Heart Tracks - The Signature

"For I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus." Galatians 6:17...."But God's truth stands firm like a foundation stone with this inscription: 'The Lord knows those who are His.' " 2 Timothy 2:19......"Every signature of wounding in our lives can be covered by the signature of Christ." Beth Moore

One translation of Galatians 6:17 renders Paul's words as, "I bear on my body the brand marks of Christ." This would likely have deeper meaning to those who first read his letter two thousand years ago. Slavery was a common and widespread experience in his culture. Many in the early church were themselves slaves. Paul considered himself a "bondslave of Christ." Slaves in this culture were branded with a symbol or signature of some sort that identified who owned them. Even if freed, they would bear that mark, that scar, for the rest of their lives. For most, it was a source of shame. For Paul, it was mark he received with joy.

We live in a fallen world, and it is impossible to walk through it untouched and unmarked. We live among fallen people. They are our families, our wives, husbands, children and friends. Intentionally or not, they hurt us, wound us, scar us. Those wounds mark us, affect us, too often, control us. We try many things in order to be free from them, but nothing truly works. Scarred and wounded in one relationship, we quickly look for another to replace it, all the while living under the effects of the wounding and scarring of what has gone before, setting ourselves up to see what has gone before infect what is happening now. The result is new, deeper scars. We live in a pattern of woundedness. Our past, whatever type of scarring has taken place, dictates our future. We live under the bondage and control of the scar, the wound, the brand mark. We live among the ruins of yesterday, and it fully taints our today and tomorrow. We live in a culture awash with such lives. People young and old living with the marks of abuse, divorce, abandonment, addiction, things done to them. We also live under the power of what's going on within us as a result; bitterness, unforgiveness, despair, and hopelessness. Like Paul, we cry out, "Who will deliver us from this living death?" The Answer is before us if we will see Him, hear Him, receive Him. Christ the King.

Paul never forgot who he had been before He encountered Christ on the Damascus Road. A hater of all believers. A persecutor of them. A murderer of them. But he was not held in the power of who he had been, or the marks that his choices and actions had left upon him. He was not because he had allowed Jesus Christ to write His matchless name upon each and every scar, wound and brand mark of his life. A name written in His own blood. A name, a signature that broke the power of what had been, what he had done, or had done to him. A name that announced to all, that he belonged to Christ alone. That the world and the enemy who controlled it, no longer had a claim on him. He belonged to Christ. The tyranny of the mark, the wound, no longer controlled him. Christ had marked him as His own. What He did for Paul, He does for you and me, if we will have it. Will we have it?

We all bear marks, signatures in this life. Whose do you bear? Do your wounds of yesterday control who you are today? The marks of the slave in ancient Rome announced to all, who and what they were. One way or another, ours will do the same. Are you identified by the signatures of what has been done to you, or you have yourself done? When Christ writes His name upon the wounds of your heart and mind, He brings healing upon those wounds, no matter how deeply they have been seared into your being. The brand marks of this world bring shame. The brand mark of Christ brings life and freedom. We will bear one, or the other. Which do you bear? One......or the other?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Third Day People

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[a] neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39...."O Death, Where Is Your Victory? O Death, Where Is Your Sting?.....Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 15:55, 57

I received an email the other day from a spiritual mentor I get together with regularly for prayer. He was speaking in part about the above verses and how they relate to his, and all lives that are truly in Christ. A loose rendering of his words to me would be that though death and its workings unceasingly seek to swallow up our lives, they in turn have been swallowed up by His Victory over death itself. Powerful words indeed, but what he said last made the deepest impact upon me. He said that we, the people of the cross need to live as "3rd day people." People of the resurrection. Living resurrection lives in the midst of a world of death. We live in a sin and death drenched world, and it is the effects of that drenching that get all the attention. The desperate need of the hour for that sin and death drenched world is for a people of the resurrection. Third Day people who are drenched, not in the sin and death of this world, but the life and power of the resurrection. To live such lives, to be such people, that is what overcomes the world and all its death. Are you and I such a people? Are you such a person? Am I?

The other night, at a denominational gathering, I heard one of our leaders speak of the deep need for the Holy fire of God to fall once again upon His church. It put me in mind of two kinds of fires that we can be found at and in. The first fire is that which Peter was found, as he warmed himself at the fire of the guards and onlookers during Jesus trial. At the fire where he denied his Lord three times. I once saw a powerful portrait of Peter at that fire while they were leading his Lord away. As they led Him, Jesus looked upon Peter not with anger, or disgust, but with deep sorrow and sadness. That fire could not keep him from Jesus' eyes. Neither can it keep them from us. Our standing at the fire brings the same response from Him that it did for Peter. It broke both the Lord's and Peter's heart. Does it break ours? The fire that Peter was at is appealing to our flesh. It consumes us, and makes us like it. That's the fate of all who warm themselves at it;s flames.

The other fire, the true fire, is that of the Holy Spirit. Against it, the world's fire cannot stand. It consumes all that is not of it, and leaves only that which is of Him. Such fire fell upon all those in the upper room at Pentecost. Peter was among them. He left the fire of the world and was laid hold of by the fire of the Kingdom. In that place, he became a 3rd day person. All those present became 3rd day people. People of the resurrection. People that know by experience that death has no real power over them. Death is at work all around them, but life is fully at work within them. They were 3rd day people in a last days world, for the reign of sin and death have been in their last days ever since, and the proof is found in the lives of all who are 3rd day people.

Have sin and death lived their last days in you, or do they yet reign? Do defeat, discouragement, despair, rule in your heart and mind? Do you live a life of self-absorption, or Christ absorption? Does the dark fire of sin and death consume you, or the holy white fire of His Life? Third day people know the answer to that. I want with all my heart to be among them. Consumed by His fire, consumed with and by Him. To live such a life, to be such a people yields victory. Swallowed up by His Life, and in turn, living a life that swallows up not only the effects of death, but all of it's intents for me....for you.....for us all. Third Day people. People of the resurrection.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Songs From The Belly Of The Fish

"Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. He said, 'I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble and and He answered me. I called to You from the world of the dead, and Lord, You heard me.....When I lost all hope I turned my thoughts once more the Lord. And my earnest prayer went out to You in Your holy Temple.....I will fulfill all my vows. For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.' " Jonah 2:1-2, 7,9

Have you ever noticed that the most beautiful writings, paintings, and works of all kinds, seem to come out of places and lives that have experienced deep heartache and pain? Scripture says that "He gives songs in the night." The kind of songs He gave to Joseph in his prison, David at his cave, Elijah at his brook Cherith, Jeremiah in his suffering, Paul in his cell, and John on his prison island. And Jonah, from the belly of a fish.

One way or another, the Father seems committed to lead His beloved children to such places as these. Sometimes, it's His last option, because we, like Jonah, have been running from Him and His will for us. Other times, most times, it is in order for Him to fulfill His purpose for and in us. Not only to work out His will, but to do so for His glory. A glory to sing songs about. Songs may come in the sunlight, but they never seem to have any staying power. We may sing them, but like the grass, they wither, and no one really remembers them. The songs that He gives us seem best composed in the darkness....or in the belly of a fish. These songs stand the test of time. They are not only sung by us, but by others that come after us, who have heard our songs of the wonder, glory and faithfulness of Him who ls the King Eternal. They're not lighthearted little things, but songs whose notes were composed in the midst of heartache, loss, need.....and trust. Trust in Him who will not disappoint us. To get the sweetest note of a violin, it's string must be stretched to the point of breaking, and then when that is done, it's struck with the bow. Yet the result is a masterpiece of music, that stays in the mind and even the heart. So it is with all those who have been given and who sing their songs in the night. Their songs written down while in the belly of a fish. And they compose a masterpiece. They can become the masterpiece.

His Word says that Jonah was running for Spain, which was about as close to the end of the world as one could get in those days. If the Father had allowed it, what would have been the result? Not only the countless souls lost in the city of Nineveh, but lost as well would be the masterpiece passed on to us written from his heart....in the belly of a fish. A song that still stirs our hearts nearly three thousand years later. Just as David's songs do, and Paul's, and John's, and....believe it or not, yours and mine....if we dare to seek Him in the dark, in the prison, in our own belly of the fish. Songs that will sing to a dying world in desperate need of such music. Songs that lift up His name, and all the wonder that is connected to it. Songs that lay hold of hearts, minds, and lives. Songs that last forever. Songs that only you and I can write...and sing. Will we?

Maybe this day you're living in your own "night." Your own cell, cave....belly of a fish. Satan whispers that you are trapped in the world of the dead, with no way out. Dare to believe otherwise, to cry out. The Father, in His throne room hears. He answers. He saves. And He gives songs. Let Him give one to you. A song worth singing. A song for the ages. A Masterpiece!

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living In The God-Zone

Shout for joy you heavens; rejoice you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the Lord comforts His people and will have compassion on His afflicted ones. Isaiah 49:13.....Can we say that the greatest gift we can ever receive is that of losing our earthly security and comfort? So that we can unwrap the intimacy of the Savior and His heavenly comfort.....We're in the God-zone when we're out of our comfort zone....Ann Voskamp

I think a great portion of our prayer life is spent either asking God to keep us from any trouble, or, if in trouble, to get us out as quickly as possible. We have no desire to enter into a Jesus-like desert. We give no welcome to wilderness experiences. They're to be avoided. We believe that He has a "wonderful plan for our lives." That plan has no place for a desert or wilderness. This also means that it has no room for His cross.

I can say with certainty as concerns my own life, that I never learned anything of Him from a spiritual easy chair. From such a place I can only conclude that His goodness is proven by all the good things, stuff, He is adding onto and doing in my life. God is good, and those words roll of my tongue.....from the easy chair. But what does my heart speak should I find myself in the desert? What am I saying, thinking, modeling, should my life be overwhelmed by the very real floods, fires, and earthquakes of this world? Can I still say He is good when life is not? Or, does He have to do something good for me in that place before I can utter such a statement? It's amazing how quickly we can go from praising Him to cursing Him when the landscape goes from ease and comfort to barrenness and lack. Yet it is in that barrenness that we can discover what it is to live in the God-zone that Voskamp speaks of. It's there, in the unknown desert and wilderness that we discover and know the wonder and mystery of Him. It's there that we discover who He really is, and what the goodness of God really is. It's there we experience what Voskamp calls, "the comfort of His grip."

Easy chairs are static, stationary. They go nowhere. Neither does a life lived out in our comfort zone. The more time we spend there, the weaker we get. The more time we spend there, the more dull is the image of Him before us, and the knowledge and experience of Him within us. From the easy chair, we will never experience the joy and wonder we find in His providing a stream in the desert, His bread of life in the wilderness. From the easy chair, we never come to know what it is to live a life totally dependent upon Him. A life filled with the rich reward of Himself. When we live in the God-zone, we discover that His goodness is not defined by the "stuff" He gives, or the blessings He gives. In the God-zone, we learn that He is the blessing.

Annie Herring, the gifted lead singer of the Jesus movement group 2nd Chapter of Acts, said that upon her conversion, the Lord spoke to her. She had been seeking fame and success as a rock singer. She had just landed a recording contract, one that seemed an open door to all she had desired. The Lord quietly stated, "You can have all of that, all you have desired, or, you can have Me." She said she told Him, "Lord, now that I've seen You, I don't want anything else." This becomes the testimony of all those who embrace life in the God-zone, who live in the comfort of His grip. Deserts, floods, fire......need, they are all stepping stones into a greater intimacy with Him. We see Him as He is, and we want nothing else but more of Him.....and we will get it. And we will never go back to the easy chair.

No, we don't go looking for fires, floods, earthquakes and deserts, but we do not fear them should they come. We know that they will be places of deeper intimacy with Him, deeper joy in Him. We will not waste them, and we will not miss Him in them. In the God-zone we know that He is the blessing. He is what's good, best, and forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Breathe In, Breathe Out

"In His grace there is life; weeping may be for the night, but joy comes in the morning." Psalm 30:5......"I had to choose fear - or completely trust Him. One cannot exist if the other is true." A woman named Sarah, in the midst of a terminal illness that would take her life.

Someone once said something to effect that it is the believers call to demonstrate His resurrection life in a world where death gets all the attention. The beautiful lady named Sarah, lived a life that demonstrated that even in the midst of a diseases that would eventually take her physical life, but could never touch her life in Christ. To a watching world, it was the disease that first got their attention. To Sarah, and to those who were really looking on, it was His life within her that showed forth in ever greater ways. Her physical life was fading away. Her life in Him glowed ever brighter. It could not, would not, ever fade away.

How about you and me? Someone said that the Church, which is us, is to be a "colony of heaven in the country of death." This is a fallen world, and all of our best efforts, even as believers, is not going to change that. Only His return can. In the meantime, we are to occupy. Not in a passive, accepting way, but in an active, shining witness of the resurrection life found only in Him. A life that death cannot extinguish, even if all the rage of hell is unleashed against it. We can occupy here, as more than conquerors, because we live totally occupied with Him, the Author of Life. His Life courses through us no matter what is happening around us, or to us. Yet to live that life demands a choice, a decision; just as it did for Sarah. We either choose to live as captives of fear, or as the children of victory, whose trust is in Him. The first only increases the power of death. But fear cannot exist when we are truly trusting Him. It's there we learn the truth that "perfect love casts out all fear."

Death is all around us. We know this. What is at work within us? Our senses and lives will be assaulted by this power, and the only counter we have is His Life showing forth in us as we trust Him in all of it. Ann Voskamp, a personal friend of Sarah, wrote, "Fear is banished in this present moment when the presence of I AM fills it." Where I AM is, there can only be life. All the power of death in every form it takes, is rendered powerless in His presence. This is to be our witness. Is it our witness?

Today, tomorrow, next week, until He comes for us or we go home to Him, death in some form will come calling. What do we choose in response to it? When we choose to trust Him, we choose life. God is on the throne....breathe in, breathe out. Christ is risen....breathe in, breathe out. He lives, and because of this, we not only can face tomorrow, we overcome it....in Him. So breath in, breathe out.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Power Of The Pit

"Praise the Lord my soul, and forget not all His benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion." Psalm 103:2-4

What beautiful verses from this beautiful Psalm. Why don't we believe it's truth? Why, when those who are His are "crowned with love and compassion," do we so often, most often, live lives trapped in despair, discouragement, anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, addictions, anxiety, fear, and a myriad of other prisons? Why are they all so much more real and powerful in our lives than this great promise from His heart? I think the answer is best expressed by Ann Voskamp, who asked this question of herself; "Because you believe in the power of the pit." We recognize the binding power of the pit far more than the freeing grace of Christ. Why?

Voskamp gives a reason that most of us will not care to entertain. The feelings we experience in the pit can be very satisfying. Holding onto anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, these can all be very comforting to our flesh. They give us a real sense of control too. So can fear, stress, and anxiety. As long as we hold these, and any other denizen of the pit, He doesn't. In truth, we're not holding them at all. They're holding us. And all the while our pit gets deeper, darker, and we become more and more dead to His freeing grace and presence.

As I write this, I'm reminded of something a friend shared just yesterday. He'd received a note from a friend telling him of something she'd read; of how a man whose wife was suffering from Alzheimer's told him that she feared that one day the disease might advance to the place where she could no longer remember Jesus. For this good woman, that was a pit of unending darkness. The husband took a moment and then said to her that even if such a thing did happen to her, she could live in the truth that even in that place, Jesus Christ would never forget her. He knew her name. He knows our name. He's the God who sees us, even in the pit. Even when our pit keeps us from seeing Him. And He is the One who will lift us from that pit, and all it's miry clay, and set us upon His Life. His Life of wholeness, joy, and peace in Him. Our pit, whatever form it may take, may hold power over us. It can never hold power over Him.

Where, in any aspect of our lives, are we living under the power of the pit? Where do we seek to maintain control, and suffer untold pain because of it? Where have peace, joy, contentment, hope, been stolen because some demon of the pit has convinced us that the pit is where we must stay? Here's the joyful and blessed news. He stands at the very edge of our pit and reaches down to us that He may lift us up to Him. This is the very picture of redemption. All our striving will not get us out of the pit, but with a word from Him and the giving of His hand of love, He can. He does. He will.....Renounce the power of the pit. Embrace the power and love of the Christ. Our pits can make us forget Him, but they will never be able to make Him forget us. At His Word now, come out of the pit.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Open Door

"It was the Lord's Day, and I was worshiping in the Spirit. Suddenly I heard a loud voice behind me, a voice that sounded like a mighty trumpet blast......"Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I heard before spoke to me with the sound of a mighty trumpet blast. The voice said, 'Come up here, and I will show what must happen after these things. And instantly I was in the Spirit, and I saw a throne in heaven and someone sitting on it." Revelation 1:10... 4:1-2

This passage of Scripture has had great meaning for me for many years now, even more after a friend shared some personal insights on it with me. John, the beloved disciple, is on the Isle of Patmos, a prison island. His dwelling was likely a cave of some sort, and the island itself was desolate, with his only company being the guards, and other prisoners, most of whom were criminals. John may well be looked up to as one of the most godly of men ever, yet he was human. He had to be have been experiencing a myriad of emotions and thoughts. Yet even so, it was the Lord's Day, and he was worshiping his Lord. This is where the insight of my friend comes in.

My friend opined that John was most likely worshiping while facing Jerusalem, site of so much of his life and ministry. Very likely as he did so, he was thinking of what had been, what he had lost. What could not be recovered. There are places like that in this life for all of us. We grieve over what has been lost, which is natural, but so often, the grief can hold us captive. That very well could have been the case with John. As he worshiped, John heard a voice behind him, which, as my friend said, meant he was facing the wrong way. He was looking back. Christ would have him look up, and forward.

It's not lost on me that His voice is twice described as a mighty trumpet blast. I love the still, small voice of Christ, but that isn't the only voice He speaks in. Sometimes, in the midst of darkness, we need to hear Him loudly, reminding us that He is not only there, that He sees us, but that He is in control. Complete control, no matter where our circumstances have placed us. And that, my friends, is where we come to the part that has so long spoken to my heart.

In the midst of his emotional turmoil, his unending questions of "Why?", His voice speaks again. John's field of vision had been limited to what he could see that was behind him, lost, and what he could see around him, an endless horizon of what many would think of as hopelessness. That's when His voice commanded him to look up, to see the Father's open door. A door that gave him the view of the throne room of God. The voice of the Lord wanted him to see that his reality was not defined or limited by what his physical eyes saw. That was all passing and temporary. When he looked into the throne room of the Father, he saw Him sitting upon His throne. The voice of the Lord wanted him to know that this was where true reality was. A reality that had no limitations on its horizon of hope. The past and what had been lost, the prison island with its unending waters around it, and the desolation of the island itself, could not hold him. Even in this place, He was God, and the Father was not finished with him yet. Neither is He finished with any of us yet. Wherever we are, whatever our condition, He calls us to look up, to see His open door and He who sits on the throne. This is eternity and this is reality, and nothing of this world can prevent His works in and for you and me.

We all, in one way or another, will come to our own prison island. He will likely find all of us at some point, looking behind us, looking the wrong way. His mighty voice calls us in the midst of it all to look up, to see Him, sitting on His throne. Not passively, but actively, speaking to us, working in us, and through us. The island cannot hold us. We weren't made for it. We were made to dwell in His throne room, with Him. His door is open. We need only look up, rise up, and enter in.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Christ Cross

"If any man would follow Me, let him take up his cross.".........."When Christ calls a man, He bids Him come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer...."The cross of which Jesus spoke had nothing of beauty in it. It was an instrument of death. Slaying men was its only function. Men did not wear that cross, but that cross wore men.....The cross has been the end of a life and the beginning of a life." A.W. Tozer

In the ancient world, or in any world, there may be no more horrible way to die than upon a cross. It could take days of unrelenting agony. As one put it, you stayed upon that cross until every part of you was dead. It's purpose, as Tozer states, was to slay. To slay completely.

I remember as early as the 1980's, it being said that if we truly wished to reach a lost world we needed to get away from the "negative" message of sin and it's effects and concentrate on the positive one of His great love. This always struck me as strange, because where is the love of God shown more powerfully than in His giving of Christ to die, on a cross, for our sin and sins?

Moving into the 90's, we began to hear that it if we wanted to reach the lost, we needed to stop prominently displaying the cross in our churches. The unchurched found it offensive they said. This also seemed strange; hiding the very illustration of His hatred of sin and it's devastating effect on the human race He so loves. More, as Paul wrote, the cross will always be offensive, a stumbling block to our flesh. Our flesh hates it because it knows that the cross of Christ has as its purpose destroying the power of sin through our flesh, in our lives. The result of these two "movements" has been to produce a tame, powerless, pseudo gospel that can be very attractive to our flesh, but has no power to reach and change our hearts, and transform our lives. Lives don't become completely new in Him. People may become moderately better behaved. Improvements may have taken place, we may be "better" than we were, but the root problem of our spiritual waywardness remains. What was lost in the Garden has yet to be found.

This is not a call to hurl brimstone from the pulpit. Just a heart yearning to hear proclaimed the Word that points to Christ. Christ as He is, and as we might wish Him to be. Christ who conquered sin...on the cross. Who rose because He could not be held captive by it. Who lives and so offers to us that same fullness of His Life that He Himself walks in. But to have it, we must take up our cross, His cross, and climb the hill to Calvary....and die there. Though we enter into His risen life, we do not leave the cross there. We carry it throughout our journey here. Dying more to ourselves each day, and living more and more in Him as well.

We can attempt to hide His cross, or bring it out a few times a year, especially at Easter, but it will go nowhere. It remains the gateway into the fullness of His life through the death of our old life. The giving of His Life cost the Father everything. He offers His Life to us freely, but to have it in all its fullness will cost us everything. How deep do we desire it?

If Tozer's words written two generations ago stung then, how much more now? He said, "Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today. We want to be saved, but we insist that Christ do all the dying." We all know that what he speaks is true. The question is, how true is it in us? Where are we insisting that He die...for us....so that we may continue to live..... also for us?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Embrace

"Jesus was matter-of-fact: 'Embrace this God-life. Really embrace it, and nothing will be too much for you." Mark 11:22...."The last word will be spoken by God and the last word is 'Victory.' " E. Stanley Jones

I heard Sheila Walsh tell the story of her encounter with a homeless man during her college days in London, England. Sitting under a tree, she had made eye contact with him, and led of the Spirit, went over to his bench and began to talk to him. Eventually she asked him to share some things about himself. It came to light that the man had been a very successful Doctor practicing among the wealthiest of the city. Affluence and recognition were his. Eventually though, his abuse of alcohol and prescription drugs cost him his marriage and family as well as the loss of his license to practice medicine. He spiraled into deeper addiction and life on the street. He told her that one day he walked past a department store that had mirrors in the window. He caught a glimpse of a man dressed in a dirty shirt, with dirty, unkempt hair. He said he had an immediate feeling of distaste and repulsion for what he saw. Then he realized he was looking at himself. His thought was, "This is what I've become."

As I heard that story, I was reminded of one from my own life. I was at a party, and being at a party was what my life was all about at the time. Yet I can remember that though I was surrounded by the usual revelers, I was filled with a deep sense of lostness and meaninglessness. There must have been at least 50 people in that apartment, and many were sitting on the floor. I was one of them. Someone took a picture and then shared it. I then saw myself in the midst of that crowd, having the most forlorn, lost look on my face. I, like the Doctor, thought "This is what I have become." I knew then that life as I was living it could not go on. Something had to change, and I knew if it didn't, my lifestyle would one day end my life. Someone once said that nobody finds the rock until they hit bottom. I had hit the bottom, and within a month, through His miraculous ways, I found Him. Actually, He found me. Indeed, He knew where I was all the time.

This brings me to the above Scripture from The Message translation of the Bible. Jesus calls us to embrace His life, to receive it as our own. What I found as I did embrace it, is that He in turn was embracing me. We often times think in terms of clinging to Him and not letting go, and there is truth in that, but the true clinging, the real embrace is from Him. He clings to us. He embraces us. Wherever we are, His embrace of us is there as well. We may choose to leave it, live apart from it. But always before us is a Jesus with arms wide open. Welcoming us into His embrace. Where in your life do you need His embrace right now?

There's a very popular print available that shows Jesus welcoming one of His into heaven, into His embrace. It's a beautiful picture, but we don't have to wait for heaven to experience the intimacy of His embrace. It is available to us right now. The eternal quality of His life is offered to us right now. We can live in His embrace as we embrace Him, right now. Are you ready for it all, right now?

Walsh did not share the rest of her encounter with the homeless Doctor. I hope she will some day. I know that the embrace of Christ was available to him no matter what his life had become. No matter who and what he'd become. I know because he made it available to me, despite all that I had become. That's why I love the above quote from Jones. He always has the last word concerning us, and His word, if we'll receive it, is victory. No matter what we've been, where we are, or what we've done or had done to us, that is His last word for us. For you. It comes with His embrace. He invites you into it. Do you come?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Run To The River

"Everything that touches the water of this river will live. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea, for its waters will be healed. Wherever this water flows, everything will live." Ezekiel 47:9....."Down, always down, water runs, always looking for yet lower and lower places to flow.....The river of joy flows down to the lowest places." Ann Voskamp

I love the first nine verses of Ezekiel 47. They speak of the River of God which the prophet was shown in a vision and which flowed from the Temple of God, that symbolized His Presence. In the vision, the prophet was shown the river, and then directed to step out into it. He obeyed and did so by degrees. He first went ankle deep, then knee, then waist, till finally, he was immersed, and could but go with the flow of the river. In essence, he was one with the river. God's river. God's presence and life. We are called, commanded to be one with them. Immersed in them. Are we? Are you? Or, do we have a degree of depth to which we're willing to go? A depth that in the end, allows us to maintain some sense of control? The River of God is always flowing. The question for each of us is, does it flow by us, either as we stand on the shore, or around and past us as we stand partially immersed, but not fully in? Not fully in, and never fully experiencing the healing, empowering life giving river that is God.

There have been some beautiful worship choruses written over the last couple of decades about this river. I love to play them as I muddle through on my guitar. A lyric in one of them says, "I run to the river." Like children run to the water on a hot summer day, that is how we are to run to His river of life. Not tenatively, but fully, completely, diving into His river of life, healing, joy and peace. Immersed in the river, living in the "atmosphere," for lack of a better word, of that river. As the Scriptures say, His river is always flowing, and the most barren of deserts cannot stop its flow to and through us. Neither can the presence of death both around and even within us. The River Of God is a river of life. It is a flow that nothing can withstand....but it can be avoided, run from. It is flowing right now. Are you running to the river, or from it?

The Dead Sea is exactly what it's name says. Nothing can live in it. It is a body of water devoid of life. Yet the Father says that even it will bring forth life when its waters are touched by the waters of His Life. So it is with all areas of death within us. Anything within that seeks to steal joy, peace, hope, purity, is a place of death. Wherever anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, fear, sin in any form prevails in us, that is an area of death. The only healing for any of it is to be found in the River of God. No matter to what depth within us it may be found, His river of life will flow to it. As Voskamp says, "the river of joy flows down to the lowest places." There is no place, no event, no happening in our lives before or now, that it cannot and will not reach. The River of God is the fullness of the life of His Son, Jesus Christ. It will seek us out in the deepest desert and the darkest cave. In those places of darkness and death, He will bring fullness of life and hope. New life, and new hope. Has the river of His life found you. The river is flowing. Run to the river.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks Something More

"I know Whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've entrusted to Him until that day." I Timothy 1:12....."He has planted eternity in the human heart." Ecclesiastes 3:11

We all know that there are good days, and there are bad days. It's a part of life. As long as it stays on that level, we tend to feel we can handle it all, deal with it in our own strength and ability. But what about when life goes beyond those? What happens to us in the midst of either our best or our worst days? We welcome the good and the best. Not so with the bad; never with the worst. Yet our need for Him is desperate in all of them.

I've had many good days and bad days. I can clearly remember the best ones, and will never forget the worst. Yet there is something I've found in each day regardless it's degree of "good, bad, best, or worst." It's that no matter how good or bad they may be, there remains within me a longing that says in the euphoria of the best, and the devastation of the worst, "There must be something more." In the midst of the best, we come to know that the emotional and mental high of the moment will not last and cannot sustain us. Like everything in this world, they are passing. In this fallen world, they cannot be held onto, but if we try, we can become captive to our best times, and experience deep dissatisfaction when the rest of life doesn't add up to them. That's when we experience the longing for something more. There must be something more.

It's no different in the midst of the bad and the worst, except that these times are likely to be more intense, more emotional, and they seek to hold us in an even deeper, darker captivity. In our humanity, we tend to let our good and best days run together. Not so with our worst. They deeply wound, traumatize, scar. We don't forget them. The devil seeks to keep us living in them. No matter how long ago they may have happened, he can make them seem like only moments have passed. The pain, agony, and hopelessness of that time is still happening in this time. We need to know that He is not held captive by either our best or worst days, for He doesn't live in the day, but eternity. It's where we're to live as well. He created us for it, planted it in our hearts. It's what tells us in every place, good, bad, best, worst, that there is something far greater and more than this. Whatever our "this" may be.

I remember my worst day. It was the day my wife left. I was shattered, not knowing what to do, or where to go. I left the parsonage and walked a short way up the road and entered the small graveyard that was nearby. It seemed an appropriate place. As I walked among those tombstones, the enemy used everyone of them to mock the death of my marriage and ministry. Yet in that place of death, amidst the real agony and darkness, that eternity planted in my heart called me to Himself. I was not made for death, but for His life. A tombstone would not mark my life, but an Ebenezer. He had been my help to that point. He would be my help that day, the worst day. He would be help, and hope in all the days to come, no matter how good or bad or worst they might be. I had known Whom I had believed, I would come to know Him more. I still am coming to know Him more. In that graveyard, some part of His glory touched me. My life wouldn't end there. It didn't end there. Neither need yours. Neither will yours if you truly live in the Truth of His Word and Life. Even if right now, you can only hold onto that Truth by a string.

Is that longing for something more whispering in your heart? Can you take what is shattered and lay it at His feet? Whatever the day, He lives. If we are in Christ, we live as well. All the power of this world and the death the enemy of our souls works through cannot touch us. If we are His, He will keep what we have given Him until that day, best or worst, and beyond it. He'll not leave anyone in the graveyard, held captive by it. Not on our mountaintops either. We're made for eternity....with Him. Have you entered in?

Blessings,
Pastor O