Heart Tracks - Reading The Labels

     Labels.  We who would profess to be "the church" have always excelled at putting labels on beliefs, convictions, and most of all, people.  I've excelled at it myself.  I came to Christ under the ministry of a charismatic church.  They were a very good people, but I felt the leading of the Spirit to come out and enter into a different fellowship, and that leading eventually led me to the fellowship of believers I've been part of for more than 30 years.  When I told my then pastor I was leaving, he told me "those people have no power."  A label; i.e., a "people with no power."  I loved the group that I had joined, but I found that those I had come to, greatly mistrusted those I had left, who were seen as well meaning, but misguided.  The label of being "in error" was applied to them.  A few years later as a young minister in a small town, an elderly lady from the local pentecostal church came to my door.  Her deep desire was for the church in that town to come together and lift up Christ in a community that desperately needed Him.  All I heard was "pentecostal", and I still remember the wall that label threw up between she and I at that moment.  The memory grieves me.

    Since those days, the Father has enabled me to lose so many of my cherished labels, but they are still thriving within the church and new ones have arisen.  I have seen entries on Facebook that poke fun at fundamentalists, or "fundies" as they called them.  Behind the humor however, I wondered if there was not a sense of smug superiority, that they were far more "enlightened" than others.  I came across a magazine the other day called Relevant.  I don't know much about it other than the fact that its target readership would call themselves "progressives."  I am not judging, but I am wondering; do those who publish and subscribe to it see all those who might disagree with them as "irrelevant?"  On the flip side, do all those who would call themselves "concerned" see those who disagree with them as "unconcerned," and uncaring?  Are fellowships that hold to traditional styles of worship more spiritual than those who fill the platform with drum kits, keyboards and guitars?  Do the latter see the former as stuck in the past, and so, stuck in the mud?  Author Marva Dawn once said that "We don't love each other enough to listen to one another's music?"  Nor, does it seem, do we love one another enough to respect our differences, while embracing all that we do agree upon.  We trumpet our love for the lost all the while seemingly despising those who are our own.  How we must grieve the heart of Him who prayed that we would all be one in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    In Matthew 22 the Saducees came to Jesus and asked Him a theological question concerning the resurrection.  He responded, "You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God."
Might He well be saying the same to us today?  Eugene Peterson says, "Jesus has little patience with people who love nothing better than a good 'religious discussion.'  He is interested in bringing people new life....to behold not empty disputes, but empty tombs."  We are seeing and taking part in so many empty disputes, but seeing so few empty tombs.  Yes, we need proper doctrine, and real heresy and harmful error in the church must be confronted, but in understanding and love.  If we cannot love one another enough to still be one in the midst of non-essential things we may disagree about, we deceive ourselves in thinking that we can, in Him, love a world with the life transforming power of Christ.  May we cease first reading each others labels, and instead, be able to read one another's hearts.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Stop Clinging To Jesus!

     You may be taken aback by the title of this Heart Thoughts, but those are not my words, they're His.  He said them to Mary in John 20:17, "Stop clinging to Me."  Likely, you, like me, are puzzled by those words, and why the Lord would speak them to one who was so obviously overjoyed to "see" Him, and desired to worship Him.  Why would He command her to stop clinging to HIm?  He tells her that He needs to ascend to the Father, and we take that as the reason, but do we see anything deeper in this, or is this just one more passage that we read, "believe" and move on without ever allowing the Spirit to take us deeper into it?
     Mary deeply desired to cling to the Lord, but what was her central desire in the clinging?  A wise friend shed, through the Spirit, light on that for me some months ago.  In her clinging, Mary wished to keep Jesus where He was, and where she was most familiar with Him, where she was most comfortable.  In a manner of speaking, she wanted to keep Jesus "down here," but the Lord, in His declaration of needing to ascend to His Father was in effect, calling her to join Him in that ascending.  There was a wonderful and infinite aspect of His personality that was yet to be revealed to her, and she was not going to realize or enter into that by seeking to keep Him where He had been with her, and what she knew of HIm to that point.  He was entering into the fullness of His resurrected life and He was calling her to come into that life with Him.  It was a call that would be fully given at Pentecost.  It's a call that issues forth to you and I day by day, even moment by moment.
We're attracted to the things that make us feel comfortable, including those things we know of Him.  To live the ascending life, will mean that we are constantly called out of our comfort zones, our places of familiarity, to discover new, and yes, at times, frightening things about Him and the fullness of life in Him.  Frightening to our flesh, but blessedness to our spirits.  Mary wished for things to stay as they had been, Jesus had something far better in store, but she had to release her grip on what had been so that Christ could take her to what could be, what must be.  He doesn't behave any differently with you and me, and when we seek to cling to Him in such a way, He will always command us to release Him so that He can take us ever higher in His resurrected life.
    There may be no place where we see this kind of clinging to Jesus moreso than in our prayer lives.  When we cling to Him in such a way as to keep Him in a place where we're most comfortable, than so much of our prayer life is dedicated to keeping things just that way.  Keep us on the mountaintops and in the green meadows.  Don't ever lead us through the valley of death, at least not until our time here has ended, and we don't wish for it to end any time soon.  To know if our prayer life is of this sort, T. Austin-Sparks asks, "Are those things I pray for mainly going to benefit me, make my life easier, more enjoyable, and ultimately bring glory to me, or will they only glorify Him, even at my expense?"  Short term, it would cost Mary to release Him, but in His glory, He would accomplish her ultimate good.  Can we make such a release in our prayers, in our living, in our ministry?  Can we stop clinging to Jesus, and instead, ascend with Him, to the higher place, the place where He is, and where we must be as well?  Will we continue to cling, and know limited life, or will we release Him, and discover what abundant life is truly all about?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - What If?

     What if Moses deep desire spoken in Exodus 32:18, "Please Lord, show me Your glory," became ours as well?  What if the words of Psalm 81, "O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!  Your glory fills the heavens!," became our testimony?  What if we had the heartset and mindset at all times that He is able, in every situation to deliver, heal, or resurrect, but even if He does none of those things, we will not cease to believe and trust Him?  What if our prayer became a cry for Him to open our eyes to the reality of His glory, to the splendor of His loveliness in every life situation we face or walk through?  What if we no longer read His Word with what Mark Batterson calls "old eyes," seeing the words themselves, but not the glory of His life and presence that fills each one?  What if we began to live our lives for His glory, discovering that we can then live in His glory, and go from glory to glory?  What if we sought for Him to stretch our minds that we could take in all that He is, and to enlarge our spirits to respond to and receive all that He gives?  What if we allowed Him to remove the wall created by our sins, fear and shame, so that with all our hearts we might desire to enter into His glory, to stand in His presence, to love HIm and be loved of Him?  To come before Him with all that we are, and bow before all that He is...in His glory?  What if we stopped believing that such a life were only possible in eternity, and started to believe that eternal life begins for His people, now?

What if we stopped asking what if?
    So much of the "believers" life seems to be theory.  We believe the theory, but that theory seems so little proved in our day to day lives.  We believe in the glory of God, but we rarely see it appearing in our daily lives.
Somehow, all the wonders of who He is are reserved for our enjoyment in the future, not the present.  In the present, we need to get about the business of life, of providing for our families, raising our kids, finding a marriage partner, and yes, building a church or ministry.  We may do all of it in His name, but so little of it in His life, in His glory.  We believe that He's there, but somehow, we never seem to "see" Him.  There's an inner yearning for something much greater than we have and are living, but we never dream that that yearning can be met, not in full, but in a great part, right here, right now.  So, we live in the theory, but wonder, at least to ourselves, what if the theory were to become reality?
    I've grown weary of the "what if's," of living in the theory.  I want the reality.  I want all of me to enter into all of Him that I can.  I want to see His glory, live in His glory, and go from glory to glory, and not any of it for my glory, but for His, no longer asking what if, but living in what is.  How about you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Artificial Light

    Some years ago I was visiting friends who lived in a much more rural setting than I do.  One night, the family and I went out for a walk in the area around their home.  I remember looking up and being blown away by the beauty of the brightly shining stars.  The light coming from them was so bright that it illuminated not only us, but the path we were on.  It was a light that made visible so many things that had we been walking under streetlights, or carrying flashlights, we would never have noticed.  The seeming brightness of that artificial light would have kept them hidden from us.  It made me think of how in both the natural and spiritual realm, artificial, or man-centered light can, despite its seeming brightness, keep hidden from us so much that the Father would have us see.

    Years ago, I read a book by the late Jamie Buckingham detailing a semi-annual trip he would make with selected friends that retraced the path of the Israelites during their journey outlined in the book of Exodus.  One part I remember so well was the groups following a steep pathway in a starlit night.  A few of them, depending only on the light of the stars, got further and further ahead of the rest, who were depending on their flashlights to guide them.  Budkingham said that his group was able to not only clearly see the path they were on, but all the wonders that were right there in front of them.  In their wonder, they looked downward on the path and saw the rest of the group, stumbling along at almost a crawl, trying to follow the very limited light of the flashlights.  This story, and my experience with my country friends makes me wonder; why do we put such dependence spiritually, on artificial, man-made light?  Why do we so desperately seek the light from human "stars" when all the while, He, who in Revelation 22 called Himself "the bright morning star," offers His light?  Why are we so willing to stand in the shadow of someone who themselves may be beholding that star and walking by, hoping that somehow, their light will become ours? 

    I don't mean that we cannot receive light through preaching, teaching, conferences and seminars, only that we seem to have decided that the seeking out of and beholding of that light is left to others to hear and see firsthand from Him, while we who don't wish to "read the book", will instead "wait for the movie."  We listen to accounts of what others have beheld, but in so many ways, we never behold it ourselves.  We depend on the pastor, the evangelist, the prophet....the husband, wife, parent or friend, to tell us what God is saying.  We may believe it, but somehow, we so often don't know why we believe it.  Somehow, its just not real to us.  And, when the storms, earthquakes and emergencies of life come, the "light" we got secondhand in another's shadow, isn't sufficient for us to stand.  We need to cease depending on the story He may be writing in another's life, and experience what He wants to write in ours.
   Has the artificial light of this world and of men blinded us to the pure light of Christ?  Have the human stars become more real to us than the One who is the bright morning star Himself?  Is the light we think we have, really, as His word says, darkness after all?  Are we stumbling along with flashlights fashioned by our hands, or following and living by the light of the Prince of stars?  Where does the light we follow have its source?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Baptized Living

     I recently came across this account from a believer in China who'd attended a baptismal celebration, for that is what it is to them.  During the ceremony, the new believer was asked 4 questions.  The first 3 were not very different from what one would hear in the western church; Do you believe in Jesus?  Has He forgiven your sins?  Do you promise to walk with Him always?  The fourth questions was asked by the one who was performing the baptism and who was the father of the young teen girl being baptized; "When they come into our house and take us away, when they beat us and try to get us to deny Him, will you still follow Jesus?"  I was deeply convicted when I read these words.  Are you?

    Here in the American church, baptismal services, like the receiving of communion, the making of marriage vows, and so on, are entered into almost without any thought.  You disagree?  Look at the results.  All 3 have the element of spoken or unspoken promises.  Yet, do we truly think of what it is we are saying, professing, and what those words really mean?  A good friend who pastored many years and would be termed a "success," in ministry once told me that he'd likely baptized more than a thousand people during the life of his ministry, but believed only a small number of them ever "lived baptized" afterwards.  If following Christ involved for you and I what it involves for these Chinese believers, and so many of our brethren throughout the world, would we follow Him at all?  In this age of costless Christianity here in the west, would we really vow to be His at the cost of everything, including our lives?  Would His power flow through our promises and keep us even in the midst of the severest of trials and persecution?  Or, would our promises, like so many of the "promises" made in these days, fade as the circumstances around us changed?  Would we be exposed as "costless Christians" or would we, like these Chinese brethren, "live baptized," no matter what the cost to us?

    Philippians 3:10 reads, "That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death."  Everyone wants in on the power of His resurrection, few are willing to sign on to join Him in the fellowship of His sufferings.  We want Paul's power, we don't want His pain.  When Jesus sent Ananais to Paul after his Damascus road conversion, he said that He must "Show him how much he must suffer for my sake."  Even so, Paul followed Him with all His heart and love.  If the Lord were to do the same with us, would we?  To this point in our lives, what has it cost us to be His?  What have we endured for His sake?  Where have we entered into His death and been conformed to it?  If we've been baptized, are we
living baptized?  Have we made promises that consist mostly of words, or are they, like Paul's, like that young Chinese believer, written in, and sealed by His blood?  Many of us wish to "live large," He calls us to live Christ.  Which does our heart truly want?

Blessings,

Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - The Real Freedom Of Grace

     Grace is a "hot item" in the church these days.  There are a seeming myriad of books, CD's, and teachings on it.  You'd think with all of that we'd have an evergrowing understanding of what grace is, but, like so many other biblical concepts, I'm not sure that we really know what it is we think we know.  As a friend of mine put it, we need, in many instances to "unknow" that which we believe we know.

     One of the aforementioned books that I looked at was titled "52 Lies Told In Church Every Week."  The author's point was that the church has made following Him much more of a "duty" than a joy.  He said that we've taught people that if we don't daily and weekly pray, read scripture, attend church, and so on, that we're in danger of losing out spiritually, and even falling away from the Lord.  Let me say here that I am no fan of teaching that makes a relationship with Him a duty, or of anything that seeks to pressure people into prayer, reading His Word, and so on, and that makes those things symbols of spiritual maturity and growth.  Any teaching that makes performance the basis of knowing Him is going to leave out grace, and in the end, will place us under the law and the Old Covenant that was in effect before the resurrection of Christ.  We then live and are saved by our works, and not by His grace in Christ.  However, this book and others like it, are running the real danger of leading their readers to feel that prayer, Bible study, being joined with a body of fellow believers, isn't really needful in their walk.  These are good things, but His grace is sufficient, and if these things are missing from a believers life, it isn't going to take God's favor away from them.  My thought on that is that there's a great difference between having God's favor, and really experiencing it.  Grace itself is God's favor freely given, yet how many in the church are really day by day experiencing the fullness of that favor and the joy, peace, and wonder that comes with it?

    So much of the teaching on grace seems to center on what we are free from.  To me, grace is not nearly so much about what we're free from, as to what we're free for, and free to.  We are free to love Him, know Him, grow more deeply in Him.  We are free to be saturated in His presence through prayer, meditating on His word, and discovering what growing in grace is really all about.  We're free to discover that it's not about getting out of dreary church services, and duty bound service, but of discovering and being a part of what His church, His Body is truly all about.  We learn, as Paul wrote, that we're free to be completely His, His slaves.  By grace, we discover what the joy of knowing Him is, and by grace, our hunger for Him grows deeper and wider.  The knowledge gained of Him through prayer, scripture, and the ministry of the church becomes our joy because He's our joy.  We don't drag ourselves to these, we run to them, because we can't wait to again experience the joy and blessing of His grace in all of them.  To me, this is the real freedom of grace.  Is it for you as well?  In Acts 20:32, Paul said, "And now I commend you to God and the message of His grace."  Have we, you and I, really gotten that message?

 

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Secret Joy

      Henry Blackaby said, "You do not choose to be a friend of God.  That is by invitation only."  In Christ, the Father makes that invitation.  Have we answered it?  Not, are we working with Him, serving Him, getting "orders" from Him, but are we His friends?  Do we know Him as a friend? 

    Jesus said in John 15:15 "No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things I have heard from My Father, I have made known to you."  Far too many of us live as His servants, always asking Him what we should do, where we should go, what must we be.  As Jesus says, a servant doesn't know the heart of the master, but a friend does, for his heart is joined with the heart of the one who is his friend.  Oswald Chambers said that a true friend will tell you the "secret joys" of their heart.  Chambers then asks if we are so busy telling the Father what are the secrets of our hearts, that we never hear what are the secrets of His?  Could this be why so many of us really have no idea of what it is the Lord has for us in life?  Could this be why we're always waiting for some "sign" or "wonder" to clue us in on what He's doing and where He's going?  In Christ, the Father invites us into a relationship so deeply intimate with Him that we no longer have to continually ask Him what His will is, we are His will.  His thoughts blend into ours.  His steps are our steps.  Chambers called this 'getting into God's stride."  We're not just walking with Him, we're walking in Him.  We so often seek to do the works of Jesus apart from the life of Jesus reigning within us.  We're looking to do things for Him, rather than in Him.  There's a huge difference.

   It's true that God is a mystery, but He is a mystery ever unfolding in Christ.  He does hold the secret things, but they are secret things revealed in Christ.  Jesus, upon calling His first disciples said to them, "Come and see."  That invitation remains open to you and I.  Max Lucado said that it seems His favorite word is "Come."

Certainly, it's a word He speaks to you and I each day.  "Come to Me."  Not only with our needs, cares, questions, but with our hearts.  Come that we may learn of Him, know Him, be a friend to Him.  Have we ever dwelt upon the truth that His heart longs for the friendship of ours?  As the Lord Jesus said, servants never really know the hearts of their masters.  Friends do.  In Christ, the Father invites us to His heart...right now.  He desires us to be a people that He doesn't just visit, but whom He inhabits.  A people sensitive to not only what He has said, but what He is saying now.  We have heard Him say come with our problems and our wants and desires.  Have we ever heard Him say come....just for Him.  Have we come?  Are we coming.  "My heart has heard You say come.....Lord I am coming."

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Backyard Wineskins

     There's a lot of discussion in the church these days concerning being "new" vs. "old" wineskins.  This has given rise to many identifying themselves as either "progressive," or "traditional."  Of course this makes for conflict.  The former are often identified as "liberal," and the latter as "legal."  The first group wants to lay hold of the "new wineskins," and the second wishes to hold onto the old.  Each is saying, "My wineskin is better than yours."  Amidst all the talk, debate, and sadly, strife, I wonder if we, as we're so prone to do, are missing the Lord in all of it?

     I hope not to be identified as either a progressive or traditionalist, looking for neither a new wineskin, or seeking to hold onto the old.  I want to be identified, by my Lord, as one who depends not upon the wineskin, but upon the new wine that goes into it.  I think our problem, and I have been as guilty as anyone, is that we are constantly seeking new, updated "wineskins."  Many love new things, and such folks tend to grab hold of every new idea, method, or plan that gains popularity in the Body.  The result is a "backyard" filled with old "new wineskins."  What worked in one place, hasn't worked in our place.  We see the problem as being in the wineskin, and so we discard it and keep on looking for the wineskin that will work for us.  Why do we remain so blind to the fact that it's not the wineskin itself that gives life, but the new wine that is to go into it?  We try to make things happen by waving our wineskins (like a magic wand?) rather than allowing the new wine of His Holy Spirit inspiration and leading to fill and flow through us.  The wineskin we're seeking to use may have held someone else's new wine, but it is not holding ours.  All the conferences, seminars and workshops in the world will not change that.  New wine doesn't come from men, it comes from Him.  E.M Bounds said that "the church is always looking for better methods.  God is looking for better men."  Men, and women, made so by the filling up of the new wine of the Holy Spirit.
    This is not true only of pastor's and church leaders.  We flock to the marriage enrichment, financial stewardship, and relationship centered conferences, where the speakers may well be filled with new wine, and we walk away with notes, CD's, and books, but remain empty of that new wine.  New wineskins, ways of "doing" things in all of these areas may have been presented, but new wineskins devoid of new wine are just as useless as old wineskins missing the same. 
    I am not speaking against conferences or those who lead them, what I'm trying to say is that we will not receive that new wine we so desperately need anyplace but at the foot of the cross.  At that place, all of us, traditionals, progressives, old wineskins and new, receive the fullness of life that only He, through His Holy Spirit may give us.  There are enough discarded wineskins in all of our lives.  Let us, as Martin Smith of the group Delerious sings, "Rejoice at the foot of the cross.  We can be free, glory to God.  Thank you Lord, thank you Lord, you set me free, glory to God."  Let us rejoice, be grateful, and be filled with the new wine.....at the cross.

Blessings,

Pastor O