Heart Tracks - Rumored

     While walking through the local Christian bookstore the other day, I saw a prominent display with a number of books all telling of various writers encounters with the Father, Jesus, and heaven in near death or real death experiences.  Such books have been bestsellers in recent years and that's not a great surprise.  Most people love to read of such experiences and just what it was the people "saw" during them.  I don't have a problem with the books, and can even see real value in them, but I do have a question; what part of our fascination with these stories is due to our own lack of real experience of the glory of eternity, Christ the King, the Almighty Father, and the Holy Spirit in our day to day lives?  Have we seen so little real "evidence" of them in our own lives that we hungrily devour accounts of those who who have "seen" them?  Is the unseen God remaining mostly unseen to most of us?  Are the eyes of our spirit so dull that we have no real understanding of what it is to "fix our eyes upon Jesus?"

    In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul, writes to a church fellowship whose members apparently sought to follow a Christ they rarely if ever seemed to be able to see in their everyday lives.  Called to live lives led of and filled with His Holy Spirit, they instead lived according to the flesh, and remained enslaved to the things of the flesh.  Writing to them, Paul tells them of Moses and his dealings with the Israelites, how after his own encounters with God, he had to veil his face, because it was so filled with the glory of God, a glory that the people themselves were unable to behold.  A glory they feared and found painful.  He said that veil remained and covered the minds and hearts of the present day Jews whenever they heard the truth of Christ, yet failed to believe, receive, and live in that truth.  To the Corinthians he wrote, "But whenever anyone turns to the Lord then the veil is taken away.  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, He gives freedom.  And all of us have had the veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord.  And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like Him, and reflect His glory even more."  We reflect His glory as we behold His glory....firsthand.  We're not dependent upon what someone else has seen, because we ourselves see.  What is unseen to the natural eye, becomes more and more seen, and clear to the those who see with spiritual eyes.  The invisible Christ become very visible to those that are His.  No, we don't yet see fully, or completely, but we do see, and see more fully as we grow in Him.  The veil has been removed.  The question for you and I is, has that veil really been removed, or are we depending upon our own "Moses" types to hear from them what He has said, and relate to us what they have seen?  Does the veil remain in great degree, still covering our hearts, minds, and eyes?
    Philip Yancey wrote a book entitled "Rumors Of Another World."  If we are living, basing our faith on mere rumors, depending upon what others have seen and heard of and from Him, life will be most unsatisfying.  We may believe the rumor, but what the rumor promises will never be our reality.  It was wonderful news when Mary related to the disciples that she'd just seen Jesus, but until they saw Him themselves, it remained a rumor.  They may have believed in Him, but when the saw Him, they believed Him.  He was their reality.  Is He ours today?  Has the veil really been removed?  Are we beholding His glory?  In the beholding, are we becoming.  Becoming more and more like He whom we behold?  Is He more rumor than reality?  Our lives will show the truth.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Present, Or Presiding?

     Politics are something I've little interest in writing about, but there is one aspect of them that fits well with what's on my heart today, and that would be the voting records of many Congressmen and Senators.  Opponents make much of these records, especially when the person makes no actual stand on an issue and merely votes, "Present."  For all intents and purposes, their presence meant little or nothing.  They were there, but their influence was nil.  In many ways, I believe this paints a very clear picture of the state of most of the western church.

    Oft quoted and prayed are Jesus' words that say, "Where two or three are gathered together, there I am in the midst of them."  We often then exclaim, "The Lord is here!," and He is, but the question for us becomes, "Is He merely present, or presiding?  Present, or pre-eminent?"  Think on this question, and then think on the unfolding of most of the "worship" services of which we're a part.  When we enter into the singing of hymns or choruses, what has priority; making sure the entire songlist is gone through, with no interruptions, so that the "flow" can go just envisioned by the worship leader?  If there is a time of prayer in the order of service, do we already have in our minds just how long that should be, and what kind of prayer it must be?  For the message of the day, is it tied to the power points on the overhead screen, so much so that there can be no digression from the planned "teaching" of the day?  Has everything been planned in such a way that we can "do church" in a polished, enjoyable and tidy way, and have everyone out of the door in no more than 75 minutes, after which we tip our hats to Jesus, thank Him for being there, and look forward to seeing Him again.....next week?  In short, are we asking Jesus to vote "present" in our gatherings, but giving no place for Him to preside, to lay hold of us, to control every aspect of the gathering?  Have we asked Him to be just one of the many spectators to this weeks performance?
    A.W. Tozer said of the early church believers, "One distinguishing mark of those first Christians was a supernatural radiance that shined out from within them."  They lived, bathed in a Holy Spirit fire and radiance that showed in their day to day lives.  When they came together, in gatherings presided over by His Holy Spirit, He exploded in their midst.  He did the same through them in their day to day lives.  Can the same be said of us?  Does that supernatural radiance shine and live through the church as we know it?  Can it be that we no longer really welcome the supernatural interventions of the Father.  Indeed, might we not even fear them?  We welcome His presence, but for Him to actually preside?  Not so much.
   Psalm 16:11 reads, "Show us the way of life, grant us the joy of Your presence and the pleasures of living with You forever."  When this verse becomes our life reality, we live in the radiance Tozer speaks of.  Is it our life reality today?  Is it the corporate reality of our gatherings whenever we come together?    I recently read of this worship experience that took place in a church in South America.  75 people came together to worship.  85% of them were unemployed because of their faith.  In the midst of their worship, the electricity failed, and the sanctuary was plunged into total darkness.  So deeply were they immersed in worship that no one noticed and they just continued on in their adoration of the King.  Tell me, how many of our fellowships would have stopped everything in such a situation, and rushed to restore power, feeling we could not continue until our artificial light had been restored, so unaware that the Light of the world was there?  Have we gotten so dependent of the artificial that we cannot recognize the supernatural reality that is His light?  I can no longer be satisfied with a Jesus who is only present in my life, in our fellowship and in His church.  I must have Him as Presider as Pre-eminent.  I must have Him as Lord.  How about you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living On Offense

     Some questions are rolling around in my mind (and not just because there is so much room for them to do that).  Questions like; What, if anything, have I suffered simply because I follow Jesus?  Who, of those around me, ever takes offense with me not only for what I say I believe, but for how I live out those beliefs by the day?  Where, in my life with Him, have I truly taken up His cross and entered into the fellowship of His sufferings?  These questions make me uncomfortable, for I know, if I'll be still before HIm long enough, just where the answers truly fall.

    The word "missional" has come to the forefront of the churches vocabulary.  Many church websites describe themselves as being just that, along with words like relevant and contemporary.  There is a great emphasis on coming outside of our buildings and going to the wells where the lost are to be found.  This is a wonderful emphasis and one we can all support, but I'm disturbed by something I see lurking within all of it.

The idea, if not spoken, at least held to, that we not offend those we reach out to.  We feel that we can win them to Christ by our good works, and our acts of love.  I'm for both, but we need to face a very clear reality; Christ was not hated and killed for the good works He did, but for the message He brought.  They were more than happy to receive all the healings He gave, all the bread and fish He offered, but when He said that no one could come to the Father but through Him, that He was the Way, the Truth, and the Life, the only way, truth, and life, they rejected Him, got angry with Him, eventually, they killed Him.  He was willing to receive the hate, and the death, because He knew that His life could not be found in His ministry of healing the body, or feeding it with bread and fish.  It was found in Him.  Only in Him.  More, that without Him, there was only a hopeless eternity of darkness and death in store for all who chose what they believed was a better way, a better truth, and a better life.  His very life was a living testimony as to the great lie of such belief, and they hated Him for it, and took His life, not realizing that in doing so, that life was now released in all the fullness of its resurrection power.  I wonder, is our life, our church fellowship, putting forth a life message that brings about, boldly risks, such a response, giving such an offense?
     In Luke 12, Jesus says that He had come to set the world on fire, "to divide people against each other."  Of this "T. Austin-Sparks says, that Christ will inevitably provoke; that there is no room for neutrality.  We are either with Him, or we are not.  Disturbance, antagonism, trouble, opposition.  These will be the real responses to a life lived out in the resurrection power of Christ....unless of course the response is to melt before that Presence and enter into it ourselves.  The question lurks in my heart; does the ministry of my life, the church I'm a part of, bring such fire upon the lives and community among which I'm found?  Does yours?  In my desire to reach out horizontally around me, am I first reaching upward vertically, receiving all the fullness of His risen life so that I am able to go with the bread and water of heaven, of real life?  Even if the response to the going is rejection, reproach, hatred, even death?  Our brethren in places like China, Africa, the Middle East, know the answer to this.  They know what being "missional" is really about.  I wonder....do we?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Swallowed!

     In our day to day living, which group of words would most describe our lives?  Fear, anxiety, anger, resentment, strife, ambition, isolation and loneliness, or joy, peace, contentment, hope, and abundance?

Paul often wrote of how either death, or life was at work in us.  Which, judging by the fruit of our day to day lives, is at work in you and me?  In 2 Corinthians 5, he wrote of being "swallowed up by everlasting life."  In contrast, if we are not being swallowed up by His life, then we are surely being swallowed alive by  death.  Which is swallowing us?  What "swallowed" us yesterday?  What will be swallowing us today?
    I have heard it said that the church, you and I, is to be a colony of heaven in the country of death.  There can be no denial of the reality of the country of death.  It's all around us and we see its effects everywhere.  The ever increasing advance of death and decay is before our eyes each day.  Our culture is being swallowed up by death.  The church itself is seeing the advance of death within its midst.  The colony is being overrun by the country around it.  It's not our lack of activity that is the problem, but that so much of that activity is motivated by our own flesh and strength, and not by the power of His resurrected life within us.  We argue over methods and means.  We label and segregate.  The colony becomes divided up into "us" and "them."  Meanwhile, the country all around us takes little notice of the colony in its midst, because, despite all of the energy we expend, it brings about no real transformation.  We fight and bicker with each other and those who abide in the country around us.  We deal with life more often than not just like its citizens do.  We talk about a joy, peace, hope and love that so few of us know and experience ourselves.  Hebrews tells of living in the power of a life that cannot be destroyed, but our lives seem to be destroyed each day, many times before we even step out of the door of our homes.

   Further on in 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes, "Those who become Christians become new persons.  They are not the same anymore, for the old life has gone.  A new life has come."  The name "Christian" carries a negative connotation for so many today.  Could it be in large part because so many who take the name have never stopped living the old life?  That new life doesn't come because we raised a hand and agreed to "accept" Jesus (mostly on our terms), or because we took part in the quarterly baptismal service, or even because our church counted us as "new conversions" this year.  It happens because a work of grace, brought about by our Spirit led repentance, has brought into our hearts and lives, the undeniable life and presence of Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit.  The old life is done.  New life has come.  Yes, there are battles to be fought and won, and yes, there may be some setbacks along the way, but we will experience along that way, that we truly are being swallowed up by His life, along with the death that once held us in its grip.  We know firsthand that the sting and victory of death is gone, swallowed up by His life, and His victory, day by day.  And though the country of death will always be there, the colony of heaven will be ever expanding, till that day Christ comes to bring all the fullness of His life to bear.  Death swallowed up by victory, by His life.  Now, and forever.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living Worship

     We know so little of what true worship is.  Generally, we think of it in terms of something we do when we "come to church."  It's limited to a few hymns or choruses, maybe some prayer, certainly some sort of "message" from the pulpit, and hopefully, none of this will take much more than an hour.  When its over, we've had our "time of worship."  We're now free to go about our lives, mostly in our own strength, though we may have tucked away some scriptures for future reference, or even set aside some time for "devotions."  It's a far cry from what we're created for and what He calls us to.

    In Jeremiah 32:40, the Father says, "I will put a desire in their hearts to worship Me, and they will never leave Me."  Can we be honest?  Is that desire really in our lives?  Do we look forward to any time with Him with deep desire, a desire not dependent on emotions or circumstances, but simply one of being with Him?

Do devotional times, or our weekly or bi-weekly corporate gatherings leave us with a growing desire for more of Him, or, are we left with the sense that we've "done our duty," not joyfully but obligingly, having co-operated with His "commands?"  I fear the answers fall much more in that latter.  Does that trouble you and me?

   True worship, worship as life, brings us into an ever deepening Christ-consciousness in all of our lives and ways.  It is living moment by moment in, not only before, but in Him, in His Presence.  It is living out the reality of Ephesians 3:19, living in the fullness of His life and power.  It is, regardless of our emotions or circumstances, a state of being with and in Him as we are.  In our weakness and our strength.  In our joy and our sorrow.  It's every part of us being in every part of Him.  It is living with an ever increasing capacity to believe, obey, and enjoy Him.  It's not being content with hand-me-down truth or second-hand faith.  It is having both, fresh and whole from Him.  It's living in ever deepening intimacy with His truth, the truth that is Christ.  The real Christ.  It's ceasing to live as the Corinthian church, in the flesh, and living as the Ephesian church, in the power of His resurrected life.  Who do we more closely resemble in our day to day lives?  The Corinthians or the Ephesians.  Believe me, if we don't know the answer to that, our friends, family, co-workers and neighbors surely do.
    True worship is, I believe all of this and much more, but I think it will always involve this; living a life not of human expectation of Him, but of holy assurance in Him.  When we live with those expectations, we live in bondage and bitter disappointment when He doesn't meet them.  When we live in a holy assurance of Him, secure in His goodness and love regardless of the situations or circumstances, this is freedom, and this is worship.  May this be my life, and yours, today.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Trusting Him With The "Why?"

     Answers.  We want them.  Lots of them.  Particularly the ones that begin with "Why?"  This starts at a very young age and the desire to ask it never goes away.  We want to know why, and we especially want to know when it comes to the hard questions of life and just where God is in all of it.  The thing of it is, God so often doesn't seem at all inclined to give us the answers we want.  In fact, our why's can quickly go from being questions to being accusations.  In our "why's" we can accuse God of being uncaring, unloving, and unaware.

Some of the why's of the disciples to Jesus were of this sort.  I believe many of ours are as well.  

    Jennifer Rothschild, blind since age 15 says that so much of our problem comes from our insistence on defining what is "good" rather than accepting what the Father calls good.  The gap between the two can be very wide, indeed impossible for our fleshly minds to reconcile.  If God is good, then why did my marriage fail, my child die, this disease come upon me?  Rothschild says we ask, why cancer, why heartbreaking pain, why irreplaceable loss?  In her why's she heard His Spirit whisper to hers, "Why grace, why peace, why forgiveness? Why love?"  We never feel we deserve the awful afflictions that visit us, and in most cases, I believe that is so, yet, do any of us "deserve" His grace, His forgiveness, His joy, His peace?  Really, who are we, as David asked, that He should take notice of us, and more, love us.  The old hymn, "Such love, such wondrous love."  We can never do anything to deserve the wondrous love He has bestowed upon us in Christ.  We may agree with this, yet still, the question lingers in our pain, why?  This may be so especially in those place where we see the Father give to someone else, the very thing, answer, that we've been seeking for ourselves.  "Why, Lord?  Why them and not me?"  We may ask with or without bitter anger and tears, but yet we ask.  We may remember where, in the gospels, the disciples asked Jesus why a man had been born blind.  Jesus replied that it was so the glory of God could be displayed in Him.  In that story the man was healed.  It's much easier to see His glory in a healing....if we only see with eyes of flesh.  I am beginning to understand that we may behold His glory more in what He doesn't do than what He does.  It's in such places that we may truly come to know the wonder and glory of His grace and presence.
    We seek clear answers, but far more than answers, we need the AnswerGiver, whose answer is so often Himself.  Rothschild says that she is learning in her life, with all the questions, pain, and need, that she can trust Him with her "why's?"  When we reach such a place of trust in Him, we no longer demand He explain Himself, we just receive and live in the fullness of Himself.  Then we too can trust Him with our "Why's?"

Blessings,

Pastor O
   
    

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Heart Tracks - When God Is Unfair

    Fairness.  Everyone, from politicians to children seems to have a very clear idea as to what's fair and what's not.  Life teaches us many things, and foremost among them is that life itself is not fair.  That's a hard thing to learn.  It's even harder to learn that God Himself is oftentimes "not fair," at least from our perspective.

     Speaker and writer Jennifer Rothschild, who's been blind since age 15, related recently about having put off listening to a CD that contained a testimony from a woman who was afflicted with the same blinding retinal disease as her.  Finally, she did, and as the sister in Christ began to tell of her affliction, she could relate completely with the pain, frustration, and suffering that comes along with the disease.  She could identify too with the woman's telling of how she and her husband would go to their knees in prayer, crying out to God for healing, for Rothschild and her husband had done the same.  Then came the part that she had been dreading, the place where the woman told of how the Father had miraculously healed her, restoring her sight completely.

Her testimony gave wonderful glory and praise to God, and though Rothschild could rejoice for the lady, she was left with a deep feeling of emptiness because she, unlike her sister, had never received a healing.  She was still blind.  Rothschild commented, "I know His ways are perfect, but so often, they seem perfect for someone else, and not me."  We may know that thought as well.  He is markedly fair with someone else, but seemingly so unfair with us, at least to our understanding.
    Psalm 138:8 reads, "The Lord will work out His plans for my life."  What do we do when His "plan" is so markedly different from ours?  Our plan included healing, deliverance, provision, abundance.  His doesn't appear to contain any of that.  What do we do when His plan takes the way of pain, loss, heartache and need?
What do we do when we discover that His plan always, without exception, includes His cross, and His suffering?  What do we do with all the "gaps" He seems to leave in our lives, all those places where He appears to be absent, seemingly uncaring?  What do we do with what Rothschild calls "the missing pieces" of our lives, pieces that He could supply, but doesn't.    T. Austin-Sparks once wrote, "Our testing will be such that we will not make it through apart from the divine intervention of heaven."  What do we do when His intervention looks more like a collision, indeed a collision with Him and all the ideas we've had about Him?

What do we do when the missing pieces continue to go missing?  The truth is that there is nothing for us "to do," only for us "to be."  That place of being is to allow Him to fill those gaps, those missing pieces with Himself, where we receive all of Him for all of our need.  In that place we will find something greater than the need, the pain, the healing.  We will find Him, all of Him.  When we receive a whole God, one who is above and beyond all our ideas of fairness and what is right, we will ourselves become whole.  The affliction may remain, but the gaps, the missing pieces don't.  They're filled with the wonder, beauty, and life of Himself.  He may not do what we think is fair, but if we truly will receive Him, all of Him, He will surely be shown to do for and in us what is right.
     Something I pray for myself and all those on my prayer list is that we would live life from a place of His rest.  This can never be as long as we strive to find out what it is we must "do."  It only comes from receiving Him into all those gaps in our lives, all of those places that are missing pieces.  This is not being resigned to defeat, but instead being lifted up to the life of victory and overcoming.  Had the Father removed Paul's thorn in the flesh as he asked, Paul would never have experienced the wonders of the third heaven, the wonders of His God.  In that place he knew that the Father's ways were perfect, that though the thorn remained, he was whole, at rest, in the hands of a God who may not be safe, but who is most certainly good.  May each of us live in those hands, and that heart as well.

Blessings,

Heart Tracks - Alien Nation

     In Acts 7:6, it's said of the Israelites living in Egypt that they were "resident aliens living in a country belonging to others."  I think this is an apt description of all who are truly His, and gives a great definition of what it is to be "in the world but not of it."  The Israelites lived in, raised and provided for families, and were in contact with all parts of Egyptian culture, but that culture and country was never theirs.  It belonged to "others."

I wonder, does yours and my lifestyle bear such a description today?  Are we defined by the culture of the society and country we live in, or is it the "other country," Kingdom country that defines our lives?
    The Jews country was always, ultimately, the Father and the Kingdom He gave to them.  Sometimes, because of persecution, but more often due to their disobedience, they would find themselves living in places outside the boundaries of the country their Father had given them through His promise to Abraham.  One such place was Ethiopia.  The Ethiopians gave a name to the Jews who lived among them, Falasha.  It means "strangers."  Though they'd lived there for hundreds of years, this was still the name by which they were 

known.  They were, as spoken of in Hebrews, "strangers, aliens, and nomads in the land."  Nomads never truly take root anywhere.  They are always moving on, looking for that better country.  No matter where they are, the pull of that better country draws them onward, and in our case, upward.  Wherever "here" is, it is not "there," and there is where they're being drawn to.  We, you and I, are to live as Falasha, strangers.  Strangers to the culture, mindset, and value system of the land we are passing through.  Our strangeness is not marked by bizarre behavior, though a true "vagabond in Christ," will look very bizarre to all who make their home in the surrounding country.  Nor is it marked by regular church attendance, tithing, membership in a church or small group, or political and social activism.  It is marked by our embracing and love for the culture of the Kingdom, and rejection of the culture and kingdom of this world.  As that culture "looks" at our lives, it can only call us Falasha, strangers.  They recognize that we don't belong in their world.  Do our unbelieving neighbors, co-workers, family and friends look at us in that way?  More, do those within the church, who have wholeheartedly embraced this Falasha lifestye, who have truly come out and become separate, make us more uncomfortable than comfortable when around them?  Do we, at least in our hearts, call them "too mystical, too out there, too heavenly minded to of any earthly good?"  Do we fit more closely with the culture of this world than with the culture they've embraced?  Would we prefer that they find a more "middle-ground" spiritual life.....like we have?  Do we, at least in unspoken ways, feel we've found the better country here, and so have ceased to journey on to the one the Father created us for, if indeed we ever began that journey to begin with?
    There's an automobile ad that depicts a couple that has gotten lost and finds itself in the midst of a high-performance car race.  The woman leans out her window and asks one of the drivers for directions but gets no response.  She turns to the man and says, "They're not from around here."  A friend, commenting on that ad said, "That should be the response of the world when encountering His people.  They should realize very quickly as they interact with us that we're not from around here."  We're resident aliens, indeed, an alien nation, just passing through.  Not just looking for a better country, but in a very real sense, living in it already as we journey towards the fullness that He calls us to in it.  We've found nothing of it in the culture that surrounds us, but have found everything in the culture of the Kingdom in Him and within us.  Are we living just like all the "Ethiopians" around us, or are we truly "Falasha," strangers in a strange land, yet fully at home in Him?  And you know, it just could be that while on this journey, we draw many others along, who formerly were of the other country, yet have joined us on the journey in and with Him.

 

Blessings,

Pastor O