Heart Tracks - The Hardening

"But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." Matthew 9:36......"It's relatively easy to pontificate on how to live the gospel; it's infinitely harder to incarnate the gospel in your life." Ann Voskamp

On one of his albums, the wonderful singer/songwriter Keith Green introduces his song, "O Lord You're Beautiful," with his testimony that it came about when he was in a time of prayer. He said that he knew his heart had become hard, and that it wasn't because of what he'd been doing, but because of what he'd not been doing. He asked the Lord to cut away the hard layers of his heart and replace them with new, soft skin, like the skin of a baby. Out of that prayer came the song, and a renewed, deeper love for his God and His people. He needed such a time. I need, and continue to need such times. So do you. Do we need them now?

This is a hard, fallen world, filled with hard places. The natural result for all those living in it, including the people of the Kingdom, can be a hard heart. We can become, even preachers, those who, like the Pharisee's of Christ's day, become master pontificaters of the gospel, without any actual incarnation of it in our lives. We become hard of heart, and the process can become so subtle as to not be noticed at all.

Voskamp said that anyone can have enough compassion to write a check, but "Who has compassion for the one who makes life hard?" The one who intrudes upon our personal time, who upsets our agenda, makes demands, makes us uncomfortable? To live out a life of true Christ-like compassion will always take us on the way of the cross. It will mean being available to anyone, at anytime, in any place that He leads us to. In a culture, including the culture of the church, that is obsessed with its own well-being, such a lifestyle is impossible apart from the cross. I guess that's why so few of us really live it out. It's much easier to write a check, hand out a few dollars, tell them to "be at peace and be filled....and hope they go away.

Satan is the enemy of our soul and our heart. He wages a relentless campaign to turn our hearts from Him and to all that is not Him. He does this through a subtle but deadly process of first isolating us, then intimidating us, and finally indoctrinating us to his view. Our hearts of flesh become hearts of stone. It's not about what we're doing, but what we're not doing. The most subtle thing of all is that the hardening does not first begin towards others. The hardening of hearts begins first towards Him.

This is not about a works based faith, but it is about having a Jesus Christ heart that is moved with compassion, that enters into the suffering it sees around it. How often have you and I been like observers of a terrible car accident? We slow down, take a look, and move on. We see all the suffering around us, we take note, but we rarely enter into it. Singer Kelly Minter, whose great goal was to be a successful Christian recording artist before Christ took hold of her heart, tells a story. She was ministering in the Amazon River region. She encountered a young boy, poor, ragged, but the Lord showed her that this young man could one day be real leader among his people. She told him what the Father had shown her. In response, the boy wept and said, "No one has ever seen me before. God sent you here to see me." Who has God sent you and me to see? Who continues to go unseen because we only see ourselves? How deeply does the hardness encase our heart? Where do we, like Keith Green, need a new covering of baby skin? Do we go on pontificating the gospel, or incarnate it? Will the hardening of our hearts go on?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Position

"But Martha was worrying over the big dinner she was preparing. She came to Jesus and said, 'Lord, doesn't it seem unfair to You that my sister just sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me.' But the Lord said to her, 'My dear Martha, you are so upset over all these details. There is really only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it - and I won't take it away from her.' " Luke 10:40-42...."It was not about what Mary was doing, but where she was sitting." Sheila Walsh

The difference between the sisters Martha and Mary has been preached and written upon many times, and likely we've heard and read them many times more. Still, somehow, most of us tend to exhibit plenty of Martha's traits and few of Mary's. Mary's desire was to give Him all of herself. Martha's seems to be that of giving Him all of her effort. There is a subtle but sharp difference in the two, and it can take a lifetime to discern it. It took most of my ministry life before I did.

For many years I labored under the bondage that no matter how much I did in ministry for Him, it wasn't enough. I would feel guilty if I spent any part of my day not being involved in "ministry" of some type. I disciplined myself to daily make a place to study His Word and pray. There had to be at least three chapters of the Bible read, followed up by reading at least two or three different devotional books. After that, I would launch out into prayer, always with my prepared lists. I wanted to connect with Him, but I also wanted to make sure I was doing enough on my part for the connecting. Doing was as important, and sometimes more important, than beholding. I had standards of performance that I felt had to be reached. So much time spent in prayer and study. So much time in outreach work, visiting, and trying to reach new people for Him. If I didn't daily reach those "performance levels," I felt guilty. The result for me was a life of always living on the fringe of burnout, and like Martha, a complaining kind of spirit with the Lord. "Jesus, look how hard I'm working. Why aren't you sending me more help?" It wasn't a conscious thought, but there was also the question, "Why aren't You impressed with all this?" I had more of a sense of duty to Him, than joy in Him. More distraction than His peace. More of an awareness of myself than of His Presence. So it is for all of us who live, work, and minister more like Martha than Mary. We want to do for Him more than we want to be with Him. Until we realize that unless we soak in His Presence, what we do for Him will not result in anything but wood, hay, and stubble. "Silver and gold" will only flow out of us according to the amount of His Life that flows into us.

Ministry for Him should come out of our love for, and not duty to Him. The most cherished part of our ministry and work ought to be our ministry to Him. This was what Mary was doing. Her devotion and love for Him ministered to Him. He cherished that more than all the fevered preparations of Martha. He wants to fill our hearts with His voice and life. Than with full hearts, we can minister His voice and life to a world desperate to hear and know Him. Before He ever commands us to go out for Him, He calls us to come to Him. Oswald Chambers said that no one who attended his school for missionaries was fit to go out to the nations until they had deeply dwelt in His Presence, and had developed a lifestyle of such abiding. So often we are eager to go, but we don't go empowered. We think it begins from the position of activity. Christ says it all begins at a position at His feet, and at His cross, and at and in the upper room. Until we have lived in and experienced those "positions" we will never know the real fruit of living in the position of the sent out for Him.

In what position do you live and serve right now? That of duty, coupled with distraction, frustration, and eventually, discouragement to the point of bone weariness? Or, do you live and minister from the position of adoration and worship...at His feet? We all have a position with Him. What's yours?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living In The Gray

"Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it." John 1:5....."Maladjusted eyes don't distinguish light from dark but perceive everything as some shade of gray. They benefit from the light but don't recognize its source. The kingdom of darkness has blinded them to the Light of the world." Chris Tiegreen

Over the last few months I've come across statements and utterances that grieve my heart. One professing believer on Facebook called the Bible "An important book." Another called it "An ancient book." An important book? Like "War And Peace" is an important book? An ancient book? Do they mean like Homer's Odyssey? Has the Word of God become so compromised, so watered down as to be seen by a growing segment of those who call themselves His people, as just another writing of importance? Just another ancient text to be placed alongside other ancient writings? The Bible is not only His revealed Word to humankind, it's a Word that is constantly unfolding its mystery to those whose hearts are seeking the fullness of its truth. Through it, the Father speaks, and continues to speak. It is not "black and white" only according to our limited understanding, but we need to know that never, under any circumstance, is it gray. If we think it is, than we become those who seek to live in the half-light of the gray, rather than in the fullness of He who is the Light of Life.

Tiegreen talks about having "maladjusted eyes." Eyes that can't really tell the difference between light and dark. Such eyes can't discern between what is real, and what isn't. What is true, and what isn't. What is of Him, and what isn't. Everything is gray, which is a mixture of the light and darkness. In such a place, what you think you see is not what is actually there. The way is open for mass deception and delusion. That will always be the case for those who walk and live in the gray.

Everywhere we are hearing the question, first asked by satan in the Garden, "Did God really say that?" Human sexuality, heaven and hell, salvation, holiness, grace, judgement, sexual purity, sin, and so much more. He has spoken specifically and clearly in all of it, but the devil's question keeps getting asked. Not long ago I explored the website of a church that has embraced a very progressive view of God's Word, especially on the hot-button topic of human sexuality. There was an article by the pastor on that subject, and as I looked at the comments section below I saw that a lot of people pointed to books written on this, one of which had the title, "Why The Church Must Change If It Is To Survive." All the emphasis was on what was being said by men. Nowhere was it stated, "This is what the Lord has said." "Thus says the Lord," is a fading refrain through much of the Church today. As for the Church surviving, well, as Isaiah says, "The Word of the Lord stands forever." So too will His Church that continues to stand upon His Word, and live and walk in His Light. The white Light of His Word and Life. Not the twilight gray of half-truth and fallen human understanding.

I'm not saying that we all need to march in lock-step about everything. We can see differently as concerns the means and timing of Christ's return, gifts of the Spirit, how God speaks to us, and more. John Wesley said that we're to have "Unity in the essentials, charity in all else." It is not the "all else" that is being assaulted both within and outside the Church. It is that which has been "essential" since the beginning of His relating to the human race He created. On these there can be no gray. There is only either darkness.....or Light.

The Word of God is alive. The Bible is His Living Word. We will always be growing and deepening in our understanding of that Word, but its truth will never be compromised. If we walk in the Light as He is in the Light, there will be no gray places. When Jesus asked Peter and the others if they would leave Him as had so many others, he replied, "Lord, to whom would we go? You alone have the Words of Life." Peter, who couldn't see all, could see that. There was no gray before Him, just Christ and His Light. Can we see the same? Yes, there is yet so much to learn, but Light is Light, and Truth is Truth. Can we discern the difference between they and darkness and deception? Or do we try to go on living in the gray?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Honest To God

"Who is this in royal robes, marching in His great strength? It is I, the Lord, announcing your salvation! It is I, the Lord, who has the power to save." Isaiah 63:1......"Mercy and kindness, severity and judgement. The heart of God is big enough and passionate enough to contain both. Ours must be too.....Behind the King who rode a donkey into Jerusalem is a Swordsman who rides a warhorse in Revelation." Chris Tiegreen...."The grand point in preaching is to break the hard heart and to heal the broken one." John Newton

As I reflect back upon more than three decades of ministry, and specifically my preaching and sharing of the truth of the Gospel, there is a question that I ask myself. How honest have I been with those who have heard and listened to me? How honest have I been about the whole Word of God, the reality of who Jesus Christ is, and of a Father God who is both perfect love, and perfect justice?

Someone said that Jesus Christ is being lost in the very Church that bears His name. The proof of this is everywhere. I see statements on social media about Him that conflict with what the whole of the Bible says of Him. His extending of God's grace, mercy and forgiveness are emphasized, but His demand upon us of holiness and righteousness aren't. In so many ways, I believe we are inviting people to a Jesus who doesn't exist. A PC Jesus that the world will find a lot more acceptable. A Jesus who doesn't offend, who offers everything and requires the minimum, if He requires anything at all.

I get that there are those in the Church who have been top heavy on hell, judgement, and who have presented His holiness in rigid, unloving ways. I get that there is a great desire to show the grace, mercy, and love of the King to people in desperate need of all of that. To present to the unbelieving the portrait of a God who is always angry, eager to punish, and merciless in all His ways, is a deception. However it is just as great a deception to give a picture of a God, of Jesus Christ, who meekly and gently walks along, dispensing healing, blessing, and comfort, all the while asking, no, begging us to accept Him. The reality is that He is both mercy and love and severity and judgement. He forgives freely, but He demands obedience, the pursuit of holiness of life, and lays down the clear consequences of our rejection of Him and the life He invites us to. He let walk away all those who could not, would not give themselves wholly to Him.

Jesus was never anything less than honest with His hearers. He came as the Shepherd who was also the King. He made clear to His listeners what following Him meant and what it would cost. His coming to us cost Him His life. It will cost us ours as well. His destination was always the cross, and it remains ours too. He came to a world trapped in and doomed by its sin. A world that is still trapped in and doomed by that sin for all who do not know Him. He came to seek and save the lost, and He held back nothing of the truth as to what it was that condemned His hearers, and how He alone was their only hope. Most rejected that call, and most still do. It is not the number of hands raised or baptisms undergone that bring entrance into His Kingdom. It is the hard heart, held in the grip of sin, but broken by the grace of God that finds entry. That requires the proclamation of Christ as He is, and not as the flesh and the world would have Him to be. Christ as He is will always offend the flesh and the sin that controls it. Yet Christ as He is remains the only hope of the world. He will never cease to be true to Himself and who He is. Will we, will you and I, be so true as well? Will we be honest with both God and men? We all give account for the Christ we have presented to the world, and none more than those entrusted with proclaiming His Words. May the Christ we present, that you and I present, be Christ as He is, and not who the world would like Him to be.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Sifting

"Simon, Simon, satan has asked to have all of you, to sift you like wheat. But I have pleaded in prayer for you Simon, that your faith should not fail." Luke 22:31-32

When I was a boy, I tended to make a toy out of most anything, including my mother's kitchen gadjets. Her hand turned mixer (yes, they actually existed once) made for a great machine gun. I was also fascinated by her flour sifter. It held about two cups of flour, and like a regular cup, had a handle. On that handle was a bar that when you pulled it towards yourself, a metal bar on the bottom would move back, and then forth upon releasing it. If there was any chaff in the flour, or whatever you might be sifting, that metal bar would separate it from the rest. The bar was sharp, and it was effective. A sifter was essential equipment for the kitchen back then. It remains essential equipment in the Kingdom today.

Last week I wrote on the presence of "gnats" in our walk of faith. They are present, and they are unavoidable for all of us. However, in Christ we may have victory over them regardless of what form they might take. A great part of the spiritual journey is learning to overcome the gnats, and walk in victory in spite of them. But here's another reality. Finding victory on one spiritual level will surely open the door to having an even greater challenge on the next. After overcoming the gnats, we can be sure we will then face the sifter.

His Word says that the Lord knows those that are His. We can be sure that the devil does as well. When Jesus spoke the above words to Simon and the rest of the disciples, He was speaking to those who knew Him best. The ones who walked most closely with Him. Such will always draw the special attention of the devil and enemy of our souls. One translation of the above verses says that satan "demanded" to sift them. He knew the threat they posed to his kingdom of darkness. If you truly aspire to walk with Him in intimacy, he knows the threat you bring as well. He will come against you. He will use every means at his disposal to "sift" you. Nothing will be off-limits, nothing will go untouched. That sharp metal bar of his sifter will cut across our lives and hearts, and there will be pain, cost, and loss. But here's what we stand upon in all of it. The Lord Jesus has already made provision for us in it. He has interceded with the Father for us, and He stands with us through all the cuts of the sifting, even the deepest. Satan intends to use it as a means of destroying us. Christ controls that bar and if we will allow it, uses it as a means of our purification in Him. And just as He gave us victory over the gnats, He does so with the sifting as well.

I said before that the gnats can bring us down, and they can. So can the sifter, and on a much greater scale. It did so for Peter and all the rest of the disciples. Jesus knew this beforehand. If it has done the same with us, we need to know that He knew that beforehand as well. Jesus didn't condemn Peter and the rest's failure. He called them to repentance, and in the repentance, unto a greater strength in Him. Then in that greater strength, they were to minister life to all those who came after them. All those who'd walk through the clouds of gnats, and then walk through the sifting.

Where are you being sifted today? In what areas of your life is He allowing that to take place? The enemy means it for your destruction. Jesus means it for your coming forth as gold. The bar cuts, but it purifies. If you've fallen in the process, take the failure to Him. Confess it, repent of it, get up, and go on. And when you have, when we have, we can then extend our hand of help, by His power and life, to those who will be walking that path after us. The gnats await, and so does the sifter. Christ has given us victory over them both, and in every form they may take. He's prayed for us. He's made provision for victory. Step into it.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Gnats

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. Philippians 4:6

A friend recently made the observation that when one goes to Africa, it's very unlikely that you'll be attacked by a lion or an elephant, but that "the swarms of gnats will drive you crazy." He meant that as an illustration of the fact that it is rarely the great challenges of life that bring us down, rob us of peace, joy, and victory. It's all the little things, coming at us throughout our days. Small annoyances that come at us from every direction and from a myriad of different places. We are not stoned to death with large rocks, but worn down by a constant hail of pebbles. Pebbles that by themselves have little effect, but when joined with seemingly endless waves of other pebbles, drive us to distraction. Here's our major problem; we know how to take the the big stones to Him, but we try to handle all the pebbles in our own strength. Most often, it is they that will eventually bring us down to defeat.

In the spiritual realm, we know how to deal with "lions and elephants." Somehow, we never seem to learn how to deal with the "gnats." Our enemy satan knows this. That's why he finds an endless supply of "fiery darts" to hurl at us each and every day. Difficult people and circumstances. Small obstacles that get in the way, and always at the most inopportune times. Gnats. Gnats that we are constantly slapping at, waving away. Gnats that take our focus off of Him and where He is leading us. Gnats that mean to get us completely centered on them. Gnats that can't kill us, but render us helpless, powerless, and ineffective in the Kingdom.

If we take a few moments to examine just what it is that causes us the most aggravation, frustration, impatience, and anger, isn't it almost always things that are of no real or lasting importance? How easily can a day be ruined for us simply by someone or something annoying us, frustrating us at its very beginning? There's a funny video that turns up a lot on Facebook. It's about how people in the south deal with gnats. They invade every kind of situation, from simply going for a walk, to drinking a glass of iced tea. There is nowhere that you can be safe. They are outside the door of your home, waiting for you to come out, and they come in with you when you come back. All your time is spent waving them away. It's what gnats do. It's what they seek to do with you and me right now.

Here's our reality: Gnats are not going to go away this side of eternity. Our choice then is what do we do with our particular gnats?.Do we go on expending all of our energy and focus in trying to rid ourselves of what can't be gotten rid of? Like that Facebook video, they will find us, wherever we are. We can spend our lives waving our arms and trying to bat them away. Seeing, thinking, and complaining about nothing but the gnats. Or, we can choose to stop seeing only the gnats and begin to see Him in the midst of them. The daily annoyances, frustrations, and aggravations of life are not going to go away. They too will be outside our doors waiting for us to come out, entering in with us when we go in. They'll be everywhere. Jesus often told people to "bring him, her, them, to Me." We seem to be able to do that with the "lions and elephants" of life. Can we do so with the "gnats?"

I write this on a Tuesday morning. Through this day, there will be more than a few gnats, pebbles, and fiery darts to come at me. What will be my response? What will be yours? Do we rant against the unfairness of it all. Do we allow the friction of it to rob us His Presence, along with His peace, joy, and victory? Or, do we choose to live in the power of a life that not only gives us victory over the lion, the bear, and the elephant, but also of the gnats?

From time to time we read of stories where people have been attacked and killed by a bear or lion, and though it makes headlines, it's rare. There are never any headlines for those who are killed by the gnats. Not literally of course, but worse, spiritually. May it not be your spiritual legacy or mine, that it's written of us, "Killed By The Gnats!"

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - First Love

"Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love." Revelation 2:4...."Christ is focused not on the actions that result from love but on the heart behind it....We can do everything right, but if we lack love for Him and others, we are not in His will." Chris Tiegreen....."My spirit has become dry because it forgets to feed on You." John of the Cross

Back in the late 1990's I bought a video that brought together a group of musicians and singers from the Jesus Movement of the 1960's. It was titled "First Love." These men and women, all middle-aged now, and most having come out of lives trapped in drugs, hopelessness, and darkness, still spoke and sang of the Savior they had come to know all those years before. He was still their first love, and it showed in what they said, and in the songs they sang. Their First Love was still their first love. Is it so for you and me?

So many of us start well with Him. We are filled with zeal for our Lord, and all we do for Him flows out of our love for Him. Then the day to day business of life, family, work, and yes, even ministry, begin to infiltrate our lives and our hearts. He who is best, slowly gives way to that which is good. It's a subtle yet drastic change, and usually, we don't even notice.

The Ephesian church that Christ addressed in Revelation had not gone away from their "mission." They were doing all the right things. They were speaking all the right things. Yet their hearts had grown cold. Duty replaced passion. Ritual replaced joy. Activity replaced peace. Other things, including service and ministry, replaced Jesus. It can happen so easily. Where might it be happening in us, to us, right now?

The primary enemy of the one who ministers for Him is not satan. It's burnout. The enemy will of course leap upon an opportunity to work through that, but it comes about when we drift into the way that John of the Cross speaks of. Our heart ceases to feed upon Him. We continue to do things for Him as we steadily drift away from Him. And an icy coldness lays hold of our heart. We become workers for a "boss" that we don't really know. And our spiritual vitality steadily seeps out of our spirit and heart. Oswald Chambers said that we are to live, "Haunted by God." That is, we are always consciously aware of Him. We are, as Paul wrote, "hidden with Christ" in the Father. When this is our reality, all the onslaughts of the world and the devil against our hearts are futile. The fire within just keeps burning ever brighter.

Where have other loves, interests, concerns, taken us away from the One who does not share love for Himself with anything or anyone else? One person said that the concept of "first love" may well include our total love for Him, and then that love going out from us to others. In that, where has the coldness found a way in? Where have people become instruments of getting to what we want, and to where we want to go? Living for Him, loving Him and others, can become a routine. Carried out with little if any feeling. Leanness enters our souls. If unchecked, it eventually becomes death. We can have, as Christ said, "A reputation for being alive, yet we're dead." Such is the destination of all who drift from their first love...Christ the King. How many of us right now are living on "reputation" and not in the reality of His Presence?

Where is spiritual dryness, dry rot, taking place in you? Where has the focus gone from living with and in Him, to working for Him? Where has God become "boss" and taskmaster, rather than holy and loving Father? Where have we become employees of a Kingdom Employer? Where has He become an "acquaintance" and not the focus of our heart? It can happen so easily. I know. I've been in those places. Where might you be right now? What might the Lord have against you? Where, and how far, have you drifted from your First Love and on to other loves?

Blessings,
Pastor O