Heart Tracks - Hoping In Stooges

     I've been a big fan of the 3 Stooges since I was a young boy.  Their slapstick comedy seems to find a home in the heart of most guys, if not ladies.  In one of their "adventures" they're attempting to be plumbers, and take on a job at the home of a wealthy family.  This of course leads to many hilarious scene's, one of which is the picture of the Stooges incompetence leading to water bursting out of walls, ovens, even a TV set.  Along with all the water, a Stooge or 3 is washed out as well.  Now, believe it or not, this gives forth an excellent biblical illustration.  That wealthy homeowner foolishly put his hope in a trio of idiots.  Ultimately, they were to be bitterly disappointed as that hope was washed out, carrying the objects of that hope, the Stooges along with it.  This makes for a great truth lesson.

    In Jeremiah 2, God says this to the people of Israel, "My people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols.  Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder with great horror", 'declares the Lord.'  "My people have committed two sins.  They have forsaken Me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water."  Cisterns were, and are, a much used source of water in the Middle East, where water is scarce.  They are designed to hold water and make it available in times where there is no rain, or free flowing streams.  The problems with them though are many.  They were usually lined with plaster, and the breaking of that plaster through cracks and holes was common, allowing all the water to come gushing out.  More, since the water was standing, and not flowing, it was prone to develop a scum on top, and to become brackish, even foul.  It was a poor substitute for the free flowing, fresh water coming down from the mountains.  The Father is saying here that everything we choose over Him, is, in the end, foul and stagnant in comparison to the lifegiving Living Water that He offers us in Christ, in Himself.  Those cisterns that we construct so painstakingly, will at some point, burst, and in their bursting, all the "stooges" that we have put so much hope in will come washing out, and we will be the "idiots."  We may be offended by such a description, but how else do we describe anyone who would choose stagnancy over the fresh flowing water of the Holy Spirit?
   Kyle Idleman in his book Gods At War, tells two stories of people who had trusted and hoped in broken cisterns.  The first took place at an AIDS clinic.  A Doctor, new to the clinic was treating a patient, giving the weekly medication and said, unfeelingly to be sure, "You know don't you that you're not long for this world?  A year at most."  The patient, understandably angry, said on his way out to the head of the clinic, "That S.O.B. took my hope away."  She replied, "I suppose he did.  Maybe it's time to find another hope."  A better hope.  A real one.  The other example is found in a woman who was seeing her life collapse around her.  Her husband had left her, which had brought on personal bankruptcy.  More, her physical condition which had always been a source of pride and strength to her, was deteriorating.  All her life, she had been drinking the stagnant, scummy water that comes from broken cisterns, and those cisterns, along with the "stooges" they contained, had burst, their contents gushing out at her feet.  Yet, in it all, she had discovered the Living Water that is Christ.  She said, "I didn't realize Jesus was what I really wanted, until Jesus was all I had."
   Where have our hopes been placed?  In stooges, idiots and cisterns, or in the Living Water and Life of Christ?  Sooner or later, those cisterns will burst, and all the hope we had in them will come gushing out.  Will we, like the woman at the well, hear from His lips and heart, "If you will ask of Me, I will give you Living Water, that you may not thirst (for the water of the cisterns) again."  Are you drinking of that Living Water now, or, are you building cisterns of your own making, and drinking the stagnant, waters of hopelessness that they contain?

Blessings,
Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - The Path Of Devastation

     I came across something shared by a missionary to South Asia.  It greatly convicted me.  Perhaps it will you as well.  She had come across a Muslim couple seeking medical help for their dying child.  As she looked upon the infant's wasting body, she knew it was beyond medical help, and death was very near.  She said, "My stomach sickened, and my heart cried out to God....After our meeting, she went home expecting to bury her firstborn within a day, and I went home to cry."  In her crying out to God, her question was one that would have been on our lips as well; "Why?"  The answer she received was not one that either she, or we, would expect.  She shares, "Then in the solitude, He spoke to my heart and asked me, 'Why do you cry for the physically dying, but do not show the same grief for those who are spiritually dead?  Why did it take a dying babe in her mother's arms to bring attention to her lostness?  Why do you pass by a single soul without bringing his or her needs before Me?' "  His "answers" were questions, and they shook her to her foundations.  Do they shake you and I to ours?

    We have just witnessed through new reports via TV and the Internet, the tremendous destruction and devastation that has taken place throughout Oklahoma and parts of the Midwest.  Airborne videos show us the wide swath of destruction cut through heavily populated areas.  Lives have been devastated and our hearts are moved.  We, who are the church, are responding with money, crisis care packages, and on-site volunteers to minister and help them to rebuild.  Many may be asking why, but are we ready to hear the same questions of us in His response?  Why are we so moved by the destruction we can see before us, yet unmoved by the destruction that we cannot "see" with human eyes, but is so present in the lives of those without Christ, and sadly, so many who would say they are "in" Him?  Why are we so unmoved by the devastation wrought by sin and ignorance in the lives, marriages, families, culture, and yes, church?  Why does it take a natural disaster taking place before we begin to see the spiritual disasters happening in lives around us every day?  Indeed, how can we be so quick to respond to the physical needs of those in the midst of such devastation, yet continue to be oblivious to the spiritual needs of those who have been devastated by the consequences of lives without Him?  We see and look down upon, through those airborne videos, the horror left in the wake of E-4 and 5 tornadoes.  We're overwhelmed by the scope of the destruction, yet do we ever see, through His eyes, the far greater destruction inflicted upon lives that have no knowledge or understanding of Him?  Eventually, homes and communities will be rebuilt, but only Christ can bring forth new life and new hope out of the wake of such destruction, physically and above all, spiritually.
     Jesus said in John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."  The thief has been unleashed upon our culture and his wide swath of devastation is evident to all who really have eyes to see.  His path of devastation is evident to all who really see with His eyes, and we need go no further than the streets of our own neighborhoods, the cubicles and hallways of our own workplaces,  and the pews of our own churches to witness it.  It is our place to respond readily to the physical and material needs of every victim of physical disaster, but have we found our place in responding to the spiritual disasters that are happening all around us?  Will we continue to see clearly and humanly what is happening in the physical, natural realm, yet remain blind, even apathetic, to what is happening in the spiritual right now?  Will the thief's destruction continue unchecked, even unnoticed, or will we, you and I, the church, respond not only with the offer of the fullness of His life, but with the presence of His life, through us, on-site, right now?  We needn't wait for the next crisis.  The crisis is upon us now.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Stretch

     In Philippians 3:12, Paul writes, "...but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus."  The question confronts me; am I living for, "pressing on" for that which Christ first laid hold of me?  Do I really know what it is that He laid hold of me for?  Do you?  Indeed, has He truly laid hold of you at all?

    So many of us think that it's an occupation, an activity, even a ministry that He laid hold of us for, called us to. We think its about doing.  He says it's about being.  Paul, who "did" miraculous things for Him, never believed that it was for that "work" that Christ first laid hold of him.  Paul said, repeatedly, that he lived to "Know Christ and the power of His resurrected life."  Everything, ministry, works, day to day living, flowed out of that knowledge, that relationship.  The miracles that he was a part of flowed out of the Life that he was immersed in.  He was not first and foremost called to ministry.  He was called to Christ.  He was, day by day, laying hold of that for which Christ had laid hold of him.  Our call is no different from his, no matter what our "occupation" in this life may be.  There are many "causes" to live for, the believer has only one; Christ.  Christ lays hold of us for Himself.  Has He laid hold of you, and if so, are you pressing on to lay hold of Him as He has laid hold of you?  If not, what has gotten in the way?  Paul, on the Damascus road, on his way to arrest followers of Christ, was himself arrested by Christ.  Arrested in order to be made whole, new, and above all, free.  Has such an arrest truly taken place in you, or, like Paul, are you filled with religious fervor to serve, all the while lacking the indwelling power of the resurrected Christ?

    Many are familiar with the passage in John 6 where we're told the majority of disciples chose to stop following Jesus.  The "calling" He asked of them was seen as too much.  Jesus asked those who remained, "Will you leave me also?"  He asks us today as well, but before we answer, might we be willing to examine a little more deeply what it means to leave Him?  Most would say "No, I will not leave You  Lord," but what about those areas of our lives where fear and dread reign?  Those can't be present where He is.  If they are, He has not left, so who has?  The same may be said of unresolved anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness.  As well as unbridled lust, ambition, and a drive to accumulate "blessings".   The seeking to lay hold of recognition, applause, and the honor of men.  None of these may be present where He is, so if they are, it can only be, at least in that aspect of our lives, we have left Him.  Thomas Aquinas said that "We seek the benefits that only God can give us, all the while fleeing from God."  Where might we be fleeing from, leaving Him today?
    We were created for one thing only, to know Him.  To lay hold of Him.  One translation of the term "laid hold of," is "straining forward."  To lay hold of Him, and all that He is, will require a great stretching spiritually on our part.  We'll need to "strain forward," and each day the call will be to strain a little further, a little deeper.  Will we make the stretch, or, will we continue to reach for that which is temporary, passing, centered in the flesh, and not the Spirit?  Are our lives today in line with that for which He first laid hold of us?  Have our lives really been laid hold of by Him?  We're all stretching for something.  Is it really Christ we reach for?

Blessings,

Pastor O 
   

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Heart Tracks - Concerned, Or Anguished?

     I recently listened to a sermon from the late David Wilkerson, founding pastor of the Times Square Church in New York City.  It was a strong message but one thing that resonated in my heart was his questioning of whether we in the church are concerned, or in anguish over the state of our culture, the culture of the church and of the lives within it.  He said that we don't lack for concerned people, for the weakness and decay of our culture and the degree to which it has seeped into the church is evident to all of us.  We are concerned about it, but are we experiencing deep anguish in our souls and spirits because of it?

    I recently spoke with a godly retired pastor who's attending a fellowship within a sister denomination.  The church has undergone deep and heartbreaking trials which have resulted in the loss of its pastor, and a demoralized grieving congregation left in the wake of it all.  Denominational leadership has become involved and while making sure that the pulpit is filled while seeking a new pastor, has determined that the most effective means of dealing with the wreckage that has been left in the wake of sin and tragedy was to hire an outside "evangelical" consulting team to come and do a study of the church and determine what its greatest needs were.  Surveys and questionnaires were passed among the people.  Countless leadership meetings were called with discussions sometimes going into the early morning hours.  After a time, the consultants along with the leadership came up with a number of recommendations for the fellowship; ranging from the people agreeing to revamp their worship style, doing away with music that was deemed a "turn-off" to younger people, to changing the look of their church, moving from their spacious sanctuary into their fellowship hall, and transforming that sanctuary into a play area, complete with a very large sliding board and other child friendly attractions.  They felt this would make the church much more attractive to young families, and show that the church was more user friendly than the surrounding community may have believed.  However, all that was done stands out not so much by what they were doing, but by what they were not doing.  In the midst of the studies, the surveys, the meetings, there had been no coming together as a people to pray.  There had been no crying out to God for the church, its community, or for the pastor who had fallen.  Oh, each session was preceded by a short prayer, and then it was on to the truly important matter of "running the church."  T. Austin-Sparks said more than 50 years ago, "Organized Christianity today can't understand anything that is not organized, advertised, or is not 'run.' "  We're skilled at organizing, but how well do we function as organs of His life?

    Not long ago I read a missionary in Eastern Europe's account of something the Lord showed her.  She had gone out one morning asking God to show her His face in the people she met.  She expected to have Him show her all the vast potential in the people she encountered that day, but as she came out onto the street, she heard the noise of a dingy, dirty bus.  It was filled with men staring vacantly out the windows, seemingly, staring at her.  She then realized what the bus was.  It was carrying criminals, condemned to die, to the facility where the executions would be carried out.  In their lost vacant eyes, she saw the face of Christ as she realized that everywhere, including the pews of our churches, sit people who are riding that same bus.  Regardless of how they look outwardly, they are moving through life, trapped on that bus, not only moving to death, but "living" it as well.  For such, meetings, surveys, and sliding boards will have no effect.  A world friendly church will have no effect on those lives.  I know we must change our methods but not our message, but beloved, do we anymore even know what our message is?  Do we really know the One who is the Messenger?  There can be only one way to respond to the needs of our culture, the church, and the lives that move in both; on our faces before Him.  Empty vessels, filled with His life, in order to be vessels of that life to all around us.

    In I Samuel, Hannah, who would be the mother of Samuel, was "pouring" her heart out to the Lord, "praying out of great anguish and sorrow."  She came to that place of prayer seeking a son, but left it possessing not only His promise, but His presence.  All things were new.  We in the church don't need another brainstorming session, we need heavenstorming prayer.  We need broken spirits seeking a whole God, and seeking Him till we fully receive all the fullness and wholeness He offers.  We're no longer concerned with whether we're attractive to the world, but are we attracting Him?  Will we be willing to move from being concerned but unchanged, to the place of laying hold of Him, by way of our own Gethsemane?  Will we, or, will we just go to another meeting, take another survey, and wait for the next seminar, conference, or pastor?  What do we, you, really desire?

Blessings,

Pastor O
   

Heart Tracks - when Hell Breaks Loose

     We put forth vast amounts of prayer, thought, and energy into trying to change our world, and all of it is futile.  We cannot change the world, or, and this is important, the dark spirit that controls it.  Jesus said that "In the world you will have tribulation."  He didn't say we could change this, because we can't.  This world will not change until He comes back to fully establish a new earth, a new world.  In the meantime, we're not to seek to change it, but as He commanded, to "overcome it." 

    As a friend of mine put it, we're always seeking to make "improvements" in this world.  A little remodeling here and there, maybe even a complete rennovation, and we will usher in a new world.  There are many who see the Kingdom in such a way, but I don't think scripture backs that up.  We are indeed called to live righteous lives, to do good works, to minister to a lost and dying world, a world trapped in darkness.  However, in the end, the world, and its darkness will still be there, and it's not going to change until He comes.  In the meantime, our part is to occupy.  Occupy and overcome.  Bud McCord says that "Jesus did not come to change the world.  Jesus came to overcome the world and destroy the works of the devil."  McCord says that this world and its power will be used of God to destroy all of our "illusions of control", and "give us the opportunity to reveal God's life in our souls."  Our response to the darkness is to be light.  Our response to the power and malice of the world is to meet it with the power and love of the Kingdom.  By this, we destroy the works of darkness.
    How we do this was well put by a friend the other day as we had this very conversation as to overcoming the world and its power.  He said that it was his prayer that we, the people of God would live in such a way that when "All hell breaks loose around us, all of heaven would break out from within us."  That, "When the world gives us hell, we would give it heaven."  We would give it the Kingdom.  What would happen if we who take His name would begin to live as Christ did, and still does.  Not seeking to change a world we don't like into one that we do, and instead, seek to, by our Kingdom lives, destroy the works of darkness?  What if we stopped trying to remodel this world according to our blueprint, and began to overcome it with the Kingdom life of Christ that flows out from within us?  What if we truly became the church, built upon the Rock of Christ, discovering, as Jesus said in Matthew 16, that "All the powers of hell will not conquer it."  I think, with the ever increasing loss of the spirit of discernment in the church, we are seeing all the obstacles and problems before us being human, fleshly, and changeable, and forgetting what Paul said in Ephesians 6, "We are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against the mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, against wicked spirits in the heavenly realm."  These spirits will never cease to, as Maximus put it in the movie Gladiator, "unleash hell" against us.  Our response is to overcome that hell, destroying its works and power, by the release of the Kingdom life within us.  Unless of course, that Kingdom life is not really abounding within in the first place.
    Sooner or later, for you, for me, for all of us, all hell will break loose against us.  How will we respond?  By seeking to change or escape the situation, or by meeting, head on, all that power, with the infinitely greater power of heaven and the Kingdom?  Will we be overcome, or will we be overcomers?

Blessings,
Pastor O   

Heart Tracks - For Those Who Wait

         Waiting comes hard to all of us.  Waiting in faith much harder still.  Our flesh is not built for waiting, its built for attaining, and the quicker the better.  Waiting on anything, especially upon Him, is impossible in the flesh, so it remains that it can only be done in the Spirit.

      I once read that the actual Hebrew translation of waiting was "to wrap oneself around God."  To literally be a part of Him, being so entwined with Him that someone looking upon us would not be able to tell where we end and He begins.  We are truly one with Him.  I think it is only in this way that we can truly "wait upon God."

     Mark 9:23 says "Everything is possible for him who believes."  This is a much quoted verse, and one that many people place their faith upon.  We take our "impossibilities to Him," and we quote this verse, and then determine that we will wait upon Him to make the impossible, possible.  The difficulty comes, and increases doublefold when we begin to ask, "How long must I wait?"  I know.  I have asked this question many times of Him.  Too many.  To my flesh, it seems that there is a "reasonable" amount of time that I should be expected to wait.  Like Peter's asking of Jesus just how many times was it acceptable for him to forgive, I ask Him how long is an acceptable waiting time until I either seize control of the situation and do something to bring about my deliverance, or worse, just give up, and either tell myself I never heard His promise in the first place, or worse, that He is not faithful and can't be trusted and depended upon.  We walk away, defeated, discouraged, and worst of all, not having attained not only the promise, but also the transforming Christlike character development that He had in view for us in all of it.  There is no better example in the Bible of this than in the life of Joseph, and the Father has used that life twice in the last week to speak to me on this great and deep meaning of what it is to wait upon God.

    Today, as I was reading that classic devotional Streams In The Desert, I came upon these words concerning Joseph's waiting upon the Lord.  "It was not the prison life with its hard beds and poor food that tried him, but the 'word of the Lord.' "  By this the writer meant that Joseph's great trying of his soul and spirit was the fact that his life as he was living it was a total contradiction to the promises God had given him so many years before.  A promise that he would be lifted up, yet here he was, sitting in a dark cell, totally cast down.  Everything about his life was a contradiction to what he'd been told by the Father.  Yet, the writer says, "He remembered God's words even when every step of his career made fulfillment seem more and more impossible."  Have we been there?  Are we there now?  I know what my answer is, what's yours?  Is all that is going on in your life, your job, marriage, family, ministry, seeming to be a complete contradiction to what you believed He has called you to, promised you?  Does the fulfillment of His promise seem to you to be more and more impossible by the day.  Nothing is changing.  Indeed, it seems to grow darker.  Others are blessed

(the cupbearer was released, Joseph remained in prison) but you seemingly, are not.  We feel forgotten, but could it be, we are being tried by His word, just as Joseph was?  And if we are being tried, what is happening in our hearts, our spirits?  What is taking place as concerns our character?  Is it coming forth as gold, or does it continue to give out only dross?  Hard questions, but only in being tried by His word do we come to the answers.
    Waiting will never grow easier for our flesh.  Only by wrapping ourselves around Him, and by faith and obedience, believing the word He has spoken to us, will we come into the full realization of what He has promised, but even in that, we must live not merely trusting in what He has promised, but trusting in Him.  One  translation renders those well known words of Job as "Though He slay me, yet I will wait for Him."  I want to live in such faith.  I want to trust with such trust.  When tried by His word, I want to be more and more gold, not more and more dross.  How about you?  As you're tried by His word, what is coming forth from your life?

Blessings,
Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - Pet Rock Or Eternal One?

    Back in the 70's, pet rocks were all the rage.  The man who marketed and made a fortune from them used as a selling point that they were pets who required absolutely no care or attention whatsoever.  They were cheaply bought and cost nothing to keep.  The response was huge.  Everyone wanted a pet rock, something that they could keep around, but take notice of only when they wanted to, which of course, was rarely indeed.  It was the perfect "pet" for much of the western culture.  Throughout scripture, we are told again and again of the wondrous power of the Rock who is our God.  We sing choruses and hymns that proclaim our standing upon the solid Rock of Christ.  There are fellowships with names like "Solid Rock," and so on.  We willingly recognize that He is our Rock, yet, in our day to day lives, does that recognition translate into reality?  In the end, are we treating Him more like a "pet rock," Someone who requires little of us, asks little, expects little, and invites us into a low maintenance relationship with Himself.  Little investment required, and even less cost.  He makes all the investment and pays all the cost.  He's the Rock who's there, but rarely do we stand upon Him, build our lives upon Him.  The consequences of this are terrible, and the wreckage of lives that have lived this way are all around us.  Indeed, our life may be lost in such wreckage right now.  Deuteronomy 32:15, 18 reads, "They made light of the Rock of their salvation....neglected the Rock who had fathered (them), forgot the God who had given them birth."  Might you or I have done the same?

    There's another aspect of Christ the Rock that I want to look at as well.  Larry Crabb once said that "Nobody finds the Rock until they hit bottom."  I quoted this recently to someone who was dealing with the chaotic life of a loved one.  They believed that this had happened to that person, but yet, somehow, the deeprooted issues of their life remain unchanged.  Why?  I think the answer lies in that we may well have hit bottom, and met Him there, come to Him there, but now make our home there, turn that place into our personal tabernacle, and that's where we stay.  Moses came face to face with God at the burning bush, and he may have been tempted to stay there, and establish what one man called "The Church Of The Burning Bush."  God didn't permit it.  He had more for him than that, other face to face encounters.  Moses hit bottom on the backside of the wilderness, but the Lord had other "bottom places" for him ahead.  He has the same for you and I.  As Crabb puts it, we'll hit "Lower bottoms still, and will rise up with even more life."  This is the story of Moses, and it is the story the Lord wants to write about you and I.  There will be more bottom places to hit, but at each, we will find the Solid Rock of Christ that we may stand on, grow on, build on. 
    Where are you and I in relation to this Rock?  Have we, in 70's fashion, sought to make Him our "pet?"  Be warned!  The untamed Christ will be no one's pet.  The roar of the Lion will pierce our hearts every time, but if we will trust Him, He will lead us ever deeper with the gentleness of the Lamb.  Have we hit bottom yet?  If so, have we met Christ there?  Are you thinking that that's the end of it all?  It's not.  In fact, it's only the beginning.  There are more pits that we'll fall into, places where we come face to face not only with Him, but ourselves.  In them, we will find that beneath the miry clay, is the solid Rock of the Father.  And we will rise, stronger, more vital, more filled with His life.  All the while, standing on the Rock that is our God.  There is no other rock like our Rock.

Blessings,
Pastor O

 

Heart Tracks - Hopeless Hope

     To be a follower of Christ is to enter into a life of hope.  The apostle Paul said that those who have come to Christ in believing faith have "been born into a living hope."  What is that hope, and how would you and I define it?

     I think the hope that so many of us live in is a decidedly fleshly one.  Yes, it involves the Lord, but more in an assistant's role.  We bring our hopes to Him, and He then turns them into reality.  We live hoping for many things, believing for many things, oftentimes very good things.  We spend a lot of time thinking about how we can enter into the reality of those hopes.  A better job.  A better marriage and family.  A better and more fruitful ministry.  A better, more contented, and happier life.  We hope for all that and more.  We're just waiting for Him to show us the way to having it.  That's our hope.  That He'll provide the key, the steps, the way, for us to enter into the fullness of our hopes.  To hope for any of the above is not evil, but to define this as the "living hope" Paul spoke of leaves us, I think, a very poor imitation of the real thing.
   To have the living hope Paul spoke of is, as a friend put it, to have a hope for something that cannot possibly be realized any other way but by the intervention and ministry of Christ.  To have such hope is to be able to look in every direction and see nothing but impossibility, yet be able to look into the face of the One who placed us there, and know that with Him, all things are possible, and because of that, despite all the power of hell and darkness, we press onward and upward with a living hope. 
   Many of us might say that we have no problem admitting that those things we hope for are impossible to achieve without Him.  Yet, if we're honest, we may also admit that so many of the things we hope for have as their main beneficiary either ourselves or our loved ones.  Self is heavily invested in it all, and so, the self is seeking to keep its hand on the direction and means of the process.  We do hope in HIm, but we also maintain a steadfast hope in ourselves as well.  I don't think that this is the living hope that Paul spoke of.  I also think that we're living in days where the Father is allowing such hope to crumble into the ruins of our disappointment, disillusionment, and even despair, and all because He so longs for us to be born into that living hope.  A hope that is very much a part of our inheritance in Christ.  It is, I believe, a hopeless hope.
   Hopeless hope is, at least to me, a hope that brings the sum of all our hopes to Him, and places them in not only His hands, but His heart, and trusts Him with them.  All of them.  Hopeless hope is to have very legitimate desires, dreams, and hopes, and yet, is willing to release them all, with no guarantee of their realization, hoping not in the coming to pass of these desires, but in the God who holds all of them in His heart.  We're hoping not in outcomes, but in Him who is the outcome of everything.  To have such hope, living hope, is to live in deep abiding peace, because we are abiding in the one who is Hope incarnate.  Every hope we have may have been shattered, yet we aren't defeated because our ultimate hope is not in what we've longed for, but in Him.  This is a faith, a hope, and a life that cannot be shaken.  I have so much more to learn about it.  Maybe you do as well.
   Hebrews 11:1 says "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for; the conviction of things not seen."  If the things hoped for are limited to what we can touch and see, we're sure to spend more time in frustration and human hopelessness.  He has never promised to give us everything we have hoped for, though in His mercy and love, He gives so much.  He has promised to sustain us in His living hope in the midst of the deepest darkness and unknown, depending not on what we are seeing with our eyes of flesh, but upon that which we see with the eyes of our heart, gives us our peace; our hope in Him.  Hopeless hope that yields a living hope.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - This Jesus

     I came across a moving account by a missionary of the salvation of an unbelieving family in Mozambique.  She and several others had entered the home of an elderly couple and their two teenage grandchildren.  They asked the grandfather if he had ever heard the message of new life.  His reply was, "There is no such thing as new life.  There is only suffering and pain."  Still, he allowed them to share with his family about Jesus, a totally unknown name to them.  In the midst of the sharing, they asked the family how they might come to have the eternal life being spoken of.  Carlos, one of the teens replied, "I'm not sure why, but I think it's through this Jesus."  They shared some more, and when they left the home, all of the family had received Christ.  As they were leaving, Carlos said to them, "I've had this thing in my heart for a long time.  You told me today the answer I was looking for."  

   This story is moving for many reasons, but for me, its the reality that everywhere, not just "outside" the church, but within it as well, are people who have "this thing in their heart."  They are weary, weighed down, living in hopelessness, even despair.  Many have never darkened the door of a church.  Many enter into one week after week.  Within all of them is deep yearning for something more.  Something greater.  Something that is true and real life.  The "medications" and prescriptions of the world have been tried, but always, they fail to bring any lasting satisfaction.  The end feeling is that which the grandfather expressed.  "There is no such thing as new life.  There is only suffering and pain."  This is the experience of multitudes, both without and within the church.  This will remain the case until they are awakened to the truth that the only answer to "this thing in my heart," is "this Jesus."  I wonder, to what degree might you and I stand with Carlos right now?  Is there something in your heart that has been there for a very long time, yet remains unfulfilled and unnamed?  You may not be able to put it into words, but its there.  You may have received Him with your lips, but He's never truly entered into your hearts.  There remains an emptiness.  Things, relationships, even ministry, have never been able to fill the emptiness.  New life is a phrase, not a reality.  Your know in your head that He is "the way, the truth, and the life," but that reality has never found its home in your heart.  The thing in your heart goes on longing.
   Saul of Tarsus knew this feeling.  He was one of those who was present at the murder of Stephen, giving his full approval.  Yet, something in the manner of how Stephen met his death awakened in Saul an awareness that his religion, his zeal, his ministry, did not satisfy that "thing in his heart."  On the Damascus Road, he met the One who did.  When confronted with Christ, He asked, "Who are You Lord," and was answered simply, "I am Jesus."  He would now know, and would spend the rest of His life proclaiming to all he came upon that "something" in their heart's, the answer they sought, the deliverance, the salvation, was, is, Jesus.  Only through Jesus could they lay hold of all their hearts were seeking.  Have you heard that message yet?  If you have heart it, have you received it?  Not just given agreement to it, but received, and entered into it?  Have you known the name, but not the Person?  Is the something still crying out within you?  Has what's been missing, still missing?  Has this Jesus, this transforming, life giving Jesus, really entered your heart and life, or have you, like the lyrics of the U2 song, "still not found what you're looking for?"  Who are You, Lord?  I am Jesus!

 

Blessings,

Pastor O