Heart Tracks - Wasting Sorrow

      I think our greatest impulse in pain and sorrow is to find relief, comfort, escape.  I know it was so for me in what was the most painful period of my life some 25 years ago.  I hurt.  I hurt with a pain that was to me, indescribable.  I wanted it to end, and I sought Him constantly for it to end.  I prayed and read His Word.  I sought the counsel and comfort of friends in Christ.  I haunted Christian bookstores, looking for volumes that would offer hope and comfort.  One day, as I browsed such a store in Charlottesville, Virginia, I came upon a book with the unappealing title, Don't Waste Your Sorrows by Paul Billheimer.  Waste my sorrows? This would seem to suggest that there was some good in them, and such an idea was totally alien to what I thought life in Him was to be.  Yes, I knew that the Word called Him "the man of sorrows," but somehow, though I would never put it into actual words, I believed that sorrow was something He underwent so I wouldn't have to.  At least not to any great degree in this life.  Still, I bought the book and began to read.  I would not have thought it at the time, but the Father used that book as a door to coming into a fuller, deeper knowledge of Him than I had heretofore known.  I've a friend who likes to talk about praying "hitherto," and "henceforth" prayers.  In effect, before and after prayers.  How we not only pray but relate to Him before we enter into deeper revelations of Him, and how we pray and relate after He has revealed Himself to us in a much greater way.  Before this darkness, I knew Him in one kind of way.  He would use this place of pain and sorrow to cause me to know Him in a new, more beautiful way.  Beauty from ashes.

     As I said, we react to pain by trying to avoid it, and if that fails, to find a means of escaping it.  If we call ourselves His, then our expectation is that He remedy the situation, and in the fastest way possible.  We believe suffering and sorrow have no place in our lives, but He shows us that they not only have a place, but a purpose.  I'm not saying that He wills suffering and sorrow for us, but we have to come to grips with the truth that we live in a fallen, broken world, and though we are His, we are not immune from the effects of that fall and that brokenness.  His promise to us is not that we will escape it, but that in it, if we will allow Him, if we will not waste the sorrow, we will, in Him, grow stronger, deeper, and higher in our spiritual walk.  We will come to know Him not as we wish Him to be, but as He is.  Christ, the man of sorrows, leads us into the presence of a Father who not only knows our sorrow and pain, but can bring healing and life to us even in the midst of the deepest pain we have ever known.
     Psalm 18:11 reads, "He shrouded (covered) Himself in darkness, veiling His approach with dense rain clouds."  This is not an appealing picture.  As small children, so many of us are afraid of the dark.  Few if any ever really outgrow that fear in the realm of emotions and spirit.  Yet the Father tells us that He will use that darkness to display His glory, faithfulness and love.  Verse 12 of that same Psalm reads, "The brilliance of His presence broke through the clouds."  It will.  It did so for me, and continued to do so in the many dark periods that followed that time of pain.  It continues today.  So it will, He will, for you today......if you, if I, refuse to waste our sorrows.  He will use them as steppingstones to His life.  Life that is ours through Christ....the Man of Sorrows.  The Man who knows, understands, and heals yours and mine.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Homesick and Heartsick

     "The Messiah you are looking for is Jesus."  Acts 5:42......."O God, we are homesick and heartsick for You and we don't know it."  E. Stanley Jones......"But I still haven't found what I'm looking for."  Bono, of the band U-2

      One way or another, everyone is searching for, looking for something.  We may call that "something"by many different names; success, security, happiness, fulfillment, meaning.  But ultimately, and as Jones says, whether we know it or not, the One we truly seek is the Father, and the path to Him, as shown in Acts 5, is Christ, and Christ alone.
      As someone has put it, our hearts are restless until they find their home in Christ.  God spoke in the Old Testament to His people Israel and said in effect, "Throughout eternity, I have been your Home."  Whether we want to confess to it, admit it or not, we are born into this world homeless.  We may live in the finest mansion, and have a life filled with things, but without Christ, we are living under a bridge in a cardboard box.  He created us for Himself, but when sin entered the world through Adam, a separation took place between He and the human race He created.  We lost our home.  Christ was given to us, to die for us, in order that we might regain that home.  We are born with an intense desire to find that home on our own, but all our efforts fall short.  Sin is the blockage.  As Jones put it, all other so called "paths to God" involve ones climbing a ladder to Him, and finally, through our own efforts, we might reach that top rung of the ladder, and so reach Him.  We've passed all His tests and obstacles, and now we're entitled to know Him.  It's a lie.  Jones says, and says it truly, that it is only through Christ, who meets us not at the top rung, but the bottom, that we may know Him, and find our home in Him.  Our own efforts will never get us to the top of the ladder, though countless lives spend all their energy trying to do so.  And if it is not a literal god they pursue, it is one that shows himself through their striving for achievement, happiness, possessions, positions, and recognition.  None of which can ever be "home" to souls that were created to know home only in Him.  The great tragedy is that all the while, just as Jones wrote, our hearts remain homesick and heartsick for Him....while we remain oblivious to that truth.
     What home might you, we, be searching for today?  We may not call that home "Messiah," but we see it as our "savior" nonetheless.  We might call it our deliverer, our answer, our hope, or other names too numerous to list.  The reality is that none of them are or can be our home. And so long as we pursue them, our hearts will remain homesick and heartsick.  Yet all the while, He calls to us, standing at the bottom rung of the ladder, inviting us home.  Do we hear His call?  Do we come to Him?  Are we ready now to come home?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Mountains

        I never cease to be amazed at the distance between what Jesus meant in His words, and what we (choose to) hear and understand.  Too often, something, even everything, is lost in the translation.  Mark 11:23 is one such example, and a good friend gave me a wonderful insight of just how we can so easily miss His meaning, or at least, insert our own.

     Jesus says to His disciples, "Have faith in God.  I assure you that you can say to this mountain, 'May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,' and your command will be obeyed.  All that's required is that you really believe and do doubt in your heart." How many of us have claimed that promise, perhaps numerous times, only to look, and sadly, the mountain was still there?  Is Jesus misleading us, even lying to us? Is it because we simply haven't worked up enough faith yet, and so aren't pleasing Him, therefore, the mountain is still there?  Or, could it actually be that we might be missing what He wants us to hear and see in these words?  

     I know that for so long, I have understood them to mean that whatever obstacle, blockage, difficulty, and impossibility that stands before me and where I want to be, what I want to have when I get there, and who I want to be in the process, will be removed if I just have, speak, with enough faith.  My part is to have sufficient faith (willpower?) and His part is to come through in making my impossible desires and dreams come to pass.  If this doesn't happen, then my choice is to either condemn myself, or Him.  The mountain is bigger than ever, and my faith weaker than ever.  How close to your experience is this?  I think a great need within all of His followers is to not only hear the words He speaks, but to also know what He means as He speaks them.  This is a lifelong journey.  I think we hear His words, but not His voice and heart.  If this is so, we miss everything.
    That brings me back to my friend and his understanding of these words.  He felt that the mountain Jesus speaks of is not really that which blocks the way to what we want, but that which blocks us from seeing Him.  Think on that for a minute.  Which do you think is more important to Him; that we get what we want from Him, or that we get Him?  That we see all the things we desire be ours, or that we see Him in every place?  Where Jesus is, there is no impossibility.  Death, in all of its forms is banished.  There is only life.  Having everything in Him takes the place of having everything we want, and we find then, that what we want is Him. Having Him then brings us into the realm of what my friend calls "Nothing is impossible."  When every mountain that stands between He and us is removed, then so is every mountain that stands between us the life He created us for as well.  When this happens, the mountains that seek to keep us from Him are removed with a word, and I think that word may simply be "Yes."  We say yes to Him, and He says yes to us.  Our yes brings us to Him, and His yes brings all His desire for us.  It's no longer about ourselves, and the fulfilling of all our desires, goals, and plans.  It's about entering into the fullness of a life that His word tells us, "Cannot be destroyed."  The mountains that seek to keep us from that life become powerless as we live in the power of that life, and become "more than conquerors" in the midst of all of them.
    What mountains do we seek to remove?  The ones that stand in the way of what we want, or that which stands in the way of seeing, hearing, and having Him, and all the abundance of life He brings?  In our hearts, which choice do we really desire to make?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Tourists

       "As they went away Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: 'What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?  A reed shaken by the wind?  What then did you go out to see?.....A prophet?  Yes, and more than a prophet."  John the Baptist, of whom Jesus was speaking, drew a lot of attention from the people of Israel.  Wherever he preached, crowds gathered.  They listened to him, enjoyed him.  Many went away transformed by what they heard.  Many more just went away.  Some partake of the Kingdom he preached of.  Many more were just sightseeing, checking out what was going on.  Some were Kingdom of God seekers.  Many were just Kingdom Tourists.  There to take a few "snapshots," maybe even get close to John himself, interested in his message to a degree, but not enough for that message to lay hold of their hearts and lives. Jesus was speaking to those same people now.  People who had come to see John, were now coming to see Him.  Christ and His Kingdom will always draw those whose hearts are being drawn to Him.  It will also attract the "tourists."  Those who may have come there, but they don't, won't, live there.

      I had the joy of living in beautiful Colorado Springs for 4 years of my life.  The Springs is a great tourist attraction, drawing thousands upon thousands of tourists every year.  They can be seen everywhere, taking pictures, posing at famous landmarks. They're there a week, two weeks, seeing all they can, and enjoying all of it.  Then they go home.  The Springs was a great place to enjoy for the moment, but it was not where they lived.  It was not where they would abide.  They took memories home with them, photos of the wondrous mountains, the beautiful Garden of the Gods, and of course, Pikes Peak.  Those photos would go into albums, or be kept on their laptop, to be looked at from time to time, and with warm memories.  It went no further than that. That's where they had visited.  It was not where they lived.

     I contrast that with the life of the dear old woman I knew in the Nursing Home  I worked at.  She had a room with a large window that looked out directly upon majestic Pikes Peak.  I remember her saying to me one time, "I never get tired at looking at my mountains."  You see, she had been born there.  Had lived there all her life.  The beauty of that city and area were part of her. They weren't just something she looked at, they were hers.  Tourists, and residents.  There's a world of difference between the two.  It is even more true as concerns His Kingdom.  Are we tourists, sightseers of it, or citizens, dwellers within it?
    Eugene Peterson wrote this prayer as concerns Jesus' words in Matthew 11.  He writes, "It is a lot easier for me, Lord Jesus, to be an onlooker than a participant.  I get all the pleasures of diversion and excitement, and none of the stress of risk and discipline.....Forgive me for looking on, and enable me to enter in, by faith.  Amen.".......You and I may be found "in church" every time the doors open.  We may be in prayer groups, Bible studies, Sunday School classes, and countless other "church stuff," but still nothing more than tourists in the Kingdom.  We like what we see.  It may please our emotions, but our hearts and being remain untouched.  We may have our snapshot memories to look at, but what we have seen is not "ours."  We may have visited there, but we're not living there.  His Kingdom is not ours.  Our kingdom is found somewhere else.
   So, if you are one of those who finds themselves at anything that is being done in his name, how do you answer His question as to what you've, we've, come to see?  Have we come to look on....or to enter in?

Blessings,
Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - High Places

     "And Jehoash did right in the sight of the Lord all his days in which Jehoida instructed him.  Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places."  2 Kings 12:2-3  It's remarkable how many times a believer can read that scripture and walk away believing it has no relevance for us.  For the record, high places were elevated places or raised altars that were erected for the purpose of worshiping the idols and false gods of the nations surrounding Israel.  It was a snare the Israelites were constantly being entangled in. They were very willing to offer worship to the Living God, but they clung to those high places, those other "gods and idols" that they had welcomed (yes, welcomed) into their lives.  The high places are mentioned almost exclusively in the Old Testament, and therefore, we, who tend to only focus on the new covenant in Christ, tend to believe they have no meaning for us today.  We would be, we are, wrong.  We are saved and kept by His grace in Christ, but that doesn't mean we haven't reserved the right to keep our own "high places," places where we offer "worship" to other "gods" in our lives.  

     We can erect a high place just about anywhere, especially in "the church."  We can make a high place out of a person, be they our spouse, our children, a relationship, a friend.  It can be our profession, our favorite entertainments, sports, and yes, ministries, and that which we believe we are doing for Him.  The high place in our life is anything or anyone who has taken our heart in any way and to any degree from Him.  The Bible called it giving glory to something or someone other than the Father.  In Old Testament times they were highly visible, but they've become a great deal more subtle today.  We can find them in our home entertainment center, our IPads, laptops, fantasy leagues, recreation, relationships, careers, and especially in the church office and building, and everything that might go on there and beyond there.  It can be something good, very good, but it isn't God, and it's become a high place, and we're "burning incense" on it every day.  We are worshiping it, them, and not Him. Our hearts are divided, and so, not fully, really His.  The end of it will always be weakness and defeat.  It was so for Israel, and it will be so for us.  Good will always fail us.  God will not.

     We may deal with all these kinds of high places in our lives, and yet still be held captive by one whose presence can be the most deceptive of all, but will always seek to supplant His glory.  Our pride.  It lurks everywhere and seeks to overthrow Him in every place.  It comes disguised in many forms, including what looks like service and humility.  But the motive is not to bring attention, honor, and glory to Him, to Christ, but to ourselves.  We are not trying to point to Him, but to us.  It's the power of the self, and can only be destroyed by a surrender of that self on His altar, and a willing tearing down of all other altars that we've erected around Him.  Do we have the courage to allow His Holy Spirit to expose where in our heats these "other altars" are found?
     Some years ago I saw a "reality TV" program where the mother of a small girl held a birthday party for her that cost $50,000.  Part of the expense was in hiring a songwriter to compose a "theme song" for the little girls life, and band to sing it that day.  Absurd?  For sure.  Yet, don't we, in how we live our lives also compose a theme song?  We will, and it will be either all about us, and our desires, or all about Him, and His. Each of us today is writing one.  Is it about us or all about Him?  We will write the first at one of our high places.  The last can only be written at His cross.

Blessings,
Pastor O
     

Heart Tracks - The Hyena

       In the spiritual realm, there are two grave dangers; making too much of the devil, and making too little.  I think we have a great deal of both in the church today.  There are those who think their ministry is to go about rebuking Satan at every turn, constantly seeking to bind him, defeat him.  They end up bringing more attention to him than they ever do to Christ.  All those in that "group" need to know (again) that he is already defeated, and that all the power needed to resist him in their lives has already been given in Christ.  We're to be aware of his schemes, not obsessed by them.  And to know that we have all the spiritual weaponry to defeat every scheme in every place.  Yet there are also those who think of him as so obscure as to have no relevance in our modern, "enlightened" culture.  We're the Kings kids, and so the devil can't touch us. We can breeze through life relying far more on our own understanding than His, seeing with the eyes of the flesh and not the Spirit.  We forget that Satan really does "prowl about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he MIGHT devour."  Might he be devouring you right now....unawares?

     In explaining the story of Adam and Eve and their temptation and deception by the devil to a Swaziland family, a missionary used this story.  An African woman and her three children encountered a hyena sleeping by the side of the road with rattles around his feet.  "The woman and her children wanted to see him dance, shaking the rattles.  The hyena agreed to do so if she would give him a piece of the dried meat she was carrying.  One thing led to another and he ate not only all of her meat, but the woman and her children as well."  He then explained that "The hyena was like Satan.  He tempts us with something fun or beautiful, but ends up destroying us."  Such is the end for all who think they can dance with the devil and remain untouched.  Does not the Word refer to him as "The Destroyer?"  Yet, because we are so easily deluded and deceived by him, countless numbers of us do just that, leaving so much of our lives, families, ministries, and above all, walk with Him, partially or completely destroyed.  Satan is a dance partner with murder, ours, yours, in his heart.
     Yet, there is another "Partner" who invites us to dance as well.  This one is He who gives us Life instead of death, joy instead of sorrow, peace instead of turmoil, and abundance instead of devastation.  It's the Father Himself.  He calls us into the embrace of His Presence.  Not some vague sense of that Presence, but an intimate union with Himself.  It's a dance that makes us one with Him.  Not only in spiritual position, but in spiritual reality as well.  For all who enter into His dance, there is complete safety from every trick and scheme of the enemy.  Francis Fragiapane wrote that, "The true Presence of Christ is the only thing that keeps us from delusion and deception."  He is Truth, and where His truth reigns, deception has no place, and no power.     

     It's very much a thing of the past I believe, but there was a time when at a ball, a single young woman would have a dance card, and the names of those who wished to be her suitors would seek to have their names on that card in order to dance with her, and have the chance to win her hand in marriage.  Such cards do not exist today, but in the spiritual realm they do.  On whose card are our names found?  With whom will we dance, and be partnered to?  The Father, or the hyena?.......I close with this final thought/question. I believe it was Christine Caine, commenting on 2 Kings 18:32 who put both forth.  Sennacherib, the king of Assyria has invaded Judah, and threatens the people with destruction and slavery if they do not surrender to him.  He tells them that if they will yield to him, he will see to it that they are taken away to a wonderful land where all their needs and wants will be met.  He calls on them to "make peace with me......choose life instead of death."  Of course his "invitation" was a lie.  All the enemies invitations are.  Caine's point is that throughout His Word, the Father also calls upon us to "choose life (His life) not death."  She says that there are then two versions of life offered.  The devil's, and the Father's.  She asks, "Which version do we choose?"  Which are we choosing right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The End?

       There have been many places in my life when the devil, working through circumstances, pain, loss, and need, has sought, and still seeks to convince me that at that place, I have reached the end.  The end of my dreams, desires, ministry, life.  His persuasion skills are powerful, and while his whispers from the darkness can sound like truth, like reality, they are, as always, a lie.  Jesus said that he was a liar from the beginning.  He always will be.  Might it be that you're hearing some of his whispers right now?  Is he telling you, in the darkness you walk in, that this is the end?

     We are seeing a huge increase in opposition to the church of Christ throughout the world, and very much here in America. The enemy is coming against us on every front, both as the Body of Christ, and the individuals who comprise that Body.  Satan hates what the Father loves, and the Father loves His church and people beyond description.  The devil's hatred will also be beyond description.  His hearts desire is to bring about the end of His church and of His people.  He will paint a very convincing picture of this end for us, but it's a counterfeit one.  It only looks real.  God alone applies the brushstrokes to the lives of His people.  In the midst of all the darkness and need, He continues to paint the portrait of our lives and all that pertains to them.
     Matthew 10:16-23 gives Jesus' words to His followers; "I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves...."  He goes on to list all that His followers will face in their journey with Him, and it is not a list that the flesh can accept.  He states bluntly that, "The one who endures to the end will be saved."  First, know that Christ here proclaims that He, and not the enemy define "the end."  Secondly, we need to know that the only way we will "endure" is by and in the power of His resurrected life.  Anything else or less will surely perish.
     Of this scripture passage, Eugene Peterson writes, "We live spiritually and morally in hostile country.  We need to be realistic about that...... Family strife, social discord, church unrest are not the end.  Christ is the end."  Wherever we are, no matter how dark and dangerous, no matter how threatening to our very lives, it is not the end.  Christ is the end.  And the beginning.  As the devil prepares for us a gravestone, Christ prepares a door.  A door into a new place in Him.....if we will endure in Him.
   How can we?  Watchman Nee speaks on Psalm 118:27, "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar."  This verse has to do with the Old Testament offering of burnt sacrifices to God on the altar.  It was a whole burnt offering to Him.  All of the sacrificed animal was consumed by the fire.  Romans 12:1 tells us that the New Testament sacrifice is to be a living one, yet one that is also wholly consumed.  Nee writes, "The meaning of the altar is that the offering of our lives to God is to be ever consumed, yet ever living: to be ever living,  but ever consumed."  Such a life will not only endure, but prevail.  Such a life will know that it is not the devil's words, but Christ's that are the end.  Whose end are we seeing and believing today?  The counterfeit one painted by the devil, or the true, ever unfolding one created for us by Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - God As Retailer

        I've a friend that likes to compare our relationship with the Father as one of a customer and a retailer.  A consumer and a supplier.  We can have some very warm feelings about this "Retailer," just as we do about our favorite places to shop, eat, and get other "goods" we need, or think we need.  We think of Him as "ours" just as Macy's, Best-Buy, Wal-Mart, and Olive Garden are ours.  We like to think of these places as being ours, but rarely, if ever, do we consider ourselves "theirs."  Even if our credit card statements may say otherwise.  I think this may be for many of us an apt description of our relationship with Him.  He is ours, but we are not His.  At least not in anything more than words.

     The Song of Solomon can be a very overlooked book in the Bible, but it warrants real study, for it details how, no matter what we say, our walk with Him really unfolds.  It's about a Bride, we the church, and a groom, Christ.  As the book begins, everything is about the Bride and how her love for the groom is grounded completely in what He does for her.  She rejoices in His gifts to her, but not in Him.  He longs for intimacy with her, but she longs for gifts, blessings, from Him.  It's not until He has led her through a long, oftentimes painful journey, that her eyes are opened to who He is, and how worthy of her love He is.  He is not her possession, she is His.  Completely His.  Borrowing on the idea from my friend, she is no longer a consumer seeking "stuff," she is a "communer," seeking and receiving Him.  She doesn't get goods, she gets God.
    Chapter 2:16 reads, "My beloved is mine, and I am His."  She speaks this from a heart set on herself first.  She sees Him far more as belonging to her, than she to Him.  Being His is very secondary to Him being hers.  Do we see any correlation in our own ideas and walk with Him?  How like her are we?  Many parents say of their inappreciative children that they are merely "checkbooks" to them.  At root, is there much difference in how He sees us?  Is the Lord ours, or are we His?  Which attitude is foremost in our hearts?  Here's a penetrating question.  Heart piercing actually.  If the Father were to bless us with all we think we need, yet withdraw from our lives, leaving no discernible Presence, would we be OK with that?  Would we notice?  Is the blessing more desirable to us than Him?  The patterns of our lives as to time spent pursuing our desires, and in pursuing Him will supply the answers.
    Matthew 9:27-31 tells the story of Jesus healing the two blind men.  After He had done so, He told them to tell no one, yet they immediately went out and told everyone.  Eugene Peterson said of this, "They enjoyed immensely the benefits of being with Jesus, but blithely ignore His commands.  As long as they need help they are all eagerness and attention; as soon as they get what they came for, they disregard Jesus completely."  This is the mindset and life pattern of a consumer, not a "communer".  Is it ours; yours and mine?  Who belongs to who, and who is really Lord?  Is He our heavenly retailer, or our Heavenly, and earthly King?  Is He one more favorite, alongside Macy's and Best-Buy, or does He stand alone, as God, Savior, Lord of all?  One way or another, our lives will give an answer.

Blessings,
Pastor O
    

 

Heart Tracks - Cheap Sacrifice

      I believe in the goodness, the endless goodness of the Father through Christ.  I believe in His faithfulness, His mercy, and above all, His unconditional love.  I believe He gives these, and so much more.  I believe they are free, just as I also believe, know, they are not cheap.  To give them cost Him everything, His Son.  To receive them to the fullest extent will cost us as well, and there's the glitch.  We very much want His everything, but we want it to cost us as little as possible.  In fact, nothing is always our most popular idea of price.  How can something that is free incur to us cost?  It's because the cost is not in what we can gather up to give Him in order to get what we want from Him.  The cost to us is far more in what we cannot see than what we can.  To have all of Him, we must surrender all of ourselves.  In 2 Samuel 24, David has come to the threshing floor of one of his subjects, Araunah.  The Father had commanded Him to build an altar to Him there.  When David told Araunah why he had come, Araunah offered to give it to him for nothing.  To this, David replied, "No, I insist on buying it, for I cannot present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing."  I wonder.  If the same offer were made to you and I as to what we are to give Him in worship through every aspect of our lives, would we reply as did David?  Or, would we be overjoyed at the prospect that we can label what we give Him as "worship" even though there has been no cost to us at all?  Not in any area of our lives or that which we hold dear in them.

     Recently I read the account of a missionary to Central Asia of something he saw as concerns one of the sacrificial rites practiced by Muslims.  Animals are offered up for a variety of reasons, one of them being for forgiveness of their sins. (I interject here that I am so thankful that in Christ, that sacrifice is made already for all would receive and believe upon Him.)  Of course, these animals must be procured from somewhere, and usually, from a merchant who specializes in supplying them.  The missionary saw in the window of one such merchant, this sign, "Come to our market for the cheapest sacrifice."  Two questions rise up in my mind and heart.  First, how appealing is such a sign to me?  How anxious am I to find the cheapest, cost free aspects of my life to offer to Him in worship?  What's the "nothing" I want to give Him?  Second, how much like the sign in that window, is the "sign" I consciously or not, wish to have in the "window" of our church fellowship?  Before I can answer, I really do have to, as Christ commanded, "Count the cost."  How do you answer?  How do you count the cost?
    A.W. Tozer once said this; "Christ calls men to carry His cross; we call them to have fun in His name.  He calls them to suffer; we call them to enjoy all the comforts modern civilization affords.  He calls them to holiness; we call them to a cheap and tawdry happiness......Let us not be shocked that there are disadvantages to the life in Christ!"  So, we come back to the threshing floor of Araunah.  Which relationship transaction will we enter into?  Araunah's offer that costs us nothing, or David's choice, the one that cost him his right to himself?  The choice will be before us every day.  Which one are we continuing to make?

Blessings,
Pastor O

 

Heart Tracks - Handling The Truth

        There's a scene in the popular movie, A Few Good Men, when the naval attorney played by Tom Cruise demands of Jack Nicholson's marine colonel, "I want the truth," to which Nicholson gives the now classic reply, "You can't handle the truth!" The scene puts me in mind of a great deal that is happening within the church today.  It has always been so to some degree, but I believe it's rising to epidemic proportions now.

      I believe we like to think of ourselves as seekers of the truth, and have developed ministries built around reaching such wherever they may be found.  Like Cruise's navy lawyer, we say we want the truth, but the greater reality for us may be found in Nicholson's colonel's reply.  We simply can't handle the truth.  Not as that Truth, all of it, is revealed in Christ.
     A.W Tozer wrote this over a half-century ago, but it has lost none of its power.  It hit hard then.  It hits hard now.  Maybe even harder.  He says, "Real seekers after truth are almost as rare as albino deer.  Why?  Because truth is a glorious but hard master. Jesus said 'I am the Truth' and followed Truth straight to the cross.  The Truth seeker must follow Him there, and that is the reason few men seek the Truth!"  The destination for all who seek His Truth, is the cross.  We are brought there not as sightseers, but partakers.  It's where the self dies, so that the Truth, Christ, lives.  Jesus promises to be the Truth that sets us free, brings us into His abundance of Life, but the cost to us is the death of self. That is the Truth, and yes, the Truth does hurt us.... to death. Curiosity seekers, those with a passing interest in Him won't go there.  Only those that He is drawing to Himself, and His cross. We will come to church.  We will come to small groups, and a host of other "church" related things.  We will come to many things that find a place around Him, are linked to Him, but few of us will come to His cross.  Truth, glorious and beautiful as Tozer says, is a hard master.  Many have a difficult time handling that.  Are you and I part of the "many?"
     Chris Tiegreen wrote, "God will not take us down easy paths to conform us to Jesus.  He doesn't lead us on a walk in the park, but toward a struggle in the garden of Gethsemane.....and we know when we get there, that He will lead us unto death."  Death to all that is not Him, and Life in all that is Him.....1 John 1:1 records the words of the apostle as concerns the disciples knowledge of Christ.  "What we have heard.  What we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life."  For so long, they had heard but didn't hear. Saw, but didn't see.  Touched, but couldn't handle.  Truth was in their midst, but they kept stumbling.  Can we identify?  After the resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, everything changed.  They knew the Truth, and the Truth had made them free.  They knew too that the same cross that their Lord died upon awaited them, literally, in one form or another.  But they could face it all because they no longer shrank back from His Truth, but embraced it.  The fullness of His Truth and Life will never come cheap as it cost Him everything to give it.  It will cost us everything to have it.  Will we have it?  We say we want the Truth.  In Him is all Truth.  He offers it.  Can we handle it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

 

Heart Tracks - No Confidence

        "We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."  Philippians 3:3  Commenting on this passage, Watchman Nee wrote, "Circumcision was a sign that marked out the Jew from the rest of mankind. What is the corresponding mark of our Christian life before men?.....What distinguishes God's own is that their confidence in the flesh is destroyed and they are cast back upon Him."  If you consider yourself a believer, I think that you would say that you believe this verse, and Nee's thoughts are true.  Can I dare to ask you, as I dare to ask myself, what does the witness of my life show to be the source of my confidence?  The Father, or ourselves?  Before we answer, can we allow His Spirit to search our hearts and lives to see just how we've "conducted business" in our choices, decisions, relationships, affairs, and perhaps most importantly for we in the church, our ministries?  Where does our true confidence lie?

     Nee says that "The spiritual man walks humbly, always aware that he may be wrong."  Do you and I walk in such humility?  Are we open to being wrong?  When it comes to the conduct of our lives, the pathway we're on, that we've chosen, do we forge ahead totally sure of the rightness of the way?  So sure, that if there be any dissenting voices, no matter how lovingly spoken, we see them as opponents, even enemies, getting in the way we wish to go.  Many a person, perhaps many more pastors, have had such an approach to life and ministry, only to find at some point, and with much sorrow, that they were wrong.  They'd put their confidence in their own abilities, understanding, wisdom, and intellect....the flesh.  If there was a confidence in God, it was more likely in the thought that they were "confident" that He would bless and add onto their lives in the course of the journey.  I have seen this in the lives of many, just as I have seen it my own.  Families, marriages, lives, ministries, and churches, that have suffered spiritual shipwreck, all because we saw a "way that seemed right to us," only to find that it's end really was death.
     We live in a culture that worships the power of the individual, and we in the church have been heavily influenced, in some ways, conquered by that culture and mindset.  We live in the place of "presumption," presuming that we know the best and right way. Just as we presume that the Father is totally on board with us in that way.  The Word calls living in such a place of presumption sin, yet somehow, we keep missing that truth.  So we go on with our affairs, laying out our plans before men, but rarely before God.  We spend months formulating a strategy, and mere minutes laying everything before Him in prayer.  We may build something, but it is nothing more than wood and stubble.  The eternal is missing, because it was built in the power of self, and not the power and life of Christ.  Chris Tiegreen says that "Living in the power of the flesh is perpetual futility.  It accomplishes nothing eternal.......We are promised success, but are delivered nothing that lasts."  That will always be the final result of a life lived in the confidence of self.  Nothing.  The Father said of His people Israel who were living apart from His life and power that in the end, they were living lives that "amounted to nothing."  Hard words.  To what degree do they apply to us?
     May we, in whatever places we live in the power of the flesh, renounce those places, and come instead into the fullness and power of a life, His life, that Hebrews 7 says, "cannot be destroyed."  Lives, ministries, fellowships, walking in a way, that yields not wood and stubble, but the silver and gold of His Kingdom.  Living with no confidence in ourselves, but ever abounding confidence in Him.  May we, but will we?

Blessings,
Pastor O
     

Heart Tracks - Entombed

        "It must be unnatural for Jesus to leave anything dead."  Beth Moore  How does that statement leave you?  In anger or joy? Agreement, or denial?  I ask those questions because death is a part of life.  We can be sure that in this fallen world, we will suffer loss. The Father has never promised that we wouldn't, or that we would not suffer or know the deep pain of losing loved ones, marriages, prodigal children, jobs, or ministries.  There will be many "tombs"in our lives.  His promise is that they do not have the power to keep us "entombed."  In each and all of them, like Lazarus, He calls us forth.  Christ, and Christ alone, offers to us, in every "dead place," His resurrection life.  From every tomb, from every grave, He calls us forth.  Do we come to Him, or, do we remain in the tomb?

     Acts 2:24 holds a powerful promise for us.  Do we believe it?  Peter, preaching on the day of Pentecost, and announcing the victory of the Father's Kingdom over all the power of death, said of His Lord's death and resurrection, "However, God released Him from the horrors of death and raised Him back to life again, for it was impossible for death to keep Him in its grip."  Today, there are countless lives, both within and outside of the church that are being held in the grip of death.  Might you be one of them?  There has been loss, terrible loss. Our enemy satan, working through the power of death, has managed to entomb us over the pain and suffering of the loss.  To that tomb Christ has come, and He calls us forth, into the fullness and power of His resurrection life.  Satan has convinced us of his lie that there is no future, no hope, and no chance for escape.  He has us in his grip, and has persuaded us that it's an unbreakable one.  Christ has destroyed the power of that lie, and of every lie.  He calls us forth.
     Oftentimes, we think no one understands the depth of the pain and suffering of our loss, but we're wrong.  He does, and He does completely.  John 3:16 has familiarity with even the most hardened unbeliever, yet few of us really understand the pain of the Fathers loss in those words.  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son......that (we) might not perish, but have eternal life."  Beth Moore says that a clearer meaning for "His only" might be, "His one and only."  God gave up His one and only Son.  Loss, terrible loss.  What might be the "one and only" person or thing we have lost? How deep is the pain over it?  Can we believe that God knows it, has experienced such pain as well?  He knew that death could not hold His Son.  Can we believe that through His death and then His raising, that it cannot hold us either?

     Moore says that sometimes the miracle is that "we live through" the horror of the loss.  That may sound empty to you, but she does not say we exist through it, but that we live through it.  Live through in and with His resurrection life.  His abundant life, which at root means "life unbound."  When Jesus called forth Lazarus, He bid those who were there to "unbind" him from his graveclothes.  Loss is not what defined, defines Christ.  Life is.  Does it define you and I?  To all those entombed, He calls us forth....to life.  A life free of the graveclothes.  He calls us forth.  Do we come?
    Mark Batterson has a wonderful title for his newest book; Graverobber.  That is exactly who and what Christ is.  A graverobber. Through the power of His life, a life the word tells us cannot be destroyed, He calls us forth from all that seeks to or has entombed us.  Sin and spiritual death, and the separation from the Father that they bring.  The horror, pain, and suffering of what may have been lost to us. From the grip of the pain of that loss, He calls us forth.  The enemy may have robbed us of life, and managed to place us in a grave, a tomb, but He calls us forth, robbing death, the tomb, of its power.  It could not hold Him in its grip, and in Him, it cannot hold us.  I know the loss is real, in my own life I do.  I know that He is more real.  Is He real to you?  Let Him rob death of its power over you, and enter into the power of His life that He will prove to us, cannot be destroyed.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Pathway

        Some years ago, on a trip home, I had the desire to revisit some of the places I had known and walked growing up there. Among these were the paths that ran all through the woods that surrounded our home.  These had been well known pathways, much walked and used by people of many ages in that area.  I had used them so often that it was no problem to walk them even on the darkest night, so familiar were they to me, and so many others I'm sure.  Yet, when I went into those woods, I was saddened and disappointed to find that they had vanished without a trace.  Those well worn paths were now covered by wild trees and bushes of every variety.  So overgrown with this "wildlife" that they were impassable.  They were now just a memory.

     I think of that experience often when I see where we are in the church.  Please, I am not making a plea for the keeping to tradition, and all the kind of thinking, some of it wrong, that goes with that "label."  Change can be very good and very healthy, but not all is change is good and healthy.  More, I am not talking about overreactions to new methods of church life, or an insistence on our keeping to a church culture of past decades.  No one who really knows me would believe that.  The pathways I speak of are not much to do with what we "do" but who we "are."  Especially as to who we are, and what we have in Christ. Pathways that were walked by men such as the apostles Paul and Peter.  By Luke, Matthew, John, and through men such as Wesley, Spurgeon, Moody, Chambers, Tozer, Sparks, and Nee.  Men who walked the pathway to and into the heart of the Father. A pathway blazed by our Savior, Jesus Christ.  A pathway that I fear, is becoming more overgrown with the wild each day.
     In the modern message of "hyper-grace" where, intended or not, a message is growing that pathways such as the "discipline" of prayer, seeking His face and heart, abiding in Him, speaking with Him, and listening to Him, are being laid aside with the belief that these are all "works of the flesh" and that His grace negates this.  He's done everything, and so, the message, again intended or not, is being heard that therefore, we don't need to do anything.  The joy that Paul and all those others spoke of, of knowing Him more, loving Him more, of dying to self, and seeking Him, is being lost and replaced by a "me" centered gospel.  Jesus came for and died for me, so that that "me" could have all the blessing that His life and sacrifice bring.  Everything is on Him, and nothing much, if anything, is on me.  The greatest tragedy in it all is not the bad teaching, but that so many are missing out on the joy and blessing of a life that hears Him, sees Him, knows Him, and abides in Him, and all of it more and more.

    T. Austin-Sparks said that beginning with the prophets, and continuing on through His Word, the central message was that we are called to know Him and love Him, and increasingly so in our lives.  It's a knowing that goes on throughout all eternity.  It is the "one thing" Paul spoke of in Philippians 3; the pressing on into the fullness of the "upward call" of Christ.  Paul "strained forward" to answer that call, and enter into that place.  No, it is not a "work" but it is a movement...to and into Him.  A pathway. Are you, we, on it?  Has it gotten overgrown by the wild?  Begin anew, and He will clear it.  The footsteps of all those who have gone before, including Christ the King, are there.  It will take us upward ....and all the way home.

Blessings,
Pastor O