My Claim to Fame

Because my last name is "LOMBARDI," when people are introduced to me for the first time, they sometimes ask, "Are you any relation to Vince?" (As in Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach). Now, as far as I know, I'm NOT related to him. But, not too long ago somebody asked me once again, "Are you related to Vince?" When I answered, "No, I'm not," he then made a remark that no one has ever made to me before. He said, "Well, then, I guess you'll need to make your own claim to fame."

Now I know that there is a sense in which he was just "kidding," - but that remark prompted me to do some really serious, heavy-duty thinking. Vince Lombardi's claim to fame was football. So, what will Joe Lombardi's claim to fame be?

Well, after spending the past few days mulling that question in my mind, I've come to the conclusion that I don't necessarily need or even want my own "claim to fame." The main reason why is that I realize now that my personal identity and my eventual destiny are both inextricably linked to the fact that I belong to Jesus Christ. In the words to my favorite Andrae Crouch song: "All that I am and ever hope to be - I owe it all to Thee. TO GOD BE THE GLORY."

The Psalmist expressed it like this, "Not to us, O LORD, not to us but to YOUR NAME be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness" (Psalm 115:1).

Similarly, the Apostle Paul exclaimed, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14).

So, in the words to the title of an old gospel song, I am really "only a sinner, saved by grace." I am justified. That is what I am. Some day I will be glorified. That is what I hope to be. And I certainly cannot take any credit for either one! My Lord God alone is worthy to receive glory for that (Revelation 4:11).

Therefore, I have come to realize that the primary purpose of my life is to advance and enhance HIS reputation in this world. And my passion and my mission as a Christian is to promote HIS "claim to fame."

So, "whether (I) eat or drink or whatever (I) do, (I am to) to it all for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). For you see, I am, first and foremost, a CHRISTian. I have the incredible privilege and awesome responsibility of bearing HIS name. Therefore, my desire, as I serve Him in the pastorate, is that I will "live a life worthy of the Lord" (Colossians 1:10) and "worthy of the calling (I) have received" (Ephesians 4:1). And my prayer is that I will never do anything that will bring shame to HIS Name, but that, like Phinehas of old, I, too, will be "zealous for the honor of His name" (Numbers 25:13).

And, by the way, when the people in our city here in Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley learn that I wear and bear the name of CHRIST ("Christian"), I trust that they won't even have to ask, "Oh, are you related to HIM?" Rather, I hope that they will be able to take one look at me and say, "Sure, he must be related to Him because (in the words to the title to an Amy Grant song) he's got 'his Father's eyes!'" Now, that would be some claim to fame! (No kidding!).

So, I remain devoted to the cause of Jesus Christ, and to advancing and enhancing HIS reputation in this world!

Follow the Leader!

The martyrdom of American missionaries Jim Elliott, Pete Fleming, Ed McCully, Nate Saint and Roger Youderian, fifty-two years ago (January 8, 1956) by the Waodani people deep in the jungles of Ecuador along the Amazon River basin has inspired thousands (if not millions) of Christians during the past half-century, and has been used by God to bring countless others to saving faith in Jesus. That story, narrated by Nate Saint’s son, Steve, was powerfully portrayed in the docudrama “End of the Spear,” which opened in 1,163 theaters across the U.S. on January 20, 2006. As Win and I watched the movie with some special friends the week it opened, I was reminded that one of the most moving books I have ever read is "Shadow of the Almighty." It is the story of missionary Jim Elliot, based on his personal diary, written by his widow, Elizabeth, shortly after his horrifying martyrdom on that day fifty-two years ago, at the age of 29.

Jim Elliot was born in 1927 in Portland, Oregon. He was educated at Wheaton College (my alma mater) and the Summer Institute of Linguistics of Wycliffe Bible Translators. He went to Ecuador with his wife, Elizabeth, in 1952, deeply burdened to reach the savage, stone-age Indians of that country with the Gospel.

In a letter to his parents dated August 8, 1950, he describes the compelling force of his call to leave home and to follow the Lord with the words, "Impelled.... I dare not stay home!"

Jim Elliot epitomizes for me, in both his life and his death, what it really means to "follow the Leader." Indeed, he fleshed out the somewhat rigorous terms of followership articulated by our Lord with these words in Mark 8:34, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me."

The demands of discipleship are basically three: deny, take and follow.

First of all, the command to "deny" ourselves literally means that we should forget or disown ourselves - our selfishness and self-centeredness. We need to stop thinking "I, I, I" and stop focusing on "me, me, me."

To be sure, we are living in a day when the very idea of self-denial rubs against the grain of current psychological theory. We are far more comfortable with words like "self-actualization" and "self-realization." But, in reality, those who deny themselves are the ones who experience fulfillment in the best sense of that word.

Next of all, to "take" up one's cross means to be willing not only to deny self but also to "die" to self. (You see, a man carrying a cross was a man going out to die!) Jesus is NOT talking about tolerating life's inconveniences and petty annoyances. I believe it was Chuck Swindoll who reminded us in one of his books that Jesus is NOT referring to those nagging, chronic problems, like suffering from asthma or enduring a migraine headache. Such things may indeed be "thorns in the flesh," but they are not "crosses to bear" in the way that Jesus meant it. To "take up one's cross" is to be willing to say with the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ." And so in his book titled "My Utmost for His Highest," Oswald Chambers admonishes us, "Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence."

Last of all, we are to follow Him - continuously, habitually. Moment by moment. Step by step. Again, Oswald Chambers comments, "When the call of God comes, begin to go, and never stop going!"

Jim Elliot understood the cost of true followership. He wrote in his diary, "Father, let me be weak that I might lose my clutch on everything temporal. My life, my reputation, my possessions. Lord, let me loose the tension of the grasping hand.... Rather, open my hand to receive the nail of Calvary, as Christ's was opened -that I, releasing all, might be released, unleashed from all that binds me now." That's the kind of language that gives the Devil a fit. In fact, when they hear it, all his demons gasp!

You see, Jim Elliot really had no regard for self, or success or status. The only thing that was important to him was that he "follow the Leader!" He was ready and willing to deny himself, take up his cross and follow Christ. Thus, when it came to his call to missionary service, he could only reply, "Impelled, I dare not stay home."

It was in 1949, while a student at Wheaton College that Jim Elliot penned these now immortalized words, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot loose." Seven years later, on a hot Sunday afternoon, his body and the bodies of his four comrades were discovered on the bank of the Curaray River, savagely murdered by those they had sought to reach for Jesus Christ. Jim Elliot followed the Leader, bearing his cross.... But in heaven he will be wearing a crown!

May God be pleased to find me, along with many other fellow members of the Body of Christ, who are ready and willing to "follow the Leader" with a commitment so great that it will make all hell gasp!

Following our Resurrected and Exalted Leader in 2008 . . .