Heart Tracks - Square Business

      In the long ago days of my youth, I had a friend who, when wanting to emphasize the truth of what he was saying, would add the exclamation, "Square business!"  That was brought to my memory by something British author and pastor T. Austin-Sparks said, "If you mean business with the Lord, the Lord will mean business with you."  As we enter into yet another new year, how many of us will truly "mean business" with the Father?  How many of us will "transact" business with Him?  Business that involves every aspect of our lives.  Business that will not exhibit a willingness to make minor life adjustments, spiritual tweaks, but does business with Him at the very root of our being?  How many of us, as a result of recent conviction, will resolve to do better, do more, be less self-absorbed, and more "other" centered, only to see ourselves after a few weeks of good intentions, slide right back into our inherent self centered lives?  Francis Chan said that "we like to be convicted and think that's success."  Judging by how little so many of we who profess to follow Him truly are transformed year after year, we're enjoying a great deal of that "success."  The status quo for most remains the status quo.
   In Numbers 14:24, it is said of Caleb that he walked in "another spirit" than the majority of the people of Israel in that he wholly followed and belonged to the Father.  He meant business with God.  God meant business with Him, and the result of it all showed forth in His life.  Caleb, as Sparks said, "lived up to, and out from heaven."  His heart and spirit lived in the throne room of God.  On most days, where is mine found?  Where is yours?  In the midst of this comfort, safety, and pleasure obsessed culture, a culture that has fully invaded the church, where will yours and my heart be found?  Will we live out, by His grace, another year that ends with us in very much the same place as where we began?  The place we were the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that, and.....
   I heard Bishop Harry Jackson say recently that in Chinese, the symbol for Christ was "danger and opportunity."  How many of us would embrace that symbol of the Savior?  Provider, Protector,
the One who makes all our desires and wants come to pass, Him we'll eagerly embrace, but One who offers only the dangerous reality of what it is to truly live for and in Him, and all the opportunities that yields to live for, in, and out of Him in the midst of that danger?  Well, that may be another matter entirely.  Which symbol of Christ will we embrace, the One which can be used to enhance our agenda, or He who leads us ever onward, into real danger, yet all the while safe in His hands, and all the opportunity such a life will bring?  The One who has business to do with you and I calls.  He calls now.  Square business!

Blessings,
Pastor O
   

Heart Tracks - Jesus Is Christmas

       I first wrote this in 2004, and felt led to once again share it, with a new addition at the end.  It is not about me, but about the wonder of Immanuel, God With Us.  It's a kind of "Tale Of Two Christmas', widely different, but present with the same Christ.  It's my prayer that He blesses you in the reading.

    

    The first experience took place in Colorado Springs, nearly 25 years ago, during the first year of my study for the ministry.  I was single, away from home and family, and alone, as my roommates had left to be with their families.  Before they'd left, we'd gotten a tree, and draped it with as many decorations and lights as it could hold.  I remember Christmas Eve, after returning from my church's special service, lying on my sofa, listening to the songs of the 2nd Chapter of Acts, gazing at the tree and the lights.  Here, over 1500 miles from family, separated from friends, physically alone, I had a sense of His Presence unlike anything I had known in my young walk with Him.  In that small apartment, my Lord was with me, giving me Himself.  I would open no presents that night, something my family always did, but it wouldn't matter.  I had the gift of my Jesus, and nothing else mattered.  The joy of my Lord flowed out of my heart.  I had never experienced such a visitation before, and while He has come to me in so many beautiful ways since then, I've never again had a time with Him quite like that.  For one who'd come out of deep darkness only a year before, it was, and is, a gift to be treasured all the rest of my days.  It was my happiest Christmas.

    The second time happened 9 years later, on a church campground on a bitterly cold night the week before Christmas.  My wife had left me several months before.  In the midst of that, I'd had to resign my church, and leave the ministry.  I was working at a Coca-Cola distribution center in Charlottesville, Viriginia, driving a forklift.  I had just returned to the campground.  It was late at night, and very dark.  The place was almost completely empty of life.  My heart was filled with an indescribable ache.  Each day I would drive in, and each night I would drive back, constantly asking the Lord, "How did I end up here?  Why did you let this happen?  Father, where are you?"  As I parked my car and got out, the intense cold hit my face.  It couldn't have been more than 10 degrees out.  I remember the thought that came to me as if it were yesterday.  A voice that came from a much deeper darkness than made up that nighttime.  It whispered, "Aren't you weary of the pain?  Everything has been lost.  Can it ever be good again?  It can all be over.  All you need do is walk into those woods over there.  Lie down.  Go to sleep,  It will be over."  At that moment, in the midst of what seemed complete hopelessness, I looked towards those woods.  It was then that I heard another voice.  It was soft, but mighty.  It was Him.  The Jesus, my Jesus, who'd come to me in the midst of my most special Christmas, had also come to me in the time of my darkest.  The same Jesus.  I didn't hear words so much as truth.  I was not alone.  This was not the end.  Where I was now, was not where I would stay.  I had life, and though the enemy sought to destroy it, I would live.  I would laugh again.  I would live again.  I was living now.

    With that I went to the small cottage I was staying in, and just like in that small apartment 9 years before, I was washed with His Presence.  I was not alone.  He was with me, and true to His word, my life didn't end there.  Neither does it end here.  There will still be pain.  There is pain now, but whether in laughter or sorrow, times of light, or times of darkness, He is, and will always be, Immanuel.  God with us.  With me.  With you.  He is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.

    It may be as you come upon this season, you find yourself in a place you never thought you'd be, or a place you can do nothing to change.  Please know that no matter how cut off you may feel, how alone you might think yourself to be, you are not.  Into your time, this time, allow Immanuel, Jesus to come.  He will, and He will not leave.  This is not the place you will stay, it is not here that you will die.  He will bring you out.  There is life for you, abundant and free.  Let Him lead you into it.

 

    I end this with the story of a missionary family's first Christmas in the tropics, one spent away from family, friends, and all that

had been so familiar to them.  The wife struggled with the isolation until, as she sought Him, her eyes were opened to something much greater than she had known.  "I was shown the actual heart of Christmas, which in turn changed my own heart.  It occurred to me that while all these things (friends, family, cherished decorations) symbolize Christmas, all of these things are not Christmas.  I learned that Jesus is enough.  Jesus is Christmas.  When all the stuff...lights, gifts, trees, food and even friends - was taken away, it came down to Jesus.....I learned that everything I need for Christmas and for my life is found in Jesus."  Psalm 16 reads, "Apart from You, I have no good thing."  Apart from Him, we too, "have no good thing."

 

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Hamster Within

     Writer Patrick Morely tells the story of the time his daughter's pet hamster, Jesse, had crawled through a crack at the bottom of their fireplace and fallen deep into the space behind it.  There was absolutely no way that the hamster could bring itself back out.  As Morely says, "She was doomed to die.  We all knew it, but she didn't."  The hamster, oblivious to her fate just crawled about in the darkness, exploring, "carefree and unaware of the slow, lingering death awaiting her."  The family was in deep pain, but Jesse had no idea there was even a problem.  Morley went to bed, praying that the Father would show him how he might rescue her.
    The next morning, Morely awoke, and went straight to the room behind the fireplace.  With a hammer, he began to break through the paint covered drywall.  After making a hole large enough to reach through, he shined a flashlight into the dark place.  Immediately he saw Jesse and "quickly grabbed her before she scurried from the light, retreating back into the shadows.  She had been in the darkness long enough."
    Morely then used this experience to relate it to God's way with us.  Because of sin, we are born into the darkness, and the darkness is death, leading us ever onward to an eternity in its grip.  Like Jesse, we have no idea of our extreme soul danger.  We move about, "exploring," experiencing, living what we call life.  We are in desperate need of rescue, but we have absolutely no way of getting ourselves out.  We are trapped behind walls we cannot free ourselves from, and the Father, in His deep pain and anguish, broke through that "wall" with the giving of Jesus Christ, through His life, death on a cross, and His conquering of death with His resurrection life.  Yet, when He breaks through, our initial inclination is not to come to the light, but to run from it.  Like Jesse, we fear the light, and seek to draw back to the shadows.  As Morely writes, "God has to reach down and draw us up."  That's the only way out for the hamster, and for you and I.  Has this light come to you, and if so, do you draw back from it, or laid hold of by it?
   We all have our "inner hamster."  Even if we have had the joy of being "found" by Him, there can remain in our hearts, a great deal of the character of the hamster, avoiding the light, finding comfort in the shadows.  It seems safer there.  It seems "right" there.  we can "hide" from the things and issues we don't want to face, we can hide from His face.  Yet, as His word tells us, the end is death.  Wherever you are, the light of Christ pursues you.  That light will clash with the darkness, the shadowland we seek to stay in.  Will you draw back, or will you walk into the hand, and heart, of He who grieves over you?  Jesus says in John 12:46, "I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in Me should stay in darkness."  Will you stay, or will you come?  You've been in the darkness long enough.

Blessings,
Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - For All People

     I came across this account from a missionary to the Pacific Rim.  It was Christmas time, and as missionaries, they'd had to leave behind all the familiar and cherished decorations.  The one thing they did have was a fine ceramic nativity set that they'd purchased en route to their assignment.  She placed it with great care upon the table in their home, using what she called the "standard American set up," Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus in front, wise men to the right, shepherds and cattle to the left.   
    The next day, as she attended a language school, her househelper had come to care for the apartment they lived in.  When she returned from the school, she found the nativity scene completely rearranged.  All the figures were set in a circle, with the baby Jesus in the center.  There was no order to the members of the circle, shepherds next to wisemen, wisemen beside cattle.  She quickly moved them back to their "proper order."  She again went to the school the following day, and once again, when she returned, the figures were again arranged in what she saw as a hodgepodge circle, Jesus once again in the middle.  This pattern continued for a number of days.
Finally, exasperated, she asked her helper why she was doing this, thinking, "After all, everyone knows shepherds and wisemen have definite stations in life, and her arrangement just wouldn't happen."  In response, her housekeeper pointed to the scene and said, "Jesus should be the center of everything."  The missionary then writes, "Pointing to her heart, she continued, 'Just like in here.'  Pointing to the wisemen, then to a shepherd, and then to herself, she continued to teach me, saying, 'He loves us all the same.' "
    Within each of us is a deep yearning to feel that we are special, precious, and we spend a lifetime searching for things, positions, possessions, and people who make us feel so.  Yet none of these  do.  We only end up with a deeper hunger, a greater void in that desire.  We need ever greater verification that we are, all the while comparing ourselves with others, seeking to prove that we are a little more special, a little more precious than them.  This attitude runs rampant in the world.  It does so in the church as well.  We manufacture "definite stations" for people.  "Shepherds" belong in one place, "wisemen" in another, and those stations need to be strictly observed.  Like the world, we go right on comparing ourselves with others, and whatever sense we have of being special, or precious, disappears when someone else comes along who seems more blessed, more special, more precious to others, than we are.
    The Father, in Christ, says to each of us, no matter our "station" in life, that we are infinitely precious and special to Him.  We are His treasure, and what we do, where we serve, who we are, does not make us any more, or any less so.  Like the simple, gentle househelper, we must come to know that "He loves us all the same."
    Luke 2:10 reads, "But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid, for behold I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people.' "  All.  Shepherds, wisemen, day laborers, Doctors, handymen, professors, janitors, all, both great and small.  All are precious in His eyes.  Special beyond words.  Do you believe this?  Have you received this?  Receive it.  Receive Him.  Now.

Know the good news and great joy that is Christ.

Blessings,

Heart Tracks - Crippled

     A good brother recently said that he was painfully aware of how his deep love and intimacy with Christ, a relationship of deep riches for his inner man, didn't always show forth in his outer man in how he related to others.  I think this is a difficulty for all of us, and one of the great tragedies is that we seem able to only see the imperfect outer man  What would be the case if we could see others as Christ does?  What would be the result if, as we looked at another, especially within the church, we would see past the imperfect flesh, and see who those without Him could be, and who those who are His truly are?  Would we be so quick to cast people out of our lives and our fellowships for their failures, great or small?  To cease throwing away relationships because we are unable to see Christ in them, and through them?  Could we admit that perhaps we are unable to see Him in them because we're unable to see Him in ourselves?  The veil remains over our hearts, and because of it, our sight is deeply flawed.

     Jesus said that the first great command was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind."  Christine Caine says that "We do love Him with our hearts, souls, and mind, but that our hearts are broken, our souls wounded, and our minds tormented."  Because of this, we're crippled.  Crippled in our relationship with Him, and so, crippled in our relationships with all others.  Our wounds have caused us to build walls, walls that we add onto, make thicker, higher, all the time.  Because of these wounds, we consciously or unconsciously make vows.  Vows that we will never allow anyone to hurt us in such a way again.  A wall of isolation has been constructed, and no one is ever fully allowed to "get to us" again.  Little do we realize that in doing so, we've included God in that vow as well.  These vows block His entry into these wounded places.  And so, we go on, leaving a trail of broken relationships behind.  We'll not be disappointed again, and at the first sign that another may do just that, we run from them, running from Him at the same time.  We cannot see that what we so desperately desire is what we so desperately seek to avoid.  To yield to His healing requires we be vulnerable, and we've already decided we'll not be that, so we go on, and on, and on.....in our lameness.
    Who have you and I been guilty of doing this with?  We all have.  Just how deep does the woundedness in us go?  How crippled have we been in our relationships with others?  How crippled is our relationship with Him?  Can we even see over our selfmade walls to answer that?
Paul said that there is a veil over our hearts that only Christ can remove and if we allow that, we will see Him, ourselves, and others with clear eyes.  His eyes.  Our hearts and minds begin to be renewed.  Does the veil yet remain for you and I?  Which path will we continue to live on?  The path that is lived out of our woundedness or of our wholeness?  One will continue to leave a trail of broken and lost friendships, marriages, families, and churches.  The other will live from a place of wholeness in Him, the fruit of which will be restoration and reconciliation.  One will live deeply in Him, the other outside of Him.  In Matthew 11:28, Jesus invites; "Come unto Me, ALL of you...."

All of ourselves, without walls, given to all of Himself, that we might receive all that He is.  Cripples no more.  Made whole IN Him, that we might be whole people to one another.

Blessings,
Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - Can You?

       I love John 11:25-26, and recently, the Lord took me a bit deeper into the meaning of what He says here.  He is speaking to Martha, whose brother Lazarus has just died, saying, "I am the resurrection and the life.  Those who believe in Me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again.  They are given eternal life for believing in Me and will never perish.  Do you believe this Martha?"  There's richness here far beyond my or anyone's ability to fully comprehend, but the eternal life He offers is not something that awaits us only after our physical bodies have died, but is a life, His life, available to all who really believe, right now.  A better interpretation of His words "Do you believe," is "Can you believe."  Jesus is not asking Martha for an intellectual agreement on His words.  He asks her if she can fully receive all the power and life of those words into her life and being.  Can she believe all that is in the power of His promise?  Can you?  Can I?  In the encroaching darkness of these days, and any days, can we believe Him?  Can we experience the fullness of His life?  Can we know and walk in resurrection power and life?

    In his book, The Root Of The Righteous, A.W. Tozer writes, "To many Christians, Christ is little more than an idea, or at best an ideal.  He is not a fact.  Millions of professed believers talk as if He were real, and act as if He were not."  He goes on to say that any belief that does not "command the one who holds it is not a real belief at all, it is a pseudo belief only......For true faith, it is either God, or total collapse."  So many, when faced with the possibility of total collapse, will turn to their own devices and abilities for deliverance, unable to trust and rest in the power and promise of Almighty God.  At such times, their faith is exposed as being pseudo faith, not a real one.  Do we dare to see if such faith dwells within us?  Can we stand before Him, in the midst of the deepest trial and darkness, and in spite of it, say in response to His question, "Can you believe this?", "Yes Lord, I can."  And because we can, we may live in the midst of that darkness with the power of His resurrection life.  Overwhelming problems cannot stand against the power of His overcoming life.
   Tozer says, "For each of us, the time is surely coming when we shall have nothing but God....to the man of pseudo faith that is a terrifying thought, but to real faith, it is one of the most comforting thoughts the heart can entertain."  When that time comes for you and I, when Christ stands before us, with every circumstance pointing to the impossibility of His words being true, and He asks, "Can you believe this?", how will we answer?  How will you answer?  Pseudo faith or real faith.  In which are we walking?

Blessings,
Pastor O   

Heart Tracks - A Disturbing Faith

      "Faith is a perturbing thing."  This was a saying among the early Lutherans.  What they meant by it was that true faith in the risen Christ was a life transforming experience.  Nothing remained the same and nothing would ever be the same again.  Truly, real faith in Christ made all things new, saw old things passed away, and a transformation from the inside out had taken place and would continue to take place all the rest of the life of those who lived that faith.  A.W. Tozer writes, "The faith of the apostle Paul was a revolutionizing thing.  It upset the whole of the individual and made him another person altogether.....It took up its cross and followed along after Jesus with no intention of ever going back....it made earth a desert."  The world and all it offered could not compare with what was gained in Christ.  The world at its best was nothing more than, as Tozer said, a desert, compared with the wonder of knowing and having Christ and His Kingdom.  Such a transformation was not only upsetting to the individual, but upsetting to those who had no such experience or knowledge of Him.  This was the experience of the people of Thessalonica, who, upon hearing the preaching of Paul and Silas said, "These men who have turned the world upside down with their preaching are now here disturbing our city."  Make no mistake, a vital, lived out faith in Christ will turn our world upside down, and disturb a great many in the process.

     Now, believers have been guilty of disturbing many in the past, but too often for all the wrong reasons.  We can disturb and perturb with our judgemental spirits, our legalistic views, and our stiff self-righteousness, and the devil has gleefully taken full advantage, and fought back very effectively.  However, he has no defense against a life lived in the resurrection power of Christ.  Such a life will shine with the light of Christ in the midst of the deepest darkness, and the darkness can do nothing but shrink back.  I understand why a church feels it must explore ways to reach the lost and unchurched, but I have come to believe that such "ways" won't be needed if we, His people, truly live in the light and life of Christ.  Such lives will definitely disturb and perturb, but will also draw men and women to Himself.  They will upset the world and its spirit wherever they go.
    I leave off with these words of Tozer.  "Faith now means no more than passive moral acquiescence in the Word of God and the cross of Jesus.....We need only nod our heads in agreement.......Such a faith does not perturb people."  Jacob, in the book of Genesis, after wrestling all night with God, emerged a different man, with a new name.  32:31 says "The sun rose as he left Peniel" It shone upon him, a new day shining upon a new man.  This is true faith.  Disturbing, perturbing faith.  Is it yours?  Is it mine?

Blessings,

Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - The Gain

     Some years back I was walking through a time of great loss in my life and ministry.  I could not make sense of any of it, didn't know of any place where I had consciously disobeyed Him, and had a desperate desire to come out of this place of suffering, a place I felt I didn't deserve to be.  Eventually, I came across a book written by a brother who had and continued to walk through his own place of loss and trial.  Naturally, I was drawn to it and to the premise of the author, which was that in the pain and sorrow of life, his and my part was to hold onto Him, persevere in our desires through prayer, and that in His time and way, the Father would bring us through and give us all the desires of our heart.  Among the writer's examples was of course Job, who at the end of his time of deep trial, we are told in Job 42:12 that God "blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first,"

giving him twice the amount of everything he had lost.  If I would believe and persevere as had Job, God would also come through for me, and all that I had lost would be restored, and then some.
This seemed a right theology to me, yet I was missing by a wide margin something very key, and that was in what I would gain.  In the midst of the losses of life, I wanted to gain back what I'd lost.  The Father's great desire for me was that I would gain more of Him than I had ever had or known.
    In his book, Walking With Christ In The Details Of Life, Patrick Morely writes, "Our hope is not to gain prosperity, but to gain Christ.  Job doesn't model enduring pain for an expected outcome, but to show us how to respond to tragedy.  In due time, God restores, but sovereignly.  Surrender your expectations to God and wait patiently for Him to restore you.  Our hope is Christ."  Ultimately, my focus had been on myself.  What I'd lost, what God would be obligated to give back to me, if only I would go through the prescribed "steps" of "perseverance and faith" and so "earn back" all that I had lost, and even more.  The deep desire of my heart was to gain "stuff".  The deep desire of His heart was that I would gain Christ, that I would have in my heart the same attitude that was in Paul when he said that he counted the loss of all things as nothing but "garbage" for the surpassing joy of knowing and having Christ.  In my pain, I had thought that I'd surrendered to Him by my "willingness" to go through it, not seeing that all the while I was bargaining with Him, seeking to convince Him that by enduring it all, I was worthy to have Him restore everything exactly according to my plan, not His.
    It's been more than a decade since that time.  The Father has restored, but not in the manner of which I once hoped.  Much of the "stuff" that was lost has not been brought back, but what I gained through that time can never be lost to me.  I gained more of Him, more of His life, His hope, His joy, peace, and hope.  Had He brought back all that I had thought lost, I see now that I would have lived, consciously or not, in fear of losing it again.  What I gained in Him can never be lost.  There is road yet to be walked with Him, and what He will choose to add on to my life is in His hands, but I have learned, and continue to learn to trust Him in it all.  My plans for myself will always turn to dust, but His plans for me will endure through eternity.  They will for you as well.  What is it that you really seek to gain today?

Blessings,

Heart Tracks - Home 12/3/13

      One of the aspects of growing older is how much time one can spend reflecting on what has been in their life.  As I reflect upon mine, I have come to realize how much time I have spent looking for "home."  I didn't grow up in a "horrible" family, but through my teenage years and early 20's, I came to spend far more time in my friends homes than I did my own.  For whatever reason, my home just didn't feel like "home."  In my early 20's I began a journey that found me living at many different addresses, yet none of them were home.  There always seemed to be something missing, though I didn't know what it was.  I didn't realize that I was, as Anne Graham Lotz puts it, "homesick for God."  Then, at the age of 29, Jesus Christ captured my life.  I had found my home, or at least, I thought I had.  I had yet to realize how inwardly empty I still was.  It's said that each of has an empty area in our soul that only Christ can fill, and that's true, but I have come to see that He can only fill it when we become aware of how vast and deep it is, and how desperately He is needed there.  Even with Him, I had not yet found that out.  That would not begin to happen for another 10 years.

    With the collapse of my marriage, among the many devastations I experienced was the feeling that I had lost my home, a home that was far more than a house.  I felt that the security and well-being I had known was lost, and because of that, I had a sense of lostness as well.  The next 20 years would find me changing my address 22 times.  I lived in many places, none of them were home.  Then, in 2008, the Father worked in truly miraculous ways that enabled me to do something I had not thought possible, actually purchase a house.  That house has become my home, at least in the earthly sense, and my gratitude to Him goes beyond words that I can express.  Still, a greater miracle than that has taken place.  Though I knew Christ, followed and loved Him, there remained in me a kind of dull ache, an ache that I thought could be remedied through the rebuilding of that "home" I had lost so many years before.  If I could find the right person to share this new home with me, than life would be complete.  So many make this same mistake, thinking that home is all about marriage, family, and the well-being that can come with them, so we spend our lives looking for that right person to help us make that a reality.  That person doesn't exist, because no person has been created that can fill that void that all of us come into this world with.  That longing for Him, that "homesickness for God." 
     Psalm 90:1 reads, Lord, through all the generations You have been our home.  It was not the promised land of Israel.  It wasn't the abundance of fruit and life that He blessed them with there, it was Himself.  He was their home, and without Him, no place could really be home, for they, we, are created with the purpose of finding our home, our lives, in Him.  In Acts 5:42, the apostles, preaching to the Jews in the Temple said, The Messiah you are looking for is Jesus.  He speaks the same to you and I.  The Messiah, the Answer, the Hope, the Life, the Home, you have been searching for, is Jesus.  I have known Him now for more than 30 years, but it has been in the last 5 that I have truly discovered that it is He, and He alone who is my home.  Marriage, family, houses, these are wonderful blessings, but blessings that can be lost to us in a moment.  He is the home that will remain.  Our outward "address" may change again and again, but He is the constant, He is the One that, no matter where we may be, is home.  Our home.
    In this season of thankfulness, I can't express the gratitude I feel to Him, who is, has been, and always will be, my home.  Have you truly discovered that yet, or do you continue to seek to find that security in an "address", be it person, family, occupation, or ministry?  You'll look in vain to those places, for the One you seek, you look for, is Jesus.  There may be aspects of life we are missing, but if we are missing Him, beloved, we are missing everything.

Blessings,
Pastor O   

Heart Tracks - For I Know....

    A.W. Tozer asks the question, "Are you Bible taught, or Spirit taught?"  In this question, he was stating that one can know everything the Bible says, and can expound on its history, the cultural and historical settings in which it was written, and quote chapter and verse at will.  They know much about God, and much of His word, but the deep question here is, do they know God?  They, we, may know the words He has spoken, but do we know the meaning in the words?  Bible taught people know what He has said, but only those taught of the Holy Spirit can know the meaning of what He has said, and what He continues to say right now.  Bible taught people, I think, seek to modify their lives along the lines of what their intellects, their human understanding, believes He is saying.  The Spirit taught, have their lives and hearts transformed by His Living Word.  Our lives are not modified from the outside in, but transformed, redone, from the inside out.
    I heard a brother recently speak about what 2 Timothy 1:12 is saying.  The apostle Paul writes, "For I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day."  He simply said that he didn't merely know about the One he believed in, but knew Him, His personality, His ways, His love, His mercy, justice, and faithfulness.
He knew this first hand.  Not perfectly or completely to be sure, but he knew Him as Moses did, "face to face, as a friend."  Because of this, he was convinced, persuaded as some translations render it, that the God he knew intimately, would be totally faithful to keep that, all of that, which he had entrusted Him with, till that day....and beyond that day.  Simply, because he knew, he was convinced.  He knows this because he was not merely Bible taught, but Spirit taught.  Taught by the One who teaches by giving us personal revelation, knowledge, of Himself.  We don't receive information about a person, but a Person.  All the fullness of that Person.  All the fullness of the Father.
   The circumstances of life can be, and so often are, overwhelming, crushing.  So many collapse under their weight.  As writer Christine Caine has said, "There's a force much greater than our circumstances, and that's the truth of His Word."  The power of our circumstances cannot stand against the power of His life revealed in and through His Word.  If we know Him, in and through His living Word, we cannot be anything but persuaded, convinced, that He is able to keep us, and everything connected to us, in the midst of that day of need, and every day beyond it. 
   For you and I then, it comes down to this; do we know, are we persuaded, that the force of His life is greater and mightier than the sum of all our circumstances and need?  Bible taught, or Spirit taught?  Circumstance taught, or God taught?  Which, really, are you and I?

Blessings,
Pastor O  
    

Heart Tracks - Come Forward

       As a pastor, I think one of the most grieving things to observe are lives that never seem to move forward, to move past, to move on.  For whatever reason, they stay in the same place emotionally, spiritually, that they have been in for a very long time.  It may be because of woundedness, disappointment, discouragement, personal failure, or pain that just never seems to end.  Months, even years may have gone by, but all is as it has been, and all looks to remain as it has been.  They tell themselves that one day it will be different.  One day they'll get past it, get over it.  But that day is not yet, and that day, very likely, will never be.  This is not how Jesus, the Giver of Life would have it.  So why do we?
    Writer and speaker Christine Caine says that we don't need to stop hurting before we move forward, that we can "get past what we can't get over", that if we'll "move hurting" we'll find that the healing comes as we're moving.  As I thought on her words, the Spirit brought to my mind the scripture from Mark 3, where Jesus heals the man with the withered hand.  The man was sitting at the entrance to the synagogue, where Jews would meet to worship the Father.  Scripture relates that "He said to the man with the withered hand 'Rise and come forward."  The man obeyed and as he came towards Jesus He spoke again to him, "Stretch out your hand."  As he did so, his hand was restored.  As I read this I see how Christ brings His healing, wholeness, and His life to us.  He calls us by His grace to come forward, to come towards Him.  As he comes near, Jesus tells him to stretch out his hand.  I have heard it said that to enter into the fullness of life that He has for us will require a great stretching, a great reaching on our part.  A stretching not only of our faith, but our whole being.  Few of us want to reach or stretch so far.  As the man began to move forward to Christ, his hand was still withered, but the healing began in that movement.  Though he "moved hurting", he moved forward, and as he reached towards Jesus, he was fully healed.  So it will be for you and I......if we'll but stretch, reach, and discover in it, that His grace has enabled us to do so, and His grace makes us whole. 
    How many of us are like the man with the withered hand, sitting in the doorway of the church, even in the pews, with our own type of withered hand?  He calls to us to "Rise, and come forward."  To stretch out our hearts and lives that we may take hold of His heart, and His life.  There are many more who may not be anywhere near a church, but their lives are just as withered, just as hopeless.  To these too He calls us to rise, come forward, come to Him.  No matter how powerful or crushing that thing which brought upon the withering may be, it is powerless against Him who raises the dead, and calls that dead thing within us to rise and come forward, and be whole.  Our choice is stay where we are, waiting for "someday", or respond to His call, today, to come forward, stretch, reach towards Him, and be whole.  Will we go on living in "someday" or today?

Blessings,
Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - Occupied

    For so much of my time in the Lord, I have heard a great deal of teaching as to what the "responsibility" of a believer is.  Almost always, this responsibility seemed to be summed up in one word; duty.  We have a duty to do good deeds, a duty to be involved in our community and culture.  We have a duty to spend time in His Word, in prayer, and of course, a duty to be in church.  Now, all of the preceding are good things, very good things, but somehow, when we see them through the lens of duty, we miss Him.  Too often, these things are not carried out, lived out in Him, but for Him, and the impetus and strength to live them out comes mostly, if not all, from us.  The result of this duty-bound life is inevitably disillusionment, discouragement, and spiritual dreariness.  I am coming more and more to see that our great responsibility, the one needful thing for us is to receive all the fullness of the grace He has given us.  Not will give, but has already given.

    There is a great amount of exhortation in the church today to "be about the Lord's business", and we have been very busy with that business, doing good things in His name in many places.  We focus on the deed, but He calls us to focus on the Person, out of which may flow not only deeds, but life.  T. Austin-Sparks wrote, "The idea of what is of God today is chiefly associated with things that are being done for Him....The Lord is not concerned with how much we do, but that every bit of it should come out of a knowledge of Himself...The Lord is concerned above all else that we should know Him."  To Martha, flustered, duty bound, and resentful towards her sister Mary, Jesus said, "You are concerned about so many things, but only one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen the better part (sitting at His feet in intimate fellowship).  Martha was carrying on her work outside the life of Christ.  There would be ministry for Mary too, but she would live it out in Him, refreshed, renewed, anointed with His presence.  Martha's life reflected that she lived out of a place of duty, of what she thought she should be doing.  Mary's came, and would continue to come out of a deep, evergrowing knowledge of Christ.  Sparks said we are to be "occupied" with Him....beholding, we are changed.
    Our lives will reflect what we're occupied with.  Good works done out of duty, ultimately will reflect mainly upon us, not Him.  Life, lived out in Him will bring glory to Him, and Him alone.  Beholding Him, we are changed.  Seeking to imitate Him we will only grow more and more weary, for He can't be imitated.  He can only be received.  That's our great responsibility.  Will you and I take it up?

Blessings,
Pastor O

 

Heart Tracks - The Company Of Frogs

      I recently heard writer and speaker Christine Caine ask a penetrating question as concerns the scripture found in Exodus 8:10.  A plague of frogs is upon the land of Egypt, and Pharoah, whose stubborn refusal to listen to God has brought it upon them, finally pleads with Moses to entreat God to remove them from the land.  Moses, with God's permission answers him, in effect, "When would you like this to happen?"  Pharoah's reply?  "Tomorrow."  Caine's question was, "Why would anyone want to spend another night with the frogs?"  Why would anyone?  Why would you and I?

Like the cripple at the pool of Bethesda, we say we want healing and wholeness, yet we never get into the healing water, and always, from our viewpoint, with good reason.  What's your good reason?  Why would you want to spend another night with the frogs?
    The pool at Bethesda is an apt description of much of the church today.  Just like then, crowds gather at the weekly "pool", but few receive the healing that's to be found there.  There are so many reasons for this.  Many believe that just being aware that there is a need for healing is enough, but awareness of the problem is not victory.  Francis Chan says "We like to hear and get convicted and then think that's success", and that we gather to listen to words that we'll never apply to our lives.
We hear but don't receive, so we leave the gathering as we came, lame, wounded, blind, deaf.  Jesus asks us when we would like to have this healing, this wholeness, and again and again we answer, "Tomorrow."  Always, it's tomorrow.  But that tomorrow never comes, and so, neither does the wholeness of life found only in Him.  We prefer the company of the frogs, to the intimacy of true fellowship in and with Him.  The frogs, as loathsome as they are, have become familiar to us, even comfortable.  We're attracted to what Christ offers, but most often, we prefer to wait for tomorrow.  Yet God is the God of "NOW!"

    What is your response to Christ's invitation to be free of your particular "frogs"?  What crippling agent, whether it lies in your past, present, or future, holds you in its grip, refusing to release, and though you wish to be free, in the end, you tell Him once more, "Tomorrow".  None of us need spend one more minute with the frogs, let alone one more night.  He calls us to Himself, right now, to come, to transact life with Him now.  To receive His life fully into ours.  To see the frogs done away with.  Now.  Not in a tomorrow that never comes, but here, in the present.  Free.  Free from the grip of our "frogs" and the chains that accompany them.  The company of frogs fully exchanged for the company of Himself.  Will you have such company?

Blessings,
Pastor O

     

Heart Tracks - The Exchange

     Isaiah 40:31 is a much memorized and claimed promise.  It begins, Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.  Beautiful.  Yet, in our claiming of this promise, I think we fail to realize what God is promising through His prophet Isaiah.  We think that it's our strength that the Father is promising to renew, that as He renews it, we'll again be at our full strength.  If we think this through, then we have to ask the question, just what can we hope to accomplish in our own strength, whether it is full or not?  The problem lies in how we have come to understand the word renew.  A more proper understanding of the Hebrew would render this word to mean exchange.  God is promising that those who wait upon and in the Lord, will exchange their very limited, finite strength, for His unlimited and infinite strength.  Can we dare to dwell on just what such an exchange will really mean to us?  I believe that exchange will involve much more than His strength.  In the exchange we discover anew His promise that He is able to do far more than we could ever ask or think.

    Three of the most beautiful words that Jesus ever spoke were Come unto Me.  Oswald Chambers writes that His word "come" means "transact."  An exchange takes place.  Chambers writes, "The last thing we do is come, but everyone who does come knows that that second the supernatural life of God invades him instantly.  The dominating power of the world, the flesh and the devil is paralyzed, not by your act, but because your act has linked you on to God and His redemptive power."  For me, the three key words of the two scriptures I've quoted are Come, Wait, and Him.  We come to Him and we wait in Him.  In this, a transaction, and exchange takes place.  Our life receives His life.  We don't stop having our life, but it is absorbed into His.  Along with this exchange, we exchange our pain for His healing, our despair for His hope.  Our brokenness for His wholeness.  Our emptiness for His fullness.  Our poverty for His riches.  Our lostness for His salvation.  It doesn't matter what we come with, or how useless we believe what we have or are to be, He receives it all, and gives to us His all.  The question for us is, will we receive it?
    Wherever you are today, in Him, or without Him, He calls you to come to Him, wait upon Him, to transact spiritual business with Him, to exchange that which is sinking sand for that which is the rock of His life.  Are you ready for the transaction?  Are you ready for the exchange?  Are you ready to receive.  Then come.

Blessings,

Pastor O

   
   

Heart Tracks - Grace, Mercy, Peace

     Over the past 24 hours, there have been three situations that I've felt impressed to pray for.  The first is a brother and his household whose ministry has come to a standstill.  Their place of meeting has been lost, and with it, the means of carrying out a very distinct part of that ministry and outreach to the community.  It has been devastating to all, particularly his young daughter.  The second involves a church fellowship in my area where thieves, as thieves always do, came in the night hours and stole six HVAC units, valued at $60,000, leaving this fellowship not only without a means to heat their building, but also without the resources on hand to replace them and an insurance company that seems reluctant to cover the cost of replacing them.  The last involves a young college student, away from home for the first time, learning to navigate the path between childhood and adulthood, while seeking to discover the reality of the God she has always believed in.  She struggles with depression and discouragement.  I want to pray for each situation and the people affected by them, but the question is, how do I pray?  I find the answer, as always, in Him and in His Word.

    In I Timothy 1:2, Paul breathes this simple yet mighty prayer over young Timothy as he embarks upon the ministry path the Father has called him to.  He says, "To Timothy......Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord."  Some might say, "What kind of prayer is that?  We need concrete answers and help.  Grace, mercy, peace, all well and good, but how do they pay the bills, provide shelter, meet our need?  Haven't you something more for us?"  Something more.  In our blindness, we cannot see that there can be nothing more needed than this that Paul seeks, and He gives, than that, the full manifestation of His grace, mercy and peace be in our lives. 

   Grace, by which He blesses us with all, not part, but all, the riches of heaven and His Kingdom.  When we speak and pray grace unto people, we speak and pray all of Himself and His Kingdom upon them.  Mercy.  When life collapses, when everything is against us, when we feel we can't take one more step or breathe one more breath, it's then that the mercies of God must wash over us.  When the enemy and his darkness seek to swallow us up, it is then that the mercy of his light and life surround and keep us.  As a friend once said, sometimes the most powerful prayer we can make is to simply cry out, "Lord, have mercy."  Mercy, as always, triumphs over judgement.
Peace.  Here in Northern Virginia, there is a dentist who advertises "sedation dentistry" for those who fear the pain of a dental procedure.  Sedation is the answer of the world to pain.  Drugs, alcohol, sex, pleasure, distraction, it will use all to try and sedate us against the pain of life.  It gives a false peace that lasts only till the next "visit."  We sedate the pain, but it's never healed.  The peace that God gives goes to the deepest part of our souls.  It brings His rest to the heart and mind, and with it, life, light, and joy.
     Grace, mercy, and peace.  His grace.  His mercy.  His peace.  This is what I will be praying for the above situations and people, because when we have these, we have Him.  When His grace, mercy and peace are upon us, He is upon us, and in us.  They are real, they are living, and they are ours.  We then live in and from a place of grace, mercy, and peace.  This is the fruit of being in Christ.  This is also what I pray for you today, that His grace, mercy, and peace be upon you and yours.  When they are, it means that He and His life are within you, and so, there is nothing that can stand against that life.  The reality of the need, whatever it is, will be there, but overcome by a greater reality, Himself.  Then we begin to understand the truth of His words, "If God be for us (and in us), then who can be against us?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Wonderful Things

      Devotional writer Dianne Neal Matthews tells the story of the discovery of the tomb of Pharoah King Tutankhamen, more commonly known as "King Tut."  Archaeologist Howard Carter had been digging in the Valley of Kings in Egypt for nearly 5 years.  Most thought him a fool, believing that there were no more discoveries to made there.  His sponsor, British Lord Carnarvon was losing patience and hope, but agreed to finance one more season of digging.  Just 4 days later, Carter and the workers discovered steps leading to a tomb entrance.  Summoning Carnarvron, they dug on to the very door of the tomb.  Carter made a small hole in the door, and lighting a candle, peered into the darkness.  Carnarvron asked him, "Do you see anything?"  Carter, having gotten just a glimpse of the huge amount of treasure within replied, "Yes, wonderful things."

    In this story lies great spiritual truth for all.  In a place where all believed there was nothing else to be discovered, lay what might be the greatest archaeological find ever.  When all around him believed him a fool for seeking what they thought wasn't there, Carter dug on, seeking with all his heart that which he fully believed was there.  When it comes to God, His truth, especially as concerns that truth revealed in His Living Word, which attitude is yours and mine?  Most believed Carter's digging to be an exercise in futility.  There's nothing there, so why go on seeking?  Might this be you?  Carter was certainly not the only archaeologist in Egypt, but all the others believed that "treasure" could only be found somewhere else.  Carter believed it could be found, at least in this instance, only where he was.  Jesus said that real truth, full truth, is found only in Him.  "I am the Truth," are His words, not mine.  Where are you seeking truth today?
   The problem here doesn't just lie outside the church.  I remember a number of years back a member of the congregation telling me that he didn't really listen to sermons anymore with any expectation of learning something new.  He'd been listening for many years and believed he'd received all the truth he could.  Sadly, his life in every way reflected that fallacy.  Like those that daily walked over the hidden tomb of Tut, believing that nothing was there, he came again and again before God, leaving as he came, empty.  He has many companions in the church today.    

   Psalm 119:18 reads, Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.  The small light of Carter's candle enabled him to see just a glimpse of the "wonderful things" within.  So too will the light of Christ, no matter how small it may be in you right now, give you a glimpse of the wonderful things to be found in Him.  Indeed, one of His names for Himself is "Wonderful."  Right now, whether you know it or not, lies before you, beneath you, around you, and above you, the wonderful things of God, the wonder of God Himself.  Have you seen Him?  Would you see Him?  Will you see Him now?  It requires that you have a heart that seeks to see.  He can and will give you that heart, and in the giving, will enable you to see His "wonderful things."  Ask for it.  Ask for it now.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Trail Of Tears

     In the early part of the 19th century, in one of the darkest acts of our nation's history, President Andrew Jackson ordered the forcible removal of the Cherokee Indian tribe from their homes in Georgia, to the new Oklahoma territory in the west.  It was a trip filled with hardships for this people, with many of them dying along the way.  History refers to it as The Trail Of Tears.  Yet, despite the great wrong inflicted upon them, and all the suffering of the journey, the people in fact flourished in their new home, establishing prosperous farms and an effective self-government.  Though the acts against them can in no way be justified, these acts and the suffering that accompanied them could not deter them from coming to a place of being victorious in the midst of it all.  Indeed, it may well be that their suffering equipped them for that very victory.  In this truth lies for us, spiritual truth.

    Each of us, somewhere in our life, has our own "trail of tears."  Some journey of suffering and heartbreak.  Some place where we felt something died, indeed, had died.  The loss of a loved one, a marriage, a cherished job or ministry.  A trail that uprooted us from all we knew and loved, tearing away everything in which we had found our security and wellbeing.  A trail of suffering and tears.  Our trail may be unlike another's, as is our suffering, but for us, it was indeed a trail of pain and loss.  That trail may not have ended and indeed, we may be on it even now.  The question for each of us is where, and to who is that trail leading us?  As we travel, towards what are we traveling?
    There are so many who never leave either emotionally or spiritually, their own trail of tears.  That trail holds them captive.  We live in a fallen world, where the effects of sin will touch each of us.  The Father never promised that this would not be so, but in Christ, He has promised that He will enter into our "trail" and our suffering and by His presence, if we will have it, cause us to "rise up" over and above it.  John, exiled on the isle of Patmos, a rocky desolate island of despair, heard the voice of the Father calling him to look up, and scripture tells us that in doing so, 'he saw a door opened into heaven," into the very presence of God.  Writing on this line, Oswald Chambers said, "Most of us fall and collapse at the first grip of pain; we sit down at the threshold of God's purpose and die away of self-pity.....But God.....comes with the grip of the pierced hand of His Son and says -
'Enter into fellowship with Me; arise and shine.'  If through a broken heart God can bring to pass His purposes for the world, than thank Him for breaking your heart."  We will either stumble, and resent these words, or embrace them.  Which is our response?
    As I contemplated this today, I thought of my own trail of tears.  It may well have brought no tears to the eyes and heart of another, but it did to me.  I would not choose that trail of myself, yet I have come to be thankful, deeply so, for it.  I don't believe He chose that trail for me, but He allowed it, and in it, has brought me into a knowledge and intimacy with Him that I know I would never have come to any other way, and for that, I am thankful.  The old hymn sings, It will be worth it all when we see Jesus.  I, we, will see Him, but we don't have to wait for some future time, but may see Him now, even on that trail of tears.  Like the Cherokee's flourished in Oklahoma, so may we flourish in Him.  On our trail of tears, He calls us to "look up" and see that open door to Him.  And even in the tears, we can, and will, experience the fullness of His joy.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Seeking

      Recently, a brother on Facebook asked his friends to share with him what their idea of "seeking after God" was.  Many responded, but I wasn't one of them.  Not because I didn't think the question a good one, but because I wanted to really think, with His leading, about just what that meant.  The Holy Spirit brought two passages of scripture to my mind.  Both are found in the Gospel of John.
    The first takes place in chapter 1.  The day after John the Baptist had baptized Jesus, he was standing with two of his disciples, one of whom was Andrew.  He said to them, "Look, there's the Lamb of God."  The two disciples then began to follow after Jesus.  Jesus, fully aware of them, turned around and asked "What do you want?"  They answered, "Teacher, where are you staying?"  Jesus' answer was, "Come and see."  In His answer I believe is found a great part of what it means to truly seek after Him.  Seeking Him is, I believe, far more than praying and reading His Word, though that certainly is a part of it all.  It's more than imitating His works, loving people,  seeking to lead them to Him, and trying to be obedient to His teaching.  I believe that to truly seek Him means we spend our lives, seeking to "see" where He is, and doing so with deep passion.  Seeking to see where He is, be where He is, live where He is.  Jesus said that He and the Father were one, and that He calls those who are His to be one with them as well. 
    In John 14, as Jesus speaks of preparing a place for us, He was talking of something far greater and more than some "mansion" awaiting believers in heaven.  His purpose is found in His words, "So that where I am, you may be also."  This is always His greatest desire for us, that where He is, we will be too.  This is what we're to seek for, and it's not something that won't happen until eternity, because eternal life begins for those who are His right now.  He calls us to come after Him to seek Him and His life, the life He shares with the Father and the Holy Spirit, right  now. 
   Seeking Him involves a lifetime of responding to His words, "Come and see."  An eternal lifetime that begins in the temporal, and stretches out unendingly through all eternity.  Throughout His Word we are exhorted to seek His face, His heart, His mind, and His life, passionately.  We may seek to be like Him, or seek things from Him, but too rarely do we really seek Him.  Too rarely do we want to see where He is, and be where He is.  We seek His blessing upon our lives here, but are very content to remain "here."  Being where He is in the eternal holds little interest for those who have become very comfortable and at home for that which is passing away. 
   In John 14, Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  No one can come to the Father except through Me."  John the Baptist was a great man, but he knew, as did the two disciples, that he was not, and could not be for anyone, the way of life.  Only Christ can.  In this age of no absolutes, many stumble at these words, just as Christ said they would, but He remains, as always, the absolute Way, Truth, and Life.  To those who doubt, and to those who seek, Jesus says to them and everyone; "Come and see."  Come and see where He is, be where He is, live where He is.  He calls.  Will you seek?  Do you dare?

Blessings,
Pastor O
    

Heart Tracks - A Legacy

     We hear a lot about a person's "legacy" these days.  Politician's and leaders seem obsessed with this, with leaving behind a monument to themselves, something that will be remembered for all time.  It's been going on from the beginning.  "Great" men and women have sought to establish such monuments, such legacies throughout history.  The futility of this can be seen in so many places, but perhaps none more so than in the pyramids of Egypt.  These tombs of great Pharoah's and people were meant to show forth the greatness of those buried within.  Yet, to we who are alive today, the names of those buried are unknown, and more, uncared about.  The legacies we attach such importance to are temporary at best, and oftentimes die not long after we do.
    We in the church, the Body of Christ, aren't immune to this lure.  We too, conscious or not, seek to leave behind a legacy, be it a church we pastored or were part of, a ministry we founded, led, or were part of.  Fellowship halls are named after us, awards are given with our name upon them, and our names appear throughout the recorded history of the fellowship we are a part of.  Yet, to those who enter into those halls, receive those awards, and look at those records, our names will mean little or nothing.  The trophies we so desperately yearned for in this life will have, just as His word says, accumulated nothing but rust.  They will be, like those of ancient Egypt, tombs that hold nothing but dead bodies, monuments to people that no one remembers.....or cares about.

     James Dobson tells the story of his time as a young college student and his membership on the schools tennis team.  He entered a tournament he desperately wanted to win, and to his joy, did win.  The awarded trophy was placed in the schools display case, with his name upon it.  Each time he walked by that case, he was filled with a sense of pride and accomplishment.  The years went by, and he graduated and went on with his life.  In his middle years, he was contacted by the schools current head of property.  His trophy was found in one of the schools garbage bins, and the man wanted to know if he desired to have it.  Eventually, all our earthly trophies end up in the same place.  Yet we continue to long for, even lust after them.
    William Borden was a young missionary from a very wealthy and influential family.  At a young age, he felt the call of the Father upon his heart to go with the message of Christ to those who didn't know Him.  In response to that call, he wrote in his Bible, "No Reserves."  For him, there would be no reservations about this call from that moment on.  He attended Yale to study for this calling, leading a campus ministry that ministered to the homeless and helpless on the streets of New Haven.  Upon his graduation, he wrote in his Bible, "No Retreats."  He was to go to the Kansu people group of China, and again, for him, there would be no turning back from this.  First though, he would head to Cairo, Egypt in order to study Arabic and thus be able to minister to Muslims.  While there, he contracted spinal meningitis, and within a month, he was dead.  In his Bible was found, beneath the previous two entries, "No Regrets."  Whatever the cost, even of his life, he would not regret a life given and lived out for Him.  Such was the way he lived, not only before men, but most importantly, before God.
    No Reserves.  No Retreats.  No Regrets.  To live in such a way in Christ will bring a legacy that likely will not impress men or be remembered by many.  Few know the name William Borden today, but he was one of those whose life brought deep joy, satisfaction, and approval to the heart of God. After a lifetime spent as a monument seeker, I desire to be such a person for Him as well.  How about you?  Is your life consumed with leaving behind monuments to yourself that within a few years of your passing will be meaningless to all who "pass by" them?  Or, do you, do I, desire to be one such as David wrote of in Psalm 40:7, In the scroll of Your book it is written of me; I delight to do Your will O my God; Your law is written within my heart.  Written by the only "audience" that will ever matter to you or I.  What does He write of you and I today?  What is the "legacy" that He places by your name in the book of your life, and most of all, in His Book of Life?  Even now, He writes.  What do the words say?

Blessings,

Heart Tracks - Living At The Wrong Gate

    Too often I have seen in my life, and the lives around me, that the future is defined by our past.  What has been, whether conscious of it or not, is what we expect to be.  We're held captive by what has gone before, and so we spend our lives living in the same place, repeating the same mistakes, bad choices, failures, and yes, sins, because of it.  
     2 Kings 7 tells of the time when Samaria in the northern kingdom of Israel was under siege by the kingdom of Syria.  Famine was rampant in the city and the people were starving.  Elisha the prophet had announced to a cynical king and his advisors that God was about to lift the siege and provide food for the city by the next day.  At this same time, sitting at the gate of the city were four lepers, who were the most despised of people, indeed, were seen more as non-people.  They knew nothing of the prophecy, but said among themselves, "Why do we sit here until we die?"  They saw their options as remaining there as good as dead, while they waited for death, or going into the city, where they most likely would be killed out of fear of their leprosy, or going to the Syrian camp and perhaps being allowed to live, and more, to find food.  Reading on in the chapter tells of the rest of the story.  God did indeed deliver the people.  The siege was miraculously lifted, and food was abundantly available to all, including the lepers.  In the midst of all of this though is a question for each of us; why do we continue to sit at our various "gates" waiting to die?  Why do we continue to live in the same place, in the midst of the same woundedness, failures, wrong choices, and sins, doing nothing more than waiting to die?  What gate, and behind what bars do we continue to "sit" instead of entering into the wholeness that can only be found in Christ?  What "bars" keep us there?
     I recently heard Australian speaker and writer Christine Caine speak on this passage, and she said that the bars of our gates may be constructed of most anything, fear, bitterness, unforgiveness, a "victim" mentality, an abusive past, gender hatred, dysfunctional family background, the list is really endless.  What matters is that while sitting at these gates, behind these bars, we see all of life through those bars, and everything is colored and affected by that.   Caine says we continue to sit at these gates and behind these bars for what we consider "justifiable reasons."  God's word may come to us, but we insist that it do so through these bars, and so the power of it is greatly lessened if not altogether lost.  So, we go on sitting at our own particular gate, behind our own particular bars.  And we'll continue to do so until we too, like the lepers, ask ourselves, "Why do we sit here until we die?"
    If we will finally ask ourselves that question, finally receive His Word and life to crush the bars we've placed there, we will find life.  we will discover wholeness.  We will experience He who calls Himself the Gate of Life.  When this happens, we find the words of Christ in John 10:10 to be true, "I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly."  Through Him who is the Gate of Life, we have life.  We no longer live at the wrong gate, but with and in Him who is the Gateway to all that true life is.
   In John 10, Jesus spoke of the thief who comes only to steal and destroy, the enemy of our souls, satan.  It is at his gate that so many sit today, mostly unknowingly, held captive by the one whose only desire is to steal, kill, and destroy.  It's he who built the gate and constructed the bars.  Those bars may keep us in, but they can never keep Christ out.  Will you come out?  Will you leave the gate and bars behind as they fall before the power of His life?  Why sit there any longer?  He has come to you.  Now, will you come to Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O   

Heart Tracks - The Deeper "Yes"

     Recently, in a time of prayer, I heard a brother ask the Father to lead us into a "deeper yes."  That is, the place of even deeper surrender to Him, of saying yes to Him, to His will and His way.  This place of the deeper yes is a place that He calls all that are His, yet not all really want to go there.  Do you?  Do I?

     In his book, Walking With Christ In The Details Of Life, Patrick Morley tells of his struggle of coming to grips with the truth of Psalm 37:4, which reads, Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.  Morley said that he had often put this promise before the Father concerning the many desires of his heart.  Desires for things, success, recognition, and accumulation.  Most times, his prayers went unanswered, causing him to doubt the truth of His Word.  One day though, the Lord opened his eyes, and he writes, "I discovered that it was not that the verse was untrue, but that I had not yet penetrated the passage deeply enough.....I had only superimposed my own expectations upon it.  When it didn't deliver, I assumed the verse was in error, not me."  We see the word "delight" to mean something that brings us great personal satisfaction.  It's root meaning in Hebrew however is to be "soft or pliable."  To have our delight in Him is for us to be like clay in the hands of the potter.  We are yielded and surrendered to however He wishes to shape us, and as we submit to the shaping, we will need to say, many times, an ever deepening "yes" to His shaping.  As Morley says, "We become anxious for God to 'make me' rather than for Him to 'give me.' " 
    When we live in the place of the deeper yes our expectations change from being expectations of Him, to expectations in Him.  Our desires change from being almost totally about ourselves and our lives, to about Him and His life.  We desire what He desires both for us, and through us.  We are soft and pliable in His hands, and to be shaped by Him is truly a delight to us.  As our desires become one with His, we find that His Word is completely true, and that He does give us every desire of our hearts, because our heart and His are one.  Along with this we discover that He gives us so many good things for our lives, things we never asked Him for, but that in His love and goodness He poured out upon us.  This is where we find that His mercies to us really are new every day.

    A great battle and controversy rages in the church today as to the "inerrancy" of scripture.  This is not a new battle, and indeed has been going on since the devil first asked Eve in the Garden, "Did God really say that?"  I don't enter into this battle.  I simply choose to believe His Word.  Yet I love what Morely said on this; "The Bible is not in error, we are."  Our great pride refuses to allow us to ever believe we could be the ones who are wrong.  So, if we're not, He must be.  Yet, as Morely says, "We are vapors that appear for a little while and then vanish, but the word of God stands forever."  Could it be that you're living in the midst of such controversy right now?  Things, life, aren't going as you'd desired and expected.  God has not been who you've wanted Him to be.  Are you ready for Him to be to you as He is?  Are you ready, willing, to go to the place of the deeper yes?  To know, in that place, that He is true, and His promises really all are "yes and amen."

Blessings,

Pastor O

 

Heart Tracks - The Longing

     Back in the mid-70's when the so called "counter-culture" rebellion was in full swing, my friends and I, who all lived in a notorious place called the Edinboro Hotel, just off the college campus, would all gather around the TV each week to watch the family oriented program, The Waltons, which featured traditional values, and an emphasis upon home and family.  This group of long haired, beer guzzling, pot and hash smoking, and oftentimes acid dropping group of hippie wannabe's, never wanted to miss this show.  Why?  I think, because it appealed to a longing deep within all of us for "home," a place where we're unconditionally loved, accepted, and feel secure in.

This longing exists in all of us, in fact, we're born with it.  Most seek to find it in this world, but at best, this world can only offer a very temporary imitation, and one that can be taken from us in a moment.  I found this to be so in my own life.  As my marriage collapsed, one of the greatest losses I felt was that of losing my "home."  I had thought that secure, but life taught me, as it will each of us, that the only true security we may have is in Him.
    C.S. Lewis said that if we find within ourselves a longing for something that this world cannot provide, then perhaps we should realize we were made for another world.  This world is temporary.  We were created for eternity, and each of us is born with a heart that longs for eternity, and knows, somehow, that it will never find it here.  Our lives may be filled with "stuff" and they may mask that longing for a while, but when the stuff is lost, and one way or another, all stuff is, the longing remains, and no matter how hard we seek to satisfy that longing in this realm, it can only be satisfied in Christ.

    Moses wrote in the 90th Psalm, Lord, through all the generations, You have been our home.  Moses, once a prince of Egypt, next a shepherd on the backside of the desert, and finally, the one who, as he was led by the Father, himself led the people of Israel through the wilderness, knew that none of those places was truly home, not even the promised land to which they were being led.  Home was in the heart and life of the Father God.  He had always been, He would always be.  Have you come to know that as well?  Or, do you still seek to find your home here in those things which are passing and temporary?
    In the book of Ruth, Naomi and Ruth, the only ones left of their family, a family that had left Judah, their home, to live in Moab.  In Moab, their husbands died, and they were left alone.  1:7 says that they left the place where they had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah.  Perhaps you find yourself living in Moab today.  You're not alone.  We're all born into the citizenship of Moab, but there is a road that leads home, if only you'll, we'll, take it.  That road is found in Christ, who identified Himself as the the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  He's the way home.  The only way.  If you've been awakened to that longing within, He bids you come.  If not, know that He will wait upon you, wooing you, calling you home.  Calling you to the home you were made for.  His heart, and His life.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Flatliners

     There's a great emphasis today being put on the words and actions of Jesus, particularly the action part.  Much is made of His acts of love, His going to the lost, His ministry of healing and so on.  This is all good, it's very good, but I think in our emphasis on His works, we are missing His greatest work; Calvary.  We're trying to emulate Christ, but without our own personal Calvary.  We live life on the horizontal plane of our own strength, instead of the vertical ascent of His victory and life.

     In Luke 18:31, Jesus said, "Behold, we go up to Jerusalem."  It was at Jerusalem that Christ would fulfill the pinnacle of His calling, the cross.  His call to each of His disciples was that they too would "go up to Jerusalem," to their own personal cross.  Oswald Chambers said that "Nothing must deflect us from going up to our Jerusalem," yet many things do.  One of those things is our own personal "works" or ministry.  It is much easier to imitate His workload, than go to His cross.
What we miss is that we cannot "go out" to them, until we have gone up to Jerusalem.  Neither can we live the overcoming life, or be vessels of His grace and life, until we've done so.  We may do much, but in the end it can be "much ado about nothing."   A.W. Tozer said more than a half-century ago, "Only what is done through the Eternal Spirit will abide eternally; all else is wood, hay, stubble. It is a solemn thought that some of us who fancy ourselves to be important evangelical leaders may find at last we've been but busy harvesters of stubble."  Somehow we think that the Father will honor our good intentions, but our good intentions, like all else, have to go up to Jerusalem.  They must die upon our, His, cross.
    Three times a year, the faithful of Israel would go up to Jerusalem, singing Psalms 120 to 134.  These were known as the Songs of Ascents.  Just as the road to Jerusalem wound upward, so were their hearts to likewise go upward to Him.  This would be what Paul called "the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."  Jesus knew that road, and very likely, He sang those songs not only with His lips, but with all of His heart, especially as He went up to Jerusalem and His cross.   Have you and I taken that road?  Are we singing those songs?  Or, are we going out, day after day, without ever really going up?  Are we spiritual flatliners, living on the horizontal, or vertical climbers, hearing that upward call, letting nothing deflect us from our own Jerusalem.  Are we going out, without ever having come up? 

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Another Day In The Desert

     Have you ever been in that place where your life just seems like another day in the desert?  Might you be there right now?  That desert place where everything seems exactly as it was yesterday, and as you look on the horizon, you see nothing to make you think that today will be any different.  The drab, barren landscape around you comprised of your emotions, circumstances, and difficulties, seems to stretch on forever, and there seems to be no end to your desert.  You wonder, is this where I'm going to die?  You keep moving, yet always circling the same mountain(s), moving, but seemingly, going nowhere.  More, you cannot understand why you're even here.  You know that for their unbelief, the Israelite's wandered in the desert for 40 years, yet you can honestly find no place where you are openly disobedient, no place where there is unconfessed sin, still, here you are.  In the desert.  And it seems like a lot longer than 40 years.

    We hate the desert, and our first impulse, our ongoing one, is to cry out to Him to bring us out, to end this misery.  We see nothing of value here, and our only concern is how quickly it might end.  Yet it doesn't end, and this will bring us face to face with both God and ourselves.  What will happen then?  Will we become as those spoken of in the 78th Psalm, who "rebelled against You in the desert, and grieved Your heart in the wilderness."  Or will this place become to us as it did to Christ.  A friend.  A friend because in it, if we will have it, will be discovered the deepest realities of who He is.  An intimacy entered into beyond anything that the green, lush meadows we long for could provide.  A knowledge of Him that comfort and ease could never bring, and can only be found by looking beyond those horizons unto His horizon, and see beyond that dry and weary place to the overflowing water of His life.  Discovering that what we see in Him is no mirage, but a reality that the desert has brought us to, and a place of life in the midst of what seemed to be death.

The place we believed to be nowhere, was instead the gateway into the beauty of having all things in Christ.  In the barren place, we become fruitful.
    In Isaiah 48:17, God speaks, "I am the Lord your God who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go."  Commenting on this Chris Tiegreen says that when we balk at following Him, even if that means going into a personal desert wilderness, we suspect that "God doesn't have our best in mind, that we'll have to look out for ourselves.....that His way will not work out to our advantage in the end."  Have any of those or similar thoughts crept into your heart during this time?  Have we begun in that desert place to question the goodness of God?  I heard Margaret Feinberg speak recently of her own longlasting desert place.  She said the situations had pressed in upon her to the extent that she found herself weeping in her kitchen, lying on her back on the floor.  She said she then heard His Spirit lead her to simply say, in that place, "God is good.  God is on the throne.  Breathe in.  Breathe out."  In her desert, she could say that God was good, even when her life was not.  In her desert, she discovered how powerfully true that was.  Can we?  Let us speak with our lips the truth of His goodness in the midst of the desert.  Let us breathe with spiritual lungs, the life giving air of His Holy Spirit.  In that, we go on, and though it may seem we're still going nowhere, we know in our hearts, we journey ever deeper into His life.  The life no desert can extinquish, and indeed, in that desert, we discover anew His abundance.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Heard, Seen, Touched

     In his book, God Tells The Man Who Cares, A.W. Tozer wrote, "I for one am weary of the familiar religious pep talk.  I am tired of being whipped into line, of being urged to work harder, to pray more, to give more generously, when the speaker does not show me Christ.  This is sure to lead to a point of diminishing return and leave us exhausted and a little bored with it all."  He wrote this more than 60 years ago, and I believe it's more timely now than then.  When you get past all the audio-visual aids we use (and I am not against these), our power point sermons, our lively worship teams, and our seeker friendly atmosphere, what, in the end, are we really left with?  No matter what approach we use in seeking to get people to live the way they should in Christ, are they, in the end, left exhausted and a "little bored with it all?"  Are we lecturing them as to who Christ was, or showing them through the power of a resurrected church and life who Christ is?  Are we showing, both in and from the pulpit and pew, religious pep talks, or, through the power of Holy Spirit  revelation, who Christ is, and who we may be in Him?

     I John 1:1-2 reads, "The One who existed from the beginning is the One we have heard and seen.  We saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands.  He is Jesus Christ, the Word of life.  This One who IS life from God was shown to us and we have seen Him.  And now we testify and announce to you that He is the One who is eternal life."  In their testimony is resurrection power and life because they did not present a Jesus that they had heard of second-hand, but a Christ that they themselves had heard, seen, touched, and handled.  They knew Him through an intimacy that literally lived in their words about Him.  When they spoke, their listeners knew that they were hearing someone who knew the object of their words.  Whether they received or rejected that testimony was on them, but they could not deny that these men spoke of something, someone, real, and alive.  The simple truth that He lives, saturated their lives, and permeated their culture.  May it be so with you and I.
   May it truly be so in our fellowships.  When we come together in His name, may we realize it is not to tell nice stories about Him, but to experience Him in our midst.  May we tell of Him as ones who have also heard Him, seen Him, touched and handled Him.  May it take place when we come together, and when we go out separately.  May He be so alive and real in and through us that we announce, not only with words, but with our lives, that He is the One who is eternal life.  We do this because we know it first hand.  May it be so....right now.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - What Translation Are You?

     There are so many excellent translations of the Bible available today.  King James, New King James, New Living, New International, and a number of others.  Most of us have a favorite we like to read, a translation of His Word that speaks clearly to us.  With this in mind, I'm pondering a question today; Just what "translation" of His Word is my life, your life, speaking to not only the world around us, but to the church we're a part of?  Is it a translation tinged with bitterness, selfishness, unforgiveness, coldness, lukewarmness?  Do our lives translate His life and word in a way that demeans both?  When those around us "read" our lives, what do they read?  Woundedness that never heals and just festers into ever deeper decay?  Anger that simmers beneath the surface, exploding at the most unfortunate times and in the most embarrassing places?  I Peter exhorts us to live properly amongst our unbelieving (and believing) neighbors.  We're to be a translation of His life, love, healing and forgiveness that can be read and understood by those we come into contact with on any level, day by day.  What translation are they reading as they read us?
    I think most of us are so absorbed in our own lives we never really think much about this.  We live in the state of "Oblivion."  In this place, the only life that really matters is our own.  Our life, our family, our goals, desires, and needs.  We come into contact with so many people each day, but for the most part, they remain faceless, lifeless people, barely noticed, and quickly forgotten.  We don't see them, but we do see us, except somehow, we never really see "us" as we are, and even moreso, as He created us to be.
    Have you ever wondered what Jesus meant when He said in John 14 that we would do His works, and in fact do even "greater works" than He had done?  He raised the dead, gave sight to the blind, made the lame to walk, and healed their disease.  How can we do greater than that, even though our flesh may long to?  We so often think the greater things mean the applause of men and the notoriety we receive among them.  Yet I'm coming to see this isn't what He meant at all.  It means, I think, that we live out our lives among others, for others.  Patrick Morley in his book, Walking With Christ In The Details Of Life, writes, "Jesus calls us to be like Him, to do what He did when He entered the river of humanity......He did not develop a great organization.  Instead He gave His life to a handful of improbable men.  Whom are you giving your life to?....Are you sacrificing your life for God, or building monuments (to yourself)?"  What translation are we living out; one founded upon our life, or His?

    Today, and everyday, we'll have opportunities to do greater works than He did.  Opportunities with the weary cashier at Wal-Mart, or the heavily burdened single mother waiting upon us at our favorite eatery.  We'll have opportunity to give of our life to them, to do the greater work, to be the only translation of His Word and life they may ever see?  Will we do that greater work, will we be that life giving translation?  Or, will they remain just another blank, unnoticed face, as we go on, building our monuments to self?  What translation of His life are we, the real thing, or just a lifeless counterfeit?  This life is not lived by imitation, but by intimate participation in His life, living that life in His power and presence.  May we truly enter into that life, and so be the living translation of Himself.

Blessings,

Pastor O