Heart Tracks - So Much More

 "Amaziah asked the man of God,'But what should I do about the silver I paid to hire the army of Israel?' The man of God replied, 'The Lord is able to give you so much more than this.' " 2 Chronicles 25:9.............."We are very anxious to have Him work for us, much less so to have Him work in us. As He works for us, He wants us to awaken to what He wants to work into us." T. Austin-Sparks

The man of God spoke the above words to Amaziah the king after he had hired troops from the northern kingdom of Israel to fight against the Edomites. God directed him to do so because he was not with the rebellious people of the northern kingdom. Amaziah saw that doing so would mean the loss of a great sum of money. The prophets words to him were that the Father's compensation would be "much more" than the amount of sacrifice. As I read it all, the question that arises for me, for us is, what does "much more" mean? Did Amaziah think that the Father's "much more" would be a huge monetary sum that would more than make up for his loss? I don't think it's a stretch to believe he did. His mind and heart were likely set upon things that he could count and measure. More often than not, ours are too.

We are very interested in what God is doing or going to do for us. Most of our expectations with Him are connected to that. We are invested in getting to the places we want to reach, amounts we want to accumulate, and victories we want to count. We are not much invested in seeing and experiencing what He wishes to work into us during the process. We're very impatient to get to where we want to be and possessing what we want to have. We don't like to wait, but will grudgingly do so if we believe we will eventually have our desires met. What we miss in it all is that though we may have a long wait to reach what we want outwardly, we never have to wait to have what He wants to do in our hearts. When it comes to that, the One who waits is almost always God. How long has He been waiting upon us?

I confess that for a long time, I read the above scripture with Amaziah's heart. When I thought of sacrifices made for Him, the losses that would surely come from being with Him, I saw His promise of "much more" being an increase of earthly wealth and gain. Maybe not so much in money, but certainly in success, recognition, and applause. God's much more would be, in the end, comprised of things that would pass away, that were not eternal. His much more would improve my circumstances, but for the most part, leave my heart and spirit untouched. This is where the heart of flesh lives. It's why we respond so well to those who promise us financial, business, and ministry increase if we will come to Him. We seem to be blind to the fact that in doing this we are actually just bartering with Him. We come to Christ for the good bread and fish He offers. We don't come for the cross He calls us to, and level of spiritual life He invites us into. We're very willing to leave our encounters with Him with full hands and an empty heart. We want Him to improve our lives and leave our hearts unchanged. One of the questions asked of Christ as He ministered was, "What will You do for us?" Do we continue to ask the same of Him today?

Which is really our hearts desire? To have Him work for us, or in us? The first makes Him our servant, the latter receives and worships Him as our Lord. Who is more real to us today?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Be Still....There Is!

  ".....for I am the Lord who heals you." Exodus 15:26

Pastor and author Louie Giglio, founder of the Passion worship gatherings, tells the story of his dark night of the soul, a "night" that went on for many months.
He said there came a time to him when he was consumed with fears for his health, ministry and life. Times that would come at the same hour of the early morning.....2 am. He said he would awake and feel a dark heaviness upon his heart and spirit. To such a degree that he believed he was having a literal heart attack. Doctors could find nothing wrong with him physically, yet those 2 am happenings continued for him, not lessening but increasing. He was incapacitated by it and very close to total despair. This went on until one night he awoke, and the same spiritual heaviness, fear and hopelessness came, when all of a sudden, into his mind came the lyrics from a Chris Tomlin song; 

                                                          Be still, there is a Healer

                                                             His love is deeper than the sea

                                                             His mercy, it is unfailing

                                                             His arms a fortress for the weak

He said those lyrics, repeated over and over in his mind, pushed back the darkness, and though he was to suffer these spiritual assaults again the next night, these words, this truth, came to his mind as well. Each time the fear, despair and heaviness was pushed back, and with every pushing back, the frequency of the attacks decreased. The truth that in the stillness there truly is a Healer, overcame the power of the enemy's lie that he was helpless against his assaults. In the stillness he found anew the rest, peace, and power of God. In answer to all the might of hell and darkness was found the truth that the Father was, is, and will always be, the God who heals. The God who heals us. Who heals you and me.

As I think today on all that could possibly come against you and I, all that we in ourselves are powerless to stand against, these four words ring out in my heart, "Be still....there is." This is the answer to all things. To every threat, every need, every enemy. Be still, in Him.
There is....a mighty, infinitely great an unlimited Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who stands with and in us, and comes against all the power of the dark night....and crushes it. In the dark time of our soul, we too need to hear His Spirit whisper to ours, "Be still.....there is.....Me....the great I AM."

If we will know this, believe it, it will then become our experience and reality. The dark nights will come. We will not be immune to them, but we will be victors over them no matter what form they may come against us in. In all of them, we can be still, because THERE IS.....GOD!

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Signature

 "From now on, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus." Galatians 6:17......"Every 'signature' of wounding in our lives can be covered by the 'signature' of Christ....Our wounds can either mar us, or mark us as His." Beth Moore

Beth Moore tells the story of a young woman attending one of the gatherings where she was elaborating on her above quote. She asked if there was anyone in the audience who bore a scar upon their lives from some great tragedy. Sitting only a few feet away was a young woman, who Moore said was looking at her with wide open eyes, and who'd raised her hand. Moore called her to her side and asked her to tell her story. As a very young girl, she had been attacked and mauled by a dog, nearly severing her arm. So much damage was done that all were concerned that she might never gain full use of it again. Her parents asked the Doctors what could be done to bring it back to full strength, that they were willing to do anything. They said the most effective, as well as most difficult and painful way was violin lessons. It would be a tremendous challenge for her, but if undertaken, they felt it would restore her, but warned that in the beginning, it would seem impossible to her. Moore said the scar the young woman bore was the deepest she had ever seen, yet knew that in the midst of it, there was a great story. She asked her for what the late Paul Harvey always called "the rest of the story." Now, so many years after that terrible attack, the young lady was a concert violinist, as well as a sold out believer in Christ. Moore said that the Father had taken that deep scar and by putting His signature upon it, had brought forth a beautiful song in her life, the music of His Kingdom and eternity through that life. This will always be the result when we allow Him, in Christ, to write His name, His signature, upon the deepest, most painful wounds and scars of life. It is so because His signature is always written in the wondrous power and glory of His blood....shed, as the old hymn says, for you and me.

We are not going to escape the wounds and scars of life in a fallen world. What matters then is whose signature will we carry upon them? We can be sure that the enemy of our souls, the devil, will do all in his power to write his name upon them, making them an ongoing and open wound. A wound that never heals, that never releases us. What we must know and experience is the writing of His name, the applying of His signature upon them all. Something mystical and supernatural takes place when we allow Him to do this. The power of that wound, that scar, no matter how deep, is broken when He comes and writes His name on it. That which the enemy meant to bring ongoing shame, bitterness, anguish and sorrow, is turned, as it was in that young woman, into the music of heaven in and through us. The enemy means to mar us with his mark. Jesus Christ means to mark us as His through the writing of His name upon the very wounds and scars our enemy meant to use to destroy us.

Whose signature do we bear today? You may be saved by grace but deeply marred by life. The devil has used your wounds to write his name upon them, using them to cripple you. Into it all, if you, we, will believe and receive, comes Christ. Healing, wholeness, fullness of life is ours if we will allow Him to write His name, affix His signature to every wound. The scars, the marks will still be there, but they will be marks that bring Him glory as they show how His life gives victory, beautiful music, over the the deepest most terrible wound.....There is no other Name, and that name is written not only in our hearts, but over all of our lives. We, like Paul, bear on our bodies, the marks of Jesus.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Timekeeper

 "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son." Galatians 4:4....."His (Jesus) peaceful pace seems to imply that He measured Himself not by where He was going and how fast He could get there but by Whom He was following and how closely they walked together....deeply contented in the Company."

Alicia Britt Chole

"How long O Lord?" This is the cry from millions of hearts. Likely from our heart as well, and often. We spend so much of our life energy setting, focusing on, and striving to reach goals, accomplish agendas, and bring to pass the deep desires of our hearts, but all we have in the end is exhaustion. And more often than not, disappointment and frustration as well. We do seek Him in it all, but mostly as a means of reaching our desired end. He said He'd give us the desires of our hearts, and we mean to hold Him to His word. Even if we do get what we want, we miss what we truly need, Him. We can do this in every facet of life, and may well be most guilty of it in the area of ministry. We have good ends that we want to reach, and we're in a very great hurry to reach them. Jesus said that He "must be about the Father's business." Well, so are we. The problem is, we don't understand what His business is really all about. We have allowed working for Him to take the place of knowing and loving Him. We can have lives dedicated to Him, but I'm not so sure the same can be said of our hearts. This may be best seen when we're forced to deal with the delays that can come along in getting to the place we want to be. Achieving the end that we've been aiming for. Jesus didn't live this way. We ask what would Jesus do? Will we ask as to how Jesus really walked....thought.....lived?

Jesus spent 30 years in obscurity. In that time He had an ever growing picture of what He had been sent for, particularly by the age of 12. Yet He didn't deal with the delay with impatience or frustration. He knew what He was here for, but He was at total rest as to how and when the Father would bring it all about. Chole speaks beautiful words as to how He walked in this time. He did not just have His eyes on where He was going. He had His eyes on the One He was going with. He had zeal, but that zeal was first and foremost in His walk with and in the Father. All the energy of His ministry flowed out of that relationship. He didn't come to show us how to "do." He showed us what to be. What we can become in Him. That's why His Life, amidst all the delays, difficulties, trials and tears, was marked by the total rest and contentment He had in His Father. The One He trusted to bring about all things for Him in the fullness of HIS time. Can we?

Chole asked a question along the line of "Who will hold the clock as to the timing of His purposes in our life?" Who does hold that clock? As concerns His promises, our calling, our ministry, everything that concerns us, who holds the clock? The Father, or us? Whose timetable are we on? His, or ours? Yes, the seconds are ticking away. Will we trust Him fully as they do? Do we really believe that He's never late, that He's always on time? Can we surrender to Him who is "the Timekeeper?

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Carrying Canteens

  "So Abraham got up early the next morning, prepared food for the journey, and strapped a container of water to Hagar'sshoulders. He sent her away with her son, and she walked out into the wilderness of Beersheba, wandering aimlessly........When the water was gone.......she burst into tears....Then God opened Hagar's eyes and she saw a well." Genesis 21:14-16, 19..........."Do we want a canteen of water or a well of Living Water."

This is the third time that my writing seems to have a desert setting. It's not the direction I had any intention of going in, but it is the way He's leading. Maybe it's because for all who truly wish to live fully in Him, the desert will await....whether we desire it or not. The question then is, with what and how will we make the journey? In the barren wasteland, our needs will be many. Food. Rest. But above all, water. Lots of water. Like our physical life, our spiritual one will not last very long without constant fillings of the water of His Life. Moore's question confronts us. Will we try to make the journey carrying our water supply in a canteen? Or, will we walk in the constant presence and supply of Him who is the Well of Living Water and Life? Which will we look for? To which are we looking now?

I think most of try to make do with our canteens. We try to fill them up in the weekly worship service, the mid-week Bible study, and whatever "quiet time" we can get in between those. We're hoping the canteen doesn't run dry in the meantime, but too often it will. It does. Life is a constant process and journey of trying to keep the canteen filled, but more often than not, watching it become empty. When you carry your water in a canteen, it has to be taken in small doses. You always fear it running out before you can get to the next well. The result is your thirst is never really satisfied, and you're never really filled. Instead of a flow of water, we have drops. This is so in the spiritual realm as well. We live on drops, which is not the life He has for as at all. Like Hagar, we despair when the canteen is dry, and like Hagar, we are unable to see the well that He has right before us. The well of Living Water that is Christ. So many souls have fallen by the wayside in the desert because they were depending on a canteen to survive, and not He who is the Source of all Living Water, and does not promise survival, but abundance. 

How are walking today? Are we depending on our "canteen" and the next meeting, prayer group, bible study, or conference to fill it? Or, have our eyes been opened to the well of Life, His Life, that's there right now? That's always there. Will we carry a canteen of water, or will we be carried along by the River of His Life? A river that can never stop flowing, even in the deepest and driest desert place? When we truly know our Source, we can throw away all our canteens. They'll not be needed. We don't live from "oasis to oasis," In the most desolate place, He will be a perpetual oasis to us. The River of God will flow. Will it flow into and through us?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Of Another Spirit

"Phillip said, 'Lord show us the Father and we will be satisfied.' Jesus replied, 'Phillip, don't you even yet know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you?' " John 14:8-9....."But My servant Caleb is of another spirit from the others." Numbers 14:24....."What comes forth from our hidden times with Him is a more accurate knowledge of the Father." Alicia Britt Chole

I've a good friend who served as a missionary in South America, and he likes to tell of one of the differences between their culture and ours. When they are asked about a city or place, the question will come along the lines of "Do you know Buenos Aires?" Their answer, if they have never visited that city would be, "No, I don't know Buenos Aires." They may be well versed in facts about the city, and have seen countless pictures of it as well. But because they have never been there, walked its streets, seen with their own eyes its beauty, they did not know it, in spite of all their mental knowledge of it. I think this is a good illustration of far too many of us in the Church when it comes to describing to others the wonders and beauty of the Kingdom. Of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We've read the Book that tells of Him, listened to the stories others have told of Him, but we've never "been there" ourselves. We're like Thomas. We've been around Him, but we have yet to come to really see and know Him.

If you're familiar with the story of Caleb, you know that he, along with Joshua and ten others were sent out to explore the promised land that the Father had given Israel. When they came back, he and Joshua told of the wonders they had seen, of all the beauty and promise the land held for them. The other ten could speak only of the troubles and difficulties that lie there. They saw everything, even the smallest details, through their eyes of flesh and the filter of their own understanding. His Word tells us that Caleb, along with Joshua, walked and saw through the power of His Spirit. They saw everything, including the smallest details, with Kingdom eyes. The eyes of Christ. This is what Jesus is saying to Thomas, and it's what He continues to say to you and I today. Does He go on walking with us, ministering to us, and yet we don't see Him in everything? Don't know Him in everything?

In my last Heart Thoughts, I wrote of how the Father uses the desert places of life to reveal Himself to us in deeper, higher, and wider ways than we thought possible. He will use the barren, hidden places of life to reveal more of Himself than we thought it possible to know. We will enter into a knowledge of Him that can never  be found from the place of comfort and what we consider to be "the blessed life." Of this Beth Moore once said, "People with blessing centered lives have no power to speak into the lives of those who are not experiencing those same blessings." We speak without power when we speak from the place of entitlement. Yet words that have their birth in the wilderness place with Him are filled with His Life, eternal life. These words come from lives that walk "in another spirit." Not the spirit of the world and flesh, but of His Spirit. Of the Kingdom. His Kingdom.

Who are we really more like today? The ten, who saw everything from their own limited perspective? Or, as Caleb, who saw, as the old Amy Grant song goes, with his Father's eyes, with and in another, different spirit? Do we live in and seek the blessing centered life, that sees little, and knows and understands even less, or the Kingdom centered one? The one that sees everything through His eyes? How long must He be with us until we know and see Him as He is, fully in control, even of the smallest details? The world and Church cry out for those who live and walk in another spirit. Will we be among them?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Friendly Desert

  "And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son and I am fully pleased with Him.' " Matthew 3:17....."Then Jesus was led out into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit to be tempted there by the devil." Matthew 4:1......"Generally speaking this series of events makes us a little uncomfortable. Can following God's Spirit lead us straight into a desert? Would obedience deposit us in a wasteland? Could God's loving will direct us to wander about in barren places?....In His love God led His Son into a place that was a desert by every definition of the word: physically barren, emotionally lonely, and spiritually troubled." Alicia Britt Chole

I'm not sure who said it, but it was stated that in His life, Jesus learned to call the desert His friend. Friend? This makes no sense to our comfort loving, success oriented lives. God loves us. Jesus came to save us. Desert and wilderness places do NOT fit into the promise of His "wonderful plan" for us. Yet as someone else said, the main aspect of His wonderful plan for you and me is "to make us holy." This doesn't happen in the midst of comfort and ease, applause and recognition. These are not friends to us at all. They do not bring us more deeply into His life. The desert and the wilderness do. Our flesh knows this, and so does the enemy of our souls, the devil. As Chloe says, "He seems to find his way into most deserts." And he'll attack us relentlessly there. He did so with Jesus and he'll do no less with us. He attacks with lies. Lies that seem so easy to believe in the desert. Jesus defeated him with what will always defeat him. Truth. His Truth.

In the desert it's so easy to feel we've been forgotten, even that we're being punished. If He loved us, was pleased with us, we wouldn't be here. That's the voice and reasoning of the enemy. But what did the Father say of Christ just before He was led out into that place? That He loved Him and was fully pleased with Him. Deserts can be a sign of His favor if we'll but have "eyes to see." It was in the desert that Christ secured victory, demonstrated His power, not in spectacular workings but with words alone. The words of the Kingdom. In the desert those words became totally real to Him. He who is the Living Word demonstrated the power of that Word in the wasteland. It could not have happened at an oasis. It had to happen in the wilderness.

Our human response to every desert is to cry out to be delivered of it. Get us out Lord....now. Yet Christ willingly remained there for 40 days. He knew the Father was doing something supernatural and miraculous, though His only audience was His Father and His enemy. The victory won there preceded the ultimate victory at the cross and in His resurrection. The stage for it all was set in the desert. It will be so for all who obediently follow His leading in all places, even in the wasteland. In that place He'll shape us, empower us, and draw us more completely to Himself. There He will give us a victory that will prepare us for even greater victories to come. That's why if we have been led into a desert by Him, that place can be our friend. Are we yielded enough to see it as such?

There are deserts we end up in as a result of our bad choices, or of sinful disobedience. If we're in a desert, we need to humbly ask if such may be the reason. But if we know there are no such reasons for us, than our part is to  yield to the leading, and submit to all He would do in and for us there. It prepares us for what He will do through us when we leave it. When we come out of the wasteland in such a way, greatness will no longer be defined as how much recognition we've received, and how large the audience before our lives is. It will be in the witness of the power of lives filled completely with His Life. A life that overcomes all things. A life that was discovered in the desert. What we thought was a wasteland was not a waste at all.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Worthy

 "To know the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it." Ephesians 3:19......"The love of Jesus is so inclusive that it knows no boundaries. At the point where we stop loving and caring, Jesus is still there - loving and caring."......"During all of His ministry I do not think that Jesus ever helped a 'worthy' person. He only asked, 'What is your need? Do you need My help.' " A.W. Tozer

I'm not sure if there is anything in His Word that we preach, teach and proclaim more but understand and live in less than the love of God. Our ideas on it run the gamut from syrupy sweet, to distant and harsh. Permissive or oppressive. Soft or hard. Free or earned. One thing I believe is common for us all is that we allow ourselves to receive so little of it. We take it for granted, see it as our due, and so miss the great cost and passion with which He has given it and continues to give it. We can also so concentrate on that cost as to think we must measure up to that sacrifice before we can ever live in that love. I think the majority of us are somewhere in the middle of those two views. Paul surely realized this seeing as how so much of his writing was an exhortation for the Church to truly know and live in the fullness of His love. The letter to the Ephesians is a plea and invitation that they enter into all the wonder of His life and love. That exhortation continues to speak an invitation for you and I to do the same. Yes, as Paul writes, we can never know completely the unending vastness of His love, but we can know it, experience it, and live in it. And we can live in it now. Love as defined by Him and Him alone. Love that if we will trust Him in it, will never disappoint. But we will not find that out until we choose to fully receive and know that great love. Echoing what I wrote a few days ago; we behold that love in His Word, we believe the truth of that love, and then we become receptacles and vessels of it in every area of our lives.

I love what Tozer says in the above quote. Our love has boundaries, even in how we love Him. His does not. Our boundaries  not only keep us from giving to and receiving love from others, they keep us from giving to and receiving love from Him. That is why wherever we are, whatever we have done, wherever we have failed, sinned, or turned away, we will find Him there. Still loving, still giving, still willing to receive us to Himself. Yes, there need be at times confession, repentance, and if needed, an acceptance of consequences. But it is His very love that makes all these possible, and wraps and protects us from the full severity of those consequences. What the hatred of hell would wish to do to us through them.

To know His love is to know we aren't worthy. But in His Son, who is worthy beyond words, we can receive all His love to all of ourselves. This is the life of fullness. Do we know and have such life, such love today? The old hymn rings true, "Such love, such wondrous love. That God should love a sinner such as I - How wonderful is love like this." The heart of the Father cries out that we should know this love. Does our heart cry out to receive it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Eyewitness

 "Peter and his companions....saw His glory." Luke 9:32....."And this is the world's need today - people who have seen their Lord." Joseph Parker..."Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where he found bread." D.T. Niles

The apostles seemed to constantly speak of being an "eyewitness" to His glory and wonder. All of them, including Paul, could say this. Yet they were not the only ones. There were many in the early church and down through the ages who could say the same. Augustine, Bunyan, Wesley, Mueller, Moody, Graham, and so many more whose names we'll never know, were also eyewitnesses to the wonder and glory of Christ. They are the ones Parker speaks of, and they responded to the desperate emptiness of a world that needed and still needs to hear from those who have seen their Lord. Will they hear from us?

In the 21st century western church what marks our ministry? Information or impartation? We're said to be living in an information saturated culture. Do we really believe that what the church and the disinterested and apathetic world around us needs is more information? We are not in need of people who know about Christ. There is a desperate need everywhere to meet those who KNOW Him, and in their lives have SEEN Him. Seen Him with the eyes of the Spirit. Witnessed His work and wonder. Beheld Him in His Word as that Word becomes alive in their lives. Proclaiming to an unbelieving and skeptical world, and sadly, to much of the Church, the words spoken by Mary after the resurrection. "I have seen the Lord."

We seem to work very hard at making things in "the church" attractive to the eyes of flesh. We promote ourselves in every kind of way in order to be visible to the surrounding communities. The effect of it all, if it has any to begin with, will only last until someone else comes along and presents something even more pleasing to the eye. I remember clearly my first days in the Lord. After a few months, He led me to a congregation that was nearly 30 miles from where I lived, devoid of singles like myself, and singing music I had absolutely no familiarity with. Yet that very first Sunday, through the proclaimed word, the music played, and the atmosphere I sat in, was the undeniable presence of the King. I knew that I was listening to a man proclaim a truth that he knew firsthand. Someone who had seen the Lord. A beggar telling me, another beggar, where he had found bread, and where I could find it as well. Christ was appearing through that church. A church that could offer nothing to my flesh. But a church that made it possible for me to behold Christ, and that was all that mattered.

Many local news channels now present themselves as "Eyewitness News." There should be no greater bearer of the eyewitness news of the King, of Christ, than the Church. You and me. Are we? Are we the true eyewitness of His glory, or just proclaimers of information? We've had enough of that. A dying world has had enough of that. We need to behold His glory, and then we, beggars ourselves, need to go out to all the other beggars, and tell them what we have seen and heard. What have we seen, what have we heard, and what do we give? Information on Christ will never bring life. Revelation of Him yields an invitation from Him that will raise the dead. Only an eyewitness can share that. Will that be eyewitness be you...and me?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - A Greater Purpose

  "Three times I begged the Lord to take it (His thorn in the flesh) away. Each time He said, 'My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.' " 2 Corinthians 12:8-9...."Broken things in life find their greater purpose in His story of redemption." Laura Story......"God takes broken pieces and makes them masterpieces." James Robison

In the reading of Pauls words in 2 Corinthians 12, did you catch the fact that not only did Paul ask the Father to remove the terribly painful "thorn" in his life, but that after each request, God said the same thing. "My grace is sufficient for you." Apparently Paul had a very difficult time accepting and believing this the first two times He spoke it. We do as well. We feel and experience the pain, the need, and it blinds us to the truth of His promise.

Laura Story, a singer and author of the book "When God Doesn't Fix It," tells the story of her 10 year walk with the Father through the brain tumor that afflicts her husband. This tumor has not only robbed him of the sight in one eye, it has also caused him many mental and emotional problems as well. Much prayer has gone up for his healing. Yet he is not healed. At least in the manner that most of us understand healing. We expect when we pray that the Lord will answer and fix everything. But as Story writes, what happens when He doesn't? What happens when the thorn remains? What happens when He either doesn't remove the problem, or remove us from the problem? What happens then? What are we left with then? If someone tells us that we are left with Him, all that is Him, and nothing else; no change, no healing, no deliverance, can we accept that? Is He really enough?

Story said that "He doesn't have to 'fix it' in order to get us where He wants us to be." Can we accept that? Are we really willing to walk a road with Him that leads us through places we don't want to go or see? Are we willing to go to the place in His Life He calls us to be even when He allows all the mountains, giants, and needs to remain? Do we have a trust that goes that deep? Do we even want to?

When we think of the blessed life, our flesh is usually it's definer. We're comfortable, safe, provided for in all ways. Troubles come, but they don't touch us because He makes them disappear before they can. This is the usual western/American church view of the blessed life. Story, in a song she entitles "Blessings," sees this life not through eyes of flesh, but of His Spirit. She asks in song, "What if Your blessings come through raindrops, What if Your healing comes through tears, What if a 1000 sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near?.......What if my greatest disappointment or the achings of this life is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy." 

We are so rooted into this world and its ways that we can be staggered at the thought, the truth, that His ways with us have their end in eternity and not the here and now. Paul had a great desire to have that thorn, whatever it was, gone. He had an immeasurably greater desire to know Him in intimacy. If that meant that the thorn would be the Father's path to that intimacy, He would go there. Willingly, joyfully, completely. That path will meet all who seek to be His entirely. It is human to cry out to Him for the removal of life's painful thorns, but it is the truly God centered life that goes on with Him even if it's not. Trusting, believing, knowing, that there is a greater glory to be had when we do. Who do we really want? God the Fixer, or the God of Glory?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Behold, Believe, Become

"But Peter and John replied, 'Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than Him? We cannot stop telling about the wonderful things we have seen and heard.' " Acts 4:19-20

I heard fellow pastor Kerry Willis say something to the effect that we in the church are living pre-Pentecost lives in a post-Pentecost world. Beth Moore said that the reason we speak so little of Him is that we have seen so little of, and heard so little from Him. The reasons for all of this are many, but I think they can be summed up in something Eugene Peterson said about the Church. "We are living on an I-land." Our lives, families, fellowships, even ministries, revolve not around Christ the King, but the self as king. Chew on that a bit. In our desires, prayers, even works, who, in the end, benefits most? Many churches are making prayer a priority, but what is it we pray for? Healings, financial help, resolution of family conflict and dysfunction. None of these is wrong or evil, but in the end, aren't they mainly pleas for the Lord to make things better for us here? Even our acts of service and ministry can be and so often are, soaked in self-interest. Jesus told us to take no thought for our flesh life, but our self seems to often/always find a way to work itself into the picture. We all want to live post-resurrection lives, but to do so will involve a cross, His, and a death, ours. This is not an attractive invitation to the self and the flesh. So we stay trapped on the I-land and continue to live the pre-Pentecost life. We're saved by grace but live by the law. We're called to a life in the Spirit, but we're comfortable with remaining in the flesh.

So how do we enter into this life? First of course is that we come to His cross. Not for a visit or look-see, but to die. To leave our I-land. Until that happens, we will never enter into His fullness. But after that there is a lifestyle to enter into and its a constant day by day one. Some years ago a friend shared it in a teaching, and I share it now with you. Basing it on the book of Hebrews he said, "Persevere until you behold Christ in Scripture. Continue to behold Him until you believe in your heart that what is promised in Him is for you also. Steadfastly believe until you belong to the promise as a son to a Father. Then as you continue 'steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, you will be made to become what you already are in essence in Christ!' " We behold Him, and as we see Him as He is, we believe what He has promised us. We then become what He has already said we are. Behold. Believe. Become. Ephesians 4:15 is worked out in our lives as we "become more and more in every way like Christ." We enter into the fullness of His resurrection life.

At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon His Church. He has come. He does not have to come again. The question for our lives, ministries, fellowships is, are we living in a "pre" or "post" Pentecost world? Who are we beholding, believing, and becoming? 

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Defining Hope

 "Against all hope, Abraham in hope, believed......" Romans 4:18......Abraham had faith in "So to say, God plus Abraham. Now at length he knew that the 'Abraham' contribution was at an end. Only God was left to believe in." Watchman Nee....."Can we tell the story not of hope, but of being held by Him in our hopelessness?" Laura Storey

I think for a very large part of my walk with Him, have misunderstood what it meant to hope in Him. At root, I think my hope was always grounded as much in what I wished the outcome to be as it was actually being rooted in Him alone. I set my eyes on what I was hoping for, always believing it was what He had promised. My sight was set on the end that I desired, not on Him. I wanted Him present, but present as my co-worker and supply. The One who would provide me the means to get to and achieve the result I wanted. I think by and large, most of us do this. I don't believe that this is real biblical hope, but we've convinced ourselves that it is.

The quotations from Nee and Storey would seem to contradict each other, but they don't. Abraham was given a promise by the Father that he and his wife Sarah would have a son. Abraham believed Him, but he also sought to assist the Lord in bringing it all about. This was the "faith plus Abraham" that Nee speaks of. It's where a lot of us are living. Yet all of his efforts to "help" God failed, just as ours will. It was when he was brought to the place of no hope, where both he and Sarah were beyond the ability to have a son, that they did. We don't particularly like to come to such a place in our walk with Him, but we do like the outcome. Abraham and Sarah desired a son, and they received on in Isaac. But what happens when we don't receive "Isaac"? What happens when that which we hope for doesn't come? What takes place when , like Storey says, our only hope is to be held by Him in the midst of our hopelessness? Abraham believed God and received the promise of Isaac. Storey believed God even when she received nothing. Both lived in hope. Can we?

God does keep His promises. All of them. The time and place of fulfillment is with Him, and we say we know this, but really, we expect Him to come through for us with a minimum of delay. Very often, He doesn't. We can give Him glory for all the times He has delivered us our Isaac. But what happens in those times when He doesn't? When all visible hope has disappeared. When our deepest desires and needs remain unmet and still present. Can we, against all hope, hope? Can we continue to hope and trust in the God who doesn't seem to be at all interested in helping us or in keeping His word? This is true hope in Him. When there is no visible reason that we should. This is hoping against hope. In the absence of any evidence, any result that says He is present and moving on our behalf, we believe He is. We don't focus and hope on the end desire, but upon Him. The One who says He is the Author and Finisher of our faith.....and our hope. In our hopelessness, He holds us.

I am thankful beyond words for all the times He has given me my Issac. But I think I have even more gratitude for how, by His grace, He has enabled me to hope on in Him even when Isaac did not come. John the Baptist, Paul, Peter, all the disciples. They surely had a hope that the prison cells, crosses, and executioner's sword that awaited them would not be their end. But they had an even greater hope, an incorruptible one, in He in Whom Colossians tells us, "all things hold together." May we live in this hope. Not in the effect we desire, but a desire for the One who is the fulfillment of all hope. May we live in the One who is perfect Hope.

Blessings,
Pastor O