Disoriented

 John 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

The immediate context of what Jesus was saying in John 14:3, was that He was telling His followers that He was returning to His Father, and the fullness of eternity, but that He would return for them, and for all who have believed upon Him, into that same fullness forever. That's a beautiful promise, and one I look more deeply for every day, as He will be returning for me either through His second coming, or, for when my life here is over, and He takes me home. However, there is deeper meaning here for all who take the name of Jesus; are we, today, living "where He is?" In every aspect of our lives, there is a place He has for us, in Him, that He means for us to dwell in. Are we? And if not, why not?

The writer and speaker, Henry Blackaby, uses the word "disoriented" quite a bit when speaking of the follower of Christ's relationship with their Savior and Lord. He writes and speaks much of how we can easily come to be disoriented from Him in our living, thinking, decision making, relationships, and worldview. In so many ways and places, we are not "where He is" at all. We're someplace far removed, and like every sense of being disoriented, we can't really say where we are, or how we got there, though the answer is simple. We took our eyes off of Him.

Much is said of the will of God, and most believers will say they want to live in His will. Do our actions support that claim? He has a will for how we treat our marriages, our spouses, our children, our stewardship, other believers in Christ, and most of all, our walk with Him. Of these, and so many others, can we honestly say that we're where He is in them? Husbands know what He desires as to how they treat and relate to their wives, and wives their husbands. Are they where He is in that? Are you? We also know His will for parenting, for how we manage the material and spiritual things He has given us and trusted us to manage. Are we where He is in those? We know He desires deep intimacy with us, and that we walk right beside Him. Do we, or do we lag behind, sometimes far behind? So much so that we can barely "see" Him in the distance, if at all.

We all want to be where He is in eternity, but our desire for such proximity to Him weakens greatly in the day to day events of our lives. The truth of it all is that we can go days without even noticing His presence, or really desiring it. Someone said that we're "Christian atheists." We live each day as if He didn't exist, in our own strength, depending upon our own abilities. We don't know where He is, or where we are in relation to Him, which is tragic. Even more, we don't seem to be upset about it...at all.

In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist points out Jesus to two of his disciples, and directs them to follow Him. They begin to do so, trailing behind. Jesus sees them, and asks what they want. They ask to know where He is living, and He replies, "Come and see!" That is what He speaks to us every moment of the day. We tend to trail behind, but He continually calls to us to come and discover where it is He's living, in all parts of our life. He's doing that right now, to you, and to me. Will we fulfill His desire that we be where He is, or will we go on being disoriented, not only to Him, but ourselves as well?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Words

 "So is My word that goes out from My mouth: It will not return to Me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11...."I will speak life into dead situations, truth into deceptive circumstances, and possibility into impossibilities." Chris Tiegreen

We all know that there is power in words. They can lift up, and they can tear down. They can heal, and they can wound. We know there is power in the words we speak, but I wonder, do we really believe there is power in the words that the Father speaks? Scripture says that He spoke, and from His words came creation. Throughout the Bible, we are told that His Words are living words, that they are literally infused with His very life. They are creative words, healing words. They are words that, when spoken by Him, will accomplish all for which He intended. They never return to Him empty. It is His expectation that we, His people, would also speak His words of life into all of our situations and circumstances. Why is it that we so often don't, and when we do, why do they often seem to come back empty? I think the answer in both cases is simply unbelief. Someone said that "we don't believe the God that we say we believe in." What wonders, miracles, healings, and deliverances have we not seen or been a part of simply because we don't really believe that His word is living and active, and pierces even the deepest darkness?

What would happen if we, like Tiegreen, resolved to speak His truth, His promises, His words into all of our life situations. Into all of our impossibilities, into all the lies of our culture, and into all the death that permeates it? What if we began to do so with full confidence that what He has said He will do, and what He's promised He will accomplish? I'm reminded of the scene from the movie, "The Fellowship Of The Ring," when the company stand before the door leading into the mines of Moria. The inscription above the door reads, "Speak Friend And Enter." Gandalf commences to speak every word he can think of to no avail. Finally, Frodo asks him what the elvish word for friend is. Gandalf says it, and the door swings open. Too many of us in the church are like Gandalf. We speak many words, but there is no power in what we speak. Whether it's the result of our unbelief or our corrupted lifestyles, the words we speak, even if they are the right ones, do not bring about the culmination of what we hope for. If we're not living in the power of His Living Word, we can have no expectation that His word will have any deep effect within us or around us. This is not the way He intends it to be. In the risen Christ, He has given us His risen words, but we must partake of His risen life to experience the power and effect that He intends.

What would happen in our own circles of influence, and the wider world around us, if we, like Tiegreen, began to speak His Life into all the death around us? His Light into the deepest surrounding darkness? Truth into all lies and deception. Words that know all things are possible, even in the midst of the most impossible. What would we see coming about? What would happen if we just dared to believe all that He has said, and all that He has promised?

We have so little idea of all that we have in Christ. All that is available to us in and through His name. Scripture promises that "the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord stands forever." May that truth be burned into our hearts. May His words be fully alive within us. We will see dry bones live, life come forth from death, wholeness from brokenness, hope out of despair. May the words we live by be His words. Words of life.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Starving

 Meanwhile the disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” So the disciples asked one another, “Could someone have brought Him food?”… John 4:31-33

These verses from John 4 take place after Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. Before His encounter with her, the disciples had gone into town to seek food for their meals. When they returned, foodstuffs in hand, they wanted Him to eat, but He refused, telling them that He was nurtured by the very Word and Presence of His Father. All earthly fare was only a poor substitute for that. The disciples, as one of my pastor friends put it, loaded up on junk food from the local "McDonald's," while Jesus was partaking of the manna from heaven that never runs out.

It brings the question for us as to where we look for our nurture? Do we, like the disciples, know nothing of the spiritual food that Christ speaks of? Have we been so long dining at our earthly "eateries" that we have no hunger for the Kingdom fare the Lord speaks of? I speak of something far more than meat and bread. I speak of that which we depend upon for our vitality. Literally, what is vital to us? What is our lifeblood? Is it the things of this earthly realm, or is it the manna of the Kingdom? The bread of His life?

I've been going through my old prayer journals of late, and composing them into several hardback notebooks. In doing so I came across something I wrote down a number of years ago. It concerned a Nepalese woman who had come to Christ. She lived in a very poor village, and the hardships for her were real, but of this she said, "Though I face difficult times, there is joy in my heart because I know Jesus. If I don't eat for 2-3 days, that's fine, but if I don't attend Bible study, I feel so unsatisfied." I ask you; are you as humbled by her words as I am? Can you envision yourself in her life in any way? Could you, we, be so in love with Him, with hearing from Him, with His Words of life, that we could forgo literal food so long as we could feed on His bread of life? For her, He and His Word were life. Are they to us?

Food and water are two needs the body cannot long go without, and I love how Jesus uses His interactions with the Samaritan woman and His disciples, to show them their need for His bread and water of life. The water in the well had limits. His Living Water had none. The food the disciples gathered could be consumed but then be gone. His Bread Of Life can never run out. We gorge ourselves on the junk food and soda pop of this world, all the while starving to death for lack of His Words of Life. Indeed, in the Old Testament, the Father said through His prophet that there was a famine upon the land of Israel. Not a famine for bread and meat, but for the very Word of God. I believe such a famine is not only upon our land today, but upon His church as well. If the Nepalese sister were in our church, how odd and out of place would she seem to most of us? How many of us would see her as just being way too intense in her faith?

I once heard a Doctor speaking about those who are grossly overweight. He said that many of them were literally starving to death. Despite their great intake of food, what the consumed did not have sufficient nutrients that they body had to have. They were starving to death though they ate to the full. How many of us, in the spirit, are starving to death because our lives do not get the spiritual nutrients we must have to thrive, even to live?

What our lives consume, live on, will either cause us to live to the full, or slowly die. May we each discover and partake of the food the world knows nothing of, but is freely offered in Christ. He sets His feast before us. Will we come, or continue to do business with McDonald's?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Missing

"Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Ephesians 5:19-20...."What's missing in our worship today is the confession of sin, and the subsequent cleansing, healing, and forgiveness." Larry Crabb.

Some years ago, Larry Crabb wrote a book titled, "Real Church: Does It Exist? Can I Find It?" He wrote it in response to not only his own frustrations with what he was seeing in his corporate worship experiences, but from what he was hearing from many church leaders, especially pastors. Some said that the sameness of their worship had brought them to the place where they felt almost bored with the predictability of it all, and how little the anointed presence of God seemed to be in their midst.

Let me say that Larry Crabb is a lover of the Body of Christ, but he makes points that can't be ignored. I had a conversation with someone the other night who was asking "what can we do to get this generation of young people to want to come to church." I know she meant well, but she was voicing something that is common to far too many today; the idea that we, in our own strength, can make the church more attractive to the unbelieving. Truth is, we've been trying to do this for a long time, and it's not working. Whatever we do to attract a crowd will only result in our having to do something better in order to keep them. The only thing that will draw both the believing and unbelieving in is the powerful, anointed, and totally free presence of God through His Holy Spirit. And that my friends is very scary to a people who have grown used to setting and controlling the direction of what we call worship.

Think on what Crabb says in the above quote. To what degree are we witnessing such a move of the Spirit in our worship these days? When was the last time we saw and experienced such a move of God, where people were so deeply convicted of their sin and need that they cried out to Him in confession and repentance, and where lives were cleansed and souls were saved, marriages and families healed? I have always been awed by the accounts of Jonathan Edwards, one of the central figures in the Great Awakening that swept 18th century America, as he preached his famous "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God." It was said that so heavy was the conviction upon his hearers that they were grasping columns in the church because they were sure the floor they stood on would collapse and they would fall into hell. Could such a sermon be preached today? Certainly such a title couldn't be used. No one wants to think of the God who hates sin and all that it destroys, not least of which is the creation and souls He so loves. We don't like to think of that kind of God....but the Bible doesn't hesitate to tell us that judgement is very much a part of who He is, though tempered by His mercy and love. Could such a message of fire, fueled by His Spirit, be preached in our churches today?

Someone said that in the early church, the cross, the resurrection, healing, and miracles were central. They gathered in expectation of not only beholding His glory, but being transformed by it. Where is such expectation in us? How have we drifted so far from it? I have a quote in my prayer journal from Mark Buchanan. He writes, "When heaven breaks in, all hell breaks loose." Perhaps this is one of our great obstacles to experiencing the kind of worship, the kind of church Crabb speaks of. If God truly would break into the midst of His church, the enemy, in response, would surely break loose all hell in order to try and prevent it. The revival, the awakening we say we want will always come with a cost. Satan will fight a move of God with all he has, and it can be messy, very messy. Yet he will never win that fight if we are determined to be the church, the Body, He has called us to be.

It was said of the Israelites that when they fashioned the golden calf while Moses was on Mt. Sinai, that they were not rejecting Him as God, but fashioning their God in an image more in line with their imaginations. I think in too many ways, we've done the same. John Eldredge said that he wanted Jesus, "the real Jesus." I think there is a growing hunger for the real Jesus, the real Holy Spirit, and the real Almighty God. May our hearts cry, "Maranatha," come Lord! Come quickly!

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Plan B

 "But now your kingdom will not endure; the Lord has sought out a man after His own heart and appointed him ruler of His people because you have not kept the Lord's command." I Samuel 13:14

These words were spoken to Israel's King Saul by the prophet Samuel in response to Saul's disobedience. He was told that the kingdom given him by the Lord was going to be taken from him and given to a man who had a heart that sought the heart of God. That man would be David, a man after God's own heart.

It was said of David that he sought God as a lifestyle, but that Saul was one who offered up 911 prayers. In emergencies, he sought God, but most of the time, he acted on his own impulses and desires. It was also said that when he met with a delay from God, he always had a "plan B." David had no plan but for total reliance upon his God. Saul not only had plan B's, but plan C,D,E and on. When it comes to our relationship with Him, who do we most resemble, David or Saul? Saul lost his kingdom. If we resemble him, what is it that we'll lose, and how great will be our loss?

I'm always moved by the accounts about the prayer lives of some of the great saints. To them, prayer was as natural as breath itself. They lived in the atmosphere of the Kingdom, and they "inhaled" and "exhaled" the very air of that Kingdom. Prayer for them was not an airing of a laundry list of needs and wants. It was the consequence of an intimacy with the Father, through His Holy Spirit, that kept them in constant and sweet connection and relationship with their God. This is what it is to be a man or a woman that is after the heart of God. It was the central trait of David, but it was never a characteristic of Saul's.

Sadly, and I speak this in loving concern, we have too few David's in the church today, and far too many Saul's. For many, a vital prayer life isn't present, and isn't much desired. I have been a part of various prayer groups throughout my ministry. Attendance is almost always small. From time to time, someone will show up with a pressing need and join the group. In the crisis, they're there, but when the crisis passes, so do they. I don't mean to speak in judgement, but who does that more closely resemble, David or Saul? Is prayer really a lifestyle, or is this just another form of the 911 prayer?

I have stated before, and I'll continue to state that I believe times are coming upon us where our casual approach not only to prayer, but to our relationship with Him will not be able to survive, if it was even a relationship to begin with. The realities of this fallen world will continue to press in on us, and our ability to face them will be shown to be more futile by the day. The prayers of the Saul's will be to no avail. To overcome the challenges will require we be a people after His own heart. By His grace, I want to be such a person. I want my church fellowship to be such a church. How about you? Or will you continue to dial 911, all the while holding on to your plan B?

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Sting

 "We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope." I Thessalonians 4:13....The Christian's sorrow is accompanied by hope." Henry Blackaby

For so many, really, for most, there isn't any time when someone feels more helpless or vulnerable than at a funeral. Something within us, dating back to our human ancestors, Adam and Eve, when sin and death entered the world through their sin, knows that death was never meant for us. Yet it is present, and it is inevitable. We may refuse to think on it, but eventually, we will all die, no matter our denial, or how hard we fight against it. When one among us does die, we grieve, and if we don't have the living hope of Jesus Christ, we have little if anything to offer to those who are grieving. Someone said that we all know we're going to die, but no one really expects that they will. That's why the presence of death is so devastating to us. It was never to have a place in the human race, or in the world itself. But it does.

In the ancient world of Christ and the Jews, when a person died, there was a scene of great mourning. Sorrow was expected to be expressed, and expressed loudly. So much a part of the culture was it that there were actually professional "mourners" who could be hired to be present at a funeral to loudly display sorrow at the person's passing. This was the scene in John 11, when Jesus arrived at the tomb of Lazarus, His friend, now dead for four days. All around Him were people weeping in sorrow at the passing of Lazarus. In this, Henry Blackaby puts forth a powerful truth. He said that Lazarus' friends "had the Resurrection and the Life right in their midst, yet they were grieving." In this Blackaby isn't saying that a believer should not feel sorrow at the death of a loved one. He's saying that the sorrow of a follower of Christ is never final in the presence of death. In Jesus Christ, we have the sure hope of the One who is the Resurrection and the Life. In Christ and His resurrection, death has been conquered. The grave is not final, the sting of death, as the apostle Paul writes, has lost it's victory. Christ and His Life, not death, is the Victor.

Sin and Death have cast their pall over the entire created universe. All the misery, pain, sorrow, and loss that we can experience in this life were never meant to have any place at all. The entrance of sin into creation brought with it all the horror we see in this fallen world. Those who live for the things of this world will always be prey to it, captive to it. Not so for the people of God. For those who have received Him, He is our Living Hope. In the midst of all this fallenness, He is our hope, and He is a sure hope. Death has entered this world in countless forms. Christ has conquered death in every form.

Despite this truth, far too many who are His live like those who surrounded the tomb of Lazarus, mourning his loss, feeling that his death was final. We, like they, fail to see or recognize that the One who is our Living Hope, our Resurrection and Life is right here with us. Yes, we suffer loss in this world, and we grieve in this world, but we do so with a hope that cannot be extinguished. A hope that knows that He has conquered all sin and death, and that He will one day raise us up, wipe away all tears, and usher in a new world and creation where sin and death have no place, and are unknown. Does this sound like a fantasy? To the lost, I'm sure it does. Not so for we who have believed upon Him. We can say, as did Paul, "I know Whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that He will keep me against that day." We can say, with Paul, "O death, where is your sting, O death, where is your victory?" Where is it indeed?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Doing Church

 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life , and have it to the full." John 10:10...."Jesus didn't come so we could just 'do church.' " Unknown

Most reading this will likely be attending some type of church fellowship this weekend. What do you expect when you do? Can you say, with a fair amount of certainty, that you know what the flow of the worship service will be? You may not know the songs that have been chosen to sing, or the sermon message that you'll hear, but do you have a strong sense of what will be, because, well, that's generally the way it has been each week.....and for quite a long time.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think a worship service ought to be a "anything goes" gathering. The apostle Paul spoke of doing all things in order. There has to be a certain amount of structure, but have we become so structured that there is no real room for the One who we say we're there to worship? Has the presentation taken the place of His Presence? Has polished performance taken the place of fervent adoration? Have we, consciously or not, sought to appeal more to the senses and emotions than to the spirit?

I have written down in my prayer journal, "Father, make real on earth that which is real in heaven." Mark Buchanan asks, "What would happen if the cry of the church was, "Father, show us Your glory?" Can we ask ourselves if such a hunger for His glory exists in our fellowships? Does it exist in us? If it doesn't, don't we have to admit that what we get is just a weekly effort at "doing church," instead of being the church. We're to give Him glory, behold His glory, and then in all aspects of our lives, reflect His glory.

Jesus said that He came in order that all who received Him would have His abundant life. In our fellowships, the receiving of His life should be taking place whenever we come together because it has been taking place in our day to day living. We should expect to see people saved, healed, delivered, and made whole in our gatherings. We should not expect a "show," but we should expect Him to consistently move in whatever ways He chooses. Even those ways that might, and likely will, make us uncomfortable.

In the end, it comes down to who really controls what we call worship? The Holy Spirit, or us? If it's us, than we're offering, despite our best intentions, a religious performance, one where we watch skilled people perform, show our appreciation, and then go home. Worship must be a relational experience between an Almighty, supernatural God and a surrendered people offering up not only their adoration, but themselves.

Philip Yancey says that we worry if we will sense His presence in our worship, when we should be worrying He's sensing ours. When we gather, does He sense ours? Does He sense yours? Or, are we just "doing church?"

Blessings,

Pastor O

15 minutes

 "In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it." Micah 4:1....."The independent spirit wants Everest. The surrendered spirit wants the holy hill." Patrick Morley

For centuries and perhaps beyond, men had a desire to climb to the summit of Mt. Everest, the highest mountain in the world. Countless men and teams tried, but each one ended in failure, and oftentimes, death. That continued until SIr Edmund Hillary with his guide, reached the top of the great mountain. They were able to remain for 15 minutes until the extreme cold and elements forced them to go back down. Years of preparation, personal sacrifice, and tremendous hardship were invested....for 15 minutes at the summit.

Hillary did enjoy renown for some time. Books written, interviews, and celebrity followed. Yet today, few are likely able to say who it was that first climbed the mountain. His memory is further dimmed by the fact that since his great feat, a number of others have done the same. The import of what he accomplished, great as it was, is fading from memory. Such is the way of life. Solomon wrote in Proverbs that there is nothing new under the sun. What we do will either have been done before us, or after. Our "trophies" will always end up in someone's scrap heap. What do we sacrifice, what are we sacrificing now for our 15 minutes of fame?

Patrick Morley writes, "God desires us to live for the world that is coming, not for the world that is going." Jesus said, "What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but (in the process) loses his soul?" Scripture says that when He created us, He placed eternity in our hearts. This means that there is a longing within each of us that this temporal world can never satisfy. We were created for eternity, not for this passing world. C.S. Lewis said that "If we find in us a longing that nothing in this world can satisfy, perhaps we should know that we were created for another world." How tragic then that we invest so much of ourselves in securing what amounts to nothing more than rusting trophies, yellowed newspaper clippings, and our own version of 15 minutes.

Where does your soul effort go? Some invest all of themselves in their occupation, their relationships, their children and grandchildren.....their ministry. They fix their eyes on a goal, on a result. But what happens should they reach it? What lies beyond it? It was said of Alexander the Great that after he conquered most of the known world, he wept, because there were no more realms to conquer. The longing that was in Him, and that's in us will never be satisfied by our earthly achievements. God meant that they never should. All of them together make up nothing more than 15 minutes, a speck in comparison with what is eternity, and all that He has prepared for us in His eternity.

What is the Everest you seek to climb? Could you dare to believe that it's heights, no matter how high, could not even begin to compare with all that is to be realized on the summit of His Holy Hill? I saw a short clip of a few native New Zealanders who were meeting Sir Edmund Hillary for the first time. Where once there were throngs, there were now just a few, and the man they met was no longer the young, vital mountaineer, but a frail old man who needed assistance to get around. I know nothing of the man's spiritual state, but I hope that he, the man who first reached the summit of Everest, has in his heart, reached the summit of His Holy Hill. I pray that you will as well.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Comforter?

 "And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever;" John 14:16

....."The Holy Spirit is the most uncomfortable Comforter I know." Anne Graham Lotz....."There are times we feel Jesus is out to destroy us....and He is." Mark Galli

In His book, "Jesus Mean And Wild," Mark Galli says, "Too often, we don't want the true God as much as we want the God of our imaginations." This is especially true as concerns God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The proof is how we see both. Our favorite "picture" of Christ seems to be centered on His love, particularly how much He loves us, how much He loves ME! The center of it all becomes us, me. Jesus and His life revolves around mine. It may be unconscious, but we end up thinking He exists for us, not we for Him. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit all have our well-being at heart and all their efforts go towards bringing about good things for us. This is true, but not in ways that our flesh likes or even wants to accept.

Besides Comforter, the Bible refers to the Holy Spirit as our Helper. Our flesh sees that as Him being here to see to our needs and make hard places easier, or to avoid all the hard places completely. Jesus said that He had come to seek and save that which was lost. We're very eager to enter into His offered salvation, but we want Him to leave us undisturbed in the process. We're not looking for Him to bring change within us, just around us. This is not His ministry. It has never been His ministry and never will be. Galli is right. There are definitely going to be times, many of them, when it seems like the Lord is working, either directly or through what He allows, to destroy us. But He only seeks to destroy that part of us that is killing us. Buried anger, resentments, bitterness, impure desires and habits, and addictions of every sort. We are born in captivity to sin, and Christ came to break its power over us. He will work to see what is destructive in our lives fall, so that we might stand in Him. As someone put it, He comes to do a complete makeover of our inner life, except that we don't get to move out while He does it. The process will be painful.

In the same way, the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, will move in ways that will be decidedly uncomfortable for our flesh. He will pursue and convict, speaking into real problem areas in our hearts, and He will be relentless about it. He will use every means possible to do so. Through His Word, through His church, through the lives of others, and by directly speaking into our hearts. Like the inner remodel, it will be painful, sometimes very painful, but with all of it being aimed at bringing about our greatest good. Jesus will only seem mean and wild in the process. When He brings us out on the other side, we will know just how much His love covered us through all of it.

The fingers of the Lord, through His Holy Spirit, will hold us, keep us, and shape us. In the shaping, there will be pressing, squeezing, and stretching. Just as a master violinist stretches the strings of his instrument, stretching them to the near breaking point in order to bring out the richest and sweetest tones, so will He stretch and shape us. At times we will be very "uncomfortable," and at times, we may think He deals with us too harshly, but if we will yield to the shaping, He will bring us into the depths of real life that He created us for. And in the end, we will know and say, as the old hymn goes, that it really was worth it all.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Crutch Factories

 Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise andwalk.” Acts 3:6....."We (the church) shouldn't spend our time building a crutch factory, but look for the healing ministry of the church." Juan Carlos Ortiz

There are a lot of thoughts that come to mind when I dwell on the Scripture from Acts 3, and then the words of Ortiz. For a quick backstory on the Scripture, Peter and John, after the resurrection of Christ, were in the Temple to worship and they passed a crippled man who'd been in that condition all his life. He was begging and asked them for money. The apostles had no money to give, but they did have the Holy Spirit power of God to offer, and that power raised the man up to walk again. As I look at that Scripture, I have no problem believing it to be true. Most of us in the church believe it to be true as well. Our problem is that we don't believe such a miracle could take place today, and most especially, not through us or the church we're a part of. Why do we think that? Why do we believe that God only moved in that way in the distant past, or that He won't move in such a way until the time of His return? Why do we have so little trust and faith in the God the "now," the God of today?

As I contemplate these things, I have to grapple with what Ortiz is saying of the church. Have we settled for offering the crippled, especially those crippled emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, "crutches" that help them cope with a problem rather than seeing them lay hold of His resurrection power and overcome it? Do we offer people ways to "live with" their crippledness, instead of leading them into the wholeness that is offered in Christ?

Jesus Christ didn't come to give us "tools" to help us cope with all the aspects of a fallen world. He came "that we might have life, and have it abundantly." He came that we might be "more than conquerors" in the midst of this fallen world. The crippled man at the entrance to the Temple was looking for a "crutch," money that would get him through another day. Peter and John had no crutch to give him, but they did have miraculous life to offer. So do we who are His. There is nothing wrong with the church offering support, counsel, and so on to the wounded and broken, but what we are to offer above all is His life. His wholeness. His victory. Overwhelming victory. We're to leave no cripples at the door of the church. We're to move and minister in the power of His life, bringing that life and power to a broken and crippled world. Chains are to be broken. Prison doors of every sort are to swing open. His Word says He sets the captives free. Too many of His people continue to sit in His church who are still captive to something or someone. They come in each week with their crutches, and they leave with them as well. Jesus said that "He who is free in Me is free indeed." Isn't time, past time, that this is the ministry we offer to a captive world?

You've likely heard the much used conversation between two modern church leaders concerning the Scripture from Acts. Commenting on it, the one leader remarked, "Well, the church can no longer say it has no silver and gold," to which the other replied, "No, and neither can we any longer say 'rise and walk.' " May we, His church, close the doors of our crutch factories, and once more say to a crippled world, "Rise and walk." Could it be that the first ones who need to hear these words are we ourselves, the church?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Do It Again!

 You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Ephesians 3:17

I've always been fascinated by what I've read about the Hebrides revival that took place in a group of islands off the coast of Scotland in the late 1940's and early 50's. The area was considered so hardened to the Gospel that no evangelist would even go there, yet two elderly ladies, one nearly blind and the other crippled, had been praying earnestly for God to move on the village they lived in. This had gone on enough that even their pastor was moved to cry out to God, and then to a few people in their tiny church. One night, in a prayer meeting, the pastor called upon a young man to pray. He began to offer up an awkward prayer, and then abruptly stopped, saying, "Ach, what's the use of prayer if our hearts are not right with God." He then recited Psalm 24, which says in verses 3 and 4, "Who may climb the mountain of the Lord? Only those whose hands and hearts are pure, who do not worship idols.....they alone may enter God's presence and worship the God of Israel." With that prayer, the Holy Spirit of God fell upon not only that church, but a large area right around it. When the people inside the church went out, they saw people all around the church building lying or kneeling upon the ground, weeping over their spiritual poverty in the presence of God. From there the moving of God grew stronger. In a nearby pub, 14 men who had been drinking heavily, came out of the pub, and began to cry out to God in prayer. All 14 were converted. The move of God continued to grow, and everywhere, people were turning to Christ. Duncan Campbell, an evangelist who at first was reluctant to come because he knew of the island;s reputation for hardness to the Gospel, came and was himself swept up in God's moving. He went to speak to the prisoners held in the island's jail, and beginning his prayer with only the word, "Father," the listening inmates' hearts melted before the Lord, and they too were brought to Christ. These are only a few of the happenings of that great move of God and His awakening of an island that most considered spiritually dead. All of us would do well to search out it's history on the internet. The relating of the events are powerful beyond words.

I share all of that for a very important point. Many in the church have been praying for revival.My first question would be, do any of us really understand what a true revival is? A real move of God brings about the results of the kind seen in Hebrides. People's lives are transformed. They turn away from sinful patterns and embrace the holy life of God. All things really do become new to them. Nothing is the same as it had been. People become acutely aware of their sin and acutely aware of His holiness, and their lack. The truest fruit of a real revival is that those in the midst of it desire with all their hearts to live holy lives, and in the power of His Spirit, they can and do. I think most of our western ideas about revival have to do with us having better, more lively worship and His Spirit being so present that people come and our churches grow. South American evangelist Carlos Annacondia has said, "The difference between your nation and ours concerning an awakening is that we want to win the lost of our nation and our nation with them, and you want to grow your churches." I know he's right because I once was totally guilty of that myself, and I had a lot of pastor friends who were as well. That in itself requires repentance on our part.

The second question is, do we understand what happened in that little church just before the Spirit fell? They were praying. We are praying. The young man who began that prayer was broken by the truth that all their prayers were in vain so long as their hearts weren't right with God. Have we yet come to know that too? Do we understand that before God can move upon a town, a city, a nation....a church, He must come upon me, and upon you? Do we understand that that won't happen until we confess and repent of where our hearts are not right with God, and yield them up to the only One who can make them right? The only One who can turn a heart of stone into one of flesh.

As I contemplate His moving upon that island, my heart wants to cry out, "Lord, do it again. Right here." Along with that, I need to understand, as did that young Scot, that, "Ach, what's the use of prayer when our hearts, my heart, is not right with God." If we will start there, in brokenness before Him, who knows what Almighty God will do in response. Lord, do it again, in whatever way and means you choose, but Lord, do it again.

Blessings,

Pastor O

One Reason

 "God said to Moses, 'I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.' " Exodus 3:14 "Martha had only one reason to remove the stone from the tomb of Lazarus; Jesus said to do it." Anne Graham Lotz

The Lord oftentimes tells us to do impossible things, have impossible faith, and exercise impossible obedience. He sends us into impossible places amidst impossible circumstances. He did so with both Moses and Martha. They are only two among so many with whom He's done this. Perhaps He's done it with you. Perhaps He's doing it right now.

Moses grew up in the court of Pharaoh. He knew the power that resided there. He knew too the stubbornness of his own people, as well as his own inadequacies. Humanly speaking, he had every right to think himself unworthy and ill-equipped for the assignment, and he was. Martha's problem wasn't so much doubt in herself as doubt in her Lord. She thought Lazarus beyond the reach of even Jesus. Both are in good company. They are not the only ones directed to do the impossible by God. Gideon, Samuel, David, Hezekiah, and all of the disciples were tasked with the same. Nothing they faced could instill any confidence in them, especially in themselves. They had no reason to step out into such places....except one. The One who was sending them. He means for that to be enough, more than enough for us. Too often it doesn't seem to be enough. Is it enough for you?

We're living in days where I feel very sure that we'll be experiencing places and circumstances that take us out of our comfort zones. Indeed, rip us from them. He's shaking this world, but His shaking always begins with His people, and especially with those who lead and shepherd His people. We're going to come face to face with the fact that we are inadequate in ourselves to overcome the results of these shakings. Our self-sufficiency will be so shaken that all we have left is our Christ-sufficiency, which has been His aim all along. We will have only one place to turn to....Him. When we do, we can be sure He will give guidance that flies in the face of all our fleshly reasoning. To obey and follow we'll have only one reason...He's the One directing us.

When David faced the giant Goliath, he had no reason to believe he could defeat him, yet he did so with confidence. How? The answer can be found in David's words to the giant,"You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel." The Lord Almighty God was David's one reason to trust, obey, and overcome. His one reason to believe in his ultimate victory. Is He ours today? Whatever giants, mountains, overwhelming circumstances we face, we have but one reason to expect to have victory over them all; the One who goes with us. There are infinite reasons to turn away. There is only one reason to go. Is the presence of the One reason enough for you?

Blessings,

Pastor O