What Is

I don't remember the source for it, but in my prayer journal I have written, "We must surrender what we thought our lives were going to look like and step into what God has for us instead." We all have dreams, desires, and hopes. A happy marriage, beautiful family, a rewarding vocation, and ministry that bears much visible fruit. Beautiful dreams can become broken ones. It comes to everyone in some way and in some form. What do we do when it does? What do we do when our life mate suffers dementia? How do we respond when our marriage and family is broken apart by divorce? What happens when our children reject everything about us and push us completely away? What do we do when our expected ministry of abundance become a forlorn mission in the midst of the wilderness? What DO we do? Katherine Wolf was a beautiful young wife and mother with a life that seemed to have everything. Then, with no warning, at the age of 26, she suffered a severe stroke that left her disabled, partially paralyzed, and with a severe speech impediment. She refused to give in and give up. She did not run from her God, but to Him. There is no doubt she experienced a wide range of emotions and seemingly unending questions about it all, but she made a decision. She said that she decided that she would not dwell upon all the "what if's" of her life condition but would move into the "what is" of it. And she would do so centered upon the living hope she had in Jesus Christ. The result has been a rich ministry of hope and transformation for thousands of people. To live in the realm of "what if" invites darkness. It's a prison with chains only He can break, and they are broken when we enter into the realm of "what is." And what we will find as the foremost characteristic of this realm is Jesus Christ Himself. He is always in the place of what is. If we will trust Him there, He will lead us through even the most difficult and unpleasant circumstances into the broad place of His blessing and abundance. For our good and His glory. The roll of those who have done this include, besides Katherine Wolf, Fanny Crosby in her blindness, Joni Eareckson Tada in her wheelchair, Corrie Ten Boom in her concentration camp experience, and the apostle Paul and John Bunyan in their prison cells. Do not fear or run from what is, because He is there with you, and what He has for you there will be, as the old hymn says, "worth it all." Blessings, Pastor O

Mud

"As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust." Psalm 103:13-14 If we truly seek to follow Him, to worship Him and give ourselves wholly to Him, then we have surely experienced those times when our doing so feels empty and ineffective. We will have those times when it feels like what we offer Him is feeble, even worthless. Like what we bring to Him in our weakness is an offense to Him. We feel like we have completely disappointed Him, that it would have been better not to pray or worship Him at all. All of it is a lie, but it's a lie we so readily believe. Joni Eareckson Tada wrote on this. She said, "When my worship seems fragile and feeble, when my heart is muddied with misgivings, Jesus does not impatiently tap His foot, fold His arms and look at His watch, and think, "This girl better get her worship on. He graciously remembers that I am made of nothing but mud." This reminds me of an illustration from my professor of theology at Bible College, Dr. Arnold Airhart, concerning His receiving of our imperfect offerings of love. He used the picture of a small child who, with dirty hands, got a cup of cold water for their father. As his small hands carried the cup, pieces of dirt fell in, muddying the offering. He said the father didn't notice the dirt in the water, just the love in the heart of the child. He took it and drank. It's a beautiful picture of His love for us, and of us His love of what we bring to Him in love, even when we do so imperfectly. There have been so many times when I felt my prayer, my praises, my thanksgivings were beyond feeble. That they were worthless. The devil loves for me, for you, to believe it is so. It isn't. He sees our heart. He remembers that we are dust, mud. Weak, imperfect dust and mud. He looks beyond that. He looks deeply into what is in our heart. He doesn't focus on all the imperfections we bring. He focuses on our love for Him. Even when our love feels so weak and shallow. May we never lose sight of the illustration of the water mixed with dirt. Nothing we could bring Him can ever be worthy of the Savior that He is. He desires us, dirty hands and all, for it is Himself who makes all our imperfect offerings acceptable. Praise and worship, even at its weakest, is still praise and worship. It is still precious in His eyes. He remembers we are mud. Blessings, Pastor O

Rescuers

There is a beautiful painting that I've seen often on social media. It depicts Jesus reaching down beneath the waters to rescue someone who is drowning. I know the reality of that painting because it is exactly what He did for me all those decades ago. Many who read this know that experience as well. I am so thankful for the ministry of my Lord Jesus as the Rescuer of my soul, but through the years, I've learned that He often chooses to rescue us through the ministry and actions of others. There are a number of places where this has been true for me, but one in particular really stands out in my memory and experience. I was in the first couple of months of the collapse of my marriage. I had been offered the use of a small cottage on our denomination's campground. When I arrived to take up residence there, there was a group of fellow pastors gathered to do some maintenance work on the grounds. They talked with me a bit, told they'd be praying for me, yet I couldn't escape the feeling that they didn't really know what to say or do. They got back to work and I started to walk away towards the cottage. In that moment, I felt completely alone. I felt like I was drowning. Drowning in pain, in fear, in the midst of the impossible. As I walked, I sensed that someone was behind me. I turned and saw the face of a brother pastor I knew, but didn't know well. He simply reached out, put his hand on my shoulder, and began to pray for me. For me, in that place, I felt Him reaching down through this brother's touch, and pulling me up from the "waters" that I was drowning in. I wept as he prayed, but as he did so, I felt surging through me what I can only describe as waves of fresh hope. The Lord saw me right where I was, and on that lonely campground, He used this good brother to reach down and pull me out of the murky waters of despair. To be a rescuer employed by King Jesus is not a ministry many seek. I make no judgement against those other brothers who were present, but only one of them felt the urging of His Holy Spirit to come after me and minister to me His Life. Ever since then, I have sought to be a rescuer in the service of my Lord. To be attuned to the hearts and needs of those He brings before me. To be the vessel through which He reaches down to save a drowning soul. There have been times I missed His promptings, to my great regret, but I strive to be faithful to them. I'll be accountable for the ones I passed by. So will you. Rescuers, for the most part, are anonymous people, mostly overlooked by the majority. Yet their ministry is of infinite value in the Kingdom. The numbers of those crying out for rescue are legion. The number of those willing to be His agents of rescue are few. Peter failed his Lord in a spectacular manner. and was in despair as a result. Yet the risen Christ reached into His despair and restored him. Then, he sent Peter to his brethren to do the same for them. To be a Rescuer. Peter could be nothing less. Can we, who have also been rescued by Him, be anything less as well? Blessings, Pastor O

The Uttermost

Therefore, He is able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him. Hebrews 7:25 "Saved to the uttermost." Have you ever contemplated what that means? As used in the Bible, its meaning is; "The extreme, farthest point, or the completel totality of something." I see a Savior who has no limits, especially as concerns the salvation He so freely offers those who will trust and follow Him. Yet, how often do we find ways to limit this salvation? What are we missing when we do? How far below the level of life He offers are we living? Joni Eareckson Tada, confined to a wheelchair for more than 6 decades now, said that she wants to proclaim a Gospel that, "Saves every day. That sustains and shapes us every day." She's talking about a Gospel that is alive...every day. A Gospel that pours out saving grace upon us in the midst of all of life's challenges and needs....every day. A Gospel that not only sustains us through this day, but does so every day, and sustains in victory. A Gospel that shapes us as we live in His loving hands and He works within us His mind, His heart, His life...every day. A Gospel that, no matter how far He has taken us on this day, He will take us even further in the next day. And He will do so....every day. In 2nd Timothy, Paul wrote about how he was living chained within his Roman prison cell, but He triumphantly proclaimed, "but the Word of God is not chained." Unless it is chained by us. Where in our lives might we be doing so? What particular prison cells are we living in where not only we are bound, but we believe His Word and His promises are bound as well? Where are we not allowing His Word to be experienced "to the uttermost?" If you're reading this, I expect you have some level of belief in His Word. Is it the kind of belief that makes His Word real to you in your everyday life? When you're confronted with challenges, deep needs, fears, dangers, and more, who and what do you look to? Someone once said that we don't believe the God we believe in. How true is that in us? Churches are filled with people for whom the Word of God plays no real role in their lives. If His Word is not real then He is not real, at least in our day to day living. Paul, in a prison cell, was free. Joseph, enslaved for 12 years, was free. David, in a cave, pursued by enemies who sought his life, was free. For them, and so many more, God and His Word were real and alive. This was more real to them than the cell, the slavery, or the cave. May it be so for you and me as well. His Word is not bound, and through it, He saves to the uttermost. The enemy, working through this world will challenge that truth daily, but his words are words of death. They cannot stand against Christ's words of life. Stand in His words. Live in them, and the enemy will flee from you, every time. Every day. Every moment. Blessings, Pastor O

Everyone

And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life. Matthew 19:29 I hesitate to tell too many of my life experiences with my Lord for fear of coming across as presenting myself as some kind of hero of the faith. I am not. At all. I know how weak I truly am. But the above Scripture has had deep meaning in my life for many years now, and that meaning was brought home once more this very morning. I made the decision to follow Jesus Christ 47 years ago this month. Wherever He led, I would go, no matter the cost....but I never imagined how much that cost would be. It began almost immediately as I left my old life behind, and in doing so, so many of my friends as well. That involved some pain, but I was young and I knew I couldn't stay in the environment I had been living in and still go on with Him. I trusted Him in this and He didn't disappoint. When I left for Bible College, I entered into a whole new world and one of the choice blessings I received were the many fantastic friendships I made there, most of which have continued to this day. He kept His word. I entered the ministry in 1984, and it is where I really began to learn of what it meant to suffer loss for His name. Most of all in my own family. The hardest part of ministry is watching people walk away from you for a number of reasons, but what they all had in common is that on some level, they wanted me to heed them before Him. Refusing to can make people angry and angry people can lash out and do very unloving things. I felt the deep sting of abandonment and betrayal more than a few times. People I thought would never do so, did. It's a story shared by every faithful pastor. Yet again, for everyone that left me, He would raise up from many different sources, those who would prove to truly be friends of the heart. Once more, He kept His word. Eventually, I would pay the deepest price. My wife, who I had believed was my life partner, began to hate the lifestyle of a pastor's wife. She sought for me to make compromises that I just couldn't make. She wanted a lifestyle for us that I knew I could never live. Whatever love she once felt left her, and was replaced by a cold, bitter anger and seeming hatred. She left, and she took her daughter, who we had raised as my own, with her. I will never forget the indescribable and heart wrenching pain I felt on the day she was taken away. A young girl that I loved completely as my own. I would not see or know anything of her for more than a decade. Yet even in this loss, He was faithful, and He has remained so. I lost my family, but what He did in response was to bring in seemingly endless numbers, people of all ages to simply love and be loved by. In 42 years of ministry, I have had the blessing of loving and being loved by so many wonderful people of God. I have formed some of the deepest friendships and relationships that will go on into eternity. What I have gained from Him has greatly outweighed what I lost. I was reminded of that this morning when a young girl, now a teenager, came up to me in church. When I pastored in Northern Viginia, I would each week pick she and her mother up for church. That little girl would sit in the backseat and banter the whole way with me. She was quite the character, but I loved her and knew she loved me. I hadn't seen her in years, but the bond was still there. She's just one of the many countless blessings I have received from Him as I keep on keeping on in the Kingdom. Through it all, through all the losses and cost, He has kept His word. He will always keep His word. Trust Him. The cross of Christ is soaked in His blood. We cannot expect that if we truly follow Him, it will not be soaked with ours as well. In the midst of the cost, He gives His greatest gift; Himself, a truly incomparable gift. . Blessings, Pastor O

Himself

God, in both the Old Testament and New, is always calling us to Himself. In Isaiah, He calls His people to "come, and let us reason together." In the Gospels, Jesus, in response to two of His disciples' questions, calls them to "Come and see." Then of course is His beautiful invitation to all who are weary and broken to "Come unto Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden." It is always to Himself that He calls us, yet we miss that truth so easily. Alicia Britt Chloe said, "We ask for angst dissolving answers; He offers Himself. We pray for peaceful paths; He offers Himself. We desire detailed directions; He offers Himself." We're missing that in our insistence on His giving us answers, or help, or deliverance from hard places, He offers us something far greater. He offers us Himself. We want rest, or peace, or strength, or joy, or answers, or deliverance. We miss that He is all of these and more. We want something He does or gives. He wants to give us Himself. How sad that we settle for so little of Him when He longs to give us so much more of Himself than we could ever imagine. We're missing the great truth that in all those things we see as threats, or needs, or fears, and in which we want His help, that they all must bow to His Presence. We miss that none of these could hold power over us when He is with us and in us in the fullness of His life. In Himself we find everything we could ever need or want, but we're missing that. In comparison, we're asking for cheap tinsel when we could have all the riches of the Kingdom that are found in Him. Somewhere in this day, week, month, or year, we'll be faced with need. In some places, desperate need. May it be that we don't just ask for His work, blessing, or answer. May we seek the best part, as Mary did when she sat at Jesus' feet. May we want nothing more or less than Himself. That is a desire that He will always fulfill. May it be fulfilled in us today. Blessings, Pastor O

Turn

Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace. Helen Lemmel I have always loved this song, and have so many times found it to be completely true. Why then do we so often fail to live out this truth? Why do we instead keep looking upon our problems, needs, afflictions, pain, regrets, and seeming impossibilities, all of which obscure and mar His face? This fallen world is not home for the followers of Christ. Home is found in His eternal Kingdom. Yet we can become so obsessed with what is happening here, that the truth of His Kingdom fades from our consciousness, and this world, which is fading away, becomes the focus of our reality. When that happens, the face, heart, and Person of Jesus Christ is obscured, sometimes wholly so. We've all been there, and we know that it's an awful place to be, yet we allow the enemy to so distract us with the events of this passing world that we become blind to the one that will never pass away. This realm, and all the pain, problems, and needs it contains becomes more real to us than Him. It doesn't have to be so. He doesn't mean that it should. He said that in this world we'd have trouble and suffering, but He also said that we are to be filled with hope and expectation in the midst of it. He has overcome it all, and in Him, so do we. Joni Eareckson Tada has deeply impacted so many lives with her recounting all the times she has faced the terrible pain and suffering that has accompanied her being a quadriplegic. Her pain is constant, but it is especially so in the midnight hours. She speaks of how, in those times, she has learned to gaze upon His face by speaking His Word and His promises that are found there. She softly sings hymns of praise and thanksgiving, and most of all, she prays that He would (once again) come to her with His comfort, joy, peace, and grace. As she does this, she gazes upon His face in ways that only those who have walked such a path of suffering will understand. It cannot be explained, but it can be experienced. He has promised that it shall. There's an old hymn that goes, "It will be worth it all, when we see Jesus. One look at His dear face, all sorrows will erase." I stand on that truth. One day, when we're fully with Him, there will be no more pain, no more sorrow, but in the meantime, we walk through many hills and valleys, but He walks with us, and beloved, if we look for Him, turning our eyes towards where our hearts know Him to be, we'll see His face, and no matter how dark the night or deep the valley, we'll be able to go on.....as we turn our eyes upon Jesus. Blessings, Pastor O