Uncharted

 "For I know the One in Whom I have put my trust." I Timothy 1:12

Mark Buchanan in his book, Hidden In Plain Sight, writes of the beautifully illustrated maps produced by cartographers of the Middle Ages. He said, "They typically inscribed uncharted areas with the words, Terra incognita, "unknown earth." There would often be added the warning, Hic sunt dracones....Here be dragons.

From the perspective of the 21st century, we laugh at that superstition. There were no dragons. Yet they were real to those who drew the maps and there were few who dared to go into those uncharted and unknown places. Their fear of the dragons kept them out. This gives rise to a question for each of us; what "dragons" and the fear you have of them are keeping you from entering into the unknown land that He calls you to? Especially when you know that if He has called you, there really will be dragons there. Satan, whom the Bible calls "the dragon," lurks in all the unknown lying before us. He always has and always will. Will you go anyway?

Radio host Glen Beck has a segment titled, "What I Know And What I Don't Know." For him, for all of us, the second column is far longer than the first. This is especially true when He is leading us into a place we've never been before facing circumstances, obstacles......dragons that we've never faced before. He calls us into the unknown.....again. And there be dragons.....again. What do we know about this new land? Little or nothing. What we do know is that He calls us to enter in with Him, and with Him, overcome all the dragons we encounter. But He doesn't leave us basking in the victory. He keeps calling us into new lands, new uncharted waters, and yes, new dragons. Moving into more unknown but clinging to the One we do know, must know, and the One who will, through us, slay every dragon we encounter. He will because His Son, on the cross and in His resurrection, slew every dragon we could ever encounter in any land to which He takes us. Here be dragons, but He has his foot firmly upon their necks, and in Him, so do we. Every new land He calls us to is already ours.

The life journey of the apostle Paul was one of constantly entering unknown and uncharted waters and lands. There were always dragons there and they were always fierce. They never stopped him because all he didn't know about these places was nullified by the great truth he spoke and wrote in 2 Timothy 1:12, I KNOW the One in whom I have put my trust. Knowing Him broke all the power of the unknown waters and lands and the dragons they contained. Do we, or does the threat of the dragons keep us trapped in a land we're not meant to dwell in. A land that may seem comfortable, but is actually a prison, keeping us from our destiny in Him. Keeping us from being all He created us to be.

The uncharted land may be a place we never intended to go, or would choose to inhabit, yet He leads us there, or has allowed us to come to it. Divorce, sickness, death, and a thousand and one other kinds of losses constitute that land, yet here we are, in the middle of the unknown. Let the whisper of His Spirit be heard by you; "Fear not. I am with you. I own even this land. It's I who rules here, not the dragon. And in this place you will discover riches in Me that only can be found in this uncharted place. Press on with Me and lay hold of them." Press on my friends. He owns the land, and in Him, so do we.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Friend

 "Then Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak." Genesis 32:24

One of our great problems with God is that He rarely behaves as we would like. This can be very disconcerting. We like and want a God we can figure out. A God whose movements and actions can be predicted. A God who is, in the words of author and pastor R.T. Kendall, "safe and nice." The problem, says Kendall, is that God is not safe and nice, but as C.S. Lewis says in The Chronicles of Narnia, "He is good." This is what we must choose to believe about Him and put our trust in. Even when He appears to be anything but good, and beloved, such times will surely come to each of us.

God called Abraham His friend. The Bible tells us that He spoke to Moses, "As one speaks to a friend." Yet both of these men had very real times when God seemed decidedly unfriendly to them. He sent them places they would never have chosen to go. He led through times and experiences that contained great amounts of pain and hardship. Job was God's friend, yet Job went through a time in his life when he felt that His God, His friend, was completely against him. Have you been there? Are you there now? In these places our beliefs about Him will be tested. He will not be safe. He will not be nice. But He will be good. The great challenge is that we will believe this. Do we believe this?

In his book, "Out Of Your Comfort Zone," Kendall says, "There is a betrayal barrier with God that we must break through, for there will be times when He appears to betray us." In those times, what will we believe about Him? What will you believe about Him? Kendall says this about Jacob's wrestling with God in Genesis 32. "At some point in Jacob's wrestling with God, he realized this was not an enemy, but a friend, and he determined he would not let go without a blessing." We come to desert places and we will "wrestle" with Him in those places. Wrestle over the loss, pain, heartache, and seeming rejection. If we will see that if we, like Jacob, will cling to Him there, we will come to see that He is really our friend, and that He means, in that place, to bless us. To take us through in victory is we will just hold on to Him.

Romans 8:28, that "All things work together for good for those that love God," sounds great when we speak it to encourage someone else. How about when all these things have hit our lives, especially when "these things" seem to hit all at once? Where is the good? Where is God? Hold on to Him. He is there in these very things. There because He promises to be. Not as a helpless observer, standing by, wringing His hands, telling us to somehow hold on, endure, survive, get through it all. No, He's there as Mighty God, Wonderful Savior, Prince of Peace. He's the One who's triumphed over "all things."

It's a wonderful thing to be a "friend of God," but we don't get there by merely saying it. We get there by living it. Day by day, walking with Him. Walking through the battles, the trials, the "all things" that bombard and make no sense. Those things we wrestle so greatly with. In the wrestling, choose to believe you are facing not an enemy, but a Friend. He offers His friendship. Not cheaply, but fully. He extends His hand of friendship to you. Will you dare to take it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Overwhelmed

 "I cry out to the Lord, I plead for the Lord's mercy. I pour out my complaints before Him and tell Him all my troubles. For I am overwhelmed......" Psalm 142:1-3

Overwhelmed. I think that's how many feel today. Overwhelmed by our problems, needs, and pressures. Overwhelmed by life. The result of this is paralysis. We may continue to move about through our daily lives, but our souls, emotions, even our spirits, are paralyzed, crippled, held prisoner. Is there any hope, any way out of this place?

The above Scripture gives the picture of David being surrounded by his troubles, needs, circumstances, and fears. They were with him all the time. When he awoke, as he went through his day, and when he sought sleep at night. They were a constant presence and pressure. Jesus knows this place well. In Gethsemane, which means oil press, He cried out, "My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death." He was overwhelmed, surrounded by the intensity of what was to take place in His life. And Satan was present to seek to bring Him to despair. We come to our own Gethsemane, our own oil press. Maybe you're in one right now. Surrounded, pressured, overwhelmed by conditions and circumstances that won't relent, back off, or go away. Is there a way out? David the earthly king and Christ the eternal One tell us that there is. It is found in Him.

Beth Moore says that in these times, He takes us into His Intensive Care. Times when it is just us and Him. There is no one else because no one else is able to lead us through the intensity of our personal "oil press." Today, where might you need His intensive care? Overwhelmed, surrounded, alone, yet not alone at all. David called his friends and counselors, but try as they may, they couldn't help him. Jesus called His disciples to come and pray with Him, but they slept. They were alone, yet they were not alone for the Father called them into His "ICU." He calls you, us, as well.

David begins verse three of this Psalm saying he is overwhelmed, but he finishes with "You alone know the way I should turn." In the oil press, in the place of overwhelming pressure and pain, the Father knows the way through and out. He will bring us out victorious, whole, and free. The oil press the enemy meant to use for our destruction is instead a vessel used of God to take us into a deeper, stronger, more beautiful walk with Him. At the end of the Psalm, David says, "The godly will crowd around me for You treat me kindly." David, once overwhelmed, had now overcome. Jesus, overwhelmed in the garden, emerged to take on and conquer sin and death. In Him, we may do so as well.

If you're overwhelmed today, haunted by that which never leaves you, know that all of it has been overcome by He who overwhelms the overwhelming. What the enemy means to crush you with, He means to use to lead you to Himself. He calls you to His intensive care. Don't fear to enter in. Overcome the overwhelming..

Blessings,
Pastor O

Gateway

 "I will give her....the valley of Achor as a door of hope." Hosea 2:15

In a wonderful little book titled, "Tell Your Heart To Beat Again," by Dutch Sheets, the above Scripture is elaborated upon. In it, God is speaking to His people, a people broken, beaten down, and defeated. The word "Achor" literally means, "trouble." Sheets writes that what the Lord is saying is, "I will give you, My weary and hurting people, a hope that opens doors in the midst of troublesome valleys." Hosea goes on to say that once that hope opens a door, "she will sing there as in the days of her youth." 

The NLT renders this verse as, "I will...transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope." We don't have to go far to find trouble...a lot of it. In fact, very often, trouble finds us, and easily. What we have difficulty finding in our various valleys of trouble is hope. His Word says that "hope deferred makes the heart sick." Anyone living in the place of despair and hopelessness knows the truth of this. We are living in the day of the sick heart. Myriads of people suffer as they live in the midst of despair. Satan, the enemy of our souls, plots that this would be the state of the human race, and if possible, even of the people of God. He plots to steal and kill our hope. Without hope, we fall into darkness. That's his plan for us in the Valley of Achor, in the Valley of Trouble. Maybe you're there right now, and his attacks upon your mind, heart, and spirit are increasing. 

In the early days of the collapse and end of my marriage, I kept looking for Him to do something, anything, to end my suffering, to restore my "fortunes." That didn't happen, not at that time, and each day seemed darker and the light of hope appeared to be going out. I remember talking to the one who had been my pastor since my first days as a believer. As I shared my brokenness and feelings of abandonment, he said in gentle but firm words, "Gary, you must hope in God, for if you lose hope in Him, you will have lost everything." It was then that the Holy Spirit brought to my mind  the Scripture concerning Abraham, the father of faith...and hope. The Scripture that said Abraham, "hoping against hope, believed." Abraham, having no visible reason to have any hope, hoped anyway, and believed the God who had promised.

At that moment, hope within me was renewed. A fresh, new reality of who He was entered my heart and mind. Christ had promised to never leave or forsake me. The Father had promised that in all situations I might walk through, no matter the appearance of them, He was working. And working that I would have His best, that He would give beauty for ashes and joy for my mourning. I had Him "a future...with hope." In my Valley of Trouble, He did open up a door, a gateway of hope. Can you believe Him for the same? Can you believe that the One who is Hope can restore your hope? Hope that transcends the natural and takes us into the supernatural. Hope that transforms.

Is your heart sick today because your hope is fading, perhaps almost gone? Are the shadows of the valley filling you with fear and dread? Can you dare to believe for His door, His gateway, that has already been prepared for you? The Door is Jesus Christ. He is always the Open Door and in Him is found the source of all hope. Run to Him, run into Him, and allow Him to restore and renew your hope and with that, transform your valley of trouble into His gateway of hope and life. In the darkest valley of trouble and despair, He is, and will always be, your gateway of hope.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Bottom Line

 I have two questions for you today: What is it that is the worst that could happen to you? Second, what happens if the worst actually does happen? What happens if your mate leaves or dies? What happens if the love you long for never comes? What happens if the reconciliation you yearn to see take place in a relationship never does? What happens if the children we have poured ourselves into turn their back on God and on us? What happens if the ministry we have completely given ourselves to...fails? What happens if the worst really does happen?

I came to plant the church I pastored for 27 years in Northern Virginia in the fall of 1992. The first three years were wonderful and filled with fruit. A fellowship that had about a dozen people in attendance on a good day had grown to one of over 70 people. Finances increased along with numbers. We excitedly started to look at securing a larger facility. Ministry was a joy and expectations were great....until they weren't. Everything started to change in the 4th year. To say the area is highly transient is an understatement. Job offers and company transfers started to take people away. Some, who only 6 months before had been telling me how great our fellowship was, were now unhappy. "We'd changed," they said, but they could never say just how. Whatever their reasons, the momentum stopped. People who had been coming from everywhere before were no longer coming from anywhere. I sought to stay positive, believing it would all be reversed...and soon. Surely He would intervene and in just the way I wanted. Surely He would, but He didn't. For me, the worst that could happen was to lose all we had gained. If that happened, I'd be a failure, and perhaps, maybe He had failed as well. All my fears collapsed in on me. The worst that could happen, happened.

I don't mean to imply that something like is what awaits you. I am saying that there is no guarantee that how we want things to turn out is how they will. The worst may happen, and it may happen to us. Everything depends upon how we respond if it does. Beth Moore says that ultimately, we must surrender to a "bottom line faith." Faith that says in the midst of the worst that could happen, "My God will take care of me." Faith that says as Job did, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Satan loves to threaten us in these places, and fear is his calling card. Bottom line faith, as Moore says, "robs him of his trump card." Is he playing his trump card with you?

The time we entered was not a short one. Our fellowship faced many daunting challenges, some that threatened our survival. Yet we held on because He was holding on to us. We pressed on, not in our strength but His. In the midst of it all, something was happening. We were maturing as a people, discovering things about Him we could have learned in no other way. He kept us pressed to His heart, guarding us, keeping us as He worked. Out of the worst came a better church, a better people, and I hope, a better pastor. In the worst, we discovered His best and the best of Himself. 

If you're in the midst of the worst that could happen, press in and press on, in Him. As you do, He holds and keeps you, and He will lead you on and past it all. Don't miss what He's doing in you. As His Word says, He's doing something you wouldn't believe if He told you. Trust Him. From the worst will come His best. Be convinced of it. Let it be your bottom line.

Blessings
Pastor O

Cross-eyed

 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light.  Matthew 6:22

When I was a boy, I had a vision problem commonly known as "lazy eye." Less kind people called it being cross-eyed. Not a gentle description, but a valid one. With my good eye I could look directly at an object, but my weaker one would always seem to be gazing somewhere else. It appeared I was trying to focus on two different things. This could be disconcerting to anyone I was talking to or looking at. Fortunately, time and eye exercises provided healing for the problem and I'm now able to focus on the one thing.

I think many of us who profess to follow Jesus are also cross-eyed. With one eye we want to look at Him, His beauty, love, joy, gifts, words, and all His desires for us. With our other eye we seek to focus on what we want and desire. We want to focus on those things, be they people or objects, that are not Him. The end result is that we never fully see who He really is, or the complete insufficiency  of what isn't Him, but which we yearn for nonetheless. We are blind to the eventual destruction that is the result should we give our hearts to the pursuit of them. Just as my weak eye needed healing to see the one thing, so do we in order to see He who is the One. The only One. Jesus Christ. But where do we find the healing?

It's found in another kind of "cross-eyedness." Fixing our eyes upon the cross of Christ. If we dare to focus on His cross, our spiritual eyes will come into alignment and beyond the horror of the cross, we'll see His truth. In His cross we'll find His purpose for us and this lost and dying world. It was and remains His purpose to come to us. Into our darkness, our sickness, and our sin He came, and He comes still. Lifted up on that cross, He defeated every enemy of our souls. He did so because He didn't remain upon that cross. Death could not keep Him for life had claimed Him. Just as His life claims us...if we truly see and believe. 

His purpose was to conquer sin and death for all time, and He has. For all time and all people. For you and for me. To confess Him, see Him, believe Him and receive Him. It means we must be cross-eyed. The cross where death was defeated, the curse of sin broken, and His healing life released. 

Are you walking through life today unfocused? Are you seeing much, yet not really seeing anything? Not seeing Him? Would you dare to look to His cross, to the One? Everything changes at the cross. Will you dare to come there?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Recognized

 Jesus looked at him, loved him, and said to him, “There is one thing you lack: Go, sell everything you own and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow Me.” 22 But the man was saddened by these words and went away in sorrow, because he had great wealth.  Mark 10:21-22...."Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, 'I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.' " Luke 19:8...."If the rich young ruler had truly recognized who Jesus was, he would have gladly let go of his relatively worthless treasures." Chris Tiegreen

I think that when it comes to Jesus Christ, everything comes down to a matter of recognition. Jesus asked His disciples who people said He was. After sharing a number of names, Peter said, "You are the Christ (the Messiah)." All of them had yet to even begin to grasp the infinite wonder of who Jesus is, but Peter saw that truth. He recognized who Christ was. Have we? Especially within the church, have we?

Can we see the great disparity between the responses of the rich young ruler, and the outcast tax gatherer Zacchaeus to the Person of Jesus Christ? The rich young ruler was a very religious man who did have a desire to know the Messiah. He was very zealous and willing to go to great lengths to follow Him. He had a boundary line though. His cherished wealth. That was his greatest treasure. He placed great value on Jesus, but he placed a higher one on his wealth. The glory of Christ could not compete with the glitter of his gold. He loved his gold with all his heart. In the presence of Christ, he didn't see his total poverty without Him. He didn't really recognize who He was. His trinkets mattered more.

Zacchaeus was also a rich man, and his wealth was his treasure as well.....until he was confronted with Christ. In Christ he saw all the riches to be found in Him. In comparison, all of Zacchaeus' riches were nothing. In His presence, Zacchaeus was made aware, totally aware, of his own spiritual poverty. He knew that all his riches were nothing but worthless tinsel in comparison with knowing and having Christ. He would joyfully surrender it all that he might know, have, and follow Him. Zacchaeus saw and recognized the glory of who Christ was and is. The rich young ruler didn't. Which do you and I most closely resemble? Despite what we may profess, do we truly recognize who He really is? Have we even begun to glimpse His glory?

I've heard it said that the rich young ruler, possessor of a divided heart as concerns Christ, would be gladly welcomed in most every church today, and quickly put into leadership.He looked right, said the right things, but was not fully His. How about Zacchaeus, especially a Zacchaeus who had no wealth......just a fully yielded heart for Christ? All he had to offer was a sold out life for Him. The first has no true recognition of His wonder and glory. The latter does. Who would be most welcome? We all know what the answer should be, just as we know who, in too many cases, the more welcome one would be.

Jesus told those who said they wanted to follow Him to count the cost. There has always been a cost....a great one. I think in these days, it's about to get even greater. Are we willing to follow Him no matter the cost or loss? I think that only those of us who truly recognize the treasure that is beyond price that is Jesus Christ will be able to do so. Everything else fades and nothing else really matters in comparison to knowing and having Jesus as our Lord and Savior. It's all a matter of recognition. 

In the Garden, after He had risen Mary didn't at first recognize Jesus. Then He spoke her name, and both her eyes and heart were opened. She beheld the risen Christ. She would never be the same again. So it is with all who recognize Him for who He truly is. Once we have truly "seen" Him and recognized who He is, how could we ever turn back or turn away from Him? I don't believe we can. I believe the only way anyone could was if they haven't really seen or recognized Him at all...... Have you seen Jesus?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Sacred Smallness

‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’  Jeremiah 33:3....."Your life doesn't have to be big to be beautiful in the Lord." Jenny Papapostalou

I love Jeremiah 33:3 and I know that it's true. He will open our eyes to see wonders and He will share His heart and His thoughts with us. He reveals what's hidden, and He does so with those whose hearts are attuned to His. Still, though I have always believed and experienced this promise, I think for much of my life and ministry in Him, I had a flawed understanding of what He was promising. I thought that if He would tell me of great and mighty things He would also use me to do great and mighty things. But that isn't His promise at all, and my believing that it was led to a lot of frustration in my calling. That's why the quote from Papapostalou is so powerful.

Papapostalou speaks about the "sacred smallness" that most of us are called to. Those places where almost all that we do goes unseen and unnoticed by the world and most of the church. Hidden places where the only One who sees is Him. Those of us who covet renown and applause can never be happy in that place. The applause of the world matters more than the applause of heaven. We completely miss the truth of what Papapostalou is saying. In our quest for a great life we miss having a beautiful one. Beautiful in His eyes. Pleasing to His heart. A blessing to Him, and to those He has used us to minister to. We may not have lived and ministered on a grand and mighty scale, but we did so on a beautiful one. We may not have been a fragrance of Christ to thousands but we were to some. Some who may never have had an encounter with Him had they not encountered us.

You may be in a hidden place right now. Very few know that you're there. He does. All you do for Him, preach for Him, love for Him, give for Him, may be hidden from almost everyone but it is not hidden from Him. You're His fragrance there. A fragrance that would be absent if you weren't. Your scope of influence and ministry may not be great and wide, but it's beautiful. Eternity will show the wide effects that your life has had.....all while you thought no one noticed. And the outward ripples of your life, ministry, and service will go on throughout eternity. What could be more beautiful than that?

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Posers

 Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.  Psalm 51:6

In one of his devotional writings, Paul Tripp asks a question that is hard to hide from but which most seek to do anyway. He asks, "Is there someplace or some way in my life where I'm a fake?" Where can we hide from that question? We all have a way we hope the world, and for the believer, the Body of Christ sees us. We want our strengths to be noticed and amplified and our flaws to be hidden or outright denied. So often, we want to be seen as strong, courageous, completely faithful, dedicated, loyal, and so much more, when in truth, we're not. We want to be seen as having everything together, even as our lives are collapsing all around us. I had a teacher in high school that would always say, "To thine own self be true." We used to laugh about it, but she gave sound advice. How true to ourselves are we really? Where have we been working so hard to fool not only those around us, but ourselves as well?

Scripture says that He means for His truth to penetrate into the very marrow of our being. Our surface response to this truth is that we do want to know the truth of His Word and experience it as well. He desires that we not only know the truth of His Word, but also the truth about ourselves. When He pursues us with His zeal that we should know it, all of it, our first impulse is to run. He brings us to the cross. At the cross we not only come face to face with the crucified Christ, but with the reality of our uncrucified selves. At the cross, every lie, especially the ones we've been telling ourselves is exposed. At the cross they're brought into the Light. At the cross, they have no place to hide.

I've read a number of books by author John Eldredge, who's a very transparent writer. One of the things he tends to say about himself is that in too many areas of his life, he's "a poser." Someone who poses as something or someone they're not. Even in very small ways. Where are you and I "posers" in our lives? He seeks that we would drop the facade, come clean and come real to Him and in Him. No longer fakes and no longer posers. Caring no longer about how we look to the world or even the church. Only about how we look to Him. Let us come...to the cross. Fakes and posers no more.

Blessings,
Pastor O