Heart Thoughts - Whose Heart?

"Six days before the Passover ceremonies began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus - the man He raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus honor. Martha served, and Lazarus sat at the table with Him. Then Mary took a twelve ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard and she anointed Jesus' feet with it and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with fragrance. But Judas Isacariot, one of the disciples - the one who would betray Him - said, 'That perfume was worth a small fortune. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.' Not that he cared for the poor-he was a thief who was in charge of the disciples funds, and he often took some for his own use. Jesus replied, 'Leave her alone. She did it in preparation for My burial. You will always have the poor among you, but I will not be here with you much longer.' "......"Mary used what she had to adore Jesus; Judas used Jesus to enrich himself. Mary is led into a life of devotion that is beautiful. Judas is posted as a warning of letting money (or success, prestige, recognition, pleasure, or anything else) get between us and God." Eugene Peterson

Most of us would be aghast as the suggestion that there might be anything in our hearts that even remotely resembled the heart of Judas. But is that really so? Can we dare to sit in His Presence and allow Him to search out the real motives in relationship with and following of Him? How much of our walk with Him is really about adoration, and how much of it serves the purpose of enriching ourselves? We can be pretty fuzzy on that. The truth can be easily blurred. What are our real motives? Judas talked of feeding the poor. The Word says he didn't really care about the poor, only of adding to his own finances. He didn't have mixed motives when it came to Jesus. The problem for you and I is, we so often do. I have never knowingly come across anyone in the Church who has the heart of Judas; total self-interest. I have come across some with the heart of Mary; total devotion.  Most have had hearts like mine.  A mixture. A heart that adores, while at the same time has more than a little self-interest involved. Many would say and teach that this is our lot, but I don't think so. So many like to quote Paul's words of struggle in Romans 7. It seems like they have never read on to Romans 8. We don't have to live with the mixture, with divided hearts. We're not just invited to enter into the fullness of His Life and Spirit, we're commanded to.  Have we? Have you? Alicia Britt Chloe asks the question, "Is Judas in the house?" Where, in the house of our hearts, might he be lurking? Where in our jobs, ministries, relationships, and especially our relationship with Him, can he be found? Where are the motives of our lives being filtered through the mind and heartset of Judas? It's a piercing question. How do we answer it?
Today, in whatever our place in Him, whose heart is most on display? There may be much good that we wish to accomplish, but along with that lies a deep desire to "enrich ourselves" as well. This may be especially so in ministry. We want to see people come to Him, we want to see fellowships grow. We want to see healings, peoples lives made whole. We want to see Jesus lifted up. At the same time, there lurks within us a desire to see "us" lifted up as well. Recognition, position, advancement. Mixed with our adoration is a great dose of desire for our own enrichment. We want to worship Him, and at the same time use Him to advance our agenda. How true is this of us today? How true is it of you, and of me?

Let us seek the heart of Mary, of true worship and devotion. Let us surrender that hidden desire to enrich ourselves, and die to it. It's a desire that will never stay hidden for long. Let us come to Him with lives and service that are a true fragrance of Christ wherever we are. It only happens and pours out from a heart of true worship and humility. The heart of Mary. It never comes from the heart of Judas. Whose heart is really in us today? What amount of mixture is there? Let the "nard" that flows out of us be pure. Is Judas in the house? Isn't it past time to evict him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Restless

"And even when he reached the land God promised him he lived there by faith - for he was like a foreigner living in a tent....Abraham did this because he was confidently looking forward to a city with eternal foundations, a city designed and built by God." Hebrews 10:9-10...."Wherever your treasure is, there your heart and thoughts will also be."  Matthew 6:21...."Home is where the heart is."

If you've read either of the past two entries, you know that I just spent a week in Colorado Springs, Colorado.  That has been one of the most cherished places in my life.  Not only was it the place where I spent some of the most wonderful years of my life, but also where I first began to discover the wonder and depth of who He truly is.  Add to that spiritual dimension the great and spectacular natural beauty of the area, it's small wonder that it holds such a special place in my heart.  I have never passed up an opportunity to go back, yet in this time back, there was something very different in my return. Yes, the city had changed...a lot.  But the wonder and beauty remained, yet in the midst of it all, I realized something more.  Though the Springs was once my home, it was my home no longer.  Though once my heart yearned constantly to return there, it had been replaced by another, deeper, greater yearning.  I don't mean to try and sound "super spiritual" here, but I realized that my heart was more and more yearning for that same city Abraham yearned for.  The one with eternal foundations.  The one designed and built by Him. 

I remember so well my first pastorate in the flatlands of West Texas.  It was a deep shock to my spirit to leave the grandeur of Colorado for the seeming barrenness of that land (no offense meant to Texans).  I constantly yearned to be back in Colorado.  On this recent return to that very place, I realized that it was no longer the Springs, or any other place my heart was yearning for.  It was to be fully in His Presence, living in His Life.  To finally "come home."  No, this is not some morbid desire to be done with this life here, but a realization that what we call "life" is a pale imitation of the Life to be found in Him.  We so easily say the religiously correct statement "My home is in heaven," but the actual reality is that we are very much at home right here.  We're in no hurry to leave or give it up.  In truth, the bulk of our preaching and teaching today is really about how to have a wonderful life right here.  We expend all our energy in securing the silver and gold of this world, never realizing that it is really just tin and lead, and we miss laying hold of the true riches of His Kingdom.  We are so at home in this world, that the reality of the Kingdom of Heaven sounds more like some children's fable than a real and wonderful Kingdom.  The apostle Paul lived life to the fullest, but always with his eyes upon the Kingdom.  We talk about being "pilgrims who are just passing through," but for pilgrims, we have established deep roots and attachments to a world we say is passing away.  We talk about holding things loosely in this life, all the while holding the things of that life in a white knuckled grip.  We read about the city Abraham searched for, but it doesn't really resonate with our hearts because those hearts are so at home here. 

There's a saying, I don't remember the source, that our hearts are restless until they find their rest (home) in Him.  We are a church culture of restless hearts.
We're always yearning for something else.  Something newer, better, bigger, grander, but a something we seem to think can be found here.  So we change jobs, residences, mates, and churches, always looking for that "better country" here, but never finding it.  Our hearts remain restless.  Our spirits unsatisfied.  We're searching for home.....never realizing it lies before us in Him.  Where, really, is your treasure today.  I think I know what your lips will say.  Only you, and He, know what your heart truly speaks.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Pit

 "He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along. He has given me a new song to sing, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see what He has done and be astounded. They will put their trust in the Lord."  Psalm 40:2-3....."Called To Serve - May We Never Fail."  Declaration of a Bible College's graduating class of 1984

My vacation goes on here in Colorado Springs, and I continue to go to places that have had very special meaning in my life.  One of the foremost of these is the campus of the Bible College I attended and graduated from in 1984.  While walking about the campus and remembering the many joys experienced there, I came upon a small, shaded area with two benches and a stone pillar with a metal plate containing the above declaration.  I was a member of that class, and I had forgotten what that plate said.  As I read those words, I was affected by a powerful sense of His Presence.  Leaning over that stone pillar, that place became my altar.

Called To Serve - May We Never Fail.  It's a wonderful desire.  No one wants to fail.  Others, ourselves, God.  But we do.  We have.  Often.  The key for us is, what do we do with our failures?  And, who is that defines the failure? And then, does our failure define us? Many of our failures are real, but others come only from the expectations, most of them not realistic, that we place upon ourselves.  Then, and most painful of all, are the ones assigned us by others.  The Church is not a safe haven from such.  The Church may be more severe in this than even the world.  The result is to find ourselves in the place David writes of in Psalm 40; the mire and pit of despair.  Many never leave that place.  We live in a fallen world, and failure is very much a part of it, even in the lives of the redeemed in Christ.  We fail in our marriages, as parents, in ministry, and yes, in how we serve, follow, and love Him.  The miry clay of failure will seek to suck us ever deeper into its prison.  Here's the beauty.  All others may seek to keep us there, He will not.  If we'll but look up, we will see His face shining down upon us, and His hand reaching down to lift us.  Yes, we need to take our failures to Him, confess them, repent of them, and then be cleansed and freed of all the effects of them. David failed in every way.  The Father didn't leave him in his failure.  Neither will He leave you, us.

I said I made that stone pillar an altar.  I did so because as I read that inscription, I thought upon all the times I had failed others, myself, and above all, Him.  All the times I had been trapped in the pit, and how in every one of those places He had come.  He had taken my hand.  He had lifted me out.  He had set me once again on His solid ground in Christ, and yes, with a new song in my heart. Were others astounded?  Only eternity will reveal that, but I can tell you that every time I was astounded anew over His mercy, love, and healing.  Through every failure, He not only lifted me up, but took me more deeply into Himself.  And this my friends is what true success is.  Failure does not define us, He does.  And as long as He does, it will never be what we say, or others say, or the enemy himself says of us that means anything. It's only His definition that counts.  And He is able to redeem even the darkest, deepest failure.  

None of that class of 1984 was able to live up to that inscription, at least as we defined it.  But none of us who looked to Him would ever be left there.  Into our failures, He comes.  Out of our failures He brings us.  He makes steady our unsteady feet as He walks along beside us.  There will be more pits, but if we'll look up to Him, He'll lift us out of them all.  Do you need a new song today?  He has it for you.  Look up, and live. Be free of the pit.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Where?

"The angel of the Lord found Hagar beside a desert spring along the road to Shur.  The angel said to her, 'Hagar, Sarai's servant, where have you come from, and where are you going?' " Genesis 16 7-8

Isn't it funny how often we can read a passage of scripture yet never hear what He is saying through the passage?  The above is one such scripture.  I've read it countless times.  I have many other scriptures on the page underlined.  Not so with this one.  The question asked of Hagar by the angel just never really resonated before.  But the other day, when I heard a teaching from Beth Moore, it did.  If we truly wish to know Him in all of His fullness, than sooner or later, He'll "catch up with us."  When He does, more often than not, He'll ask us a question.  He caught up with Hagar.  Seems like He always catches up with me.  Has He caught up with you?

Contemplation.  Meditation.  These have bad connotations in the western Christian culture.  We tend to link them with eastern religions and thought, yet real biblical meditation is a powerful experience.  When the angel spoke to Mary about the divine Son of God that she would give birth to, and all that He would be, His Word tells us that "She treasured these things in her heart."  She dwelt upon what she had heard, and what it was the Father was speaking to her through those words.  Throughout Scripture, both Old Testament and New, we see the same.  When God spoke, those who listened and heard, did so because they meditated upon just what He had said.  As one old country lady put it, "they chewed on it."  Chewed, digested, and saw it become a living part of them. In our culture, where speed is always of the essence, we want to get the "church" part of our lives over with so we can move on to all the other interests we have. Small wonder that what He speaks to us "in church" or "in our devotions" rarely goes further or deeper than that particular moment.  So when the Lord asks of us the question He asks of Hagar, we not only don't hear it, we would have no answer if we did.  But He asks this question of each of us.  Where have we come from, and where are we going?

In the "easy believism" of the western church, we are invited to come to Christ while not really knowing why we need to come to Him.  Usually the need is presented in the promise of Him giving us a better life.  Not often do we hear it is because we are hopelessly lost.  Life is tough.  Jesus will make it better.
We're told He'll meet us where we are, but we have little or no idea about where we have come from, and what brought us to where we are.  We don't really know where we are.  We come into this world in a fallen state with no hope of changing our situation.  Do we really know that?  Have we any sense of how hopeless that situation is? Of our desperate need of a Savior?  Do we really know that this is where we are?  Until we can really answer the first part of His question, we'll never be able to answer the second.  Which is why most of us just drift instead of live.  Everything is here.  We talk about heaven, but it has little if any meaning in our day to day living.  We don't really know where we're going, because we don't really know where we are.  So in the end, we just wander.

The fruit of all this is far beyond what I can write of here.  So I'll leave us with His question to Hagar.  Where have we come from in truth?  Many are interested in discovering their ancestry roots.  Have we any idea of our spiritual ones?  Do we understand how desperate our need, how total out lostness?  Do we know where we're going?  Do we look for our home in this world and life, or, like Abraham, do we move every forward toward that city "whose Builder and Maker is God?"  Do we seek a life built on eternal foundations, or are the foundations of this world more than enough for us?  Where have we come from, and where are we going?  It's a "now" question. Everything depends on our answer.  The Lord has caught up with us.  What happens now?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Do You Know Me?

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?'  And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me you who practice lawlessness.' "  Matthew 7:21-23...."Jesus never calls us to live according to our human nature. He calls us to die.....Just as He makes His choice between the Cross and this passing world, so must we. There is no middle ground. We have to pick sides." Chris Tiegreen

Back in the 1980's there was a well known credit card company that ran a popular ad campaign that featured a familiar but not totally recognizable celebrity asking the question, "Do you know me?"  I hadn't thought of that ad in a long time until His Spirit brought it to mind a few days ago.  When He did, He  connected it to the easily bypassed scripture above.  Bypassed by our flesh, and small wonder.  It presents a Jesus who is in conflict with the pop-culture Jesus put forth in a great part of the church today.  A Jesus that Mark Galli calls, "mean and wild."  A Jesus whose first call and desire for us is not to affirm us, promote us, prosper us, but to come to Him......and die.  Die to everything in our lives that is not of Him, that we might come to live in all that is Him.  More than this He wants us to know that to refuse this bears consequences that will echo down through eternity and carry a cost too terrible to countenance.  The cost of our very soul.

It has always been my desire to speak and write words of life, encouragement, hope, and faith.  It is never my desire to wound, yet the reality is that I cannot speak His words of life in all their fullness and not wound.  Wade Taylor once said that we need to stop asking God to help us, that He wants to kill us.  By that he meant that we want the Father to help, rescue, increase us, while the "us" remains unchanged.  God is not interested in such an arrangement.  He wishes to kill the "us" centered in the pride of the flesh so that He might bring true Life in the "Us" of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  We want Christ as Savior, Caterer to our every desire, and a Retailer who provides all the goods we need.   He commands that we receive Him as Lord, Master, King.  From the scripture above, there doesn't seem to be an in between state.  Yet in between is where too many seek to live today.  Israel lived there.  Between Egypt and the Promised Land.  His Word called it the wilderness.  How many of us are living there right now?

I'm not trying to present a Christ of no mercy, no love, no understanding of our weakness.  He is not any of these.  But neither is He a Christ who winks at our consistent sin, our refusal to receive the fullness of not only His Life, but His Lordship. And our stubborn insistence that we not only have our own way, but that He stay out of our way in the meantime.  Neither am I saying that we are expected to live perfect lives. Growing in grace is a process, and there will be failures along the way.  That is not the same as making conscious choices to walk against the Light we've been given in order to satisfy our own desire, or accomplish our own will.  To do so will bring about a reckoning.  I pray that for those who walk in this way, that reckoning come before that day when we all stand before Him.  Make no mistake.  All of us will.  The day will assuredly come when there will be the question, "Do you know Me?"  It will not be a life of good works that gives proof to our answer, but whether we lived our lives in surrendered obedience to Him in all things.  If our persistent life choices have been to walk in our way rather than He who is The Way, according to His Word, the only end can be to hear, "Depart from Me.  I never knew you."

I close with one more line from that above ad.  At the end, the featured celebrity would give the name of the card and then say, "Don't leave home without it. "Beloved, you may think of this world as your home, but one day, you will leave it.  The choice before you, before each of us is, will we leave it in His hands and life, or our own?  Jesus Christ.  You cannot come Home without Him.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Savior And Lord?

 "At this point many of His disciples turned away and deserted Him.  Then Jesus turned to the twelve and asked, 'Are you going to leave too?'  Simon Peter replied, 'Lord to whom would we go?  You alone have the words that give eternal life.  We believe them and we know that You are the Holy One of God.' " John 6:66-69....."What in our lives is masked as 'good,' but pulls us from Him?"  John Bevere

I saw the other day that His name "Savior" appears in the Word 36 times. His name "Lord" appears 7800.  Which name is more acceptable to you and me?  Before most of us step out and give the religiously correct answer of "Both," we need to realize that the fruit of our lives, the day to day actions, choices, words and thoughts bring forth the true answer.  I think the reality is that we are much more comfortable with Him as Savior than we are as Lord.  When we focus on Him as our Savior, we so easily drift into life being mostly about what He gives us.  We look to Him to save us, protect us, provide for us, make a way for us, and generally, make life good for us.  The common word here is "us" and the gospel then is mainly about US.  There can be no clearer picture of that attitude than what is found in John 6.  Jesus had just miraculously fed a multitude of hungry people.  As He went along, a great part, maybe the whole, followed along after Him.  Now, most of us, myself included, would be very happy with that crowd.  If it were me that was leading them along, I'd be planning on all the great ministries I could start.  I'd be getting groups of people together to talk about what our next step in ministry would be.  I'd also be thinking about how much money we could raise from such a great crowd, and all the good things we could do with it.  Let me say that all of these things are "good" in themselves.  They just aren't good when they keep us from the central aspect of who Christ is.  He is Lord.  Of everything. Of all. Of me.  

Jesus clearly understands us and knows our hearts.  He certainly knew the hearts of those who followed Him.  When He began to tell them of what would truly be required to be His, that they surrender all right to self. That they yield to His Lordship in everything. That they partake fully of every aspect of who He is, and simply take up His and their cross, and follow Him......they declined.  And all but twelve of them walked away.  Michael Brown says that the message of the American gospel is not Jesus saying to us, "Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me, but, Affirm yourself, bypass the cross, and I'll follow you."  There will surely be a lot of good in the latter, but if it pulls us away from Him, and it does, isn't it a good that has its roots in evil?  Isn't anything that draws our hearts away from Him ultimately rooted in evil?  Doesn't the devil use shiny things that appear good to lure us from He who is not only the best but all?  It's why, like the crowds in John 6, we have no problem embracing Him as OUR Savior.  We're just not anxious to have Him as our Lord, and we to be owned by Him.  A Holy Helper, yes, a Holy Lord, not so much.

So, today, which name are you really most comfortable with?  Which one in the end, truly describes your relationship with Him?  As He calls upon you and me today, a call not just for the part, but the whole, in which direction do we walk?  Towards or away from Him?  If not towards Him, then, to whom in the end are we going to?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Presence Or Promise?

 "My Presence will go with you and I will give you rest."  Exodus 33:14...."We must decide whose we are, where we're going, and what we're willing to give our lives to." Sheila Walsh...."Is the church a sub-culture, or a counter-culture?"  John Bevere....."He is coming back for a holy church.  Not a welcoming one, a community conscious one, a need oriented one, or an outreach minded one."  John Bevere

I'm not sure who I heard ask this question, but I wrote it down in my prayer journal.  "What do we most want, His Presence, or His promise?" Think on that.  What is really our ultimate desire as concerns Him?  In the end, do we want Him above all else, or, do we seek Him with the heart of a consumer, interested in what we gain from Him?  In attaining all that He has promised?  In my prayer life, I have, as many do, used a "promise book" which contained scriptures under headings that pertained to us asking God for those things we felt we most needed at the moment.  I do not condemn their use, but the question has to be asked; is it the fulfillment of that promise in our lives that we most desire, or the manifest Presence of His Life in, to, and through us?  Are we after His Presence, or just the carrying out of a promise?  Do we yearn for the blessing, or the One who is the Giver of all blessing, of all life?  I don't think such a question can be either easily or quickly answered.  We can only answer after we've allowed Him to thoroughly search our heart, and all the hidden motives that we can hide there.

Sheila Walsh asks a question that I think few of us are willing to take the time to contemplate a real answer for.  Whose are we really?  Our own?  Someone else?  Or His?  I know what our lips are likely to say.  What is it that our lives say?  Where are we going, and more, who are we going with?  Is He our helpmeet, or our Lord?  Is He really going with us at all, or, do we just call Him in when the pathway gets too troublesome?  What are we willing to give our lives to?  Indeed, what have we given our lives to?  What is the real fruit of our lives?  Where does He show through?  Are our lives in Him really making an impact, a difference?  Not as we might measure things, but as He measures?  As pointed out in the book of Daniel, when our lives our weighed in the scales of the Kingdom, are they found wanting, lacking?

As the Church, the Body of Christ, what is it we truly seek?  What's our real purpose?  Do we make it all about those we seek to minister to, or is it all about first ministering to Him, and then filled with His Life, He ministers through us in real power and presence.  Are we more interested in being relevant to our culture, or relevant to Him?  Is holiness something we speak of much but live little?  Are we in the end, nothing more than a sub-culture, part of fallen and corrupt one? Or are we a counter-culture, radically different, filled with His Light and Life, exposing and overcoming all the works of darkness in the surrounding culture? How do we answer?

It starts with knowing whether we are consumed with having and living in His Presence and Life, or are we consumed with ourselves, and our own well being, and how we can get Him to contribute to that on an ongoing basis?  I've a good idea of what our mouths will say.  The truth is found in our lives and hearts.  What say these?

Blessings,
Pastor O