Heart Tracks - Rubbing Shoulders

      Watchman Nee, as he so often has, took me deeper into His word and truth today.  He writes on the Lord's healing of the woman with the menstrual affliction, causing her to experience constant bleeding and is related in Mark 5.  The woman had suffered this disease and in Jewish society, it rendered her unclean, which meant that she was isolated from that society on every level.  Jesus has come, and as He walks through her hometown, a crowd surrounds Him on every side.  The woman, whose state had to be known to many in the crowd, nevertheless worked her way through it, believing that if she were just able to touch Him, lay hold of Him, she could receive healing.  She did lay hold of Him, and she was healed.  The crowd did not deter, nor their opinions of her.  The seeming impossibility of her condition didn't sway her either.  She sought Him, and she found Him.  Yet, it is to none of these directly that Nee speaks.  What he does say should pierce us not only as individuals, but as corporate fellowships as well, and on every level of what we call relationship with Him.  What we call worship.
    Nee spoke of the throng that surrounded Jesus.  Everyone milling about Him, everyone wanting to see, to get a glimpse of the One they had heard so much about.  They may have been what we call "seekers," but their seeking was only on the surface.  The woman alone sought to touch Him.  I share here how Nee expresses the difference between the crowd, and the woman.  "It is useless to merely rub shoulders with the Lord.  All too many today acquaint themselves with the externalities of Jesus of Nazareth without touching the Son of God as she did.  They stay in the outside world of thronging and never enter into the inner world of touching.....Merely to throng Him is of no avail.  Reach out the trusting hand to touch Him, and diseases are healed and problems solved."
    How much of what we call relationship and worship in our lives and in our fellowships is really nothing more than "thronging Jesus?"  In our personal lives with Him, we read our 3 chapters of the Bible, utter a few minutes of prayer, maybe even have a short reading, and we call it our quiet time.  We may have rubbed shoulders with Him there, but did we really lay hold of Him?  Did we really touch Him, and more, did He touch us?  Did anything transformative take place?  Did we take at least one step more into the depths of who He is?
   The same must be asked of our corporate times in Him.  Did we, as we so often do with each other, merely rub shoulders with Him in the time we call worship?  We may have sung a few songs, or at least listened to them, heard the word read, even preached.  Our emotions may have been touched, but not our spirits.  There has been no real encounter.  Jesus may have passed through our "town," and we may have been in the throng that watched Him, but like all those who thronged Him then, we never touched Him, or He us.  Our true need remains unhealed, untouched.  We've rubbed shoulders with Him, but we never encountered Him.
    In the heart of the woman with what the King James called "the issue of blood," was a deep, undeniable desire to not only be healed, but to touch Him.  Lay hold of Him.  The crowd, the throng, were really just curiosity seekers.  Glimpses of Jesus were enough for them.  Is it, has it been, enough for us?  Is rubbing shoulders with Him going to continue to be enough for you and I?  Or, like the woman, will we have a desire, a hunger and thirst for Him that will not be denied, and will only be satisfied when we lay hold of Him as He at the same time lays hold of us?  Part of the throng, or part of Him.  Which will we be?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Outside The Camp

      Two types of messages seem to have gained popularity in the church today.  The first, many would call inward.  It's one that emphasizes all that Christ can do for those who come to and receive Him.  Better lives, better families, better marriages.  A message that bears a lot of resemblance to the old Coca-Cola slogan, "Things go better with Jesus."  The second message would be considered an outward one.  Get outside of yourself, see others, win others, take Jesus to where the people are, and help them come to see their need for Him, and guide them to receiving Him.  There is truth in both of the messages. Everything is better if Christ is truly your Savior, but it's a better that He reserves the right to define, and carry out. And yes, we are to be a living witness for Christ, living for Him in the midst of a people who desperately need Him.  Yet, I think that both of the messages are missing something, and that something amounts to everything.  The cross.

    I don't think either of the messages purposely ignores the cross, but both seem to easily overlook it.  I know because I've been a proclaimer of both, Many is the time, intended or not, that I made Jesus Christ seem to be a "cure-all" for everything that we don't like about life.  "Come find out just what His 'wonderful plan' for your life is."  I heard someone once say that His "wonderful plan" for us is His holiness, and that, friends, can only be found at His cross. I've also proclaimed, and often to the weariness of my listeners, the outward message.  Be a witness, get outside of yourself where you work and live. Walking more miles than I can count passing out church literature, putting up booths at community gatherings.  The problem was, and remains, that the return, and we do expect a return, was so often disappointing.  Christ in our hearts and lives is not a guarantee against suffering, loss, pain and disappointment.  Activity, no matter how noble or well meaning doesn't obligate Him to move in response, and so, fill our, my church.  The flaw in both messages is an emphasis on self, and not Christ.  Self-gratification in the first, and self-dependence in the latter.  It's easier for us to both proclaim and hear these messages because neither, at root, really offend the flesh.  The cross, on the other hand, always will.  The cross can only be come to "outside the camp."
    I think most of us will say that we do indeed proclaim the cross, but do we really?  How much of the message we proclaim really calls those who listen to His cross?  I heard it said that when Jesus calls us, "He bids us to come and die."  On His cross.  How much of our message really contains that?  How many of our listeners really want to hear that?  If they do, how many do we think will come back to hear it again?  Many are willing to work.  Many more are willing to receive.  Very few are willing to die........to everything but Him.  The writer of Hebrews says in 13:13, "So let us go out to Him, outside the camp, and bear the disgrace He bore."  Christ was crucified outside the camp, because such a death was unacceptable to all those inside.  It still is, and those who will truly bear His message and life have to be willing to be found outside the camp with Him, even if it means bearing His disgrace, as it surely will.  Christ does bring both an inward and outward message, but before either, He brings us an upward one, and that one can only be heard and received outside the camp, at the cross.  It means a life lived outside the camp.  A disgrace to the flesh, but a glory to our spirit, and to His.  He calls us to join Him there, and oh the life we will enter into.  Will we join Him?  Not just for what we get, or for who we might win, but for Him.  Only and all for Him.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Place

      I recently read the testimony of a young lady named Amanda Crabb.  She told how as a young girl she had been sexually abused by several different men, and then been frightened by them into silence.  She grew up with a deep sense of shame and worthlessness.  That changed when a complete stranger came to her and spoke His words of life to her, telling her that Jesus wanted the torment of that past abuse to be gone from her life.  Since she had never told anyone of it, she knew that this had to be Him that was speaking to her through this man.  This person then led her into a saving relationship with Christ.  New life had come, and yet, so much of the old life remained.  She still struggled with the shame, as well as so many questions of "why?"  Why had it had happened to her?  Why had a loving God allowed it?  Why hadn't He protected her?  Why was she still not free of it?

   She didn't receive answers to these questions, but received something so much greater.  Healing.  Wholeness.  The fullness of His Life.  This happened as in response to these questions, the Holy Spirit led her to John 11, and the recording of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus had been dead more than 3 days, when Jesus, who had been aware of Lazarus' serious illness, arrived upon the scene.  All, especially his sisters, Mary and Martha, were beside themselves in grief.  All had the same question upon their hearts and lips; "Why?"  Both sisters exclaimed, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."  Jesus' only reply was "Where have you laid him?"  Crabb points out that one translation reads, "Take me to the place where you have laid him."  John 11 relates that at that place, Christ called the dead Lazarus back to life, healed, and whole.  Crabb says that the Spirit showed her that He wished for her to "take Him" to the place and places where she had laid her shame, pain, anger, and all the accompanying feelings, so that at that place, Christ, as He had Lazarus, might call her forth from that grave that she'd been lying in, into the fullness of the life, healing and wholeness only He could give.  At that place where she had taken Him, He did just that.  For her, Isaiah 61:7 became reality, "Instead of your shame, you will have a double portion."  Double portion of what?  Of His Spirit, His Life, His healing, His wholeness.  Having taken Him to the place of her greatest wounding, she received from Him the greatest portion of Himself.

     How many more "Amanda's" are out there right now?  Might you be one of them?  Whether man or woman, are there places where you have laid, buried, wounds, abuses, betrayals, failures, sins, and though you did so long ago, they live to haunt you today?  Tormenting, accusing, mocking.  In the midst of your "why's," your questions, could you, would you hear His voice speaking the words, "Take Me to the place where you have laid it, laid them?"  At that place of brokenness, woundedness, would you allow Him to call you forth to Himself, His wholeness, His life? Where is the place where you have laid it?  Have you taken Him there?  Will you take Him now?

Blessings,
Pastor O  

    

Heart Tracks - Definitions

       Though we're told in His Word that "His ways are not our ways," somehow, we stubbornly believe that they are.  Nowhere is this seen more than in the difference between how we and He define things.  What we call beautiful, He often calls ugly, and vice-versa.  The same is true of what we tend to define as valuable, worthy, wise and right.  Perhaps this gap is widest between our definition of success and His.

      We are born with an innate desire to build something.  This is a good thing, but our great problem is that we tend to go out with the desire to build our own particular "tower of Babel," something we can point to as proof that our lives have meaning, a legacy that can prove to others that we made a difference.  A monument, though we would be very slow to admit this, to ourselves.  I know.  I've spent a great deal of my life seeking to build my own tower.  Somehow though, no matter how careful I am, no matter how precise I try to be, that tower continues to find a way to topple.  Maybe you've found the same thing?
      Proverbs 16:3 is a very popular verse.  "Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."  The problem is, we tend to understand that promise through our own, fleshly understanding.  In effect, we feel that what we need do is formulate a plan, take it to Him, get Him to bless it, and then behold Him to supply everything we need for that plan to come to fruit, to succeed.  We bring Him the blueprints for our tower, and He OK's them, and then gives us all the materials we need to see it built.  If this is not happening, than it must be that we have a faulty plan, not praying effectively enough, working hard enough, motivating our "work crew" enough, or having enough faith.  I'm not advocating a laid back, lazy approach to faith, ministry, occupation, or life, but let me ask you, can we see any of this kind of reasoning and belief system in the life of any of the apostle's?  More, can we see anything of this in the life of Christ.  Jesus died in what appeared to be failure.  According to tradition, every one of the apostles but John was executed for their faith, and John died alone on the prison island of Patmos.  As I said, we are born with a craving to build, and that craving comes from the One who created us.  Our great problem is that we have lost sight of what it is that we're to be building, or more correctly, what is to be built by Him into and through our lives.
     Chris Tiegreen said that "A life dedicated to God will experience a God dedicated to life."  He said that God defined success by the life, death and resurrection of Christ.  To all fleshly understanding, Christ failed, especially as concerns giving proof that He was who He said He was.  They mocked Him, and bid Him come down from His cross......but He didn't.  If He had, onlookers would have hailed Him, yet He followed another plan, another purpose.  His Father's.  As Tiegreen writes, "In God's eyes, crucifixion is a success.  So is persecution, hardship, and sacrifice. The issue is not status, achievements, reputation, or profit.  It's godly character and eternal fruit."  God is dedicated to life.....His life in us, and the only pathway to that life is the cross.  The flesh sees that as failure.  He sees it, defines it, as success.  How do we define it.  What are we dedicated to?
     Tiegreen writes, "Never look to blind guides to find out if you're successful."  Don't let them define it.  Don't let them direct the building of our own particular "tower."  Who is it we're looking to?  Who is it that's defining our life?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Wasted Seed

      In the book, Passion, a collection of writings from various authors, Beth Moore tells of an experience she had while ministering in Angola. She and her husband were involved in hunger relief work.  In one of the villages they went to, a missionary described how they had distributed seed to the villagers to plant that they might grow their food.  He said that they were so hungry that instead of planting the seed, they ate it.  Seed that was meant to supply them food on an ongoing basis, never did because they consumed instead of sowed it.  It was never able to fulfill its purpose to them.  Moore was brokenhearted.

     She then wrote that this experience caused her to dwell upon we who comprise the western church, and how we are supplied the seed of His word almost on a daily basis through an almost endless array of resources.  Like the Angolans, the seed is received, but it is never sown.  As she puts it, "We can eat it, our appetites can get satiated on it, and it can taste amazing.  We are spiritually full, but nothing changes. Our lives aren't any different than they were and nothing changes.....we ate the seed but did not sow it into the reality of our experience.  God's word was not meant to build up our theology but to change our reality."  The seed the Angolans received gave them a temporary fullness, but made no difference in the reality of their state of starvation.  How true is this of so many of us who populate the chairs and pews of the church, the seats in the Bible study, and the places in the conferences and seminars?
     Many years ago I heard a preacher describe such folk as "spiritual porkers."  People filled up with His word, even growing fat on it, but never having the power of that word exercised into the reality of their lives.  We can do a great job of looking like believers in our weekly gatherings, but in the reality of day to day life, the power of His word and life in us is mostly absent.  Like most others, we react to life instead of responding to it in His life, in His power.  As scripture affirms, we've got the form of godliness, but not the power.  We have the appearance of being His, but He isn't appearing in and through our lives.  The word talks of being among those who "love His appearing," but just where in our lives is He appearing?  Are we living in the power of His life before the culture and transforming it, or is the power of that culture transforming us?
     There's a simple prayer I wrote down in my journal some years ago, and I know I am not yet near having it fully done in my life, but it's my desire that it would be, and that prayer is, "May I not merely gain knowledge, but grow, confess, and change more into who I've been created to be through the power of the Holy Spirit, living a life that cannot be explained apart from the Holy Spirit."  As a man named Juan Carlos Ortiz put it, may I, we, not live out a system of concepts, but live out of and in His life.  Living in the power of His life....day by day, minute by minute, always.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Village Of Nain

    Louie Giglio, founder of the Passion gatherings, helped me to see a familiar passage of scripture in ways I've not seen it before.  We tend to take the miracles of Christ as related in His word at face value, and too often never see beyond the surface.  We miss so much in that.  In the passage found in Luke 7:11-17, Jesus and His disciples are approaching the village of Nain.  As they come near the the town gate, they encounter a funeral procession as a widow and her fellow mourners prepare to bury her only son.  This was a tragedy on every level as women of that day were very limited economically, and thus were dependent upon their husbands or sons.  To lose her only visible (key word) means of support was a devastation beyond description.  Into this sorrow and misery comes Jesus.  Scripture relates, "When the Lord saw her His heart went out to her and He said, 'Don't cry.'  The He went up and touched the bier (stretcher) they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still.  He said, 'Young man, I say to you, get up!'  The dead man sat up, and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother."  I love how Giglio put this encounter, writing, "He met these people right in the middle of their parade of death."  

   We live in a world that stages "parades of death" every moment of every day.  It may well be that we are caught in the midst of one in our own lives right this moment.  Death in the form of devastating loss, disappointment, failure, addiction, divorce, and on and on.  Like the widow, we see no hope, and no help for it all.  We trudge on in the "parade," coming ever closer to our burial site, to the final and lasting defeat.  Could we dare to believe for Christ to enter into that parade, to interrupt it, stop it, and yes, transform it?  We may have read in His word that He gives beauty for ashes, but that can be hard to believe when we're caught in the parade of death.  Yet, even there, can we believe?  Will we believe? That He really will give us beauty for ashes?  As Giglio points out, Christ came upon that procession at just the right time.  Earlier or later, He would have missed it, but He didn't.  He was right on time.  Can we believe Him to be so in our parade of death?

   Do you know that the word  "Nain" means beauty?  Think on that, and think upon these words of Giglio's as well.  In the town of Nain, "Jesus stopped a funeral procession and walked up to a pile of ashes in the making and turned it into something beautiful."  More than once in my life, I have found myself in the "parade of death."  All I saw before me was the graveyard that awaited me.  Into every one of those parades, those processions, He came, interrupting the enemy's desire for me, breaking up the funeral walk planned for me, and turned it into a celebration. Mourning into dancing.  Beauty for ashes.  At the right time, in the right way.  The enemy of our souls may have convinced us that all we have is a pile of ashes.  Yet the Lord speaks to us through Ephesians 5:14, "Awake sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."  From the ashes, beauty.  From death, life.  At the village of Nain, He gives us back our life, now filled with His life.

Blessings,
Pastor O

    

Heart Tracks - 3 Beer Limit

     When it comes to what I listen to in preaching, or read in study, I don't seem to really respond to anything that doesn't in some way challenge or convict me.  Much is discussed today as to the ministry of Christ, but there can be no doubt that everything He said and did challenged His followers in every area of their lives.  Oftentimes anymore, that seems to be an ever fading reality in the modern western church.
     Several months ago I came across something a woman named Jennifer LeClaire wrote.  She was talking of a church she knew of that as a form of "outreach" was holding meetings in a pub.  All were welcome, and alcohol was available there, but it was made known to anyone who came that there was a 3 beer limit per person.  Now, I'm not going to get into debate here on methods of reaching unchurched people, and I don't think anyone who knows me will ever call me a legalist, but is this really what reaching out to the lost has become?  I know we are not to be isolated from our surrounding culture, but I don't think Christ ever modeled that He was in anyway acclimating to it, or partaking of it.  I loved what LeClaire said here, "The gospel of Christ is not obligated to meet the culture where it is, the culture is obligated to bow it's knee to Jesus Christ. That's not unloving or judgemental.  Somehow, we have in so many ways, convinced ourselves that it is.

     This same spirit, and it is a spirit, has seeped into our worship as well.  In a different article, J. Lee Grady wrote, "We say we believe the Bible, but when it comes to the Holy Spirit, we've become cowards.  In trying to become trendy and relevant, we've replaced spiritual anointing with cool music, graphics, sermons and programs that look and sound great, but lack a spiritual punch."  If you doubt this, just look at how many folks are very willing to leave one church for another that does all of these things in bigger and better ways than where they are.  I believe in being a welcoming place to people.....but only to a degree.  I am far more desirous of being welcoming to Him, to His Spirit.  If we're truly committed to that, there will be people who flee His Presence.  There have always been and will always be such.  Those who remain, remain for Him, and the power of that group resides not in its size, but in the degree of His Presence.

    John Piper has said that the desire of his heart is to have a "passion for the supremacy of God in all things."  Is that passion yours?  Mine?  What would happen in the church, be it outreach, ministry, worship, and day in, day out living, if that there were really true of us?  What would be the result if He really was our all in all?  Somehow, I don't think we'd have to be thinking up new, more "effective ways" to reach people.  The fire would be burning, and those being drawn to Him, would come to that fire.  Charles Spurgeon said more than 150 years ago that as he preached, people came to "watch me burn."  The Holy Spirit fire emanating through him would lay hold of an ignite them.  They were a people alive unto God and they impacted not only London, but all of England.  They had a passion for the supremacy of God.  May I, may we, as well.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Still Unbroken?

       I have not read the book, Unbroken, nor seen the movie of the same name, but I do know something of the story of captured WW II airman Louie Zamperini.  Unbroken is the story of Zamperini's survival amidst the terrible suffering he experienced first in having his plane crash in the Pacific Ocean, floating aimlessly in a raft, then captured by the Japanese, at whose hands he suffered terrible tortures.  Through it all, his will to survive could not be broken, and all the efforts of his sadistic jailers could not make him give up.  It is truly inspiring story, yet an incomplete one, for it does not tell all the story of Louie Zamperini.

     After the war, and back home, Zamperini struggled with deep anger issues, and oftentimes violent behavior.  He was filled with bitterness and anger, particularly towards his captors.  He was on a self-destructive path that lasted into the decade of the 1950's.  Then, a neighbor invited him to come along to a Billy Graham crusade being held in their town.  At that gathering, the Father laid hold of his heart, and he gave his life to Christ.  What followed was healing, restoration, and completely new life in Christ.  The man heretofore unbroken, was broken before God, and in his brokenness, found wholeness and life.  He was broken, and he was blessed.
    This was all brought to mind today by a Watchman Nee devotion.  He wrote of Matthew 14 and Jesus' feeding of the 5000.  The people were hungry, but there was not adequate food on hand to feed them.  As usual, the disciples were dumbfounded as to what to do about it, and just as usual, Jesus was not.  He had them bring what little food there was, 5 loaves and 2 fish, and taking them, blessed the people and then broke them.  It was the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, and there were 12 baskets of food left over.  What a miracle.  What an abundance.  What a blessing.  What a misunderstanding we have in all of it.  We love to focus on the miracle, the provision, the abundance, and how blessed everyone was.  We don't really notice that before He fed them, He broke what He gave them.  Out of the brokenness came the blessing.  Without the brokenness, I don't believe there would have been any miracle.
    We are a blessing obsessed culture and church.  We want the miracles and all the provision and abundance that goes with them.  We don't seek brokenness, and will do most anything to bypass it.  Could it be for that reason that we see so few miracles, healings, restorations, and renewals among us?  We are unbroken, and though that may serve us well in the world, as it did Zamperini in the prison camp, it will leave us as empty and wounded as he was before He met Christ at that crusade.  In his brokenness before God, Zamperini found blessing in the healing touch of Christ.  A man whose life was in a million unbroken pieces, was now whole yet broken before God.  It makes no sense in the natural, but is completely the way of the supernatural.
    Everywhere today, both in and out of the church, are unbroken people, seeking to cope with and manage deeply flawed lives.  They battle with all their might to "survive" but dying, not living all the while.  They seek blessing and abundance, but never find that which will bring peace, healing, and joy to their souls.  They never will.  The true blessing of God will only be found at the cross, in brokenness that yields true blessedness.  Have we found it?  Or are will still unbroken?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Ambassador In Chains

       Paul wrote the letter to the Ephesians from a prison cell.  The reality of his circumstances along with what we know of his life leaves little doubt that he spent a great deal of his time in prayer.  Two questions arise.  The first, what is it that we believe he'd be praying for?  The second, what is it that you and I would be praying for?  Scripture gives us the answer to the first, only we can answer the second.

      In Ephesians 6:19-20, Paul makes a prayer request which is obviously his prayer as well.  He writes, "Pray also for me that whenever I speak, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains."  His heart desire was that he would be able to share in ever deeper ways, the mystery, wonder, and knowledge of Christ.  Not mere information about Him, but experiential knowledge of Him.  He wanted to be able to share Christ even there, in the midst of the most trying circumstances.  More, he desired that those circumstances, that dark, lonely cell, be used of the Father to take him into ever deeper understanding of the mysteries of the three in one God.  He saw himself not only in that cell, but everywhere he was, as Christ's ambassador.  His representative of Himself, as He is.  Not someone who shares information of Him, but knowledge that springs from intimacy.  He wanted to represent everything that Christ is to everyone he came into contact with.  It was not just for the purpose of having them believe in and receive Him, but that they too might know Him.  That they would enter into that spiritual mystery as well, and in the entering, He be revealed to them.  That was Paul's response.  I have my doubts as to whether it would be yours and mine.
      I think our response would be more along the lines of "Lord, get me out of here!  Lord, get these chains removed, or at least, loosened.  Lord, surround me with nicer people.  Lord, could you get me a more comfortable room?  Lord, how much longer do I have to be here?"  These would only be a few of our "requests" and I think our requests would likely be more correctly defined as complaints.  I think few of us would ask in such a place that He make us vessels of His living water in that desert.  That He reveal to us more deeply than ever before who He is, and who we are. That He would show us how we could best, in that spot, that very unfriendly place, show forth His life in and through our lives.  That how, in this place despised of our flesh, we discover the unsearchable riches of His life and have them poured into ours.  That's how Paul prayed, and how he asked others to pray for him.  Would we?
     I close with something Watchman Nee wrote.  He said, "It will help us greatly and keep us from much confusion, if we keep constantly before us this fact, that God will answer all our questions (and prayers?) in one way only, namely by showing us more of His Son."  If we are to really be His ambassadors, even when such means we walk through the darkest, most painful places, literally "ambassadors in chains," that we will have greater and greater revelations of Christ, His Son, and through those revelations, greater and greater degrees of His life.  Life that will flow freely and fully through us, to others.  Though kept in our own "prison cells" by so many different things, none can hold us as He, in us, calls others out of theirs.  Ambassadors in chains, vessels of His freedom.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living Worthy

     In the book Passion, a collection of writings from various Christian authors, Francis Chan tells of a journey he and his family made to spend time with various believers in what we would call "3rd world countries" who were suffering severe persecution for their faith in Christ.  In China, he was invited to speak to a group of people who were part of the heavily persecuted underground church movement.  He felt that he, a very privileged and comfortable believer from the west, had little to offer them, so instead, he began to ask them questions.  First, he asked them, "Don't you have people in your churches who just call themselves Christians, but don't live it out?"  They told him, "That wouldn't make any sense.  If you call yourself a Christian, you automatically lose everything.  Why would someone volunteer for that if they weren't really serious?"  That was convicting.  His next story even more so.  Standing with a group of young Chinese believers, he began to tell them of what is common practice in the American church.  "I told them that if one church offers better child care than another, then a lot of parents are likely to switch.  The students starting laughing harder.  I explained that sometimes the people will switch if the service times are more convenient or if they like one speaker better than another.  The students were dying with laughter.  I felt I was doing a comedy routine, but all I was trying to do was explain the American church to the underground church in China."  More conviction.  What he wrote next was the most convicting, and truthful of all.  "We are the strange ones.  Our actions reveal that we think of the church as a building and ourselves as consumers.  The rest of the world looks at us and laughs. Where is the disciple making?  Where is the commitment?  Where is the manner of life that lines up with the gospel?"

     In Philippians 1:27-28 Paul writes, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.......standing firm in one spirit, side by side for the faith of the gospel."  If you read that and think, "OK, I just have to try harder, do more, be more faithful, be less selfish," than you miss it all. The only way we can live a life worthy of Him is to be filled with His very life, so that, as Paul wrote, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in (and through) me."  We can do unselfish works, but only He can give us and cause us to live unselfish lives.  Those, like the believers in the underground churches, who suffer for Him, do so because they have discovered, know, and live in His life and love.  It is a way of life, and no other way makes sense to them.  Any other kind of life is, to them, literally, a joke.
    Augustine said, "There are only two kinds of love.  The love of God unto the forgetfulness of self, or the love of self to the forgetfulness of God."  Two kinds of love.  Two kinds of walks.  Which one is yours and mine?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Trembling

       I'm writing this on a Sunday morning.  As I do so, many thousands of people are entering the doorways of their particular church.  For the next few hours, they will likely be exposed to a good deal of the word of God through teaching, preaching, and singing.  It will not be a new experience. They have heard it the week before, and the week before that, and the week before......well, you understand what I mean.  Likely a good portion have been to a mid-week Bible study or prayer time, as well as some form of daily devotional.  That's a lot of "word" to be exposed to.  The question for you, for me, is how have we responded to that word?  Did we contemplate it, even "receive" it?  Were we indifferent, even bored by it?  Could it be that we had heard it so many times before that it had really gotten "old" to us?  Let's stop here a moment, and consider this question.  How many of us actually trembled at His word today, or any day for that matter?

     Isaiah 66:2 reads, "This is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word."  We don't seem quite comfortable with that.  In an age where we've created a very comfortable God, one who encourages casual relationship as well as worship (and I'm not speaking of clothing attire here), a God who induces an awe, reverence, and yes, fear that brings us to the place of literal trembling, doesn't seem to be exactly what we're looking for.  Yet, this is God as He truly is, God as He actually relates.  If you doubt that, look into that word and see how those who knew Him best responded to Him when He spoke.  He spoke to John in Revelations 1, and he lost all physical strength. Christ spoke to Paul on the Damascus Road and he fell to the ground.  God spoke to Moses and he literally trembled before Him.  In Luke 5, as Jesus spoke, Peter, realizing who He really was, "fell down at Jesus' knees saying 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man O Lord.' "   So many of us talk of coming away from a worship time being "convicted" about something in our lives that He wants to change, yet too often, it never goes beyond that.  Could it be that somehow, we don't really understand just who it is that speaks to us?  The One who with His very words created the universe and all that is in it has just spoken to us.  If we really understood just what that is, what it means, could we really respond in any other way but how John, Paul, Moses, Peter, and a long list others did?
     Commenting on this Francis Chan wrote, "That's what it would look like to tremble at His word.  Yet we open our Bibles all the time and we have to ask ourselves, 'Does this even have a trace of effect on my life?'  We read, 'You are the Light of the world,' and we think, 'Oh, okay, whatever.  What's next?"  Isaiah 66 tells us that the Father looks to those who walk in humility, with contrite hearts, and who tremble at His word.  Is He looking to you and I today?  Does He look to us as we read His word, hear His voice, and as we pray to Him?  If we have heard Him, how have we heard Him?  With a trembling that leads to transformation, or do we once again, exit the building remarking on what a good sermon we just heard as we head out to lunch, or home to the ball game?  Jesus spoke and everything was changed.  What happened when He spoke to us?  What has changed?

Blessings,

Pastor O

 

Heart Tracks - Into The Unknown

      Some time ago I was talking with a young person who was struggling with some issues in her life.  She told me that everything would be just fine if she only knew what was going to happen.  I understood completely.  We all have that yearning.  We want to know the future.  We want to know what's going to come.  What's hidden, what we don't want to admit, is that this desire springs from our yearning to be in control, not just of our lives, but of the lives of others, and all the circumstances that come with them.  The great frustration for us is that no matter how hard we try to achieve this state, we never do, the yearning, and all the frustration that goes with it, grows deeper.
      Hebrews 11:8 says of Abraham, "He went out not knowing where he was going."  Many of us may be very familiar with this verse, but how many of us are actually willing to live it out?  We want to know what's going to happen.  We want to know what to expect, what we can prepare for.  We're willing to "go with God," but only if He provides a road map beforehand, preferably one filled with plenty of comfortable and pleasing roadstops along the way.  More, we want to set the pace of the journey as well, and not only know the destination, but the route we'll be taking to get there.  Hebrews 11:8 was great for Abraham.  After all, somebody had to be the "Father of the faithful," but we're more realistic.  We need to possess more information about the journey.  This is good wisdom.....isn't it?

     God doesn't share this view with us at all.  Oswald Chambers puts His view into very blunt but powerful words, saying, "God does not tell you what He's going to do.  He reveals to you who He is."  This is where our understanding of the purpose of the journey flounders.  We think it's about the destination, but the Father says it is about the Person, Himself.  It's not about revealing the coming events, but coming to know He who is the Lord of the Journey.  Abraham learned of the Father to such a degree that he was called the friend of God.  He entered into an intimacy with Him that few know, yet is offered to all who will journey with Him.  We are so rooted in our interests and the interests of the world, that we are blinded by them.  We're obsessed with wanting to know the destination and all the details leading to it.  He wishes us to be immersed in Himself, and all the wonder of knowing Him, in every aspect of our 3 in 1 God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
    It's another new year.  What will be of most importance to you and I?  Knowing what it will contain, and where it leads, or knowing Him, in ever deepening waves of revelation?  The first will surely lead us into an ever more desolate wilderness, the second, into an ever more wonderful Father.  Which will we choose?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living In Haran

      The Spirit brought to mind today a passage of scripture from Genesis 11. It's about Terah, the father of Abraham.  Terah had a son named Haran, but he had died while still a young man in Ur of the Chaldeans.  After this, perhaps in grief and seeking to forget, Terah took his family out with the intention of settling in the land of Canaan.  However, they came to a village named Haran, and stopped there.  What was likely meant to be just a stop became a dwelling place.  Terah died there.  He never got past the village of Haran, and I think it may also be true that he never got past the grief and pain of losing his son Haran.  He never stopped "living" in that place.

      We live in a fallen world, and as a result, none of us, whether we are believers or not, are immune from loss, failure, defeat, betrayal, and abandonment.  Events may come about that are truly devastating to our lives.  The death of loved ones.  The failure of a business, a ministry.  The betrayal of friends, the terrible attacks of adversaries, and the unavoidable losses that are a part of life.  We can't help but be affected by them, and on every level of our lives, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  We can be paralyzed in all of these areas, and very easily, we can end up "living" there, just as Terah did.
      It may be that when Terah came to that village with the same name as his son, all the memories and pain of his loss flooded in on him.  He had wanted to go on, but somehow, he couldn't.  He was trapped in Haran, and in Haran he would die.  I think so many of us are also trapped in our own "Haran's", crippled, paralyzed, by loss, failure, betrayal and disappointment.  What the Father would take us past, we have settled into.  No matter how much time has passed, we are still there, and the pain and wounds of the past are just as real in our present, and as a result, have stolen our future.  The Father calls us to Himself, but Haran holds us in its grip.
     We see this in relationships.  Men and women who have been betrayed by their spouses, or someone they loved, find themselves unable to form real relationships with the opposite sex.  Mistrust and suspicion rule.  They're trapped in Haran.  Those who have failed, sinned, find themselves unable to receive His forgiveness, and live under a condemnation that doesn't come from Him.  They're trapped in Haran.  Others who have been deeply disappointed in what their life has been.  Disappointed in others, themselves, even the Father, living in that disappointment. They too are trapped in Haran.  Yet all the power of these Haran's cannot keep out the voice of Christ, a voice that always calls us forth.  Like Lazarus from the tomb, we may come forth from Haran, if we'll but hear Him, listen to Him.
     Are you, likeTerah, living in Haran, trapped there?  You needn't like Terah, die there.  The chains and bars that keep you there can, will, with a word from Him, fall off, fall down.  Healing will come, and with it, freedom, strength, and the ability to move on, to the place He has called you to. The pain of the loss, the wound, the failure and betrayal is real, but the joy of His hope is more real.  He calls you, me, us, forth into that hope.  He calls us now, out of Haran, into Himself.  Do we come?

Blessings,
Pastor O