two seconds before lowering the weight at the same slow speed. This eliminates repetitive sets, which I’ve always hated. This way, you do one set of very few reps, and you’re done. Melinda said, “I like this method!” Me, too.

We finished our Y time with a basketball game: Matthew and me versus  Hannah and Joe; playing to ten by ones. I guarded Joe. Matthew kept letting Hannah get open in the perimeter, not believing his sister could hit from there. Problem: Hannah kept hitting from there. We tightened up the D, and it came down to a 9-9 tie; next basket wins. I took the ball out, passed to Matthew, who passed back to me; I dribbled twice, then found Matthew cutting underneath. I passed, he shot, scored—and we sure enjoyed our time at the Y.

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Broadcasting the Martin Zender Show from my Las Vegas studio,
otherwise known as Hanna's room. Eat your heat out, Don Imus.
(Click to enlarge.)

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The meeting last night was the third in three days, and glory-laden. We discussed our identity with Christ. Where Christ is—seated at the right hand of God—is where we shall be. What did we do to attain this position? Nothing. What did Christ do? Everything.

I took us to Romans, chapter 6, highlighting the “togethers” of that passage: entombed together with Him, our old nature crucified together with Him, being roused together with Him. God identifies us with Christ in the bad side of the equation, but also in the good.

How gracious of God to say we were crucified with Christ, without us having to actually be nailed to that horrible post. I told the saints: here we were, sitting on living room chairs in a pleasant neighborhood in a pleasant city, reading how God said we were crucified with His Son, baptized into His death, and entombed with Him. What did we actually do? Nothing. We had not even been born. Where were we now? Sitting on comfortable chairs in Las Vegas. And yet, to God, we were there on the torture stake. To Christ, we were there. (Because of this, we will be together with Him in resurrection also.)

Picture Christ, the loneliest creature in the universe that day. A survival technique, for Him, was to picture us. He did this in His mind’s eye. In His mind’s eye, we shared His convulsions and helped Him through them. He thought of us, without actually knowing us. This sustained Him, even before we existed. He knew how thankful we would someday be.

The crucifixion was not ours to taste. Not so the glory. When it comes to the glory, the sweetness runs down our throats. How is this a bad deal for any of us? I asked. We were not even alive during the six hours of torture, yet God considered us present. Then, when glory time comes (the manifestation of Christ to the universe), He waits for us, and shares with us—in person—the glorious outcome.  

I was stunned—and am continually, but especially last night—by the generosity and graciousness of Christ. As the necessary torture was imputed to us apart from our experience, so the coming glory might have been thusly imputed, for a perfect parallel. But no. Screw parallels, says God. The suffering happens apart from us, the glory patiently waits for us. Christ brings us to heaven to personally taste His reward.  

(Click to enlarge.)

“Now if we died together with Christ, we believe that we shall be living together with Him also” (Romans 6:8).

The “died together” is past; the “living together” is future. For the present, Paul prays that we come to a realization of this. This is my prayer for you, the reader, and it was my prayer last night for the saints, that we should attain to the unity of the faith and of the realization of the son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the complement of the Christ.

Later today, we go to The Strip.

© 2012 by Martin Zender

FOOTBALL AND FELLOWSHIP IN MODERN-DAY CORINTH

Las Vegas is a modern-day Corinth. How many other cities in the world earn the moniker, “Sin City?” This is why I’m so thrilled there’s an ecclesia here. “The ecclesia of Las Vegas” sounds as strange to some modern ears as “the ecclesia of Corinth” sounded 2,000 years ago. “What? How can there be an ecclesia there?” But for that matter, how can there be an ecclesia anywhere on a planet that is, relatively speaking, run by Satan? Belief if a miracle. (But then again, so is unbelief.) Besides, it’s not the so-called sinners we have to worry about “down here,” but the religious powers distorting the grace of Christ.

That message is definitely not being distorted in the ecclesia of Las Vegas. The Word of the cross is going forth with power here at the Joe Newman home.

We held another meeting yesterday, this time talking about Jesus Christ’s place in universal history. I opened with the question, “Why are we here?” We are here, ultimately, to give God company. I know that sounds trite. It’s certainly not the full answer, but God created every creature for His own pleasure, and theirs. It’s about fellowship. This future pleasure for the creatures, we know, is dependent upon an experience of evil. I am more richly appreciating the value of fellowship, at the same time realizing I’ve undervalued the importance of it to God.

His object is to love and be loved. The “eonian chart” I looked at for years has God, in the beginning, “All in Himself.” That always seemed sad to me. But then, at the consummation of the eons, He is “All in all.” When I see that second, “all,” I am happy for the creatures, but pleased even more for their Creator.  

A new guy came to the meeting yesterday: Terry. He had heard Rich’s radio show, and the two had spoken on the phone, I think, but had never met. Rich asked if he wanted to come to the meeting, and apparently Terry lives dangerously. I didn’t get a photo of him, I think, because I was too busy arguing with him.

This man did not harden his own heart.

Terry is a good man, and was very patient with all of us (it was reciprocal), but his blind spot concerned a consequential point: free will and the sovereignty of God. Terry loves the idea of free will, and could not hear his own contradictions of salvation being “of grace” and “no merit of our own,” while at the same time explaining what sort of merits God’s “unmerited” favor required. Besides, God didn’t harden Pharaoh’s heart, because Pharaoh hardened his own heart. What about the verse saying God hardened Pharaoh’s heart? It’s just one of those nagging Scriptural inconveniences requiring an extremely convoluted theology to explain. As Nathan Pilkington says way back there in good old Pennsylvania: “The miracle is not belief, but that God locks up so many in unbelief.”

I did finally get Terry to admit, out loud, that he believed faith came from “within a person,” and “not from God.” You’d have squirmed in your chair—as did some here—at the amount of cornering it took to extract that confession from Terry. The man was shocked to hear himself say it, I think, but I made him repeat it and listen to himself. I told him to think about what he’d said on his way home. Who knows? Maybe he did that instead of listening to the radio.  

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I am happy to have introduced Rich Kovatch to this group. He has lived only a few miles from the Newmans, unaware of their existence. He did the radio show here, but the show broadcast on a Christian station, which of course the Newmans avoided like the swine flu, so they never heard him. Rich is thrilled have found this fellowship, and the Newmans are, too. I’m pretty tickled, myself, about playing matchmaker.

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Sophia is from Georgia, a former Soviet country bordering Turkey and the Black Sea. She came to America two days prior to 9/11, 2001, and settled in New Jersey, where the weather shocked her. “Cold, snowy, gloomy,” she said. “Yes,” I said, “that’s New Jersey.”  She wanted sunshine and palm trees (neither one in New Jersey), so she came out here to Las Vegas about ten years ago and met the Newmans four years later; talk about symbiosis. Sophia learned from the Newmans about a God of power, majesty, grace (her background is Eastern Orthodox), and the Newmans enjoy the company and fellowship of a beautiful, vibrant soul.

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I built my radio studio yesterday morning in Hannah’s room, broadcasting my first show from there before the 10 o’clock meeting. For four days, then, I will broadcast from atop Hannah’s make-up table, surrounded by blow driers, curling irons, and walls the color of ripe limes. I will photograph my Vegas studio for you today, and show it to you tomorrow. I am very proud of it, and I think Hannah is, too.

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For a person of any age, Hannah has an insatiable curiosity about God (she is 14). For instance, she was on the Internet yesterday checking up on what I’d taught concerning the name, “Elohim,” used in the Concordant Version in Genesis 1:1, of Who created the heavens and the earth. Hannah sought to verify that this was a plural appellation, rather than singular. I kid you not, Hannah had three sites open. It was all about, “Elohim.” Elohim this, Elohim that. Then, last night, giving Elohim a rest, she produced a two-page list of questions on various other topics.

Last night, Rich and Eddie and I had just returned from Randy’s house, where we’d watched the Forty-Niner/Patriot game on Randy’s thirteen-foot (yes, thirteen foot) home theater screen. As soon as we got in the door, Melinda looked at me and said, “Okay, Hannah has only one question for you.” Everyone was laughing, so I figured the “one question” was a doozie. Hannah said, “I need one verse from every book of the Old Testament, stating explicitly that the Hebrew Scriptures were written only to Israelites.” I feigned anxiety. (Not really; the anxiety was real.). Not knowing of any such verse in any of the books, let alone all, I answered her question and dodged it at the same time, quoting Romans 3:2—“They were entrusted with the oracles of God.” Did it satisfy her? She did crack a grin. But I’ve a feeling she’s going to recast her query and hit me with it again today.  

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Yesterday evening, Eddie took Rich and me to the mountains, specifically, to the Red Rocks. The peak lighting was already past, but the mountains still rose from the desert spectacular, jagged, depth-rich, and snow-capped. In a way, they are more spectacular than the Rockies of Colorado Springs (with the exception of Pike’s Peak), in that the peaks layered, jutted, jumbled, then shot to heaven unexpectedly. (The disruption of the world had its way with them.)

                                                           

Eddie and  Rich

*  *  *

After the mountain adventure, Eddie took Rich and me over to Randy’s to watch the football game. Randy had picked up a juicy Hawaiian pork dish for us, with wild rice. Randy has good taste in food, as well as living quarters. As far as Randy’s home theater system goes, one expects to have to buy tickets to it. I’d never seen anything like it except at a Cineplex. A thirteen foot screen with surround-sound is definitely the way to watch the NFL. (It was raining in New England, and some of it hit our shoes.)

Eddie, Randy, Rich. That's the screen reflected in the back glass.

The Niners beat the Patriots.

Party central.

I so enjoyed watching the game with these brothers. I felt like we’d known each other for a long time. It was one of those magical times, again, when you sense beyond a shadow of a doubt you’re with the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

That’s been happening a lot lately.

© 2012 by Martin Zender

BIBLE STUDY OFF THE STRIP

Red Door of Fellowship: site of the meeting of the saints.
(Click all photos to enlarge.)

When you say you’re going to Las Vegas, no one asks you why. Everyone knows why you’re going: to pamper the flesh. You’re going in order to be entertained, to overeat (and to overheat), to gamble, to drink, to see what Cher is wearing, to sow some wild oats and reap some wild oatmeal. If someone were to ask you why you are going to Vegas, the answer would not be, “I am going to Vegas for a Bible study.” Are you kidding me? Who the hell goes to Las Vegas for a Bible study?

Me. I do. I go to Las Vegas for a Bible study. I am two miles off the The Strip, and I don’t care. Neither does anyone else here. Right now, at this moment, it is the greatest thing in the world to be in Las Vegas talking about the evangel of Paul with people who are waiting to be snatched up together with Christ and be with Him forevermore. This ain’t no Mirage. Nothing could be more perfect.

The Bible study yesterday was one of the best. Starting at 9:30 a.m., people just kept coming in the door. By 10:15, we had sixteen people in the living room.

Joe knows bacon.

Joe and Melinda in love.

Ivy awaits company.

Rich Kavatch arrives. He is the guy with the radio show
who interviewed me twice last May for The First Idiot in Heaven

Ben drove up all the way from Orange County, California.

Christina and Megan

Sophia, Melinda, Eddie, and Tyler

Bryan is a Los Angeles Lakers fan.

Grace and Victor

The study was over by 9:30—p.m. That’s right, a twelve-hour Scripture-fest, with occasional breaks for delicious food (thank you, Melinda and Sophia) and—in Joe’s case—a giant cigar enjoyed on the patio.

The main living room meeting went for three hours. No one wanted to leave. Yesterday reminded me again of how body of Christ members are so much like family. You meet these people for the first time, and you hug them like long-lost kin. The conversation starts right away; you are all of the same mind. The same mind directs you, the mind of Christ. You realize that every one of these people, including yourself, has walked down winding roads and heartbreaking times, to bring them here. They were brought here, all of them, by joys, trials, tears—and a sure yearning for truth. Everyone has a story, written in their eyes, faces, hugs, and the way they look at you when you share with them a new facet of the grace of God.

The patio.

Joe enjoys a smoke.

Rear view of Joe enjoying a smoke.

Ben, Zender, Randy, and Victor.

Rich digs the fellowship, backdropped by the Gulf of Mexico.
Everyone thinks he looks like Dustin Hoffman.

Ben and me.

Eddie and Martin Zender.

Zender schmoozes with Melinda and her grandson Logan.

Eddie schmoozes with Melinda; Melinda is schmoozable.

Hannah and Matthew look after their nephew Micah.

Hannah is cute in the kitchen.

Matthew supervises cookie operations.

Taya can't wait for everyone to leave.

Ben enjoys a coffee before driving back to L.A.

Speaking for myself, I love the moments of ultra-awareness, realizing I am at the right place, at the right time, with the right people. Of course, this is always the case in the great scheme of God, but one is not always ultra-aware of it. We must admit there are those moments in life when everything seems wrong, feels wrong, looks wrong. These are those times when the psyche needs a pep talk that God is in control, and is operating all in accord with the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11).

Yesterday was not one of those times.

I thank the Almighty God that there are other times, like yesterday, when He is so gracious and merciful that He sets you down into a sweet spot when everything gels and grooves, when you know why you have suffered upon your path—to bring you to this spot in place and in time. There are times over the past 19 years when I have despaired of this calling to teach. Yesterday, I could not imagine doing anything else.

Thank you, God, for fitting me to be a vessel of Your truth for Your people’s lives, to bless them and bring them closer to You. Thank you for the confirmation that I am on the right path, doing the right thing. Thank you for Your chosen ones. Thank you for this season of love, acceptance, smiles, hugs, tears of joy, warm encouraging words, and conviction of truth and purpose.

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Oh, boy, I slept in until 3:30 this morning. Went to bed at 10:30, making another day of five hours sleep. I have got to get to bed earlier tonight, but it’s hard to break away from the fellowship. My thinking is: I’m not here to sleep. However, I’ve got to stay healthy and keep the brain in gear. However, I can’t get enough of this. Good thing, because we’ve another full day of it today: the gang is coming back at 10 for another go. After that, there is a two-hour fellowship Monday night. Rumor has it (thank you, Adele), some of us are heading to The Strip on Tuesday. I want to make a video to deliver to you this weekend, but we will see what time and energy allows. The script ideas being bandied about the table last night were entertaining, to say the least. (Only a few of them were legally possible.)

Getting up a half-hour later didn’t change the routine this morning. I didn’t even try to go back to sleep, making it down here to my kitchen counter and computer, once again, at 4:15. I am guarding my water glass this time, which Taya (the name of the formerly-dehydrated cat, delivered as promised) is not too happy about. She cuddles me anyway; what a sweet kitty.

Yesterday, I spoke on the two gospels, giving a brief overview of Israel’s history and working my way up and through Paul. Today, I’ll be taking a broader look at the history of the universe, and the nature of God. Monday night, I want to delve into the specifics of Paul’s gospel.

The conversations at the kitchen table and out on the patio have run the gamut.

On Thursday, three of us fly to Sacramento. It turns out that two or three other people may be driving there as well. The show hits the road!

Donald Trump is really missing out on these spiritual times, the poor guy. So is Shania Twain. I saw Trump’s epic tower on the way in here, and Shania’s slinky, sassy self gracing football-sized billboards and placards atop taxi cabs. There is nothing wrong with being rich, famous, void of hairstyling, or having an amazing waist-hip ratio (I’m talking about Shania, Mr. Trump, not you; your waist-hip ratio is pathetic.) But there is everything right with forsaking that which is behind (this world and its treasures), and stretching ahead for the prize of the high calling above in Christ Jesus.

They have yet to invent a slot machine here that can deliver that.

© 2012 by Martin Zender  

ARRIVING IN LAS VEGAS

"Great news. World-record jet stream."

The flight left an hour late out of Newark. “But don’t worry,” the gate agent assured us, “The jet stream is amazingly strong today—I think it’s a world record—and so what would normally be a five-hour flight will take about six hours.”

That became just fine when I realized the seat between the window dude and myself would remain unoccupied. Thank you, God, for small and large favors.

The last time I was in Las Vegas was 1984, when bicycling across the United States. I’ve pedaled the trans-con twice, both times passing through Vegas. Therefore, these two odd facts stand out to me: I have never been in this town except on two wheels (literal truth), and have never traveled through it faster than 15 miles per hour.

Midway through the flight, I enjoyed a glass of wine, finished the rest of my Hershey dark chocolate bar, and listened to Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love four times. This inspired me (obviously) to write two video scripts for our new video company in Windber, Yeah-Yeah Productions. The guys back home will be happy to hear this. They have been dying to make another movie ever since the release of “Psycho Boy.” By the way, if you have not seen “Psycho Boy,” head here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht3VvOp7wio

I am feeling much saner now, thank you. 

Floating into it at night from heavenly realms, Las Vegas sparkles, pretty, like the wondertown it is. On final approach, it occurred to me: If I think this is impressive, what will the New Jerusalem of the new earth do to me? My very next thought about New Jerusalem was: Will Shania Twain be performing? Wayne Newton? David Copperfield?

You probably want to know if I am nervous meeting people I’ve never met, picking me up at airports. Am I worried about being kidnapped? No. I am trying to be content in all circumstances, including kidnappings. I got off the plane, and there was Joe Newman. He was brandishing neither a gun, nor a large canvas bag—just a big grin and a welcoming hug. I liked him right away.

Joe is a funny guy. I was wandering around the terminal trying to find him, and he texted me: “I’m the guy with the haircut.”

We talked easily on the way to his house. Do I ever like his family! Joe’s wife Melinda, and his daughter Hannah and son Matthew, all greeted me and made me feel instantly at home. I sat at the kitchen bar while Melinda made salad and Hannah relayed her recent adventure/trauma sharing truths about human free will with close friends. (“She read your book The Really Bad Thing About Free Will,” said Joe in the car, “and it got her into trouble, like, within three days. Nice job, Zender.”)

Matthew and Hannah, magneted onto the refrigerator.

Matthew’s favorite school subject is science; Hannah hates Math, but everything else is okay with her. She’s already thinking heavily about God, which is quite something for a fourteen year-old. Oh! Check out this awesome painting she did, hanging in her room:

(Click to enlarge.)

Interesting that I'd just taught on that verse on my last Zender show.

There are two pets here, a dog and a cat. I forget their names, but the cat is a female and seems to know how cute she is. She can get away with anything, including drinking directly out of my water glass this morning. I will discern the name of this dehydrated animal (well, she is not dehydrated any more), and report to you forthwith.

Let me know if I can get you some breakfast with that, kitty.

Hannah gave up her room for me, so I’m enjoying a decor I never would have chosen for myself, but that is already growing on me.

Check out my pillow:

And my lamp:

I forced myself to stay up last night; it wasn’t hard because fellowshipping with the Newman family was so gosh-darned fun. I woke up at 3 o’clock, though. Yep—up came the shutters of the mind and they weren’t going back down. Obviously, my body still thinks its in Pennsylvania. I tried to go back to sleep: no dice. So I came down here to the kitchen at four to post yesterday’s blog and write this one. 

The family is still asleep; all is quiet and peaceful. (I found a bag of "raisin medley" in the fridge.) The only sounds are the tick-tock of the clock, and water being lapped from my glass by a disobedient, formerly dehydrated, but very cute cat.

The meeting starts at 10 this morning. There will be three meetings between now and Thursday. Come on out! There is still time, if you hurry. (From Los Angeles, do not attempt it on a bicycle .)

I’ll get some real photos of the real people today. Yesterday evening was too much fun and the conversation too engaging to drag out the camera.

Thanks for traveling along with me on this adventure. We are one big happy family, is the way I see it.

© 2012 by Martin Zender