Comfortable Carnality

 "So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful (carnal) nature craves." Galatians 5:16...."Carnality refers to preoccupation with, or indulgence in, the flesh or the body and its passions and appetites; sensuality." 

A.W. Tozer said, "We find ways to avoid the sharp point of obedience, comfort carnality, and make the words of Christ of none effect.....We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere." Comfortable carnality. It's a state that so many professing believers are living in, all the while believing that they're doing anything but.

To be carnally minded is to be led and dominated by the desires and wants of the flesh. Sexuality and sensuality are certainly strong elements in carnal desires, but hardly all of it. Wherever we put the desires of Christ and His Holy Spirit in a secondary role to our own desires, we are being carnal believers. Our flesh and not His Spirit predominates in that area. Paul said that the desires of the Holy Spirit will always be in conflict with the desires of our flesh. Paul said, "But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law," that is, to being controlled by our fleshly desires. Paul writes in Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to His cross and crucified them there." This doesn't mean that we no longer have natural physical and emotional desires. It means that we're no longer controlled by them and have the power to resist those ones that will draw us away from Him, and eventually to spiritual shipwreck. That's why Paul could say, "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." Paul didn't stop being Paul, but he did cease to struggle with desires that he knew to be sinful or that would lead Him away from His Lord. He lived in the power of His Holy Spirit. So can we.

Comfortable carnality then is when we find ways to justify behaviors, attitudes, desires, that we know in our heart are not what He desires for us, but somehow believe in these cases, it doesn't apply to us. We justify disobedience and dress it up in religious ways. We're comfortably carnal. We acknowledge Him in every way....except as the Lord of our lives.

Comfortable carnality is an easy place to live in because....it's comfortable. May we, you and I, have the courage to allow His Spirit to search us out and expose any place where we're living as comfortably carnal believers....and where He does expose it, yield to Him at His cross, and crucify it there.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Against All

 "Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the Father of many nations." Romans 4:18

...."What do you do when you have a promise for a yes but you're living in a no?" Chris Tiegreen

Tiegreen's question is one that every sincere and true follower of Christ will be confronted with. If you have surrendered completely to Him, then you can be sure He will lead you into places where everything seems to be against you and against the promises you have believed. When that happens, what will you do? And it will happen. You will come to the place of living in a no while you cling to His yes. The place where against all hope you in hope, believe. I have known that place. Let me share a bit of it with you.

I've shared before about my time of walking through an ugly and very visible divorce and the loss of my ministry in the midst of it. About the darkness and all the accompanying emotions and terrors that came with it. I've also shared about His faithfulness, total faithfulness in the midst of it. Today I'll share a bit about having His yes, clinging to it, in the midst of living in a no.

When all of the above happened to me, I was reeling. Emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. I didn't know what would happen to me or what I would be doing. "Total Unknown" would be an apt description of my life. Yet in the midst of all of that, I felt like I had His promises to hold on to, especially His promise of restoration, that He would restore the ministry He had called me to. A promise that flew in the face of all the current "now" circumstances of my life. There weren't many who believed this with me. Divorce was seen as a ministry killer by a large segment of the church, and though I was not the one who sought or wanted it, most believed that it had killed mine.....but I'd never heard that from Him. He reminded me that the gifts and callings of God were irrevocable. He had called me and I was His. That's what I held to as I lived in my no. A no that seemed to mock every bit of His yes.

Yet here I am, more than 30 years later, and His "Yes" triumphed over the enemy's "no." Scripture says that "death is swallowed up in victory," and just as the enemy and world system he works through screamed no at me, his no was completely swallowed up by the "Yes" of Jesus Christ. It will always be so.

You may be living in the no right now. Cling to the yes He's given you in His promise and promises. He will be faithful. Against all hope...hope. Believe. Trust. He will not fail you. He never will. No matter what it may seem, the no is not real when you have His yes to cling to. Hold and don't let go. In the right time and way, His promise will burst through. Wait for it. Look for it. He will not let you down.

Blessings
Pastor O

The Towel

 "Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God, rose up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel and girded Himself.....Then He began to wash the disciples feet." John 13:3-4...."The great hindrance in spiritual life is that we look for big things to do. Jesus took a towel." Oswald Chambers

Someone said that we find out just how much of a true servant of God we are when others begin to treat us like...servants. There is a deeply convicting truth in that statement.

The task of washing a person's feet upon a visit to a home was given to the lowliest servant of the household. It was very humbling. In the middle eastern culture of Jesus' day, one's feet were perpetually filthy. Dirt, dust, animal droppings, and a host of other things were commonly found on the feet. To take them in your hands and carefully wash and clean them was a very unattractive job. The disciples knew this which was why Peter objected to the Lord doing so. He was above such a job. Unspoken is that Peter and all the rest of the disciples thought that they were above it as well. How closely do you and I stand with them on that?

True Christlike servants are vanishing in the western church. It's not easy to get volunteers for any kind of ministry, and when the church does, it's more often for the visible, up front ministries. Many will be eager to preach, teach, sing, and play an instrument, especially with others watching them, but few come forward to "wash the feet" of others. Few of us are willing to "take a towel," and minister in ways that are not only humbling, but unnoticed, and most often, unrewarded....by men.

Brother Lawrence, a monk in the middle ages, wrote a classic book centering on living in the conscious presence of God. It's deeply inspiring. His name is well known today, he was completely unknown in his own day. Brother Lawrence served in the kitchen of his monastery. He washed dishes, cleaned tables, and served food. And He did it all with an ever deepening knowledge of and friendship with the God He served.

Chris Tiegreen said that "The rewards of heaven are for those who are background players to the glory of God." Too few of us are willing to be unseen and unnoticed....anonymous in the Kingdom of God." We may be willing to serve, but we have rigid boundaries as to just how far...and low, we will go in the service. We have no place for Christ's towel.

May we, you and I, be willing to be under His gaze in this, allowing Him to show just how much of a servant's heart we truly have....or lack. It's been said that the way up in the Kingdom is to go down. Down in humility, in surrender to His will. We will never be taller or higher than when we are bowing to Him in all things.....and lay hold of the towel. The towel of Christ.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Rock Bottom

 Someone once said that life can sometimes seem to be a series of "shipwrecks and snakebites." They were referring to Paul's experience when the ship he was sailing upon was wrecked in a fierce storm at sea, and then after making his way to shore, he was bitten by a poisonous snake as he gathered wood for a fire. Life does sometimes go from bad to worse. What we need to know is that there is no "worse" where He will not be present. Paul suffered the shipwreck and snakebite but he was miraculously saved from both. The Father had a purpose for him and no shipwreck or snakebite would keep him from it.

Joseph was a man who knew something of this as well. A great deal of this as a matter of fact. Hated by his jealous brothers, he was thrown into a pit by them and then sold into slavery. He ended up the slave of a high ranking Egyptian and was given authority over the man's household. However, the man's wife sought to seduce Joseph. He resisted her and in her anger at the rejection, accused him of attempting to rape her. Enraged, the man had him thrown into prison. He went from the pit to the dungeon. Commenting on this, Alistair Begg called it, "Life at Rock Bottom." You may know something about that. Maybe you know about it right now. I know I do.

I remember clearly the time in my life when it seemed all was a series of snakebites and shipwrecks, of pits and dungeons. Like Joseph, I know very well what it is to have someone lie about me, accuse me of something I never did. I know what it is to suffer the immediate results of that. Loss. Devastating loss. I have lived life at rock bottom, but I found that even at rock bottom, He was there, and He was not just standing by. He was at work, preparing the way to being lifted up and out of the pit. Out of the miry clay that held me.

In that time there was nothing I could do to defend myself against the lies and accusations. All I could do was to look to Him, Jesus, to be my Advocate, and He was. He always will be. A powerful Advocate against every lie and every attack from the depths of hell. He will always be so for those that are His. In my heart, I knew that He had called me to be His servant. I knew, though few gave me encouragement, that His calling was still valid and that His purposes for me remained. By His grace I would trust, obey, and press on. I would believe, wavering at times for sure, that He would lift me up and establish me, just as the apostle Peter had written that He would for those who are His. Rock Bottom was a place I was passing through. It was not the place I would stay. Neither will it be for you if you will cling to Him and press on with Him.

Don't fear the shipwrecks and snakebites, or the pits and dungeons. Their presence in my life was used to make me a better man and a more effective servant of the King. Let Him use yours for the same. God will use what the enemy means to destroy you with to raise you up, and as one who is "more than a conqueror." Life at rock bottom is still life, even abundant life, when we are filled with His Life. Be filled!

Blessings,
Pastor O

Two Questions

 In Matthew 16:13, Jesus asks His disciples, "Who do men say I am?" They give several answers, but it is Peter who focuses on the right one. He proclaims, "You are the Christ. The Messiah." This is a beautiful passage, and it is one that must take place in the life of every true follower of Jesus. We cannot say we are His if we have no real idea or knowledge of who He is, and it cannot be mere head knowledge. Jesus blessed Peter's answer and stated clearly that flesh and blood didn't reveal the true identity of Jesus Christ to Him but that the Father's Holy Spirit did. Only the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and our minds can make who He is real to us. It moves us from knowing who He is in reputation to knowing Him by relational experience. So, who do YOU say He is, and does your answer reside only in your mind, or in your heart as well?

There is a second question for us. One that we too rarely ask or answer. Chris Tiegreen asked about it in one of his writings. We each have a desperate need for His answer.....Tiegreen asks, "Jesus, who do You say that I am? You alone define my identity."

We don't lack for people, organizations, or political leaders who try to tell us who we are. Putting labels on each other is what we do, even in the church. Most of these labels and names are destructive and have left deep wounds and scars upon us emotionally and spiritually. "Stupid. Ugly. Fat. Trash. Loser. Failure. Slut." Those are only a few and they are far from the most hurtful. The truth is, there will always be someone who tries to define you. Where is it that you've listened to them? Are you ready to break free from labels put on you by those who don't really know you? Are you ready to hear who it is that the One who does know you, who made you, says that you are?

What would change in your life if you would come to Him, and in humility ask Him, "Lord Jesus, who do You say that I am?" I guarantee you that in His time and way, He will answer you, and it will be an answer that will play out over the entire course of the rest of your life. In His telling, He will shatter all the false names and labels that others have put upon you and bring forth the truth and beauty of His name and description of you. 

Many people who knew me before I came to Christ have told me that they couldn't believe that I became a preacher. I'm never offended by that. I know very well who and what I was before He entered my life. When He did, He brought to life the person He made me to be. A person very different from the broken mess I had been. He didn't change my personality so much as He changed my heart, my mind, and my character. He brought out of my life what He had placed there when He created me and what the awful power of sin had overwhelmed for so long. He has transformed me and He continues to transform me. I'm still learning who He says that I am. It's a learning process that will extend into eternity.

No matter what label that's been put upon you, would you go to Him, right now, and ask that life altering question; "Jesus, who do You say that I am." Only He who made you can define you. Be amazed at what His answer will tell you.

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Haunting

"For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." Acts 17:28....."If we are haunted by God, nothing else can get in. Not cares, anxiety, or tribulation." Oswald Chambers

To be haunted by God may seem like a strange description of our relationship with Him, as is the title of this writing. We associate the word "haunting" with horror stories and ghosts, but one of the root meanings of the word "haunt" is for there to be a persistent sense of a person in our conscious minds. In this case, that Person is Jesus Christ. When He is constantly in our thoughts, then the fiery darts that the enemy is constantly throwing at our minds have no place to take hold. All the fear, worry, and trepidation that the enemy would have us held captive in, become powerless in our lives. Chambers says that "they become an effective barricade against the onslaughts of the enemy."

So few of us live in the reality of Acts 17:28. We know "in theory" that it's true, that it's Him that we live, that our being, our existence is anchored. Too rarely is it our reality. Each week our churches are filled with people who have been held captive by feelings and thoughts of fear, anxiety, and memories of yesterday.

The devil is expert at assaulting our minds with what has happened to us, what is happening now, and what may yet happen in the future. We are paralyzed by his attacks. We cry for deliverance but seem unable to grasp that we already have it in Jesus Christ. We know that He's real, but somehow, He just doesn't seem real to us. We don't know how to make Him so, yet the means of it are not difficult. It will however, require us to develop a new way of thinking and seeing what is happening in us and around us.

It begins in our hearts and spreads to our minds. We have to decide that we are going to seek Him, know Him, and be in relationship with Him as we never have before. Paul said that the overwhelming desire of His life was to know Him, and that must become ours as well. Our prayers mustn't just be about what we want Him to do or give, but about who we wish Him to be in us and for us. We want Him to reveal Himself to us in ever deeper ways. As we do this, we ask Him to direct our thoughts to His promises, to what He's said, to the truth of His Word. We ask Him to more and more give us "the mind of Christ," that we might see things as He does. In short, we ask that we might His perspective on everything, a Kingdom based perspective and not an earthly one. What will begin to happen and increase, is the reality of Acts 17:28 in our lives. In every aspect of our lives and thinking, there is a sense of His Presence. He's not shut off from anything and so He does "haunt" us with His Presence. Then, as Chambers says, all the destructive and fiery darts and arrows that Satan relentlessly throws at our minds are extinguished by our conscious awareness of His Presence in our entire being.

We are all going to be haunted by something. The source of it will either be rooted in this fallen world, and the result will be the destruction listed above, or, it will be rooted in His Kingdom life, yielding the peace and joy that only He can give. Are you ready to be "haunted by Jesus?"

Blessings,

Pastor O 

The Story

 "I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb." Jeremiah 1:5....."At the point where we stop loving and caring, Jesus is still there, loving and caring." A.W. Tozer

I've shared a lot of what "my story" is. Much of my life, especially the times of devastation and humiliation, were lived out in plain sight. I can be transparent about my weakness and desperate need of Him because it has so often been painfully obvious that I am and that I do. Still, I don't think I've talked much about what I write about today. I'm feeling led to, so maybe it will speak to someone that needs to read it, know it today.

I didn't grow up in a believing home. We tried to become churchgoers from time to time, but never for very long. I remember that my mother had a Bible, but I don't remember anyone ever reading it or even that it was placed in any visible spot. I don't remember any talk of the Father, Jesus, or of following Him. Yet somehow, some way, I have very early memories of talking to God every night before I went to sleep. I remember talking to him about so many things that a small boy would care about, as well as things I was afraid of. I believed He was there. I believed that He heard me. I trusted Him with my childlike faith. 

All of this continued into my early highschool years. He was a part of my consciousness. I know He had an effect on how I behaved and how I lived. Then, around the age of 16, everything began to change. Not immediately, but I began a slow descent away from Him. Peer pressure played a part, but I willingly went with the way my life was beginning to flow. So began a steady journey into darkness. So many of the things I did and said cause me to cringe all these years later. God, who had I once seen as my Friend, barely registered in my conscious thinking. The years passed; the darkness thickened. From time to time I would get into places where I would call on Him, promising all kinds of changes if He'd help me. Always though, I slid right back into my destructive ways. Life was a party and the party was killing me. I just didn't know it.

Until one day, I did.

In August of 1979, like the Prodigal Son, I found myself in my own private hogpen. Mentally, emotionally, and above all spiritually. I had reached the end. I knew that if I continued on this path, I would not be around much longer. I had no thought of suicide. I just knew my lifestyle of constant substance abuse would surely do me in some way or another. I was at the end, and it was at my end that I found, actually found again, the beginnings of Him. 

That's where Jeremiah 1:5 comes alive for me. I once knew something of Him, but I'd forgotten Him. He knew and knows everything about me, and He had never forgotten me. Before I was physically formed in my mother's womb, He knew me as no one ever could. I left Him, but He never ceased to pursue me. In the darkness and chaos that was my life, I cried out to Him....and that's where I discovered the truth of Tozer's words. I had stopped loving and caring about most everything, even Him, but I found that Jesus was still there, loving and caring for me. Broken before Him, He took hold of my heart and my life, and He has never left me, and by His grace, I will never leave Him. 

So, as I close, maybe you see something of yourself in my story. If so, no matter how dead you may feel or think things are, He is there, loving and caring for you. Know anew or know again the One who has always known you. He's the story. Enter into it.....and live.

Blessings,
Pastor O 

Grace Abounds

 "Where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more." Romans 5:20

I found myself grieving this morning over the state of the world, this nation, and our culture. Both the culture that surrounds the church and the culture of the church itself. I took my grief and heaviness of heart to Him, and as I prayed, He whispered the promise of Romans 5:20 into my spirit. In this fallen world, sin will abound, darkness will abound, depravity and lawlessness will abound, but.....His grace, His wondrous grace, will abound more.

This is the hope of the church, the people of God. This is not a time for us to wring our hands in despair. Neither is it a time for us to look to political or cultural leaders for hope and answers. It is a time, past time, for His people to fall on their knees and cry out to the God of all things. Cry out that He would come upon His creation and pour out His Spirit and His grace upon what has become a dry and thirsty land. It is time, past time, for the church to live out 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If My people, who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land." 

The need for healing in this land and all lands is desperate. Hatred, violence, raging anger are the order of this day. We, the church, must own our responsibility in this. Darkness cannot increase where His Light is being shown forth. We have failed to be the Light and Salt He commands us to be. We've been absorbed in ourselves and our own comfort and personal agendas. And the darkness and sin which fuels that darkness has grown.....yet hope abounds. It abounds because His grace abounds....more.

I think it was A.W. Tozer who said in effect that all the sin and darkness of all the ages put together is powerless against the Light and Life of Almighty God. This was proven in Jesus Christ's death on a cross and in His resurrection. Sin was conquered. Death was conquered. They are still conquered, and it is time, past time, for His church to live out this truth.

There's an old hymn that contains a lyric that goes something like, "Let the church be the church." May we cease being the church that we've been, which in too many ways is but a shallow shadow of what we must be, and once again be, THE CHURCH! Where sin abounds, grace abounds more. Let us be the vessels of His grace. Let us be the means of His Light. The darkness is powerless against His Light. It always has been and always will be. The devil knows and fears this. Let us show him and his works that we know it too.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Installment Plan

 "Jesus said to him, 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.' " Matthew 19:21.... "The rich young ruler met Jesus and decided to hold on to his wealth. Zacchaeus the tax collector encountered Jesus and wanted to let go of everything else." Chris Tiegreen...."When Jesus calls a man, He bids him to come and die." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's amazing how many unbiblical ideas we have in the American church. As someone said, we seem to think that we can take Jesus as Savior, and then as Lord at some future time...if at all. In effect, we come to Him piecemeal, a part of us at a time. Somehow, we think Jesus is OK with this. He isn't, and we can know this by searching His Word and His call to those who would follow Him. He commands us to bring all, offer all, surrender all, to Him. He calls us to the same cross He went to. To the cross He died upon. To enter into the life Paul did, "to be crucified with Christ, so that it is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me."

Someone posed the question to the church in the west; "Into what are we inviting people to come in our invitation to come to Christ?" It often seems as if we're inviting them to take Jesus as a means of making their lives better. Jesus makes improvements in us and around us. Life gets better, easier, and then at the end of it all, there's heaven. How we got to this message is puzzling because nothing in His Word gives any verification of that. In much of the current "preaching," there is no cross. There may be one on the roof or front of the church. There may be one in the sanctuary itself, but there is little of it in what it is we've been proclaiming. We've developed a faith that contains no cross and no cost, and that is not biblical faith at all.

We know little of what it is to be "living sacrifice" as Paul preached in Romans 12. 

Jesus Christ is the Savior. His Word tells us so, but the Lordship of Christ is spoken of far more in His Word than is His role as Savior. In John 6, a large number of His followers were with Him until He confronted them with His command that to continue on with Him, they must surrender every part of themselves to Him with nothing held back. Scripture tells us that almost all of them "followed Him no more" because of that command. It was a stumbling block to them, just as it was to the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, just as it is to so many today. And we wonder why there seems to be so little Holy Spirit power in the church. I have a distinct sense that if such a message were proclaimed with regularity in the modern church, many of those currently in attendance would not continue in attendance for very long. We embrace Him as a Savior but we're not anxious to know Him as Lord of all.

Vance Havner said that "We need men (and women) of the cross, with the message of the cross, bearing the marks of the cross." He said that more than 50 years ago. It was a desperate need then and an even more desperate one now. Whatever was offered on the altar of God was completely burnt up. Nothing was held back. Whoever died upon a cross, died completely and not in parts. We cannot receive Jesus in pieces and He certainly will not receive us in pieces. There is no installment plan in the Kingdom. As the old hymn goes, "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe." Another old hymn says, "All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give." I don't know of any hymns or Scriptures that speak of installment plans. Do you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Return

 "And someday, just as you saw Him go, He will return." Acts 1:11...."It won't be possible to convince our world that Jesus is coming again unless we live like He is coming again." Chris Tiegreen

The words in Acts 1:11 were spoken by an angel to the disciples as they witnessed Christ's ascension into heaven after His resurrection. In the full address the angel exhorted them to obey Christ and be about the business of the Kingdom taking the Good News of Jesus to all who would receive it. They were to live out the message and life of Christ while all the while they were to watch for His return. He would be coming back. He is coming back. If we, you and I, are followers of Christ, are we living like He is coming back?

As the world system we live in steadily decays, it is more common than ever, at least in our lifetime, to hear proclamations that His return is right "at the door." I don't know if it is or not. Scripture says that only the Father knows the time of His Son's return, so it's foolish to try and predict any kind of timing. One thing I do know, today, His return is another day closer than it was yesterday. Am I ready? Are you?

Are we who profess Christ and His return living lives that are ready for it? Whose business are we about in our daily lives, ours or His? Even in professional ministry, we can have our own agendas and goals. We can be all about ourselves while saying we are representing Him. How many of us have prayed the Lord's Prayer without ever really living it out? We pray "Hallowed be Your name," but do we treat His Name and Person as holy in our words and conduct? Do we honor Him in all the things we do and are? As husbands and wives, as parents, as servants of the risen Christ?  We pray "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done," but is it our hearts desire that this would be our reality? Do we spend more time seeing that our wills and desires are realized than whatever His might be? Do we even seek to know what His will is?

What care do we take about how our lives look to a watching world that is without Him? What's really different about us, other than that they see us get into our car on a Sunday morning and go to some local church that they know nothing about, likely because we've lived in such a way before them that they don't want to know about it?

In short, do we live with a sense of urgency? Are we really conscious of all that's at stake? The souls of those without Him, and our own souls as well. Jesus asked if when He returned, would He find faith on the earth? He was directing His question to His church. Will He find us, you and me, faithful? Faithful to His name, to our calling, to the life He created us for. Faithful to be the carriers of His message of life. When He returns, how will He find us? How will He find you....and how will He find me?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Beautiful

 "O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness..." Psalm 96:9...."O Lord, You're beautiful. Your face is all I seek." Lyric from Keith Green's "O Lord, You're Beautiful."

One of my favorite scenes from the movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Return Of The King, is when Frodo and Sam are deep in the darkness of the realm of Mordor. It was the hardest part of their journey thus far, and despair was gnawing at their hearts. In the midst of it, Sam looked up and saw a parting of the thick darkness that was the sky above them. For a moment, he saw the beauty of the shining stars and said, "Look Mr. Frodo, there's light and beauty there that no shadow can touch." I think that's an attitude that the church, that we, are in desperate need of today.

There are times I am overwhelmed by the depth of darkness in our world today. Evil and wickedness are growing by leaps and bounds throughout the world, let alone in our nation. The human race seems to reach new depths of cruelty and hatred by the day. We live in the day where Scripture said good would be called evil and evil good. There is a murderous spirit loose in this world and it comes from the depths of hell. Like Frodo and Sam, the reality of it all can drive us to despair.....unless we, like Sam, dare to look up.

In the devotional I was reading today, writer Chris Tiegreen said, "Wherever Christ went, circumstances had to bow to His authority." We are faced each day as to what we're going to look upon; the circumstances surrounding us, or the Christ who is very real and present in their midst and Lord over them all. We live in a fallen world where sin and evil rage against His creation and the human race He loves and sent His Son to redeem. We can choose to look around at all that is happening around us, or we can choose to look to Him, the One who's beauty and holiness no shadow of darkness can touch. For Sam, the horrors of Mordor could not block out the beauty that was before them. Neither can this present darkness extinguish the Light that is found in Jesus Christ. Not His Light, not His Beauty, and not His Holiness. The beauty Sam saw was more real than the terrors of Mordor. When confronted with the beauty and reality of Jesus Christ, despair, fear, and hopelessness must flee from His Presence.

King David wrote, "I would have despaired if I had not believed that I would see the salvation of the Lord in the land of the living." He is a Savior, Lord, and Light that no amount of darkness can touch. Press on. Look not at your circumstances but to His face. Discover how truly beautiful and mighty He really is.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Better Methods

E.M. Bounds said, "The church is always looking for better methods. God is looking for better men." For better women as well. We are striving to build bridges and connections with a lost culture but seem blind to the reality that in many ways, we have become disconnected from our God. In our obsession with presentation, we have neglected the cultivation of His Presence. We want to speak a language the culture will understand while we seem to have lost the ability to understand the language of God. The language of the Kingdom.

I once heard an evangelist say that while we say we desperately want revival, our lifestyles say that we have no time for it. We crave a spiritual awakening but it has to work with what we've marked down on our activities calendars. We want the Holy Spirit to come, but it needs to be on Sunday, and before noon. We say we want His Spirit to be free in our church, but He's not even free in our lives. It's not that we're unwilling to work for Him. We can spend large amounts of time doing "work" and outreach in His name. We're willing to work for Him. We're unwilling to wait upon Him. We expend great amounts of human activity but experience so little Holy Spirit activity. We do a lot, but little of what we do requires His Spirit in order to be done. 

The darkness is increasing. That's not news, but our response is not to dig in and wait for Him to carry us home. As the darkness grows, I believe He fervently seeks hearts that He may set on fire with passion for Him. He is seeking to create His life in His people. Life that announces the truth of Isaiah 60 through the lives of His people. "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you....Darkness will cover the earth, deep darkness the peoples, but the Lord will rise upon you. His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light...kings to the brightness of your rising."

May He raise up a generation that will seek His face and heart above all. A generation that isn't looking for new ways and methods to grow the church but for a pathway to the very heartbeat of God. May this prayer from Chris Tiegreen become the prayer of my heart and of yours...."Lord, work your heart into the depths of mine. Share Your deepest impulses with me." 

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Dark Treasure

 "And I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness - secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the One who calls you by name." Isaiah 43:5...."Spiritual warfare includes the ability to worship in dark places." Chris Tiegreen

Katherine Wolf is a young woman with an amazing testimony. As a beautiful wife and mother, she had a series of debilitating strokes that have crippled her, cost her the loss of hearing in one ear, left one side of her face paralyzed, and greatly affected her ability to speak. To the observer, her life has suffered serious loss and took on seemingly impossible suffering. She doesn't see it that way, and her reasons for having a different view are deeply inspiring.

In the interview I watched, she quoted Isaiah 43:5, saying, "If you have to go into the deep darkness, you may as well get the treasure that is found there." She has taken God at His word. She has walked in deep darkness through her suffering, but has determined that she will lay hold of all that He has for her in that darkness. She said that it's true that if we're going through hell, we mustn't stop, but that we need to go slowly enough that we don't miss the treasures He has for us in that place, which is exactly what God is saying in Isaiah 43:5. He promised that if we would walk by faith even in the darkness, we'd discover new depths and new heights in Him that we never knew possible. We would come to know Him beyond anything we believed possible. He's the great treasure. God Himself.

Wolf said that prior to her stroke, she believed she was really living "the good life." She was a lovely, vivacious woman with a happy marriage and beautiful family. Everything changed with the stroke. She began to discover that the good life according to the Father is not centered on things or circumstances but on what we gain in Him. The good life according to God is one filled with His peace, joy, hope, and love. Those things we think make for the good life can disappear in a moment. The good that can only be found in Him, in Jesus Christ, can never be taken from us. Knowing this is what enables us to worship Him even in the dark.

Katherine Wolf has been the recipient of much suffering. She has found the treasure God has for her in the darkness of her suffering. Such treasure is ours in our own places of suffering as well. We find it when we discover Him...on our knees in worship. And here's one more jewel from the treasure box; He knows our name, your name....and He calls to us.....by our name. By your name and mine.

Blessings,
Pastor O