Heart Tracks - God In The Gaps

      Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust."  Psalm 40:4  Two much used words in the church are "Lord," and "Trust," but what do those words truly mean to us?  How do we understand them, and to what degree do they show forth in our lives?

     Most everyone who would consider themselves a follower of Christ has no problem calling Him "Lord," yet to what degree is He Lord in our lives?  Does He reign over every aspect of them?  Are we yielded to His Lordship, His leading, and His will in all parts of our lives?  In our approach to Him, is it with the intent of getting Him to bless our agenda, with the intent of getting Him to see and do things in the manner that we think they need to be seen and done?  Does the name "Lord" truly signify our relationship with Him, or is it just a title we give Him, an honorary designation?  We give Him a certain amount of respect, but in the issues that really matter, the way chosen depends upon our wishes and understanding and not His.
     How we view Him as Lord will then determine our level of trust in Him.  If He is truly the Lord of our lives, then it is His command that we trust Him with every aspect of our lives.  Physical, material, emotional and spiritual.  Yet, when it comes to all these, do we trust Him completely, or do we have what Chris Tiegreen calls a "God and....." kind of trust?  As Tiegreen puts it, "We usually trust God and financial resources, medical research, counselor's advice, popular opinion, or any other avenues of assistance."  It is not that the Lord cannot work through any of these other avenues, but at the very root, foundation of our lives, do we trust in Him alone?  Or, do we really have a " God and," trust?

    Many would call this reckless, and they would be right.  It is reckless, and this is the exact kind of faith He calls us to.  Such faith can only be placed in someone who we know beyond doubt is Lord.....of all of our life.  Believing Him, trusting Him in a "God and," kind of way will never yield a reckless faith.  It will always be a cautious one.  It will always need some kind of proof or assurance beforehand.  He will need to prove Himself as Lord before we will trust Him as Lord.  In the beginning of our walk with Him, He will prove Himself, many times over, but growth in His grace and in the knowledge of who He is will demand that at some point in our walk with Him, we must follow Him even into the depths of darkness and know that even there He will show Himself as Lord.  That even there, we can trust Him completely.  There will be no "and" because in that place, no "and" can be found.  His Word tells us that such hope, such trust, "will not disappoint."
    Tiegreen asks this question of us.  "How pure is your trust?  Are you using God to fill in the gaps around your other sources of help?  Do you have a plan B if God doesn't intervene in the way you want Him to?"  Do we?  If we do, we will not know the deep abiding peace of His Presence and wholeness.  There will always be a gnawing fear and unease.  This is the result of living in the gaps....the gaps between living a life that knows Him as the Lord of all Trust, and one that doesn't.  Are we living in Him.....or in the gap?

Blessings,
Pastor O
    

Heart Tracks - The Lord Is.....

        I've been thinking on the first verse of the 23rd Psalm.  "The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need."  It's led me to contemplate on all the names the Lord has given us for Himself, each depicting another limitless truth of who He is.  It leads me into knowing that in whatever name He reveals Himself to me, I, like David, who wrote the Psalm, have everything I need.  Because of this I can simply live in the security and reality of knowing that "The Lord is," and because He is, "I have everything I need."

     I recently read the account of a missionary who said that she has been dwelling upon the truth of the Lord being her anchor, citing Hebrews 6:18-19, "We hold to the hope that lies before us.  This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls."  She goes on to give the illustration of an ocean buoy.  This buoy is held in place by an anchor that goes deep into the ocean depths, yet this anchor does not prevent the buoy from being tossed in many different directions by the wind and waves around it.  Yet, despite these winds and waves, the buoy remains in place, immovable.  So too are our lives and souls when we are anchored in the life and reality of Christ.  In fact it is the very winds and waves of life that serve to carry us into ever deeper revelations of Himself, of learning who He is.  In the buffeting of the winds and waves, we learn that He is our Source and Provider.  Our Strong Tower.  Our Deliverer.  Our Almighty God.  Our Healer.  Our Sovereign Lord, the One in Whom all things hold together.  These are just a few of the deep truths and understanding that we enter into as we come to know Him as who He is, and not just about Him according to what we've been told.  

     This is wonderful and beautiful truth, but it is the last part of Hebrews 6:18-19 that really speaks to my heart.  The writer says that our experiencing the total sufficiency of our Anchor, "Leads us through the curtain into God's inner sanctuary."  His Jewish readers would have understood this as a reference to Old Testament worship, where the presence of the Father was found in the inner sanctuary, the Holy of Holies.  Only the High Priest could enter there.  Now, in and through Christ, access is provided to all who would come to Him.  All of us, through our knowledge and experience of Him are brought into the wonder and glory of His Presence, yet sadly, so few of us ever really enter in.  We're content to remain in the outer court, hearing about who He is, but never really experiencing Him for ourselves.  We can recite His names, but we can not describe what it is like to know Him in the power of those names.
     David could say "The Lord is my Shepherd," and know that it was so.  The Father had revealed Himself as such time and again in His life.  He knew Him in that Name, and so many others as well.  Because of that, He also knew that He had everything He needed.  God, in every aspect of His personality would provide for Him in every aspect of David's life.  The winds and the waves would come, and his life might be tossed about, but he knew who His Anchor was, and who He would continue to be for Him.  So, he had everything he needed.  What of you and I?  Do we know, in the face of all things, that the Lord is....all we really need?  Is that enough?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The New Normal

       "The New Normal," is a much used term today to describe the state of our culture both within and outside of the organized church.  I realize that this can be an effective means of measuring those cultures, even to a degree, understanding them.  However, it sometimes seems as if there is a kind of element of acceptance in it all.  A kind of resignation to the thought that "this is just how it is today."  I'm not sure that it's conscious, but I do think it's there.  How do we who constitute the Body of Christ respond to all of it?  Maybe it can begin with us coming to an understanding of just what "normal" in the church really is......As defined by Christ.
     The great evangelist Vance Havner once said something to the effect that if one were to live normal New Testament Christianity in the modern western church, he would surely be considered abnormal by the majority of those who thought themselves a part of that church.  He was, and remains right.  Francis Chan once shared how one of his church members offered a "gentle" rebuke to him as concerns his deep desire to see people become wholehearted, surrendered followers of Christ.  They told him that he needed to understand that there was a "middle road" that could be walked on, that didn't demand the kind of life he was consistently teaching and preaching on.  Juan Carlos Ortiz called such teaching "The 5th gospel, the gospel of St. Evangelicals.  Take all that we like, are offered or promised, make a system of belief about it, and forget the other verses that present the demands of Christ."  I think this is pretty close to the "new normal" in a great part of the American church. 

     The only response to the new normal of the surrounding culture as well as how that culture has affected the church is, as always, only found at the cross.  Francis Frangiapane said that "Perversity has moved to center stage of the culture.  It's the new normal."  Because of our great desire to take on the views of that middle road gospel, the church has become not only affected, but infected by the perversity of that culture.  We may have sanitized it somewhat, but it's influence is powerful.  It can't be tamed by new terminology or methods developed by the church.  It has to be killed.  It has to die, and that can only happen at the cross.  The 5th Gospel of St. Evangelical has no real place for the cross.  Do we?
     Oswald Chambers, speaking over 100 years ago said that so much of our struggle in these things are the result of "starvation of the mind."  I would add of the heart as well.  Our hearts and minds are starved for the Living Bread and Water that is Christ.  It's not that we don't want them, but that we want to have them as a result of illegitimate means.  We want them without having to go the cross to receive them.  The perversity of the new normal cannot be overcome by the middle road belief system Chan speaks of.  That perversity will instead infiltrate and then indoctrinate those it touches into its system.  Our only hope, our only defense and victory is found in Christ and the cross.  There is no other hope or victory.
     Jesus called that road "the narrow way," but narrow is a very unpopular word in the culture, the new normal of today.  It always has been, and always will be.  Yet He calls us to it, commands us to it.  May it be that His way, narrow to be sure, but yet so wide as to provide all the fullness of His life, would become our "new normal."  We will certainly be abnormal to all those who embrace the middle road, the 5th Gospel, but we will be at home with and in Him.  The culture of the world calls us to its definition of the new normal, and the culture of Christ calls us to His.  Which call will we answer?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Appetites

      Appetites receive a great deal of attention in our western culture, in part because we have them on every level of life, and self-gratification is so much a part of that culture.  So, we spend an inordinate amount of time seeking to satisfy them, both by legitimate and illegitimate means. Unchecked, they can easily turn into addictions.  In short, we become slaves to our appetites, and I think we're witnessing the reality of that everywhere, and very possibly, in our own lives as well.

     Our physical and emotional appetites seem to easily get the bulk of our focus, but this is not the way He meant for, or created us to be.  Yet it seems to be how it is, and sadly, we who comprise the church don't seem to be appreciably better at overcoming them than the world around us. The Father created us with a deep "appetite" for Him.  The fall of man allowed for the reign of lesser appetites to take His place in our lives.  In Christ, we are brought back to that which He intended us for.  The great problem is, far too many of us have not allowed ourselves to be brought back.  We continue to seek to satisfy lesser appetites and like the world, by both legitimate and illegitimate means.  In fact, in so many ways, we have reduced Christ into a kind of conduit for the satisfying of these appetites.  We bring all of our physical, emotional, even relational desires to Him with the expectation that He will fulfill all of them.  There are a host of things we want, things we feel we must have.  Comfort, success, health, pain free lives, problem free families, and the reaching of goals and achievements in both business and ministry.  These are all desires, appetites, that we would consider "good. " But we have some not so good as well, and if don't feel we can bring them to Him, we'll go about seeking to satisfy them ourselves.  Good or bad, our appetites are ruling us.  They, and not He, are our masters.  They, not He, are our greatest desire.
     Behind it all is our enemy, "the tempter."  He will always attack in the area of our appetites, and we have no defense except one, Christ.  And Christ knows well how to defeat him......every time.  In Matthew 4:3-4, satan comes to Jesus in the midst of his 40 days without food.  He said to Him, "If you're the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."  Jesus' only response, "It is written, one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."  Jesus was indeed physically hungry, but He lived for the fulfillment of a desire that went far beyond anything this world could give, and that was the fullness of His Father.  Intimacy and oneness with Him.  As Eugene Peterson puts it, "Jesus will not use God to get what He wants.  He submits Himself to being what God wants."  In this He has more than He could ever want or need.  No earthly appetite could displace His hunger for His Father.  As I saw it once put, when we place our appetites behind the Word of God, their power to control us is broken.  And that appetite for His Presence, placed their by God Himself, is now free to be fully realized.  Is it being realized in our lives today

     I think a good many of us know what it is to be ruled by our lesser appetites and desires.  How many of us know what it is to be captivated by a desire for Him?  Captivated.  Held captive by.  When we're captivated by the lesser, then all we really know is bondage.  But to be captivated by the Presence and Life of Christ is to know true freedom.  The Apostle Paul said that he was "free to be a slave to Christ."  When we are held by Him, we cannot be held by anything else.  Life will be such that we will always "work up an appetite."  Where and to who are our appetites leading us?


Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Next Enemy

      "When Jesus had therefore received the vinegar He said, 'It is finished." John 19:30  Much quoted, but little experienced.  We may know that He spoke it on the cross, but how many of us have ever understood or walked in the power of those words?  "It is finished."  Commenting on this scripture, Watchman Nee said, "The Christian faith begins not with a big DO but with a big DONE."  Somehow, we struggle to grasp this.  We always think that there must be something yet to do, something we have to do to make this complete.  To make it true.  Until we "do it," somehow, the the power of His death on the cross and resurrection to life seems to have little effect.  It's not finished, not for us.  So we go on, always feeling we have to try harder, work more, find out what's missing in our "puzzle" and then if we add enough missing pieces, then finally, it will be finished in us.  We live by the "DO," not by the "DONE!"

     Yet, it is not only in our captivity to performance that we fall short in our understanding, but we also fail to grasp the endless limits of His finished work upon the cross.  We read and hear much about His abundant life and that it is available to all, yet so few of us seem to live that life. Oftentimes it seems that death is more at work in us than His life.  We exist more often than live, and at the seeming mercy of all the "enemies" we fear.  Anxiety and worry.  Stress.  The Unknown future, the oppressive past, and the overwhelming circumstances of the present.  When the Lord pronounced upon the cross that it was finished, He meant that through His death and sure resurrection, the power of all of these, and any other "enemy" that might arise was finally, completely, and irrevocably broken.  Forever.  In Christ, their power over us is finished.  Do our day to day experiences in Him reflect that truth, or, do we still strive to find a way to make it so in our lives.  Do we keep trying to "get" to the finished work of Christ, or do we simply "receive" it?
     Another beautiful scripture is found in Paul's words in I Corinthians 15:25-26, "For Christ must reign until He has humbled all His enemies beneath His feet.  And the last enemy to be destroyed is death."  Christ does reign.  He has humbled all His enemies.  Death has been conquered and destroyed.  These are truths in Him.  Are they truths in us?  The greatest enemy of our souls is death, not just physical, but spiritual.  The cross and resurrection conquered it for all time.  All the lesser enemies of life spring from the great enemy that is death.  Yet, His Word and His Work promise us that they have been conquered.  Destroyed.  Are we living as though they have been?
    I believe that if we can really lay hold of this truth as it also lays hold of us, we'll then enter into the fullness of His finished work.  Paul's letter to the Ephesians lays this out in great detail.  He wrote that "He has blessed us with EVERY spiritual blessing in Christ."  Finished.  Done.  Is it so for you and I?  Or, are we still living in the "Do?"

    I go back to I Corinthians 15.  The greatest enemy, death has been conquered.  Therefore, so has every lesser enemy of our souls and lives.  As we journey through this temporary realm, we'll not lack for enemies, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. They'll come at us in seemingly unending forms.  Each one has already been conquered in Him.  It only remains for us to receive the victory.  As they appear, we receive the fullness of His resurrection life and overcome them, one after the other.  In this life, there will always be a "next enemy" on the horizon, but through the cross and His resurrection, they are already a defeated enemy.  Can we receive that?  Can we live that?  Will we move through life as "more than conquerors," or as "survivalists," just hoping to somehow make it through?  The next enemy has already been destroyed.  Can we receive that?  Can we live in that today?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Immeasurably More

      2 Timothy 3:16 says that "all scripture is God breathed."  Beth Moore says then that "Every breath comes to us still warm, from the mouth of God.  As if He just said it."  His Word is alive, and when we truly hear it and receive it, He literally breathes its life into us.  He has just said it.  No matter how many times and to how many people He may have said it before, it comes to us fresh, alive, and mighty.  It is God breathed, and so it breathes the life of God into us.

     This makes me think on Ezekiel 37 and the Valley of Dry Bones.  This was the vision that God had shown Ezekiel, and was symbolic of the spiritual life of Israel, living in captivity as slaves, far from the purpose that the Lord had raised them up as a nation for.  Their existence was literally one of "dry bones."  Bones that had nothing of life, His life, left in them.
     Can you imagine what it must have seemed like to Ezekiel to see that valley?  Likely in that vision he may have even walked there, crunching all those bones underfoot.  Could there be a more desolate place to see, or hear?  Yet, in that valley, the Father asked him directly, "Can these dry bones live?"  Ezekiel said in effect, "You're the only one that give an answer for that Lord."  He was admitting that seeing that happen was beyond his imagination, but he knew that somehow, it wasn't beyond the Father's ability.  He was right, and God then breathed His life into those bones, and what was dead past any human hope of life, came alive with the fullness of His Life.  The Father wanted Ezekiel to know that Israel could and would come alive with His Life once more.  Could it be that He wants you and I to know the same in our lives today?  Do you find yourself in the valley of dry bones?   Dry bones of failure, disappointment, broken relationships, betrayal, addiction....sin.  You may have made choices that put you there, or, the actions and choices of others may have driven you there.  Whatever the reason, life has become nothing more than a pile of dry bones.  To you He comes and asks, "Can these dry bones live.......again?"  Can they?

    Louie Giglio commenting on this in his book Passion, wrote, "Ezekiel's valley represents the lowest and darkest place of life.......Maybe something lived in that place once, but that was a long time ago."  It may seem that way with many of us right now.  Life, real life in Him, may seem like something we knew long ago, if we ever knew it at all.  What Giglio said next is what we need to hear, and what we need to know.  "No matter what we might see when we look at a valley of dry bones, it's certainly not what the God of immeasurably more sees."  Though Ezekiel could not see what those dry bones could be, the Father did, and with a God breathed word, they came to life.  In short, He said "live," and they did.  Can we dare to believe that in our valley of dry bones, wherever and whatever it is, the God of Immeasurably More can breathe His life into it and bring resurrection life?  In that valley of bones, He comes, and no matter why we're there, He asks us to receive Him there, believe Him there, trust Him there, and behold Him to make that valley of death, a high place of His life.  Right there.  Can our dry bones live?  The Lord knows.  Will we?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Leaving Our Nets

     Matthew relates Jesus' calling of Peter, Andrew, James and John.  All were fishermen, and all were engaged in their livelihood when He came upon them.  As He comes upon Peter and Andrew, the passage reads, "And He said to them, 'Follow Me, and I will make you fish for people.' Immediately they left their nets and followed Him."  The same took place as He came to the brothers James and John.  Eugene Pederson, in relation to this passage, lifted a prayer to the Father, "The nets have absorbed my attention long enough.  Lead me into Your way of being human."  The question for you and I is, what has had our attention?  In what "nets" of life have we been absorbed?  Jobs?  Relationships? Family? Pleasure? Accumulation of things?  Ministry?  Can we leave these nets that so entangle us and just follow Him?  Yes, there are people involved, loyalties, and much more.  Can we trust Him with them, leave them with Him, and follow, know, be with Him with all that is "us?"

    There is a deeper way of understanding this for the believer, especially the one who is actively serving Him.  Can we notice here that though Jesus does tell them that He will make them fishers of men, He first calls them to Himself?  That, not service, not ministry, is His priority.  Without the first, there is no power or real effectiveness in the second.  I was impacted by something Chris Tiegreen wrote, "Consider a God who would command us to love Him more than our deepest human relationships.  He is the same God who commanded us to love others.  But He knows that our most subtle idolatries are in making the command of God greater than God Himself."  Can we see how slowly but surely, the secondary can take the place of the primary?  How even though we expend great energy outwardly, we have allowed the object or objects that the energy is directed to, the love, take His place in our hearts and lives.  We make much of the "Great Commission," to "go and make disciples," but do we recognize how we can allow working for Him take the place of loving and knowing Him?  As Tiegreen said, we've allowed His command to be greater to us than Him.  Can we dare to be still long enough in His Presence for Him to show just where this may be true?
    What are the "nets" that have somehow entangled us and kept us from really knowing, following, experiencing, and above all, loving Him? There is great fear in leaving them with Him.  Families, jobs, relationships, ministries, all very good things, but all have absorbed us to the point of missing Him.  To let go of them, to trust Him with them, this is what He commands, and we can only do that by His grace.  But whatever He commands, He gives abundant grace in order to obey.  Can we receive it?  There are surely some very precious "nets" in our lives right now.  He knows that, and still He bids us come.  He who will care for us with His deep love, will care for them with the same love.  Be it person, job, ministry or church.  Can we let go of them, allowing them to pass from our hand, our control into His, and be free, entangled no more?  He bids us leave all the nets with Him.  In what place, and in whose hands and heart can they be safer or better cared for?  No longer holding tightly to the nets, we are able to hold onto Him with all of our being.  To what, who, do we hold right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O