Heart Tracks - The Oppressor

"Like a swallow, like a crane, so I twitter; I moan like a dove; My eyes look wistfully to the heights; O Lord, I am oppressed, be my security. Isaiah 38:14.....Definition of Insecure - "Not secure; not safe; not confident of security."

Feelings and thoughts of personal insecurity may be one of the deepest woundings in the Body of Christ, let alone in the world. Despite our bold proclamations of our own abilities, or even our supposed trust in His, it doesn't seem to take a lot for most of us to be overwhelmed into a place of despair, fear, and defeat. We try so many ways and means of building up our own personal security. Bank accounts, annuities, retirement funds, and on and on. And we don't just leave it at the material and financial realm. Perhaps even more do we look for security in our relationships. Husbands and wives. Parents and children. As long as these things and people are there, able to be touched, seen, and counted, we can have a very real sense of security, but it's fleeting. Even when we have succeeded in having all of that, behind it all is a lurking fear that in a moment, all of it could be lost. Investments fail. Jobs are lost. People leave us. We're guaranteed permanence with none of them. We're told that the greatest fear of the truly wealthy is that they'll lose their wealth. In whatever measure we may use to count and define "riches," hovering about it all is that same fear. Somehow, all of it can be lost. This can carry over into every aspect of life, and yes, ministry. A brother who had a long ministry as a successful pastor here in Northern Virginia told me that through it all was the fear and the pressure of keeping and adding onto that success. It too could all be lost in a moment. In our hearts, we know that's true, and many of us have experienced if first-hand. The result for all of us is to live with a gnawing insecurity from within. We're not secure. We're not safe. We're not confident......so long as we go on living in a misguided and harmful idea of where and in who our security truly lies. As long as we do that, we're guaranteed a lifetime of abuse at the hands of the Oppressor.

Here's double-edged truth: We're master craftsmen of idols. We can construct them for every aspect of life, both animate and in-animate. In them we place our hope and our security. All of them, sooner or later will fail us, and even in the midst of our having them, the Oppressor of our soul will torment us with fear over losing any of them. Throughout their history, the Father told Israel that this would be so. They wouldn't listen. Will we?

Yet there is another even deeper truth to be known. Even if we have discarded every false idol in our lives, and we look to God alone as our Source for all things, we will not be free of the tactics of the Oppressor. Fear will be his biggest weapon used against us. Fear that somehow, the Father will fail us, let us down, not keep His promise, be found wanting. Isaiah knew this, experienced this. His response to the oppression was to throw Himself onto and into God. In the words of today, he "doubled down" in His trust and confidence in Him. You and I may dedicate our lives completely to Him, and look to Him, but we can be sure that the Oppressor will attack our dedication and trust. In that place we, like Isaiah, must cry out, "Lord, we are oppressed. Be (again and anew) our Security." And He will be, again and anew, every time.

In the faith journey, the Oppressor will not be a stranger to us. He visited Christ in the desert, and His Word tells us that he came back to Him again "at an opportune time." The enemy knows his opportune times. It is for us to know our all sufficient and completely trustworthy God in those times. Do we? Do you? The Oppressor; he will be an ongoing presence on this side of eternity. He is also a defeated one. The One who is Security Himself guarantees it. By His Blood and His Life He does so. He honors His guarantee. Will we?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Uncomfortable Spirit

"And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." Ephesians 5:18-19....."Are we like the early Christians, rejoicing and praising God. filled with gladness and joy so that we amaze the world and make them think at times that we are filled with new wine? Let us avoid all excesses, let everything be done decently and in order, but above all, quench not the Spirit. Rather be filled with the Spirit and give evidence that you are." Martyn Lloyd-Jones..."The unpredictable and often uncomfortable work of the Comforter need not be feared or avoided....We should expect the Spirit to do remarkable things." Brett McCracken

Someone once said of His denomination, "We are a Holy Spirit centered people afraid of the Holy Spirit." I doubt his group alone is guilty of that. To some degree, I believe we all are. Why? Surely ignorance is a great part of it. McCracken says that one great reason so many believers find the Holy Spirit so intimidating is that because so little is spoken of and taught about Him in the Church. I think another, perhaps even greater reason is that we have became so dependent upon our own rational thinking and understanding. If our rational minds cannot grasp it, explain it, then we tend to reject it. James Robison said that the people of God are to live in and with a spirit of amazement at the ways and works of God. How many of us really do?

Vance Havner said that too many believers are living in a pre-Pentecost experience with Him. There may be a personal knowledge of Christ, but the power of His Spirit is lacking. Those who gathered in the upper room had that knowledge, yet they were directed to wait for the baptism of His power by His Holy Spirit. He said that "Some mistake the indwelling of the Spirit for the infilling." A.W. Tozer said that if there is anything a man desires more than the fullness of His Holy Spirit, that man will never experience His fullness. Where are we seeing that desire and yearning in His Church? Where are we hearing it preached and proclaimed? Havner said that "God will reward the man who forgets all else, seeking the double portion of 'power with God and men.' "

This is something more than just seeking to have rousing worship services where our emotions may be stirred but our hearts and spirits remain untouched. This is something more than just trying to stir up the ashes and, as Havner says, "Getting a few sparks instead of being set on fire by God." My particular group has a wonderful old hymn that contains the words, "Oh, I never will forget how the fire fell." Yet everywhere in our fellowships, in all fellowships, are those who have not forgotten because there's nothing to remember. The fire has never truly fallen upon their hearts. I'm not speaking this is self-righteous judgement, but with an aching heart. In the OT, fire consumed the offering that was placed upon His altar. Our God is a consuming fire, but we have allowed so little of that fire to consume us because we place so little of ourselves upon His altar.

Lloyd-Jones speaks of all being done in order. We've got that part down. How many preachers and worship leaders would be flustered, even lost, if the Holy Spirit were to break into the planned order of service? Do we realize how much, even if it's unconscious, we want to control the gathering and what happens? I'm guilty of it. Most of us are. When the Comforter truly reigns, it can be decidedly uncomfortable to our flesh. Chris Tiegreen writes, "God can be honored in the past and hoped for in the future, but He can never, never be allowed to intrude in the present." When the Spiritual gifts of the Lord are allowed to be in operation, all of our natural gifts have to yield. That is uncomfortable, scary, and unpredictable. That is also the New Testament church. Dare we have it to be our church?

I'll end with this. When the Holy Spirit truly reigns in us and in our gatherings, the result is something much greater than that which produces some warm spiritual feelings, but leave us unchanged. When He reigns in our midst, we encounter Him in His reality, and these encounters transform us. That's scary to our control driven, rational minds. But that's also Church, Body Life, as He wills it to be. Will it be so for you and me? We who call ourselves the Church.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Embracing Holiness

"For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9....."We have taken the infinitely glorious Son of God, who endured the infinitely terrible wrath of God and Who now reigns as the infinitely worthy Lord of all, and reduced Him to a poor, puny Savior Who is just begging for us to accept Him. Accept Him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don't we need Him?....David Platt...."Few think of the Christian as the greatest of miracles, a sinner saved through the blood of Christ, sustained by the bread of Christ, aflame with the heavenly fire." Vance Havner....."The most unpopular word in the Church today is 'holiness.' " Brett McCracken

Sometime ago I saw a quote from Francis Chan where he asked, "Where in the Bible does it say that we simply pray a prayer and then we're 'saved?' " I've a greatly respected pastor friend who during the course of his ministry baptized well over a thousand people. He once told me that of all those he baptized, there were so few who "lived baptized." Another friend who is a leader in a small town church that has seen remarkable growth in its short life with hundreds of professions of faith, notes that in the midst of that growth are large numbers of people who have never left behind their old sinful life patterns. Worse, there is no real confrontation concerning it. Brett McCracken writes that God's love does much more than just comfort us. It confronts us.

I don't think I'm a judgemental man, and I believe that His mercy triumphs over judgement, but can we continue to deny that there is something terribly flawed about our approach to evangelism and "soul winning" in the western church? What are we inviting people into? What are we calling them out from? How can we take the matter of sin so lightly when the Father was willing to sacrifice His own Son in response to His hatred of it? And His desire to offer freedom from it to all who would come to Him in believing, surrendered, life transforming faith? If one is to be saved, don't they need to know what it is they're being saved from, and who alone can save them? We too often offer Christ up as a remedy for life's problems. One who makes improvements upon our lives, but doesn't overly interfere in them. Christ says I aim to come into your heart and life and tear it all down, and make something and someone completely new, and different from before. He doesn't wish to make minor life adjustments in us. He comes to make a complete inner renovation....except we don't get to move out while He does it.

Two great soul winners of their day, Charles Spurgeon and John Wesley, both required of their converts that they exhibit evidence of the inner transformation that they professed. They were not only discipled, they were held accountable as well. They were brought into the life of the Church, but it was expected that they exhibit His Life in the process. Scripture calls it "bringing forth fruit in keeping with their repentance." And maybe that word "repentance" is the key to all of this, because repentance means a complete reversal of the way we have been living in opposition to Him, into a life lived in Him. For Him. With Him. I don't think the element of repentance has any great emphasis in our current message of invitation.

I recently had a Facebook discussion with a very good brother concerning holiness. His thought was that too many churches are putting the emphasis on personal holiness and thus isolating themselves from the lost. I agreed with Him that this might be true of some fellowships with a Pharisee type view of what holiness is; rules, regulations, and a distaste for those trapped in sin. But I don't think the majority of the Church is guilty of this. I don't think we're running from the world and its values. We're running into it and them. True holiness has little to do with what we're "doing." It has everything to do with who we are, and especially who we are in Him. Scripture tells us that His throne is surrounded by cherubim who do nothing but cry out "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty." If we are to embrace Him and His Son, we embrace their holiness as well...and it becomes that which marks our lives. We fall on our knees, and we cry out as well, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord. As Platt says, He is the infinitely glorious and infinitely worthy King of kings, and Lord of lords. He is a Savior yes. Even more, He is Lord. He is holy. And He has come. Do we know Him in this way? Not a watered down version of a savior.....but as Jesus..... Savior.....and Lord over all?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Clay Life

"House of Israel, can I not treat you as this potter treats his clay?" - this is the Lord's declaration. "Just like clay in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, house of Israel." Jeremiah 18:6......"It is not a noble task being clay. There is no glamour to it, nothing boast-worthy, except that it is exactly what Almighty God is looking for. Compliant, moldable, yielded clay." Henry Blackaby....."Draw me close, not just so I can hear Your words, but so I can hear Your heart." Chris Tiegreen

This year for Christmas, all of my immediate family was together for the first time in a number of years. The best part was having my little great-nieces and nephew with us. The oldest niece is a lover of crafts, and one of her favorite gifts was a kit that allowed her to mold sculptures out of clay. I watched her for a while as she shaped the clay into the figures that she wanted. What had been stiff, straight pieces were slowly shaped into just the kind of figures she desired. There was no resistance in the clay. It was yielded to her purpose. The question for you and me is, as God calls us clay in His hands, just how yielded are we for the purpose(s) He has created us for? Are we compliant, moldable, yielded, as Blackaby says, or do we remain stiff, straight pieces that never take any other form?

Years ago, as a young believer in Colorado Springs, I attended a Friday night service in a local church. They had a lady and her daughter who used the mother's pottery skills as a means of ministry. The dialogue between the two was meant to reflect a dialogue between the Father and one of His children, and as they talked, the mother shaped a pot upon her wheel. As long as the daughter was in a agreement with what the potter was doing in her life, a beautiful piece was being fashioned on the wheel. However, when the mother indicated a direction in which the daughter didn't wish to go, and the daughter stubbornly persisted in this, the piece on the wheel ceased its journey to beauty and slowly became misshapen, and eventually, just a shapeless lump of clay. It was only when the child repented of her willfulness, and yielded to the purposes of the potter, that the mother could once again begin to shape her intended masterpiece. It made a deep impression on me, and I remember it well more than 30 years past now. How often are we just like the daughter? Where and when does our stubbornness, resistance, and double-mindedness mar the work He seeks to do in our lives? When and how often does His intended masterpiece become nothing more than a lump of clay due to our fighting against His purposes for us? Can He shape us according to His pattern of beauty, or, do we more often than not remain shapeless lumps of clay on His wheel? Or never submit to the wheel to begin with?

There is one last aspect of that night that I remember so well. It was the "bond" that the potter had with the clay. As she molded the piece on her wheel, you could see the tenderness in her hands as she did so. A tenderness that moved from her heart, through her hands, into the clay. And so it is to be with us. Tiegreen says that He draws us near so that we not only hear His words, but His heart. If we live that yielded, compliant life before the Potter who is Father God, we will hear and experience His heart through His hands as He shapes and directs our lives. As I watched that woman that night, it seemed like she and the clay on her wheel were one. So it is to be with you and me and our God. Is it that way with us?..........Or, do live a lifestyle of resistance, yes, even rebellion against His purposes? Is the beauty He created us for being realized, or, do we remain just shapeless lumps of clay?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Altar Life

"I urge your brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship." Romans 12:1....."If you've never seen your worship as the ultimate purpose of your salvation, you're missing the best part of salvation.......Living sacrifices don't live for themselves. They live for Another. That's their service of worship." Chris Tiegreen

The last two decades in the Church have seen a great deal of debate concerning worship. Most seems to have centered around style. "Traditional" vs "Contemporary" seems to be the main focus. The controversy seems to have abated for the most part as more and more, the contemporary appears to have won out. Yet, my great question for us all is, in all the debating, have we ever really understood what worship really is, and what it's really about? In all the controversy, it seems that we think worship is all about us, what we like. Little thought goes into what it is that He loves and seeks.

Jesus said that those who worship Him must worship Him "in spirit and in truth." That's the only worship that's real. So, dare we ask ourselves, just how much of what we call worship is real? How much of His Spirit and His Truth comprises it? Is what we find so acceptable in our gatherings truly acceptable to Him?

There's been an alarming trait going on in the Church for some time now. That's the moving away from any emphasis on the Old Testament. I've heard preachers say outright that they spend little if any time in its study, so obviously, they spend little if any time in its preaching. It's to their and their fellowships great harm. I realize that we live under the New Covenant in Christ, yet there remains life giving and life saving truth to be found in what He spoke before the giving of His Son.

In those times, the Father called His people to journey to His Temple and there offer to Him the best of their flocks and produce. In this offering also came their asking of forgiveness for their sin, as well as deep gratitude for His goodness. It was to be an act of devotion and worship coming from a loving heart towards Him. These gifts were placed upon His altar and were offerings in which no part was held back. It is a foretaste of the worship we are now called to in Christ. What we bring is more than the best of what we have. We bring the best of, all of, what and who we are to Him. In devotion, gratitude and love for who He is and what He has done for us in Christ the King. It is a Living Sacrifice, and as Tiegreen says, "It lives a dedicated life, an altar life. It now belongs to the Priest (Christ). We are in His hands."

So, just how deep and worshipful is your altar life and mine? Do we live "altar lives" at all. I don't think God much cares what style of worship we come to Him with, or even how skillfully done it is. He cares even less about the props we come up with to accompany it, or the amount of self that goes into it. What He calls for, commands, is ourselves, all of ourselves, on the altar, all of the time. Altar life. No other kind can ever be fully acceptable to Him. Is what we're offering Him really acceptable? There may well be many things you've placed upon His altar. Have you ever placed yourself there? Do you place yourself there now? Worship Life, Altar Life. They're really one and the same. Are they so for you and me?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Issues

And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making everything new!" And then he said to me, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true."Revelation 21:5...."If we have not yet gotten to that point of laying ourselves on the altar before Him - without reservation - we have not yet encountered the living God." Chris Tiegreen

We're, as I write this, in the second day of another new year. As I contemplate that, I have to ask a question of both you and myself; just what new thing in the past year was He able to do in our lives? I'm not talking about a new job, new relationship, new home or car. His Word says that in Him, the old has passed away, and the new has come. What of the old, fallen aspect of your life has passed away, and what newness in Christ has come? What is really new, and what has remained the same? What new spiritual ground have we stepped out on, and in how many places do we continue to stand on the borderland of His promises? How much of the just passed year looked just like the years that preceded it? How much of the coming year will be the same?

The new year is always a great time for making resolutions, and we make a lot of them. We also fail to keep most of them. Why? Because it's so easy to make resolutions about our issues instead of taking the steps needed in resolving them. In short, we make resolutions about everything while almost never resolving anything. What have been our major "issues" in the last year(s) continue to be so in the current one. Why? Because it's easier to make a resolution than to confront the issue in Christ, and in His grace and power, overcome it, resolve it. Turning our weakness in the flesh into our strength in Him. As someone said, if we don't deal with our issues today, they will surely deal with us tomorrow. And they do.....again and again. Resolutions made in our own strength always allow us to slip back into our own spiritual lethargy. We keep standing on the borderland of His wonder, held captive there by our own weakness and fear. Only when we resolve in Him to take hold of the promise, do we enter into it, and we behold and lay hold of the victory that He's already given us.

Speaking of issues, what greater one could we face than that of the masquerade we can so easily be a part of? That is the issue of our masquerading as dedicated followers of Christ when so much of our lives are not dedicated to Him at all. We give a tithe of our money, time, talent, but we "spend" the rest of that in ways that we see fit. God has His part and we have the rest. We place some of ourselves on His altar, and then worship at the altars of pleasure, material things, success, ambition, applause, and self-fulfillment. We dedicate a few moments in pursuit of Him and the rest of our time in the pursuit of what most pleases us. Along the way He pricks our conscience about it, and we say we'll do better, but it doesn't last, and we slip back.....and the masquerade goes on.

There's one more issue to cover and then I'll stop. It's an issue each of us must face. We as His people must cease to declare that we wish for His Spirit to be free in His Church when we are not allowing Him to be free in our own lives. This issue more than any other is what has caused us to depend upon pastors and worship leaders to create an atmosphere that may feed emotions and make us feel like we're in His Presence, but in reality never lays hold of His Person. We know the superficial, we don't experience the supernatural. Only when we are experiencing Him in our moment by moment walk will we know the true wonder of what it is to gather together in Him. How badly do we want this? How passionately will we pursue it?

Issues. We have them. Our fellowships have them. You and I have them. Do they go on, or are they resolved? Do the masks come off, or do they stay on? Are all things really new.....or is it just going to be "second verse, same as the first?" Will the new year really be new?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Not What, But Who

"Then I heard the Lord asking, 'Whom should I send as a messenger to My people? Who will go for Us?' And I said, 'Lord, I'll go! Send me.' " Isaiah 6:8...."Those who hear Him must listen with a soft heart.....A soft heart will say yes to whatever God wants because it trusts His goodness implicitly. A soft heart complies with God - not one day, not tomorrow, but today." Chris Tiegreen

Sheila Walsh tells the story of how, as a young girl, she asked her mother how she could say yes to God when she didn't know what might lie ahead for her in response to her yes. She said her mother's answer was, "We don't know what we're saying yes to, but we do know Who we're saying yes to." It is that simple truth that make all the difference for us.

It so easy to make Isaiah 6:8 all about a missionary call, but it is far more than that. Saying "yes" to God in all things is a far more sweeping declaration that just a willingness to evangelize for Him. It is a declaration of obedience, submission, trust, and courageous fearlessness in the face of every danger and impossibility that might lie ahead in our ever deeper walk of faith in and with Him. When the Father calls a person, He calls all of that person into all of Himself. In essence, He speaks but three words to us in the call, "Trust and obey." In the midst of the unknown, we look to the known, the Father Himself. We have said yes, even though we have little if any idea as to what we've said yes to. Yet we step out because we do know who it is we've given that yes to. We don't know the way, but we do know the way of His heart. And we can rest there. We can live there. We can move out from there, but in the moving out, we never move out from His heart. It's our dwelling place, just as we are His dwelling place.

Here we stand on the entry way into another new year. This is the 38th that I've embarked on since I met Him in Christ all those years ago. Each one was marked by a great unknown, but each one was also marked with an invitation to know Him who called me. In each of those years there were great challenges, deep joys and sometimes even deeper sorrows. There were giants in the land, and enemies surrounding me, but He called me on, into ever deeper experiences of Himself. His faithfulness, His mercy, His victory, His love.....and His forgiveness. There were deserts, there were shipwrecks. There were the betrayals of friends and loved ones, and yes, my own failures. In all of them, He continually revealed to me who He was, and who He is. And now, He calls me into what will be my 39th new year in Him. I still don't know what He calls me to, but I rejoice that He continues to call me into Who He is, and who He is to me. They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. Not so with Him. Though He's the unchangeable One who will never cease being who He is, He will also never cease to reveal to us an ever deeper revelation of Himself. So we can say "yes" to His call because we know Who it is that calls us. The adventure goes on. Deeper, ever deeper into Him. Our part, your part, is to trust and obey. Can we? Will we? Can, and will you?

Blessings,
Pastor O