BOLD Ministry

Over Thanksgiving weekend, I took a few minutes to look at an classic that I never thought would be as good as it was.

"I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the existence of a hunted man."

That's Al Capone speaking. Yes, America's most notorious Public Enemy- the most sinister gang leader who ever shot up Chicago. Capone didn't condemn himself. He actually regarded himself as a public benefactor - an unappreciated and misunderstood public benefactor.

And so did Dutch Schultz before he crumpled up under gangster bullets in Newark. Dutch Schultz, one of New York's most notorious rats, said in a newspaper interview that he was a public benefactor. And he believed it.

I have had some interesting correspondence with Lewis Lawes, who was warden of New York's infamous Sing Sing prison for many years, on this subject, and he declared that "few of the criminals in Sing Sing regard themselves as bad men. They are just as human as you and I. So they rationalize, they explain. They can tell you why they had to crack a safe or be quick on the trigger finger. Most of them attempt by a form of reasoning, fallacious or logical, to justify their antisocial acts even to themselves, consequently stoutly maintaining that they should never have been imprisoned at all."

If Al Capone, "Two Gun" Crowley, Dutch Schultz, and the desperate men and women behind prison walls don't blame themselves for anything - what about the people with whom you and I come in
contact? How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie, p. 22.

The first person that we are called to influence is ourselves. Our capacity to overlook and ignore our flaws is one of the easiest ways to live life that places blame everywhere except on us. Our current economic condition is exposing some world class "blamesmanship."

One of the best ways to pull the covers off of any cover up is to be in relationship with people that will tell you the truth, even when it hurts or is inconvenient.

That is one of the great "features" of Christianity. Jesus is a great truth teller because He has no self-interest in manipulating us to be honest. The greatest benefit to knowing and living truth is freedom. John 8:32 says: "you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

By living an abiding life with Jesus, you discover the areas that you are not seeing that are holding you back. My recommendation: go back and reread some of the classics, like the Gospel of John and even the Dale Carnegie classic. Today, make the decision to get a little more free.

Another way to encourage the "freedom diet" is to come out to BOLD today @ 12:45 at St. Barts. By getting into the presence of God we become a little more free.