The Calling

The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the LORD is with you. Judges 6:12 "What God has said must become a greater reality to you than what you see in the mirror." Paul Washer Most professing believers know the story of Gideon. Even a number of unbelievers may know something of his story. He was a man who considered himself the least member of his household and his household to be among the least of the families of Israel. When an angel of the Lord appeared to him, he was hidden in a winepress threshing wheat. He was hidden because the Midianites, a people who were terrorizing Israel, were stealing their food and possessions at will. They were greatly feared by all, especially by Gideon. Yet God had called him a mighty man of valor, though nothing about his life said that was true. I heard Christine Caine say the other day that God will call you things when there is absolutely no evidence that you are any of them.. Gideon gave no evidence of being what God had just called him, yet that is exactly who he became, not only in the eyes of God, but in the eyes of his fellow Israelites. He led a band of 300 men to a rout of an army of Midianites numbering in the thousands. He became the leader of a nation. Who has God said that you are? What has He called you to? I guarantee you that whoever He says that you are or calls you to will be beyond anything you've ever expected and beyond any of your abilities to be or do. Some will laugh, others will mock if we tell them. Jesus' own family didn't believe He was the Messiah. Affirmation may be slow in coming and the enemy will throw everything he can in his seeking to keep you from realizing your calling from the Father. Your part, our part, is to dare to believe His call and stepping out into the call, even with small steps, must be our first response. If your heart tells you that it's His voice you hear and you obey, He will, with each step affirm and confirm, and with each step, our resolve to press on will grow. The mockers and doubters never really leave us. They'll continue to come in different forms and different ways. Our part is to ignore what they say and stay fixed on what He has said and is saying. In my life and calling, many have spoken against what He had spoken. Some were in my family. Some were my friends. Too many were in the church. I did what we each must do if we're to live out His call. I set my heart to obey, to follow, and to not turn to the right or the left. Not just in the initial calling, but in the unfolding call that is still taking place. At times I wavered and doubted, but His grace blew fresh upon me every time. He will do so for you as well.He has called you to what you cannot possibly be or do apart from Him. That's the beauty of the call. There is nothing within us to attain it, so we have to depend fully upon Him. It's been 46 years since I first heard His call. The calling has only grown as has His sustaining grace. He called me what I could never be and to what I could never do. He's done so with you as well. Know that. Believe that. Now, in trust and obedience, step out into the calling. You won't believe the places He'll take you. Blessings, Pastor O

More

Seek and you shall find. Matthew 7:7 Paul was a seeker and a finder and a seeker still. A.W. Tozer Matthew 7:7 is a promise, and the apostle Paul is an example of how the reception of that promise was lived out in a life. To what degree do we, who say we are Christ's, believe and live out this promise as well? I think too many of us never take it much beyond our "finding" of Jesus Christ and His salvation that He invites us to. We don't think too deeply about it all. We're happy to call ourselves "saved," and we try to live a good Christian life, but somehow, our seeking hearts grow dull and our "finding" of all the riches that are in Him never advances much beyond this initial stage. We live in spiritual poverty but are unaware of this because we've become so enamored of the treasures of this world, which aren't treasure at all, but snares. Tozer said that Paul sought, and Paul found, and Paul continued to seek more. Ever more. More of Him. More of His Life and Light. More of His knowledge. More of the endless riches that He calls us to. Paul lived with a seeking heart. His experience was that Jesus Christ satisfies, but He was never satisfied to stay at any one level. He never gave up His seeking. I believe His seeking goes on even now in eternity. His endless riches are always before us, and the more we lay hold of, the more we want, or should. The more satisfaction in Him that we lay hold of, the more and ever deeper satisfaction to be found in Him is laid before us. I will be 76 years old next month. I have been a seeker after Him since the day I first came to Him. I still am, but the temptation to "take my rest" is always there. The temptation to do so is always tempting, and the reasons the enemy suggests that I do so always seem to make sense, but it's a snare. If the devil can't destroy us, He will always seek to draw us away from Him. Our greatest defense will always be to never leave off in our seeking. My life has been an adventure in Him, but it hasn't always seemed so. I expect that your adventure has seemed so as well. Yet I know that for me, and for you, the greatest adventures still lay before us. His best is always yet to come, and it will come throughout eternity. Let us press on my friends. Let us always be seeking and finding and seeking more. More of Him. Always more of Him. Blessings, Pastor O

The Nothing

The Bible is filled with stories of those who entered wilderness times. Sometimes very lengthy wilderness times. Moses spent decades on the backside of the desert. Joseph endured more than a decade as a slave and prisoner. John the Baptist emerged into his ministry from a life lived in the desert. Paul spent three years in the Arabian desert before he undertook his calling from the Father. Jesus Himself went into a 40 day sojourn in the wilderness before He came out ready to fulfill His mission as Savior. Our flesh hates the very thought of the wilderness, but our God cherishes it for us. Something mystical takes place there, if we will have it. I really like what Alicia Britt Chole said about all this. She wrote, "You will not shortcut the wilderness season. Let Him meet you in the nothing. You will become one who can carry what God wants to put in your hands." Meeting Him in the nothing, and nothing is what the wilderness will seem like. Being there makes no sense, but it's there that He shapes and equips us. None of the above, even Christ Himself, could have fully carried out what the Father would put in their hands without their wilderness experience. Too many of us waste our wilderness time. We just want out, for it to end. As a result, He is unable to put into our hands the work, the witness, the impact that He means for us to have. For Him, for His Kingdom. I think we've mostly lost the concept of being "pilgrims in the world," just passing through, but that is what we are. Pilgrims will have their wilderness time, but will He be able to place anything in our hands there? In what seems like nothing, will we gain His everything? There are no shortcuts through the wilderness, so don't waste time seeking one. Meet Him there, in the nothing, and gain everything. He has wonders to place in your hands there. Will you allow Him to do so? Blessings, Pastor O

New

His mercies never fail. They are new every morning. Great is Your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:23 I was thumbing through one of my prayer journals and I came across something I don't remember writing. On the surface it's a simple statement, but its depth is infinite. It reads, "Each day I get older and each day He gets newer." Let's chew on that for a few minutes. I have been walking with Him since I had just turned twenty nine years old. I've gotten old, but He never has. He, in the wholeness of His being, really is new every morning. I keep discovering new facets of His character, faithfulness, and love. No matter how deep I go in discovering Him, I continue to see how I am only scratching His surface. Life can become so stale. This passing world can as well. He never does and He never will. One of the great promises of an eternity with Him is that it will be a continuous adventure of knowing Him. An eternity filled with His richness, a richness that will never run out. The Apostle Paul said that the world's hold upon him had vanished, just as his hold upon it had as well. Here, at nearly 76 years of age, I understand that more clearly than ever. One of the blessings of aging for the follower of Christ is the realization that the treasures of this world never satisfy. Not fully and not for long. We grow tired of them and put them aside, quickly intensifying our search for something that will. Not so with Him. Not so with Christ, and not so with the things of the Spirit. They are constantly fresh and new, and they never fail to satisfy. They never will. Ever. Some reading this may have no idea of what I'm speaking of. It's either because you have never known Him, or because you have never fully believed that He could be and is all that I say He is, and what really matters, that He is all He says that He is and promises to be. If that is where you find yourself today I, with all my heart, encourage you, plead with you, to step out into Him and discover that it is true. Have the Bread of His Life and the refreshing springs of His Living Water fresh and whole. Discover that they really are new every morning. New for you, and new for me. Blessings, Pastor O

Rest

"Martha, Martha," the Lord replied. "You are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good portion, and it will not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42...."Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 45:10 In over 40 years of ministry, I've found that many know how to be active, but so few of us know how to be still. Still before and in Him. We seem to live our lives, even in the church, at breakneck speed. I remember years ago when a mother of one of the ladies in our church came to spend some time with her daughter's family. There was a day when she was asked to oversee and get all the children to their activities. She was overwhelmed by all the events and happenings they were involved with. Keeping up exhausted her. The pace in most families has only increased. We don't know how to be still even in the physical realm. It's much worse in the spiritual. Martha thought that the supreme dedication she could make for her Lord was to wear herself out in serving Him. Jesus said that the best part was found in sitting at His feet, abiding in Him. He didn't say that activity for Him was wrong, but He was saying that activity that didn't flow from a place of rest would only result in what Martha seemed to be experiencing; burnout. Burnout coupled with frustration, anger, and resentment. Any pastors or full time workers in the church know what I mean here. Burnout in pastors is a major problem in the church. Hundreds have left the ministry as a result. Most, if not all of it a result of never having first found a place of rest in Him from which to serve. Recently, a good pastor friend of mine in one of His writings said, "Come join me at the cross, and rest." We don't associate the cross with rest, at least not often. Yet, it really is a place of ultimate rest because at the cross, we must die out to all the things that ultimately are keeping us from His fullness. At the cross, His resurrected life pours into us, and flows out of us. We are not driven when we live at the foot of the cross, we are led. We die out to a life lived at breakneck speed. Our flesh will always resist this, which is why so many fight so hard against coming to the cross, and as a result never know what it is to be still in Him, and at rest. So, I extend to all who find themselves living more like Martha than Mary. Jesus loves our service, but He wills that it should flow from our place at His feet. Stop resisting that place. Learn what it is to be still. Learn what it is to come to cross....and find rest. Blessings, Pastor O

Broken Hearts

Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Admah or demolish you like Zwboim? My heart is torn within Me, and My compassion overflows." Hosea 11:8....He heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds. Psalm 147:3 We are a brokenhearted people pursued relentlessly by a brokenhearted God. I don't think the majority of us are really aware of this. Oh, we readily know about our own broken hearts, but we're mostly ignorant of His. I know personally the agony of a broken heart. A heart broken many times over. You do as well. It is a very great tragedy that so many of us never really have our broken hearts healed. They say time heals all wounds, but that's a lie the world came up with. All time does is cover over the wound with an ugly scab. The wound itself remains beneath that hardened scab, still causing great pain. Not just for the one whose heart is broken but for all those living closely with and to them. The world has a multitude of counselors whose offices are filled with people who come for healing, but in too many cases, never are. They just go on bleeding. And all the while, there is a brokenhearted God pursuing those broken hearts, longing to bind up their open wounds and heal them. In our suffering, the enemy seeks to convince us that the Lord either does not care about our suffering, or that He's powerless to help us. He's a liar, he's been very successful in convincing us of his lies. The reality is that we have a Father in heaven and a Savior in Jesus, whose hearts break with ours. They break over what has happened to us. They break over what our own choices and actions have done to us. This is seen in the exchange in Hosea with the Father speaking to His people, Israel. Their rebellion and insistence on their own way had brought about untold suffering for them. He weeps for His people and with them. He does so with us as well. In some of my deepest sufferings, I often had the sense of His being right there, holding me to Himself, and weeping with me, as well as for me. I have no biblical proof of this, but I believe that there is healing for us in His tears. Our tears may bring us emotional release, but I think that somehow, His tears poured out for us and on us, bring forth His healing....if we'll have it. If you have or are walking the road of the brokenhearted today, know that you are not alone. The God of the broken heart pursues you with His own broken heart. No matter how you got to this place, He pursues you with healing in His hands and in His words. Bring your wounds to Him. All of them. Lay them at His feet. Lay yourself at His feet. Let Him do what only He can do. Heal what is broken. Heal what you might believe is broken beyond repair. The God of the brokenhearted walks with you with His own broken heart. He offers His healing and the binding up of all of your wounds. Won't you receive Him? Blessings, Pastor O

Paupers?

Jesus said, "My Father in heaven has revealed this to you.....Now I say to you that you are Peter (which means 'rock'), and upon this rock I will build my church." Matthew 16:17-18.....Acknowledge who Jesus is, and you will hear Him acknowledge who you are." Chris Tiegreen Jesus' above words came directly after He'd asked His disciples who both the people and they believed Him to be. They could answer who the people said He was, but Jesus pressed them; who did they say He was? Peter, as usual, took the lead, He stated, correctly, that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Jesus told them this was true, then He said something that was surely unexpected. He called Peter "Rock" and said that upon him, and surely the others as well, He would build His church. We must be able to acknowledge and live in the truth of who Christ is. It must be central to our being and is a question we must be able to answer. Yet in this passage there is something else. Yes, we need to know who Jesus is, but we also need to know who He says we are. What He says concerning that will seem as unlikely to us as did being called a "rock" was to Peter. He had just shown himself to be anything but. I see His asking us who we are as having two answers. The first is our acknowledging who we are in every area of life where we're seeking to live apart from Him, knowingly or not. He will not heap condemnation upon us, but we cannot either know Him or how much we need Him, until we know how far from Him we may be, and how unworthy of Him we are. This brings us to the second part, for once we know what we are not, He can begin to show us who and what we are when we bring all of ourselves to Him. All of our mess, our failings, our sin, to Him. We bring this in confession and we bring this in repentance. He then takes all this and "files" it under "forgiven and made clean." Now we're ready for Him to begin to tell us who we are...in Him. Who He created us to be. What our giftings and callings are. What He has named us and called us in contrast to all the "names" the world and the enemy has put upon us. Many have freely acknowledged who He is, and done so in brokenness, but somehow, they have never been able to fully grasp that they are made wholly new in Him. We lay the past down and enter into His new life. The infinite inheritance we have in Him is ours. The name He has given us fits who He has made us to be. It is a terrible tragedy to live out our lives and never really understand the depth of this. I could write much more on this, but I'll close with something from A.W. Tozer. He said that he feared that despite the infinite riches that were his in Christ, he might come before Him on that day as "almost a pauper," having failed to ever fully enter into all he'd been given and had in Christ the King. May we, as the old hymn says, realize we have a "new name written down in glory, and it's mine, oh yes, it's mine." May none of us be found as paupers on that last, great day. Blessings, Pastor O