Heart Tracks - Christmas Story

"When the angels had returned to heaven, the shepherds said to each other, 'Come on, let's go to Bethlehem! Let's see this wonderful thing that has happened which the Lord has told us about." Luke 2:15 ..."Other men see only a hopeless end, but the Christian rejoices in an endless hope." Gilbert Brenken

The Christmas Story. Whether it's known only as a pop culture 80's movie, or the biblical account that's given in Luke 2, we all have our own "Christmas story." What's yours? I'm thinking on that today. I'm thinking on all the Christmas times celebrated in my life. How many of them have ever really been centered upon the One who is and will always be the greatest gift ever given the human race? How many Christmas days have there been where I saw life through the lenses of the endless hope I have in Him, and how many were tarnished by my seeing only a hopeless end?

Most of us as children have wonderful memories of Christmas. Not every one was perfect by any means, but all in all, the memories are most likely good. Then we grow up, at least age wise. Life, with all it's problems, failings, obstacles and terrors becomes real. That's when what Brenken says confronts us. If we say we are His, do we really live as if we rejoice in the endless hope that is found in Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the world? Is it our heart desire to "See this wonderful thing that has happened?" Do we long to experience all that He has told us about Him? Or are our hearts immobilized by our circumstances, our difficulties, and yes, our seeming impossibilities?

I have been a pastor now for over 30 years. I've shepherded congregations through more than 30 Christmas seasons. Who should know more about the endless hope, joy, and wonder that is found in Christ than a pastor. Yet to my great remorse, there have been too many seasons that I knew He was that hope, but I wasn't experiencing Him as such. Too many nights spent brooding over all that was not as I wished it to be. The ministry He had given me was not unfolding as I had hoped, indeed, planned. What wasn't, held my heart, not the One who was. Added to that were the times when my personal life was lacking those things I believed essential. What I saw as my lack held my heart. Not He who promises me He is all things. I had my own Christmas story, but it wasn't one which was filled with hope. It wasn't laying hold of His joy and peace. It was a Christmas story that missed Christ who is the story.

It's so easy to end up in that place. Our flesh is ingrained with an obsession with itself. When it has free reign in our lives, we'll never see Him in the midst of life. We won't join the shepherds in running to Him. We'll stay out on the hillside, brooding, frustrated, even angry. And we'll miss Him. We'll miss the life He calls us to.

Someone asked if we were leading lives worth telling stories about? God stories. Jesus stories. Those stories will never unfold sitting on the hillside, brooding over what we don't have and what we wish was. They are told by those who run to the King. Who are determined to see the wonder that He has promised us in Christ. Not only this Christmas, but this year, this life, where will you and I be found? On the hillside, or in "Bethlehem," in the presence of the King? We all have a Christmas story. You know what yours has been. Now, what will it be?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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Dulles Family Life Church of the Nazarene

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Heart Tracks - Missing His Heart

"For you are careful to tithe even the tiniest part of your income, but you ignore the important things of the law - justice, mercy, and faith.....You strain your water so that you won't accidentally swallow a gnat; then you swallow a camel." Matthew 23:23-24...."Do you ever go through the rituals of a worship service without an attitude of worship?...Do you consume the wafers and the wine without consuming the Spirit behind them?....Do you miss the heart of God?" Chris Tiegreen

It's so easy to recognize the hypocrisy of others yet remain so blind to our own. We can point out all the areas where another is not living up to the light they have, but be oblivious to all the places where we aren't either. There may not be any more noticeable area for this than in how we approach not just corporate worship, but all worship of the One we say we love.

We don't walk by feelings, but we should be walking with focus. There will always be days and times when we don't "feel" or sense His Presence. Yet our focus is not to be upon what we're feeling or sensing, but upon the One who says He is always there, always present, and that this is so no matter what we feel. We press on, we press into Him. Because we know that this is so. We walk by faith, and not by sight....or feeling. We are focused on Him regardless of what our emotions might presently be "saying." And the beauty of this is that when we do, most often, the feeling and sense of His Presence will come upon us. This is what it is to worship Him. We've fixed our eyes, and our hearts upon Him. We follow hard after Him whether or not we're experiencing the kind of natural or even supernatural senses we desire. We know He's a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And it is here that our hypocrisy can so easily enter in. When those feelings are lacking, we can just slip into a "going through the motions" mode. Whether privately or corporately, we come into His Presence. We read the chapters, sing the songs, read the Scriptures, hear the sermon....and in all of it, never encounter Him. Never connect with His heart. We miss His heart. We miss Him. But we're mostly unaware of Who and what we're missing. We leave in the same state we came. We've sung, listened and prayed....but we have not worshiped at all. At all. And it happens frequently. We tell others and ourselves that we've worshiped Him, but we haven't. We did all the right outward things....just like the Pharisees Jesus spoke to. The very ones He called hypocrites. If He said such to them, what does He say to us?

What is the depth of our guilt in this....for pastor and people alike? We pastors lament our people coming to worship services distracted, with their hearts and minds elsewhere. Yet how often do we do the same? How often are we mentally counting the people?...Who's there, and more, who's not? How often, when the offering is taken, something that is meant to be very much a part of worship, are we wondering if a sufficient amount will come in that day? Because there are needs...and obligations. We can so easily get frustrated with the lack of focus in our people, and remain blind to the lack within ourselves. Isn't this hypocrisy? If we're missing the heart of the Father, how can we ever expect those we shepherd to connect with that heart?

We try so hard to amp up emotions, create atmosphere, and still we miss the heart of God. It's my deep prayer that the Father raise up, through both pastors and people, a generation after His heart. I want to be among them. Do you? A people who come together for the purpose of experiencing Him, and in the experience, undergoing ever deeper transformation. This is true worship. This lays hold of His heart as He lays hold of ours. He makes the atmosphere because He is the atmosphere. When this happens, you can't just go through the motions. You will either run into it, or run away from it.....Into it, or away from it. Into His heart or missing it. Which is more likely for you and me?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Lurkers And Pretenders

"I will allow no sleep to my eyes, no slumber to my eyelids, till I find a place for the Lord." Psalm 132:4-5...."We have tried to crowd into our hearts both God and ambitions, or God and unhealthy relationships, and God and money or possessions. The house of God is not the place it ought to be......Learn to see your heart as a dwelling place - and make it completely His." Chris Tiegreen

If you're like me, you've always admired David's zeal in seeking to find a place for the Temple of God, and the Ark of the Covenant which marked His Presence among His people. If you're also like me, you haven't thought overmuch as to how that relates to my heart as His dwelling place, and how much of my heart really is His dwelling place. This was brought home to me yesterday morning as I read Tiegreen's words. David had a deep, unstoppable passion for finding a place for the Lord's dwelling place. It could not be any place, and it could not be a flawed place. It had to be the right and perfect place. He would settle for nothing less, and there would be nothing else but His Presence in that place. That's when I was convicted of all the other "places" I've given to other things in my heart. Things that at various times in various ways have crowded into my heart....and crowded Him out. He seeks a place to dwell in, and that place is in our hearts. How passionately do we seek for that as well? Especially in comparison for our passion for such things as comfort, status, relationships, happiness, and security? Where and how do these and so many other things hi-jack our ardor for Him....and relegate Him to a secondary role? Where have all the "second things" become the first thing(s) in our lives?

My spirit cringes when I think of all the times and ways that I have given Him background space in my heart. Times when I chose a relationship with someone else over an ever deepening relationship with Him. Times when I chose having a prominent place in His Kingdom over His Kingdom having sole prominence in my heart. Times when I chose what my definition of "good and best" was over His. Times when my choice of path and direction won out over His. Too many times when various secondary things became, even if for just a time, the primary "thing" in my life. I tirelessly pursued them while I half-heartedly pursued Him. Where have you been just like me? Where and when might you be "crowding Him out" even now?

Such things have too often marked my life and heart in the past. I do not want them to mark these sunset years of my life now. My deepest desire is that I, like David, will not rest until my heart really is the kind of dwelling place that He can fully fill, with nothing present seeking to crowd Him out. And the beauty of this desire is that I'm not the one who makes it possible for my heart to be such. He is. When I live in the place where I can renounce every idol and competitor to His throne in my heart, He unleashes His cleansing power to oust every one that might be lurking there. And I've been around long enough to know that "the lurkers" can be and are everywhere.

The lurkers, the pretenders to the throne have to go. Will we not rest until they're gone? Will our hearts truly be a place where He can fully dwell? That's what they were made for. Is your heart and mine living out that purpose? Or, do the lurkers and pretenders keep increasing?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Three Visitors

"And He will reign over Israel forever. His Kingdom will never end." Luke 1:33....."Jesus answered, 'Before Abraham was, I Am." John 8:58

A few days ago I watched one of the many adaptions of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." I expect you have at least a passing knowledge of the story. The elderly miser Ebenezer Scrooge has three visitors on Christmas Eve, sent to turn him from his ruinous ways. They are the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future. It's a good story with a happy ending, and afterwards, I sensed the Lord speaking to me through my ponderings. Like Ebenezer, I, especially as I grow older, have been visited by three kinds of "ghosts" and at various times. Likely you have too. For me, they're the ghosts of what has been, what might have been, and what is.

Recently I received news of what has happened in the life of one who once held a most cherished place in my heart. They're suffering from an affliction that will not only deeply affect them and those around them, but will only worsen as time goes on. I felt and feel a great sadness in my heart. And with that sadness come questions brought to me by those three visitors mentioned above. I remembered what had been with that one, both the beauty and the heartache. Memories that bring about a wide swath of feeling and emotion. What has been cannot be undone....Along with this visitation I am brought to think about what could have been. I long ago was freed from living in the "what if's" of life. Yet even so, I find myself thinking on what might have been had this one not chosen a path in direct opposition to what the Father had spoken. Would this present state have come about for them? What might have been their life as well as mine and all the others affected by their decisions, if they had chosen the path He'd placed before them? Rather than the one they thought better? In any event, what might have been will never be. None of us can live there, though we're often haunted by it. We can only live in the place of what is....and how we view "what is" makes all the difference.

The fatalistic view of the world is that we have to accept what is and make the best of it. This is the hand we're dealt, this is our reality. We have to cope with it. Yet no matter how hard we may try, hopelessness and despair always seem to invade our minds and hearts. In this scenario, the past and the present doom the future. It's the scenario of the world, and it's the scenario into which the Father sent His Son....Immanuel...God with us. God for us. God, if we will receive Him, in us.

Christmastime can be a place of thinking upon so many things. The visitors I mention above can and do come to all of us. What we need to know, must know, is that Jesus Christ, King of kings and Lord of lords has entered into all of our past, all of our present, and holds every bit of our future. The power that darkness may seek to work through these places has been broken forever by Him who not only holds the keys to life, He is Life. His Kingdom has always been, and His Kingdom will never end. The angels announced this to shepherds in a field, and this message continues to be announced to all who will hear down through ages and beyond. He is. He was, and He is to come. No matter what has been, could have been, or is, He reigns over it all. In the midst of all of it, even for the one I speak of above, there is a living hope. To us a Savior has been given.....and He bids us come to Him for He has already come to us.

Yes, we live in what is....and what is, is Christ....Greater than all our sin...Greater than all our need....Greater than all that has been, could have been, or is. Before it all, He was. In it all, He is.....Jesus.....Messiah....Immanuel.... God with us.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks -Come.....Follow

" 'Come, follow Me,' Jesus said," Matthew 4:19.....Where did we think Jesus' invitation would lead us? The One we follow was familiar with obscurity and waiting, betrayal and slander, injustice and rejection, and physical and emotional suffering. Yet somehow we think that following Jesus means that we will avoid such pain." Alicia Britt Chole

How do we answer Chole's question(s)? When He invited us to come and follow Him, did we glibly assume that the path would lead to a life of unending blessing? One that yielded a unending supply of good things, constant happiness, and as little pain as possible? We may not want to admit that we did, but if it isn't, why then are we so shocked when the journey of being with Him leads through dark and terrifying valleys, and times of seemingly endless trial and suffering? That's not what we signed up for. Didn't the preacher say that He had a "wonderful plan" for my life, a great destiny and dream for me, for us? Was it all a lie? Is it all a lie? No, it is not. The lie is not found in any part of His invitation. The lie is found in how we have presented that invitation.

In his book, Uncomfortable Truth, Brett McCracken said, "Evangelical leaders appear increasingly comfortable with jettisoning those parts of the Bible that might interfere with their ministry to contemporary America." Jesus Christ invited us to His Life....all and every part of His Life....and that Life is centered upon two things: His cross and His resurrection. He invites us into His resurrection Life, but we cannot enter into it apart from first entering into His cross style Life. This is what it really means to follow Him. He is not primarily concerned with our external comforts, our ideas of success, and especially our definition of what is good or even best. He invites us into the blessed life that is to be found in following and being with and in Him. It is blessed, but the pathway, the journey, will be strewn with incidents of suffering, loss, heartache, and sorrow. Not constant, and not always, but it will be there. It cannot but be there, for the life He calls us into will come into a full head on collision with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Satan is not concerned with the lives of comfort seekers. They pose no threat to his kingdom. But those who come to Christ with the full intention of being His, of taking up His cross, will shake his kingdom to its foundations and turn it upside down. Such lives overcome all and everything he might bring against them. Such lives are not obtained in fields of ease, but upon the rough terrain of the desert and wilderness that He will most certainly lead us through. In those places we discard everything that is not essential to life, until all that is left is Him...and His Life. We die to ourselves, and as Chole says, "Death to self rarely comes covered in confetti." And in the journey we come to know what Paul meant when he said whatever was "loss" in his life was no loss at all because he gained the "surpassing" wonder of Christ. That is what He invites us into.

As pastor, husband, wife, father, mother, follower of the King, just what did you think He was inviting you into? Do you find yourself frustrated and angry, even disillusioned? Good. We need to be freed of all illusions as to what it means to be His. He does not call us into a life made better by Him. He calls us into a life overthrown and transformed from the inside out by Him. It will cost us everything, yet we will gain everything and more in Him, with Him. Every moment of every day, in every type of condition, He invites us follow Him....again, and deeper into His Life. It's a call to our death ......and to His Life. Do we come? No matter the cost...do we come? Do you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Heart Whisperer

I hear this most gentle whisper from One
I never guessed would speak to me: Psalm 81:5....."God's face is always towards us." Sheila Walsh

Movies and TV shows like "The Horse Whisperer," and "The Dog Whisperer" have been very popular in our culture. They showcase people who seem to have a deep connection with both animals. To me, they just point to the One who has the deepest connection possible with those that He has created, Father God, "The Heart Whisperer."

I love how the Bible translation "The Message" renders Psalm 81:5. If we're honest, most of us have likely felt the same way. Indeed, there is a portion of the Church that doesn't believe that God speaks to His people at all. He has said all He needs to say in His Word so that is sufficient for us. He has spoken through His Word, and He continues to speak through it, but I am humbled, grateful beyond words, that He continues to speak to me in personal, intimate, life changing ways. No, nothing that He speaks will ever contradict His revealed Word in His Bible, but He speaks. He whispers to my heart.....and always, like the two disciples on the Emmaus Road, my heart never ceases to feel strangely warm when He does.

He is the Heart Whisperer, but sadly, our lives are so filled with noise that most often, we don't hear Him. Busyness, needs, pressures of all kinds, emergencies of all sorts, these are the voices that we're much more inclined to hear. To hear the whisper of His grace requires a heart that has learned to be in tune with that whisper. When we have such hearts, His whisper is stronger, more clear, and more powerful than all the noises of this world. Noises that in all their gathered power cannot drown out the Voice of He who is the Heart Whisperer.

The Heart Whisperer knows our hearts far better and more deeply than we do or ever could. He knows what our deepest needs really are. He knows where the most cutting wounds lie, where the most heart breaking scars remain. It's the Heart Whisperer alone who knows the only way to bring real healing to our hearts, because in the whisper of His grace, there is healing for our lives.

To be a human in this fallen world is to be lonely. No matter how hard we look to alleviate that loneliness, whether through relationships, sex, or a multitude of stimulants, the loneliness remains. There is only One, there has always been only One who is able to minister to that loneliness; the Heart Whisperer. That gaping hole that leads us to fear being alone, is filled by Him who promises to never leave us alone. The Heart Whisperer delivers us from that fear. He delivers us from all fear. And He does so with just a whisper. If we'll but hear Him.

Do you really know the Heart Whisperer? Are you experiencing in a deeply intimate way, the whisper of His grace....of His care....and His love? Or is your life more impacted by the world's noise and our enemy who works so efficiently through it? In the midst of it, He whispers your name. Can you hear Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Vision Check

This is what the Lord says: 'Heaven is My throne and the earth is My footstool." Isaiah 66:1...."Simple people - those who have little spiritual depth and do not care much about living for God and eternity - will act on whims. They will go with the flow of any current that seems appealing, and they end up tossed around on the waves of passing styles, questionable doctrine, selfish interests, and empty ideologies. They are easily deceived. As the proverb says, they believe anything." Chris Tiegreen

I was part of a prayer group last week in which the sharing focused on how those who are His have been given the opportunity to see all things from His Kingdom perspective, but in too many ways, we have settled for seeing everything from an earthly one. That means that instead of seeing with His perception, wisdom, discernment and understanding, we see with our own. We rely on our physical and emotional senses. As the Word says, "We lean upon our own understanding." Paul wrote of our "having the mind of Christ," which means we process all things as He did, from the perspective of heaven. The great challenge for the disciples was to see and understand what Jesus saw and understood. That struggle went on until Pentecost, when the "eyes of their hearts" were opened. They no longer were ruled by appearances and what seemed to be, but by His Truth. A Truth that they didn't just hold in their minds and hearts, but that was free to transform their sight and understanding. What they saw was no longer governed by the footstool that is the earth, but by the Throne room of the Father. Has such really happened to you and me? Do we walk with footstool or throne room vision?

We're so prone to rely upon our emotions, feelings, and immediate appearances. We rarely "see through" things with His sight. We have no real understanding of what He may be doing and saying through what is unfolding before us. He is moving, speaking in all of it, but since we can't really see, neither can we really hear. And so, we don't understand. We miss what He doing, and so we act, or rather react, to outward stimuli....and most often, wrongly. We see this on all levels of life; career moves, ministry undertakings, and the most damaging of all, relationship choices. All of them are far more fueled and led by our senses, emotions, feelings, and understanding than they ever are by His. The landscape of the Church is strewn with the wreckage of those choices. Some years back, when I was serving on staff at a New Jersey church, a lovely lady, newly divorced, entered into a relationship with the brother of her best friend. A number of ladies in the fellowship thought this was wonderful. She needed someone they said. Some, myself among them, tried to caution her against it, but she went forward, and only months after the divorce became final, married him. They divorced a few years later. Tragic for all. Tragic that others in the fellowship, considered mature by most, foolishly encouraged her in the move. Emotions. Feelings. Human reasoning were in the forefront. Disaster came behind them. Yet we seem to so readily enter into these disasters....again, and again, and again. We see "wonderful possibilities," and are blind to His true picture in them. I know. I've entered into those disasters and been among the wreckage.

It's likely you know the story of Israel sending 12 spies into the land that God had promised them. God wanted them to see the wonder and beauty of what He had given them. All 12 saw it, but its reality only registered on the hearts and minds of two of them, Joshua and Caleb. The rest saw, but didn't see, because what impacted them were all the "difficulties" that went with securing the land. Only Joshua and Caleb saw everything with His eyes and understanding. The other 10 saw with theirs.....and they told everyone else what they "saw" as well. The cost to the people was great. Forty years of wandering. It always is when we can only see with our own understanding. And we do this not only concerning perceived difficulties, but with what we see as "great opportunities."

There are so many things to be grieved about as concerns the life of the Church. The watering down of His Word. The rampant compromise as concerns holy living. The "shadow lives" being lived out by so many who profess to be His, yet embrace so many practices, thoughts, and attitudes of the world. Yet, none may surpass our loss of walking and living in His understanding, in His discernment, and with His wisdom. To live not by the eyes of flesh, but of the Holy Spirit. To not live earthbound lives, but ones that are "seated with Him." Seated with Him, with Christ, in the heavens. If we truly did, those things I mentioned first would no longer grieve us, and certainly not grieve Him......Sound too mystical for you? If it does, could you dare to have a vision check, and learn if you're living with footstool vision? And missing all the sights and wonders that can only be seen from the Throne room of the Father.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Cross Remains

Alicia Britt Chole tells the story of how she, her husband, and a group of volunteers had come to the city of Joplin, Missouri in the aftermath of a devastating tornado that had wreaked havoc upon the area. Everywhere they looked they saw the results of the destruction. They came upon a church, one that had been very solidly built with thick brick walls, yet even so, there was only one complete and intact piece left of the entire building; the cross. That moved me, because the one immovable, enduring and eternal truth of our faith is that which is found in Jesus Christ and the cross.

Not long ago, a friend sent me an article written by an unbeliever, listing all the reasons to not believe in the Truth of Christ, His life, death, and resurrection. The article, seeking to verify it's premise, cited all the "relevant scholars" who agreed with that premise. Relevant meaning all those who agreed with it's writer. There was a time I was angered by such articles, but not any more. I long ago learned that you cannot argue blind scoffers into believing faith. If you could, it wouldn't be faith. Now I'm more amused than anything. Every year, usually at Christmas and Easter, "documentaries" abound with the main theme being that the Jesus Christ of the Bible either didn't really exist, or that if He did, He was nothing more than a man, a good man, but a just a man like any other. The article referenced above speculated that He was likely just a wandering traveler. When I notice these programs and articles, the question that always arises for me is, "Why, if they are convinced He wasn't who He said He was, do they spend so much time and effort trying to convince everyone that this is so? Why is He a threat? Why don't we see similar books, articles and shows focusing on Buddah or Mohammed? It's because it's Christ. It's because of the cross. It's because everything changed at Calvary and the aftermath of the resurrection. Satan was defeated. The power of sin was broken. Light burst through the darkness. Freedom came for every captive that would receive it. Victory was won....at the cross. Everything against Him, and the human race He loves, fell at the cross....and what remains is Christ, His cross, and the empty tomb.

Satan was and remains the first rebel. But he's an already defeated rebel. That happened once and for all at the cross. Yes, he fights on, but his cause is hopeless. He may instigate devastation, destruction and loss, but no matter how fierce his attack, Christ and His cross remain...they endure....and they call us to them. The power of hell will use every means it can to try and convince a lost world that it's Savior never came and never was. The cross will always say otherwise. The cross will always speak it's Truth. The cross remains. Christ remains. Every lie is defeated. Truth reigns supreme. Earthquakes will come, but they cannot overwhelm us...when we live with Him..at the cross....where we first see the Light....and the burden of our sin rolls away....and we enter into His resurrection Life....at the cross.

Blessings,
Pastor O

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Heart Tracks - Improved....Or Re-made?

"And the One sitting on the throne said, 'Behold, I am making all things new.' " Revelation 21:5...."The biblical meaning for religion is 'to rejoin the ligaments. To reconnect the severed, shattered, scattered pieces. To restore to wholeness and fullness that which has been torn asunder....Father, make us a gathering place for a reconciled community." Mark Buchanan

In one of my prayer journals, I have written down, "Father, may no one emerge from our corporate times with You unchanged. May we be either deeply convicted, or more deeply converted." How strongly does such a desire resonate with our hearts? Is this what we really want, hope for, pray for as concerns our gatherings? What are we really coming together for? Do we more often give life lessons on self-improvement or point to He who gives life transformation? As well as our desperate need for it?

Sometimes I think we have gotten into the "business" of telling people how they may have better lives "in Christ," meaning with His help, instead of proclaiming the One who really does make all things new....starting with the inner corruption that we are all born with and into. Jesus becomes an additive, a helper. Coca-Cola once had a popular ad campaign that said "Things go better with Coke." Oftentimes it seems the Church has picked up on that as concerns Christ. He gives life improvements without causing any real upheaval in our lives. He transforms the landscape around us but not the cesspool within us. Everything changes but us.

Does Buchanan's view of what a reconciled community is, move you? How closely do not only our lives, but our churches resemble that? We know that we are living in the midst of a culture that has been torn asunder, but can we see that so much of the Church and the lives that compose it have been as well? We are truly, in most cases, severed, shattered, and scattered pieces. Sitting together in a room doesn't change that. Neither does our singing or hearing a sermon together. We come severed, shattered and scattered, and too often leave in exactly the same state. When Christ comes, the old passes away and all things become new, yet for too many of us, the old has yet to pass on, and the new to come. We may well have "come to Christ," but as yet, the fullness of His Life hasn't been received by us. This is not the way of the ministry of Christ. ChrisTiegreen wrote, "A fallen world enslaved in corruption cannot be 'improved,'; it needs re-creation." Is this truly the message we bring? Jesus Christ was, is, the Father's Agent in Creation. He makes all things new in us by re-creating who we are apart from the captivity of sin. Christ came to seek and save that which is lost, and that begins with you and me. We cannot be saved, found, until we realize how desperately lost we are. Sin has torn this world, our lives, and too many fellowships asunder. He doesn't offer temporary band-aids. He brings forth new life. We are broken, but we aren't to remain broken. We are shattered, but He makes us whole. We are beyond all human hope, but never beyond hope in Him. We are dead, and He makes us to live.

What aspects of your heart, mind, and life have yet to be made new? What does He long to re-create in us that even now holds us severed, shattered and scattered....from each other....and from Him? When He truly makes us "new," then everything that concerns our lives can be made new as well. We no longer have to look for fleshly improvements. We are not "better than before" people. We are new creations made so by Him. Nothing is the same anymore. All things are new in Him.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Gap

"I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't have to destroy the land, but I found no one. Ezekiel 32:20

If you're involved on any level of social media, you're likely aware of the debate going on of late concerning the declaration of someone being "in our thoughts and prayers," especially as concerns those who've been victims of gun violence. On the one side are those who claim that saying such is tantamount to doing nothing, and so the statement is worthless. On the other are those who see that such a response nullifies not only the power of prayer, but the power of the Father Himself. I get that, I do, because more than I believe in the power of prayer, I believe in the power of the Father God who answers prayer. But here's the thing; I understand the frustrations of the first group. The culture abounds with those who tweet "thoughts and prayers," or post it on their Facebook page. Yet, the question must be asked; just how deep do our thoughts about it all go? How intense are our prayers?

All this reminds me of a cartoon I saw in the Leadership magazine some years back. There's a head and shoulders picture of a man standing in church, who sees another man, "Bob" approaching. The first man thinks to himself, "Oh, here comes Bob. I promised him last week that I'd be praying with him about that request he shared, but I forgot." He then quickly prays, "Lord, help Bob!" He then calls out, "Hey Bob, been prayin' for you." We could likely laugh if the same were not so true of us, and so often as well. The needs, burdens, and cares of others can so easily slip through our thoughts....and our prayers. It's not hard for this to be so as we are so consumed with our own needs, burdens and cares. Most of our energy goes into telling God, and anyone else who will listen about them. There's little room for anything else. We pray a lot, but I think that we rarely pray effectively. As someone said, we need to ask ourselves just how much will we personally benefit if He were to answer our prayers in the way that we ask? How much self-interst is there? If we're honest, there can be a great deal of it present. Husbands, wives, fathers and mothers pray for unsaved mates and children, but so much of the motive can be that in their coming to Christ, the personal lives of those asking can be made so much easier and better. Pastors and leaders pray for souls to be reached and added unto the church, but a large part of the motivation can be, with that result, the pastor, leaders, and church become more noticed, applauded, and admired. There can be so much "mixture" in our praying. A mixture of the flesh with His Spirit. The result is a weakened prayer life and weakened prayers.

These are not the kinds of lives that He calls us to in Ezekiel 32. We are skilled at asking Him to come alongside us. Here, He calls us to come alongside Him. To stand with Him....in the gap....on behalf of a culture, and yes, a church....unnoticed, unheralded, oftentimes completely unknown to all...except Him. Interceding for a nation, a community, a neighborhood....and His Body. With our thoughts and our prayers anchored in and upon Him. Such thoughts and prayers see miracles, birth awakenings, transform cultures.....and it all begins when one, just one, will come alongside Him....and stand in the gap.

We will all this day, week, and time, think thoughts and pray prayers. Of what kind will they be? The vapid, empty, self-absorbed kind that bring about the contempt of the world...or the type that unleash all the might of heaven? There are gaps everywhere today. He seeks for those who will stand in them...with Him. Will you and I be among them.....or does He need to look elsewhere?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Road Home

Then Naomi heard in Moab that the Lord had blessed his people in Judah by giving them good crops again. So Naomi and her daughters-in-law got ready to leave Moab to return to her homeland. 7 With her two daughters-in-law she set out from the place where she had been living, and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah. Ruth 1:6-7

As I write this, the day after Thanksgiving, I'm thinking about how much "home" will be in the thoughts of so many over the next 30 plus days. Thanksgiving and Christmas bring so many memories to all of us during these seasons. Whether we can make the journey or not, so much of our thinking is centered on what has been, or what we hoped had been "our home." There's great emotional and human value in this, but in our thinking, we most often miss the truth of where and in who our home really is and is found. In His Word, the Father say to His people continually, "I Am your home." Have you and I ever truly found that to be so? Have we ever really taken the "road" that leads to Him?

Naomi and her husband and sons had left Judah during a time of famine, and went to live in Moab, though surely it had been the Father's will that they would never do so. In Moab, her sons married local women, of whom Ruth was one. Over time, Naomi's husband and both of her sons died, leaving she and her daughters-in-law destitute. At that point, Naomi realized that if there was any hope at all, it would be found back home in Judah, the land of His promise. So they took the road that led back home. Though the three began, only Naomi and Ruth continued. If you know the rest of the story, in Judah, living by faith, God eventually restored them not only materially, but Naomi's hope and joy as well. And Ruth became part of the family line that led to the coming of Christ. It all began with taking the road that led back to their home. And in the journey, I believe they found that their home was never really "here" at all. It was in Him.

I think the greatest problem and snare for a believer is to fall into the trap of believing that it is this realm that is our home. It is far too often where we not only invest all our resources, but tragically, most, if not all of our heart. We are so at home here, that we can't believe we could ever be at home anywhere else. The Father gave the Israelites a rich land of promise, but He never intended it to be their real home. That was to be Him. It took 1500 years for them to realize that was so. How long will it take us? How long will our hearts go on being tied to all that goes on in this world, so focused, so obsessed with it that we are blind to the world we were made for. C.S. Lewis said that if we find in our hearts a yearning for something more than this world, than perhaps we should realize we were not made for this world at all.....We were made for His. But we've become so deadened to the reality of His Kingdom world by our total investment in this one, that the yearnings can be, are, faint indeed.

There's one more element to all of this. This world we physically live in is composed of many road choices. All of them wrong but the One, Jesus Christ, that leads to Him. Like Naomi and her family, we easily choose the wrong road, and end up being very far from His heart...our home. The prodigal son that Jesus spoke of ended up there. The people of Israel, through their sin and rebellion ended up there in their captivity. You and I, and on too many occasions, can end up there through the same. Maybe you're there right now. In another land....far from His heart...and from your home. It is never too late to take the road that leads back home. You are never so far from Him that He cannot bring you home to Himself. Whatever the reason is that you have ended up in "Moab," the road that leads back to Him lies before you. Take that road...the road that leads home....and come back to His heart. It will lead you into a life that lasts for more than a season. It is a life filled with His eternity. And it's forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Roadside Distractions

13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. 14 For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13-14..."His is a narrow way that leads to a wide life." Unknown

I'm old enough to remember traveling before the nation's interstate highway system was as advanced as it now is. Most of our family trips were made on highways that led through lots of small towns and places. Most everyone traveled in that way. One of the things we all experienced were what were termed "Roadside attractions." These were usually flamboyant signs or displays that were meant to get the traveler's attention, to get him to pull of the road and see what it offered. Most often, the results were underwhelming, but the owner still reaped some profit as most passerbys would either pay to see the attraction or purchase some small token remembrance of the place. Then it was back on the road to continue the journey. I'm thinking you might be seeing the spiritual parallel here. Except, in the spiritual journey, things that disguise themselves as attractions are at best, distractions, and at worst, deadly ones.

I think most of us fail to allow His Spirit to reveal the depths of the meaning of Matthew 7:13-14. We just take it to mean Jesus is only talking about those who walk the road of His Life into the rewards of that Life, and those who don't, and who then walk to their spiritual destruction. It has that meaning, but it carries so much more than that. First off, we tend to think of the narrow road as one filled with lots of rules and regulations. A life where the Father is always watching for a slip-up, and ready to pounce on us when we do. It's a narrow road that seems easy to fall of. While the wide road offered by the devil and the world does invite one to a far ranging variety of sins, in reality, the life it offers is very narrow. In fact, it isn't life at all. The narrow road is only narrow in the sense that there is room only for Christ...and us...upon it. Yet to enter into it is not to begin a life of tightrope walking, but to embark upon a life that offers an ever widening variety of joy, peace, abundance, healing, and victory. Our focus, a narrow one fixed solely on Him, leads to a Life whose only limit is our humanity here, and one day, even that will be removed. Satan, our enemy knows this, even if we don't, and so he makes sure that he puts up plenty of signs pointing to his "Roadside attractions," which are really distractions, and many of them can and do lead to death and destruction.

These "attractions" entice our flesh in many ways. There are the obvious ones that appeal to our various lustful desires for wealth, power, influence, success, and sexual pleasure. These are obvious, and to visit them will surely bring death and destruction. There are also the everyday distractions like stress, anxiety, and seeking control of our situations, but I think it's the less obvious ones that are the real danger. The distractions that seem good in themselves, but end up drawing our hearts away from Him. Busyness. Working for Him rather than abiding and living in Him. Finding our identity in what we're doing for Him, rather than who we are in Him. Commitment to a ministry, a fellowship, a person, rather than a union with Him. All of these can entice and distract us from Him and our journey with and into His deeper life. And all of them, no matter how "good" they may seem, will bring a certain level of destruction to us when we allow them to distract us from the life highway He seeks for us to travel upon with Him.

So what are your roadside distractions? You may have dealt with the obvious ones, but what of the much less obvious? What is succeeding in getting your eyes off of the real purpose of your journey.....abundant life in Him? Today, what will draw your heart from Him....and all the fullness He has for you on the journey? Or, will you continue to linger there, suffering destruction to some, even all areas of your life?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Against All Hope.....Believe?

"And Abraham, against all hope, in hope, believed." Romans 4:18...."And always be ready to give a reason for your hope." I Peter 3:15....."To live without hope is to cease to live." Fyodor Dostoevsky...." Oh love, that will not let me go." George Matheson

There is something I have come to know after more than 35 years of walking with Him. If you are truly yielded to, bound to Christ, He will lead you to a place, indeed, places, where there is no hope. None. At least none that can be seen or discerned by our natural senses. He will lead us into places that will completely fit the world's definition of "hopeless." In some aspect of our life, including ministry for Him, we will come to this place. In that place we have only one thing to cling to; the promise of His Presence. In that place is nothing tangible to our flesh. We only have His Word that there we will have Him. He doesn't promise us "proof" of that. He simply tells us it will be so....and then He asks that we believe Him. He asks that we believe Him when every fiber of our being hears the screams of the enemy telling us He's a liar. We are in Abraham's place, the place where all visible, tangible means of delivering ourselves is gone. All we are left with is His promise that He is with us, that He will not forsake us....and that He is not finished with us yet.

I always hesitate to share some aspects of my journey with Him. I do so because I don't want to appear to see myself as a great man of faith. I'm not. I've walked in fear and doubt. I've felt like He had abandoned me, and felt the accompanying anger and despair as well. It's just that in those places, I also experienced the very love that Matheson wrote of in his great hymn....His love that would not let me go. And in the experience came Truth about Him that I've tried to share, though likely, not nearly as well as I would want to. Even so, I'll try.

Twenty eight years ago, I found myself in the place of hopelessness. My wife was gone, and what I called "home" along with her. A ministry calling I knew was from Him was gone as well. I could fit all the material possessions I had into a small Japanese import. I didn't know where to go, and I didn't know what would become of me. More, a Church that I had given all of myself to, didn't seem overly anxious to give a lot of itself to me. I'm not saying that with rancor, and I also know that was not fully true, yet it is what seemed to be at the time. In the midst of it all, I knew this; He had promised to never leave me or forsake me, and in the emotional and spiritual quagmire that was my life, I chose to believe that. I also clung to the promise that His gifts and callings were irrevocable. I believed that I was still to be a pastor and minister of His Truth, though few were giving me any hope of that being so. Almost all the voices I heard, including that of my own family, were telling me that I needed to let it go and get on with my life. But I couldn't, because the one voice I never heard telling me the same was His. So, against all hope, in hope, I believed. His love would not let me go.

Space doesn't allow me to begin to share with you all the miraculous works He did for me over the next few years and all those that followed. Doors opened that only He could open. Doors that some had tried to shut, couldn't be because of Him. Step by step, He rebuilt my life....and my calling. And in the process, did deep spiritual surgery on healing the many wounds, even the deepest, that I'd experienced along the way. The scars of those wounds may remain, but they bear the name of Christ upon them. And the healing goes on. It always will...for all of us.

I've shared before how, for a time, I lived upon the very Church campground where I was ordained. Each day I would walk past the Tabernacle where that took place. Each time, I would hear the voice of hell shout in my ear that what took place that day was gone for me...forever. That what happened then was finished. And each time in response, His answering whisper was, "Don't believe the lie. Believe Me." Against all hope, in hope, I believed. In His time and way, He raised me up and established me. Not because of my faithfulness, but because of His.

No, I didn't become one of the much heard voices of the Church. But He placed me where He desired, and by His grace, I have sought to stand my post in and for Him. In the doing, He has given me a greater and more wonderful life than I ever thought possible. Circumstances gave me no hope. Many voices gave me no hope. He gave me hope....because He Himself is Hope. He can be nothing and no One less.....Is He so for you today? Wherever you are.....against all hope, will you, in hope.....believe?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living Solo

"My prayer for all of them is that they may be one, just as You and I are one, Father - that just as You are in Me and I am in You, so they will be in us, and the world will believe You sent Me." John 17:21....."We whisper, 'You are never alone,' to frightened children. We offer 'God is with you,' to grieving souls. We affirm, 'Your Savior is near,' to the lonely. And then proceed to live alone in our heads.......God invites us to a continuous duet, but in practice we live most of our lives as a solo." Alicia Britt Chole...."My goal is God Himself: not joy nor peace nor even blessing, but Himself my God." Oswald Chambers

So many today look to John 17 as a call, a plea, for unity within the Body of Christ. Certainly, there is a deep need for that. We are so at odds with each other over so many, at root, trivial things. Yet we seem blind to the reality that though we want to see us be one with each other in Christ, we don't seem able to live as one with the Lord Himself. Chole says that "we live alone in our heads," and that we "live as a solo." The truth of this is seen in how we deal with the day to day challenges, pressures, obstacles, and impossibilities of life. When we're faced with these things, our response is generally to start searching for an answer, or a way out, or the means to get through, get out, or get over. We exhaust ourselves looking for solutions, answers, and deliverance, and we miss Him in most all of it. We may have a vague sense of His Presence, but He is not a living reality for us in these places. Watchman Nee used the spiritual illustration of a boat floating upon a river suddenly encountering the obstacle of large rock blocking its way. The human response is to find a way to get past the "rock." Nee said that the way of the Lord is to seek for the water the boat travels upon to rise above the height of the rock. The Father is not nearly as concerned with solving our problems as He is in raising the level of our Life in His Spirit. When we live solo, the burden is upon us, and it crushes us. When we live in what Chole calls a "duet" with Him, where "God Himself" is our end, as Chambers says, we live in the power of a life that Scripture says, "cannot be destroyed." This is the inheritance of those that are His. This is the inheritance that is for you and me. Have we entered into it.....or are we to go on "living alone in our heads.....living solo?"

Jesus said that when we live as one with the Father, Son, and the Spirit, we will give proof of the life and ministry of the Son sent by the Father. The fruit of His life is seen in and through ours. Scripture says that "In Him we live, move, and have our being." We're one with Him. Chris Tiegreen said that we are to live lives that are rooted in eternity, and that in doing so, we're "signposts pointing to eternity." We are not floundering about, trying to survive the constant batterings against all the "rocks" that stand in our way. We rise above them in His Life. They're still there, and they need to be faced, but faced in union with Him...who gives songs in the night....and victory as well.

If you are His today, then you are His while living in a completely fallen and hostile world. Will you seek to navigate through this world in your own, or even another person's strength, understanding and ability, or upon His? Will you live alone in your head, and so at the mercy of the endless darts of satan? Or will you live in Him, with the ongoing renewing of your mind, having more and more of the mind of Christ, as you live more and more in Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - A Living Sacrifice

"And so dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a holy and living sacrifice - the kind He will accept." Romans 12:1

Roman 12:1 is a much quoted, memorized, preached and taught upon Scripture. Yet what does it really mean for you and me? How fully do we live it out? Indeed, how willing are we to live it out? In a culture that offers an endless multitude of idols for us to live for, how do we live for Him with all of our hearts?

The idea of a sacrificial offering to Him is very alien to our modern, western mindset. It was not to Paul. That which was offered to Him on His altar was given to Him completely. It was fully His and no longer theirs. This was so no matter how precious the offering was to them. When the offering left their hands, it was placed in His. And that was where it remained. His altar was holy and sacred. That which was placed upon it became so as well. The offering was freely given to Him, and it was received by Him in all fullness. It is still so today.....for those who hear and answer Paul's plea.

So...what does it mean then to live, to walk as a holy sacrifice to Him? Just what does that look like for you and me? One of the best and simplest answers to that is found in something I heard Sheila Walsh say; that it is a matter of "handing all of ourselves in all things, over and over again to Him." Think on all the things that affect our lives....the great and the small. Somehow, it seems easier to us to give Him the thing that crushes us, yet hold back the smaller weights that the enemy convinces us we can handle ourselves. Those we hold onto, and as the weight of them grows all the greater, we reach a place where we can't go on. The load of all the small things turns out to be more destructive that what we thought was the greatest need. Instead of handing them to Him, we grip them with all our strength. Relationships, or the lack of one. Financial need, loneliness, the sins and failures of the past, fear of the future. Whether great or small, He commands us to bring them to Him, He who is the Altar, and hand them to Him, nothing held back, in trust....in surrender.

In my life, I have discovered the great cost of not handing all things over to Him, most especially as concerns my ministry, but in relationships, attitudes, frustrations, and yes, hopes and dreams as well. As someone put it, whatever it is we let live today, will return even stronger against us tomorrow. So many things about my life and ministry were being held in my hands, and not yielded up to His....and they lived on...to my great harm. Only when I came to that place, and still come to that place, where I hand over everything....over and over again, do I find the peace, joy, and strength that He makes mine. That He will also make yours. And in the doing, you, we, discover what it is to be living sacrifice, made holy not by what we do, but by what He has done, and continues to do in us.

What things, great or small, weigh you down today? What is it that you continue to hold on to, that you can't hand over to Him? James Robison said that he once heard the Lord speak to his heart concerning an issue that he couldn't bring himself to surrender to Him. The Father asked him, "If you can't entrust it to Me, who will you entrust it to?" He asks us the same question; if we cannot take and give the thing(s) to Him, who will we give them to? Who will you give them to?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Watering Thorns

"The seed falling among thorns refers to someone who hears the Word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the Word, making it unfruitful." Matthew 13:22...."Watering thorns: Who would do such a thing? Me." Alicia Britt Chole

In her excellent book, The Sacred Slow, Chole tells of the time she and her husband were walking about their Missouri property when she noticed a particular cluster of bushes. "Those are pretty," she told her mate. "Yes, but look at those thorns," was his reply. He warned her that they needed to keep an eye on those bushes, which they later discovered were called Honey Locusts.
Some time later, she called in a professional to look at a tree that was struggling, and he noticed the Honey Locusts around it, and advised her to get rid of them, which she intended to do, but didn't. What she discovered to her deep regret was that these trees grew everywhere and at a remarkable rate. Soon, their property was marked everywhere by clusters of these trees, and their thorns made going anywhere near them a real threat to one's well-being. She said, "It is sobering to know that I contributed to their infestation. I nurtured the thorn trees by omission. When I first saw them, I decided to do nothing. And doing nothing is a choice."

Thorns grow into our lives and hearts in every kind of way and in every kind of type. Besides the very real outward kind that come through temptations, attractions, and misguided focus, there are the even more deadly ones that reside in the mind and in the heart. When we choose to allow them to stay there, to linger and grow, we are in effect, watering them, nurturing them, and increasing their power in and over our lives. We do nothing, and as Chole says, nothing is a choice.

What are the thorns you and I water? What kind of thoughts, attitudes, mind-poisons have we allowed to go on unchecked in our lives that choke out the Life of Christ? What self-destructive thoughts and actions that on the surface may seem minor, but in reality are killing His Life within us, do we water and give growth to? Many of us give attention to the obvious outer thorn varieties, they're a lot easier to identify and deal with. It's the inner thorns, the ones that nobody else sees that lay down deeper roots, and ever sharper points. We continue to minimize them and they continue to grow, until it is impossible to maneuver through our thought life without sustaining cuts and bruises from our thorns. And giving them to those around us too. Their power continues to grow, and "land" that is to be filled with His Life is now controlled by thorns that can only bring death. And they just keep spreading and growing as we continue to water and nurture them.

It seems most of us learn to make peace with our thorns. Like in Chole's yard, they find a home, take root, and are a constant problem, but they live on. And His Life within us is smothered. We speak of living abundantly, but aren't really experiencing it at all. Outer distractions and inner obstructions go on....and grow....and choke out His Life....and our hope of experiencing it in all of its fullness.....Watering thorns. Who would do such a thing? You do. I do.

Blessings,
Pastor O