Heart Tracks - Cavedwellers Or Mountainclimbers?

     A good brother shared something the Lord had shown him recently.  He said he'd always been a man given to times of discouragement and at times, depression.  In those times, his cry to God had always been, "Lord, get me out of this," but that the Father, in one such time, had shown him something that heretofore he'd been missing, and used the passage in I Kings 19, where God confronts Elijah while he's hiding in the cave.

Many may well be familiar with that happening in the life of Elijah, who, after his great victory over Ahab, king of Israel, and his prophets of Baal at Mt. Carmel, fled in fear from the threats of Jezebel, Ahab's wife.  The fleeing had taken him to a hiding place in a cave on Mt. Sinai.  He'd taken up residence in that dark, gloomy place, and it was here the Father confronted him.
    I think all who truly live in and for the Lord, come to such times in their lives as Elijah did.  The enemy of our souls will never lack for Ahab's and Jezebel's to send against us.  His spiritual attacks against us will never decrease or cease.  The temptation to find a cave, and live there, will at times be overwhelming, and many of us may well be yielding to that temptation even now.  If you haven't, be aware, such a time will come upon you.

When it does, what will be yours and my response?  That God wants to see us come out of the cave is undeniable, the question is, what must happen in order for that to be the reality?  This is where my friend saw something in Him that he'd not seen before.  Maybe you and I can see it as well.
     I think most of us, when we come to our own cave, cry out to Him to come there, and bring us out.  We want Him to come, and take the discouragement, the defeated spirit, the desire to just give up, away from us.  we want to change how we're feeling and what we're thinking.  We want Him to make it better while we're still in the cave.  Once He does that, we can come out, and we can get back to the "job" of following after and living in Him.  It's here that we're stumbling, and the reason that so many of us remain in the cave, miserable and defeated because we are missing what He do deeply wants to do in our lives in times such as these.
    When God came to Elijah, He asked him what he was doing in the cave?  Obviously it was not a place that the Father expected to find him.  His answer was basically, "I've served you faithfully and look what it's gotten me."  That will always be the answer of the cavedweller because we have no other perspective but that of the cave.  But notice what the Father does.  He directs Elijah to come to the entrance of the cave, and it's there that He displays His glory before Him, and it's here that my friend discovered the secret that he'd been missing, that I think most of us are missing.  The Father wasn't willing to change anything in Elijah's heart while he was living in the back of the cave and its darkness.  It wasn't until he stepped to the entrance, where the Lord was, that it took place.  It's a lesson we must learn.  We always want Him to come to our "caves" and change what we're feeling in spite of ourselves.  He won't.  He'll call us to come out so we may behold Him, and lay hold of Him, as He reveals, again, or for the first time, who He truly is.  He won't change us inwardly while we insist that He change what is happening outwardly.  He will not give us new hope while we insist on staying in the depths of our cave.  We have to follow the quiet, gentle sound of His voice to the place where we may meet Him.  The place of His choosing, and not ours.  Elijah was on Mt. Sinai, where Moses encountered the glory of God.  Not in a cave, but on the mountain.  Too many of us, as we climbed the mountain of God, in our discouragement and weariness, have found a cave to hide in, to live in.  We wait for Him to come and get us out.  He will not, but all the while, He stands at the entrance, calling us out to Himself, where we can behold Him anew, and receive power, life, hope, and strength, to continue the journey. 
    Does this writing find you and I to be a cavedweller, or a mountainclimber?  We all want to see Him, but too often we choose to live in ways that keep us from seeing Him, and so, from others seeing Him in us.  He stands at the entrance of the cave, the trouble, the heartache, the defeat, and calls us out....to Himself.  Do we hear His voice?  Will we come to Him there?

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - The Help

     Years ago I worked for a man who always referred to me and others who worked for him as "my help."  That was how he viewed us.  We were there to "help" him accomplish all his goals and desires in his retail business.  There were times when he showed us some token of his appreciation, but they were irregular at best, and hollow besides.  I often think that we in the church tend to treat the Lord in much the same way my former employer treated me.

     The message in the church of the west so often seems to be "Come to Jesus and see how He will make your life so much better."  Better is the key word here.  It's not that we are a person, a people, desperately sick and completely lost, but a people who, if we just add Jesus to our lives, will find that life does indeed "go better with Jesus."  You disagree?  Think a moment on how often we tell people of His "wonderful plan" for us.  Look at the content of so much of our message.  Jesus will help us have better marriages, more contentment and happiness in our lives.  And a powerful "helper" to enable us to get to where we want to go, and with the least amount of trouble on the way.  I've heard it said that we very much want the Holy Spirit to move in our lives, but "in a direction and time element set by us."  We set the goals and Christ supplies the power.  We become totally pre-occupied with the fruits of knowing Him, not the reality and wonder of intimacy with Him.  He becomes a means of getting what we most want.  The Father is not who we worship, but who we use.  Christ is seeking to awaken us to a hunger for something far more and far more glorious than simply a life that goes well.  Yet we can be very reluctant to actually wake up.
     Our gospel message of today seems to lack a cross.  Oh, we mention it, but its the place where Jesus went, so that "we don't have to."  We so often invite people into a crossless, costless "relationship" with Christ.  An invitation so many of us will gladly, and do gladly accept.  It's a gospel invitation unknown to Jesus.  As Francis Chan said, "Nowhere in the Bible are we told that people are saved simply by praying a prayer and agreeing to receive Jesus."  What we are told is that a true encounter with Him brings about the presence and reality of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and out of our lives begins to flow the fruit and life of the Holy Spirit, of Christ.  If that has not happened, nothing has happened, no matter how many prayers we pray. 
     After Paul's conversion experience on the Damascus road, the Lord sent Ananias to him, telling him that Paul would bear His name before the Gentiles, "For I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake."  Living a life that publicly bears His name and willingly suffering for it?  Not a message that gains many adherents today.  Willing to live and experience Him as our satisfaction, even in the absence of the blessings He could provide?  That God is good whether life is going well or not.  Is this really the way of Christ?  It is, but how loudly do we hear it in our gatherings today?  How many of us gauge the strength of our faith based on what He is, or isn't doing in our day to day lives?  This is the gist of the life we live when Christ is the "Help" and not the Holy.  The Assistant instead of the Sovereign Lord.
    I believe that the culture that has produced this message is collapsing all around us.  As it does, this message will not be able to stand either.  It will be, is being replaced by the true message of the cross.  A message that has no interest in taking us where we wish to go, but to where the suffering, overcoming, 

glorified Savior wishes to take us, by way of Calvary.  I want to join Him for every step of that walk, no matter where it leads.  How about you?

Blessings,

Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - Living In The "Nevertheless"

     For the last month or so, I've been meditating a great deal on what the word "nevertheless" means when used, as it so often is, in the Word.  There's likely no place where the word is more familiar to us than when Jesus spoke it to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. "Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours be done."  If I can truly use that word with Him, especially in the context of how Jesus spoke it in the Garden, then what does it mean to "live" in that word, to live in the "nevertheless?"  I won't claim to have the full answer to that, or anything else, but I do think the Lord has shown me what, if for no one else, it means to and for me.

    One of the things I believe that was happening in the Garden was that Jesus, in spite of His dread over what was to come upon Him, and the suffering that would come with it, was that even in the midst of the dread, He was able to see it all from His Father's perspective.  He was able to see sin in all its horror.  He was able to see the hand of the devil in what was happening, and that it was he, not the people he was using, who were the real enemy.  He was able to see as well the victory that was sure in spite of the darkness of the hour.  He knew death could not hold Him.  As a result, He could say "nevertheless" in the midst of it all.  So too, are you and I called to that same nevertheless, to living in that same place that He did.  To live, seeing what is happening around us, and to us, with His eyes, and His viewpoint.  When we live that way, we can say, even in the midst of the deepest darkness we could imagine, and more than we could imagine, to the Father and the enemy, "Nevertheless, I will trust Him."
    Another aspect I'm seeing is that living in the nevertheless can mean that never-the-less may well mean the appearance of less rather than more so far as how the flesh and the world measure things.  Living here can be particularly difficult for those of who tend to measure everything, count everything, and assign success or failure to how much has been visibly gained or added on to us, as opposed to how much has been lost, or never gained at all.  We've all heard the saying "less is more," but few of us want to really experience that.  We also have a very hard time believing that "more" really is "less."  We're very resistant to the idea of surrendering the measurement of our lives and what is attached to them to Him.  We tend to think our measuring weights are a lot more accurate than His.  I speak from experience.  The flesh cannot live in this place. 
    These are just two of the aspects of living in the nevertheless, and I know there are many more, yet how can we live in such an impossible place?  The answer is simple, yet so hard to receive.  It's by our abiding, truly living in Him, where He is the Vine, and we are the branches, and we have really come to the place of knowing we can do nothing, absolutely nothing, apart from Him.  With that, He who lives in us, is allowed to fully live through us.  Then we begin to see things with His eyes and understanding.  Then we begin to rest in His measurements and not our own.  He, and not us, defines what is more, and what is less.  When we live here, we begin to understand what the true riches of heaven are.  We begin to know what real riches and poverty, are, because we are abiding in Him, and living in the nevertheless.  When we live in this life, we no longer insist that God, and everyone else, accommodate themselves to us, but we're instead absorbed fully into His life.  The life and land of "nevertheless."  The doorway to that land lies before each of us, but it will go through our own garden.  May we not hold back from entering into it.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The True Sacrifice

     A missionary to South Asia tells of something she and her family witnessed in the Muslim community in which they were ministering.  It was the festival known to Muslims as Eid Al-Adha, which commemorates Abraham's sacrificing of an animal instead of his son, who they believe was Ishmael.  Every household buys either a cow or goat for the ceremony, and the missionary's landlord purchased two cows for his household.  He needed two because they believed that one sacrificed animal only covered the bad deeds of 7 people.  He had 10 children, thus the need for two cows.

   The next morning after the purchase, the men of the household gathered to sacrifice the cows, which was done by the Imam, their pastor, so to speak.  As he slit the throats of the cows, he held in his hand, the names of the family members he was performing the ceremony for.  She said it was a very chilling moment as she could hear the moans of the cows as they were being sacrificed.  Afterwards, the son of the landlord walked by, covered in blood, smiling, saying "It is finished."  A cold chill went up her spine, along with a deep sorrow, for these people; the ceremony was only finished for a moment.  It would have to be repeated again and again for the rest of their lives, and one sacrifice would never be enough.  They would always require another.  They did not know, and did not see the One, Jesus, who had already been the true sacrifice for their "bad deeds," their sin.  For them, it was never finished.
   We, who take the name of Christ, may grieve for these souls trapped in darkness, and rightly so, but would we dare to consider that so many of us, who take the name of Christ, who have believed that He truly is the sacrifice for all of our bad deeds, all of our sins, live out our day to day lives in much the same manner as these missionaries Muslim neighbors?  That we, in our own way, feel compelled, day by day, to make some sort of "sacrifice" to Him in order to be accepted, to be forgiven, to be loved.  Always, these sacrifices never seem to be enough, and always, the sacrifices never seem to be finished.  We live under a cloud of guilt.  We fall into the trap of the Galatians, who though saved by grace, fell into a religion of works in order to stay in good standing with God.  They didn't live a life of sacrifice fueled by grace, but made sacrifices to Him in order that they might receive it.  Though they had the favor of God, they lived as though they must earn it.
   I'm not speaking of a "cheap grace" here.  The blood of Christ is precious beyond words, and we grieve His heart by lifestyles that cheapen that blood and the grace it has released to us.  Yet neither can we live as if that blood, that grace, somehow has limitations.  Like the Muslim who needed more than one cow to satisfy the sins of his family, we feel we need more than His grace poured out once for all upon the cross and in His resurrection.  Though we are His children, we live as orphans, always feeling unworthy of coming to His table, and always feeling we must "do" something in order to have a place there at all.  In many ways, we live as "lost" as do the unbelievers we seek to reach for Him.
   Hebrews 9:26 reads, "Now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."  Once....by the sacrifice of Himself.  This sacrifice of Himself has opened up the doors of the Kingdom and the windows of heaven to His people.  His sacrifice has brought all those who are His into the throneroom of His Presence.  We can come not by our work, but by His.  We're held in the grip of His grace.  Whenever we feel that grace and favor have to earned, made sacrifice for, we are held instead in the grip of death and darkness.  It is never finished.  There is always something more to be done, more to be proved.  May our hearts truly receive His words, "It is finished," and live in the bounty and abundance that they bring to us.  It is finished, and in Him, our lives may now begin.

Blessings,

Pastor O
  

Heart Tracks - Limited Resurrection

     I was speaking with a retired pastor the other evening that I very much respect.  He was telling me of a man, a former pastor that he'd been seeking to minister to.  This brother had fallen into sin and the consequences of it were the loss of his ministry, and devastation to his family.  He was seeking to in some way, be a part of the Father's restoration of this man's life, and yes, in whatever way He led, his ministry as well.  He told me, with a grieving heart, that this brother, and a brother he remains, had been, for the most part, pushed out of the church.  Oh, nobody was throwing any stones, not literal ones anyway, but nobody, from his denominational authorities, to his fellow pastor's, or his former fellowship, was reaching out to him with mercy, compassion, and a desire to see this man made whole once again.

   This is a problem that has long been a burden upon my heart.  We, the church, speak much about community, body life, and being missional, but somehow, the fallen wounded among us are rarely included in that "vision."  I speak this from experience, and I believe, without bitterness or rancor.  Those emotions and attitudes once existed in my heart, but He has been so gracious in His healing.  Twenty five years ago, my marriage collapsed, and ended in divorce.  I didn't seek that divorce, but was powerless to stop it.  The results of it however were much the same as if I had.  I didn't lack for those in the Body who let me know, sometimes with gentle words, sometimes not, that for me, the ministry of pastoring was over.  I had to accept that, and get on with my life.  They didn't tell me how I was to go about that, and the volunteers to help with the journey were few.  The basic message seemed to be that I could continue to serve Him, but it would be on a limited basis, and from, so to speak, the "cheap seats."  There was no pathway to wholeness, and for the most part, I was left to my own to find one if there was.
   Divorce, at that time, was a "loathsome" sin in the church.  It's become much less so today, and isn't it strange how the loathsome sins of yesterday can become the acceptable mistakes today?  We seem willing to tolerate much wrongdoing, but there still exists those "loathsome sins" as defined by us, and those who commit them can still find themselves bereft of the community.  Can this really be the fruit of the resurrection and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit upon us?  Can we continue to treat wrecked lives like the wreckage of a severe car accident, wishing to remove all the carnage from the road, so that we can go forward, and hopefully, not have to see or be inconvenienced by the wreckage. 

   Peter failed Christ on every level of his life.  Yet, when He arose, the angel of the Lord told Mary Magdalene, to give this message of resurrection to His disciples, "and Peter too."  Jesus was going ahead of all of them to Galilee.  All had failed Him, but all, and especially Peter, were given the message and invited into the life.

I heard it put the other day that after the resurrection and the giving of His Holy Spirit, we were no longer mere followers and imitators of Christ, we were now sanctuaries of His very life.  Tell me, how are we, and the fellowships we lead or are a part of, doing in this matter of providing sanctuary, restoration, to those, who like Peter, have failed so utterly?

   Oftentimes, it is not just the church that pushes us out, but ourselves as well, perhaps even moreso.  When all came crashing down around me, I was left with an overwhelming sense of failure.  That is what I saw myself as, and it permeated every area of my being.  It was made all the worse in that there were no lack of witnesses to it all.  Of course, the devil was more than willing to assist me in that view, but He, the eternal redeemer, was not.  Gradually, through all the sorrow, and yes, the failure, His message of life, true life, met me in my heart of hearts.  I came to realize that His message of life was for me too, and that He was not finished with me, indeed, far from it.  There was still a road to walk together, He was going on ahead of me, and yet all the time, with me.  There, in the midst of pain, humiliation, and seeming hopelessness, He lived.  He still lives, and no matter what has happened, or will happen to you, to me, His message of life remains.  He is risen, and He offers that risen life to us, right where we are, no matter who we are or what we've done, or had done to us.  His best wine, for all of us, is yet to come. 

 

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - Out Of, Or According To?

     There was a time, early in my journey through my separation and eventual divorce, that I "lived" for a time in the Sunday School room of a church.  I never felt like I was living "in it" but "out of it."  I was thankful for a place to go, when there was no place else to go, but it was not a place of life.  Much like those that we hear are living "out of a car," so was I living out of that room.  Through the years I have learned and continue to learn that such a life isn't confined to where our physical abode might be.  Indeed, there are multitudes who live in outward splendor, but who inwardly, feel the same sense of emptiness, homelessness, that I did.  It's because they, we, live out of, rather than according to.

     There are so many, and many of them sit lost in the pews of our churches, living these very "out of" lives.  They are living "out of" their anger, their woundedness, their fear, discouragement, failure, prejudice, bitterness, lust, greed, and unholy ambitions and desires.  These places they live out of are choking out the life of Christ, and in so many cases, preventing His life from reaching them at all.  These places we live out of aren't always places of darkness and corruption.  Many may at root seem, even are, good and pure desires, but they end up with us living out of a desire to be in control and living in ever deepening anxiety as to whether these desires and hopes will ever come to pass.  In effect, we are living out of jail cells whose bars are comprised of our emotions and thoughts.  It's a life of lack, of need, and of want.  It's not the life we were made for, and it's not the life that most of us, I fear, are really living.
    Ephesians 1:7 says that the Father gives all that we need or ever will need, "according to the riches of His grace."  God does not give, has not given us, out of His riches.  That would mean He merely gives the excess of His heavenly wealth.  He gives instead according to them, and since His riches are infinite, can never be exhausted, He pours into our lives the endless resources not just of blessings, but of Himself.  He gives us Himself according to the riches found in Himself.  Mind boggling indeed!

    May our prayer become that we no longer live out of our anger, woundedness, fear, or whatever else may hold us in spiritual, mental and emotional poverty and captivity, but that by His grace, He would transform us to live according to the riches of His life, love, peace, joy, and wholeness.  No longer living out of a place that can never be home, but living in His heart which has become our home.

Blessings,
Pastor O

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Heart Tracks - Let The River Flow

     I recently read the account of a missionary to Southeast Asia's experience with flooding in the area of the city in which they lived.  She said that the street they lived on was "turned into a river flowing by their door."  She and her husband decided to go out and see what was happening as a result of the flooding.  Walking where the water was shallowest, they began to see some amazing sights, a number of which made her feel very unsettled.  Fences covered with slugs, snails and leeches.  Large frogs seeking dry ground, and huge, ugly centipedes swimming on the surface of the water.  As she put it, "The flood seemed to bring things out that normally stay hidden or unobserved."

    The Bible talks a good deal about the "River of God," which flows out from His throne.  It's also called the River of Life.  By whatever name, it's usually linked to the movement of the Holy Spirit, and when the Spirit begins to move, to flow, the results will be very much like what the missionary experienced in her neighborhood.  It will bring things out that normally stay hidden or unobserved.  A lot of those "things" will be very much like the hideous centipede she saw.  As she puts it, "The power behind the flood is mighty.....As we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit's power, the embarrassing moments are revealed, the slimy-creepy things are flushed out, the heebie-jeebies of our lives are exposed, and sometimes, a few surprises float out and we say, 'Look at that!  How did that get there?' " 
    There are a number of songs that celebrate and call for the flowing of the River of God.  I wonder though, how willing are we for the flooding of our lives by that river?  One chorus says that where the river flows "it brings healing and life," and it does, but for the healing and life to come, all the vestiges of disease and death must be washed away.  This can be a very disconcerting process.  It means a complete willingness to see what has been lurking within, hidden, unseen, and unobserved, and then, a surrender to the Spirit's taking away, washing away, those "hideous things" we've been so good at not seeing, not observing, and keeping hidden. 
   Most are familiar with the product "Drano."  It's a potent chemical mixture that is used to free the clogged pipes of sinks.  One of their effective ads featured the showing of a clear glass gooseneck pipe filled with all manner of ugly sludge.  The Drano was poured in, and allowed to begin to eat through the gross mass.  This was followed by water flowing into the pipe and washing away all the filth.  Very effective, because sinks don't usually, if ever, have pipes of clear glass.  They're solid, and whatever sludge might be in them, remains hidden to our sight.  What we do know, is that something is keeping the sink from functioning as it was designed.  Sin, it whatever form, habits, attitudes, ungodly ambitions, lust, pride, these are all elements of the sludge that clogs our spiritual life, keep us from functioning as He designed us.  We know something is wrong, but somehow, we put up with the "slow drain" of our spiritual lives until the "clog" makes it so we can no longer function at all.  Where might the clogs in your life and mine be right now?
   The Psalmist prays in 51:2, "Wash away my inequity and cleanse me from my sin."  Are we willing, no, even more, desiring with all our heart for the River of God to flow into and through us?  To have all the sludge that clogs us spiritually, emotionally, even physically, washed away by His cleansing, healing Holy Spirit?  Let the river flow.  Not around us, but through us.  May we truly have the healing and life it brings....wherever it flows, and may it flow to and through us.

Blessings,

Pastor O