Heart Tracks - Cheap Grace

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast." Ephesians 2:8-9...."We poured out rivers of grace without end, but the call to rigorously follow Christ was seldom heard....What happened to Luther's warnings against a proclamation of the gospel which made people secure in their godless lives?....The word of cheap grace has ruined more Christians than any commandment about works....What has cost God much cannot be cheap for us." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I've been greatly impacted in the last week or so by Bonhoeffer's writing concerning God's grace. It's my thought that nothing is more misunderstood and abused in the Church than His grace and our ideas about it. On the one hand are those who believe in His saving grace, but seem unable to receive His living grace, and so they live out a legalistic, works based faith. I have seen much of that in the Church, and I have lived that out in the early years of my walk with Him. On the other hand, the abuse of His grace comes in the thought that we are both saved and kept by His grace, and so we are completely free from any responsibility for a holy life. God has done everything, so we are free from having to do, no, to be, anything. Both of these are true killers of His grace, and to my thinking and experience, the latter is gaining the upper hand in His Church.

Several years ago, someone had sent one of my writings on to one of their friends. This person seemed to be an adherent to what many call "hyper grace." Those who embrace this view, in general, believe that any kind of expectation placed upon a believer to "bring forth fruit in keeping with their repentance," is a legalistic burden and a denial of His grace. Somehow that friends response to that writing got back to me. In his response, he underlined a number of things I'd written, but the only thing he seemed able to say about them was, "spare me." In other words, "I don't want to hear this. It conflicts with what I want to believe about grace." That viewpoint has a lot of company in the American Church today, and it's found from the pulpit to the pew.

I've walked the legalistic road. I've known what it is to be held captive, in bondage to a performance oriented faith. I know, and continue to learn more, of what it is to live in the freedom of His grace. But as I learn of and experience that freedom, I am more and more impacted by the great cost to Him of His extending His grace to me. Grace was extended from the cross of Christ. That grace still flows from that cross. A cross we are called to carry. That grace does not free us from that call. Indeed, when we really receive it, understand it, we can do nothing else but embrace it. As the old hymn goes, "Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe." His grace calls us to total surrender to His life and Lordship. As Paul wrote, by His grace we become "free to be His bondslaves." This is a view, a call, that those who proclaim what Bonhoeffer called "cheap grace" don't espouse, and don't embrace. It's a road that leads to death, because it's a road that the flesh loves. It has no cross, and it has no cost. And in the end, it really has no Christ.

It's my prayer that in these days, God will raise up a new generation of preachers and teachers who will once again proclaim the call to walk His "highway of holiness" described by the prophet Isaiah. We've seen the fruit of what our flesh-friendly proclamations have wrought. We look very much like the world. We embrace the same values, and have many of the same views. We have made, as Luther and Bonhoeffer write, people "secure in their godless lives." What will be the cost, and what will be the account we must give to Him? Cheap grace is our "invention," not His. His grace cost Him His Son. It cost Him everything. It can never cost us nothing. To believe differently is perhaps the greatest sin against grace we can commit.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Come....Receive!

"Come, you who are blessed by My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matthew 25:34....."God doesn't expect perfection. He expects us to receive His redeeming grace." Mark Rutland....
"Jesus has done all He can do for you and me: the cross, the resurrection, the Spirit and the power of God residing within us." Charlotte Gambill

There is a great tragedy in the Church of Christ the King. That tragedy is that so many labor under the tyranny of perfection and performance, and live in a spirit of poverty. We tend to live seeking to prove we belong, that we're good enough to have a seat at His table, while at the same time held captive by the fear that there will never be enough. We are driven to perform and survive. It is a terrible bondage that far too many of us live in.

Jesus said that He has freely given us all things, and that we are to fully receive all things. Our great problem often is that we have never really received them. They have never become a part of us. We've never entered into the fullness of our inheritance in Christ. Having been made sons and daughters of the Father through saving faith in Jesus Christ, He has given us a place at His Kingdom table, but we are often unable to let go of our orphan mentality. The devil so easily speaks to and manipulates that mentality. His voice, speaking into it, seeks to convince us we've no place there, and if we are to have that place, we must first earn it. So we become slaves to perfection and performance. Worse, we tend to try and make others slaves to it as well. That's why what Rutland says is both beautiful and powerful. God has no expectations of us putting forth a perfect performance for Him. Not as pastors, missionaries, husbands, wives, parents, or anything else we may put our hands to for Him. We can't this side of eternity. But we can receive to the fullest, His grace and life, which empower us to become more and more, sons and daughters in the image of Jesus. An inheritance from Him is not earned. It was given us, as Jesus said, before the foundation of the world. We needn't beg Him for it. We need simply to receive it, partake of it. Receive it as ours because it is ours. Doing so breaks the chains of perfection and performance. We take hold of what He's already given. Where in our inheritance, in your inheritance, have you yet to take hold?

In the same way, the chains of the poverty spirit must also be broken. That spirit that tells us there will never be enough, and keeps us in fear about what will happen tomorrow. That poverty spirit goes far beyond just fear of not having enough money or material resources. It also includes the fear that there will not be enough of Him for the needs that we know will come. We may have peace today, but will we tomorrow? We may have strength for today, but will we have it next week? His grace may well be sufficient for us now, but we fear about its sufficiency for the days yet to come. We always fear that we'll not have enough, so we live in ignorance of the truth that He is more than enough. In all things, at all times, He is more than enough.

How strong are these chains in your life today? I know how strong they've been in mine. I know that He's broken those chains, and that I've entered into my inheritance in Him. I don't have to wait for eternity for that, because in Christ, eternity life begins now. Yet those chains will always seek to shackle me...and you, again. When they do, we need to hear His voice calling to us, "Come! Receive!" When we do that, we enter into that inheritance reserved for us before the foundation of the world. Have you? If not, all you need do is to come.....and receive.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - One Thing

"One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His Temple." Psalm 27:4....."We are shaped and fashioned by what we love." Goethe.....And so it must follow that we are also shaped and fashioned by the heart of the One who loves us.

We ask and seek so many things of and from Him. To what extend do we ask for what the Psalmist does in 27:4? We seek help in trouble. We seek deliverance from problems. We seek provision in the midst of need. We seek for everything, but so often, it is everything but Him. What would our world be? What would our homes and families be? What would His Church be......if we did?

Why do we not seek such a relationship with Him? Why do we seek so many other things before the "one thing?" Jack Deere said that so many of us walk through life with knowledge that our earthly parents, particularly our fathers, love us, but we have never truly experienced the feeling, the affection of their love. This also carries over to our relationship with our Father God. He said that often, after teaching his students about the love of God the Father, many of them would come to him afterwards and tell him, with their eyes upon the floor, that they knew God loved them. He would ask them, "If you know this, why our your eyes (and spirit) looking downward?" We know, intellectually, that He loves us, but rarely do we experience the fullness, the feeling of His love. And I believe that more than we long for that, He longs for us to know and feel it.

Betty Robison, the wife of evangelist James Robison, struggled with a life-long difficulty in believing that God truly loved her. Therefore she was trapped in a performance/perfection idea of earning that love. She equated everything with how well she performed and how perfectly she obeyed. It was a terrible struggle for her. One night, as she lay praying in bed, while husband James read beside her, she began to just gently weep. Alarmed, James asked her what was wrong. She answered that there was nothing wrong, just that her God was "loving me." His love washed over her, and she knew and was experiencing His sheer delight in her. Just simply because He created her, knew her, and loved her...flaws and all.

Deere says that the most effective way to love God is to first experience the depths of His love for us. This is what the Scripture means when it declares, "We love Him because He first loved us." When we know such love, Psalm 27:4 can become our reality. When it becomes our reality, we begin to walk in the wholeness and fullness of life that He created us for. Life is no longer about somehow making it through. It's now about knowing, loving, and walking with Him. Life and all of its "stuff" is secondary. Like Paul, "Knowing Christ, and Him crucified," is what defines us. Moment by moment we dwell in His house as we dwell, abide in Him. Moment by moment we gaze upon His beauty as His beauty remakes us into His image. We stop striving and start becoming. And everything is changed.

I know that we have badly distorted the character and meaning of His love, producing a God made in our own image. Even so, I think we all struggle to some degree to not only believe He really does love us, but to feel and experience that love as well. We fear that it's not so. Perfect love casts out all fear. Fear of not being good enough, pleasing enough, lovely enough. He created us for and calls us to this perfect love. No, not the world's syrupy, all about our feelings love, but a powerful love that can be realized nowhere but at His cross. At the cross we realize just how deep His love for us is, and how high, wide, and far we can walk with Him in that love. The "one thing" of our life becomes Him. His holiness, purity, wonder is what we see, and what we seek. Is that what we have? Are we seeking, gazing upon all the "other things," or He who is the One thing? Where are you dwelling today?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Falling Forward

"But now your kingdom shall not endure. The Lord has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you." I Samuel 13:14

For me, the most fascinating man in the Bible has always been David, a man after the very heart of God. It's not just that that is a description that I've always hoped to share in, but that David, like me, and you, and so many others, was a very flawed man. A man who knew failure, who stumbled, who fell down, and who fell short. A man chosen to replace Saul, a bad king, yet who himself seemed an even worse one. David the adulterer, the murderer, the inconsistent father, and, the man after the heart of God. With all of his failings, how could this be so? With all of mine, of yours, how can it be so for us?

I heard Mark Rutland speak about just what it was that made it so for David. He said that what made David a man after His heart wasn't that he never failed. What made him that was that in his failures, in his falling, he always fell at the feet of God. In his imperfections and flaws, when he stumbled, he didn't fall back, away from his hearts love, he fell towards Him. He fell at His feet...in worship. That was the attitude of his heart. His heart was always inclined towards His Father. There were times his heart became distracted by other things. There were times when the "eyes" of his heart were blind, deceived. Times when he walked against the light and will of His Father. Yet in all of those times, when his Father brought him face to face with his failure, his sin, his response was to immediately fall forward, at the feet of the One he loved. The One who owned his heart, even after his heart had wandered.

This is what marks the one whose heart is after Him. It is not that such ones are perfect, never failing or falling. It is not that they have never had their hearts drawn away to other, lesser, even wrong things. It is that in the midst of all that, when confronted with the wrong, the failure, the sin, they fell at His feet...in repentance and in worship. They did, they could, because their heart was a heart that ultimately was always after His.

The sins of Saul seem minor in comparison with David's, so why was David defined as having a heart for Him and not Saul? Saul, when confronted with his failures with God, denied, or made excuses, or evaded responsibility. In the confrontation, he moved away from Him. David, when coming face to face with his own failures, fell forward, at the feet of His God, the One he loved, worshiped, and belonged to. It's what made him a man after God's own heart.

None of this is an excuse for choosing to sin against Him. The Father will always deal with our sin. He did so at the cross of Christ, and through that cross will confront our sin and call us to Himself. When that happens, we'll display one of two hearts, Saul's or David's. We will either deny, excuse, or run from the confrontation. Or, like David, we will melt before Him, and fall at His feet. One of the two. Which one am I? Which are you? When you fail, in which direction does your heart fall? At His feet before Him, or.....? One direction leads to Life. We all know where the other leads.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Playing By Ear

"Meanwhile the boy Samuel was serving the Lord by assisting Eli. Now in those days messages from the Lord were very rare, and visions were quite uncommon." I Samuel 3:1

Two prominent singer/songwriters of the Jesus movement of the 1960's, Andrae Crouch and Annie Herring, tell amazing and miraculous stories of their entering into that ministry. Neither were trained musicians, in fact, neither could play an instrument. Crouch told of how, as a young boy in his father's church, he felt compelled to sit down at the piano and begin to play. He said that as he obeyed that leading, he began to touch the keys, and music, beautiful music, began to flow from his fingers and through that old piano. Annie Herring, brought to Jesus in the midst of the San Francisco counterculture, had an old upright piano in the home she and her husband lived in. She had been sensing the leading of His Spirit to write songs of His wonder and glory, but had no ability to put music to the words He was giving her. She was drawn to that piano, and like Crouch, sat down, and with no previous training, began to play.....These stories are wondrous in themselves, but I share them to make a point. What existed in both Crouch and Herring was a heart that heard both words and "music" that flowed from the heart of the Father. The "ears" of their hearts heard His voice, and connected to it and the melody it gave them. They "played by ear" not just from a musician's perspective, but a spiritual one as well. In the world of music, it is a wonderful skill. It is so much more so in the spiritual realm. It's a skill I believe we are lacking in the modern, western church. Not many of us seem to know how to, as a friend put, "play it by ear" when it comes to hearing and following the voice of Holy Spirit.

The story of the prophet Samuel in I Samuel 3, is a lesson for all who truly wish to hear and follow Him. Just a young boy, training under the leading of the old priest Eli, Samuel didn't really know or recognize the sound of His voice, but this didn't stop the Father from seeking to speak to him. Twice He called to Samuel, and twice, Samuel, thinking it was the voice of Eli, went to the priest in response. Eli perceived that the boy was actually hearing the calling of the Father. He told that if he heard Him again, to respond with a willingness to hear what He was speaking. Samuel did so, and there began a lifelong ministry of taking the heart and voice of God to His people Israel. Samuel learned to hear the voice of God, a voice that I Samuel 3 says was not familiar to many in that day. Not because God was unwilling to speak, but because the people, through their attitudes and actions, were unwilling to hear. How similar are we to those days in the days we now live in?

God was able to take hold of the "ear" of people like Samuel, Andrae Crouch, Annie Herring, and so many more because He saw within them, hearts that were open to hearing Him. To such hearts, He'll always speak. Is such a heart in you and me? Are we learning, more deeply each day, how to "play it by ear" when it comes to hearing and following the voice of the Lord as He speaks through His Holy Spirit? In the midst of the all the noise and other "voices" found in this life, can we discern which is His? Do we know those that aren't? Jesus said that His sheep knew, heard, and followed His voice. Does that describe you and me? As Elijah stood at the mouth of the cave, he beheld a mighty wind, an earthquake, then a fire, but the Lord was not in any of it. He was in the sound of the "gentle whisper" that followed. This doesn't mean that He only speaks in the gentle whisper. He can speak in earthquakes, mighty winds and great firestorms. The question for us is, can we recognize His voice in whatever form He may choose to speak? This takes spiritual discernment. Discernment is a gift that comes to us through hearts that have received the ability to "play it by ear."

I lack the ability to play instruments by ear. I've got what they call a "tin ear" and will never be anything more than a mediocre guitarist. Yet I very much hope I will be one who is a skilled listener of the Father's voice. May it never be that I have that "ear of tin" when it comes to hearing Him. May it not be so for you. He is always speaking, but only those who've learned to "play it by ear" will hear Him. Can you, no matter how and where He does so, hear Him? In His Kingdom, can you play it all by ear?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Baggage Check

"He heals the brokenhearted, binding up their wounds." Psalm 147:3

If you've done any flying over the last decade and a half, you know that once you've checked your baggage in, someone will be going through it to make sure there's nothing there that may cause harm. I don't think most of us like that someone else has access to things we consider personal and private. We'd rather keep the contents of our baggage to ourselves. If this is so with our material baggage, how much more is it so concerning our emotional and spiritual?

Some years ago, a brother who had just entered into a new relationship told me that the lady he was seeing had told him that she had no baggage to bring into it. I told him, as diplomatically as I could, that this couldn't be true, and it wasn't long before she proved me right. We live in a fallen world, and its effects on us will leave its marks. We all of us bear the wounds of our baggage, and there is only one real answer for all of them; Jesus Christ the Healer. Our problem is that, like we are with airport security, we want to keep the contents of our baggage to ourselves. We don't want anyone knowing just what is "in there." In our hearts, and especially in our minds. In truth, like the the brother's friend, we don't really want to know about it ourselves. So we go on carrying what we believe is hidden baggage into our relationships, and on every level of those relationships. The result is that our unopened baggage collides again and again with others unopened baggage. The results are not pretty, yet we never seem to see the root problem; us. So we go on, always thinking this time it will be different. But it never is. And sadly, we never learn.

The proof of this goes beyond our man-woman relationships. It is certainly seen in the secular workplace, but in no place might it be seen more clearly than in the Church. Our baggage shows in our relations with each other. Not just within members of the congregation, but in the relationship between pastor and people as well, and you can trust my personal knowledge of this. Pastors can carry a great deal of baggage as well. So out of our many "pieces of luggage" can come issues with gender, authority, leadership style, and maybe the greatest of all, that which has happened to people in their past, especially what may have happened in the church. Many in the congregation may walk in a spirit of rebellion against authority. Pastors who have suffered from such may walk in a spirit of control and dominance as a defense against suffering through that again. And the more we try to hide our baggage, the more it keeps getting put on display. The result is a dysfunctional people, led by dysfunctional pastors, producing a dysfunctional church. And through it all stands Christ, calling us to come to Him, and check our baggage. All the wounds, the hurts, the disappointments and failures, all placed into His hands....and finding healing. Our brokenness made whole by His grace. That which is destroying us, and so often, those around us too.

At the airport, along with the process of the baggage check, is the baggage claim. Neither is enjoyable, but for you and I to be free of those emotional and spiritual items that we carry with us, we have to undergo both. We not only need to submit all of it to Him, we need to be honest about their existence in our hearts and minds. We need to "claim" them. When we do this, we give Him free access to bring His healing, cleansing hand upon it all. What is in there, no matter how neat we have tried to make it appear, or how well hidden we have sought to have it, has to consciously admitted and given over to Him. If we will, we discover the truth of His promise, "He that is free in Me, is free indeed." If we don't, all we can expect are continued collisions of our "stuff" with the "stuff" of others.

What lingers in our hearts and minds that needs to be "checked" with Him? What wounds, hurts, failures and disappointments do we at last need to lay claim to? Where, like the lady above, are we deceiving ourselves about it all, denying that at root, as it concerns us, it's our baggage that's the real problem? Haven't we left it all unchecked for long enough? Let us bring it all to the One who heals, who binds up, and who makes whole. It's time, past time, to check our baggage. All of our baggage.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Who Is This?

"And Jesus answered, 'Why are you afraid? You have so little faith.' Then He stood up and rebuked the wind and waves and suddenly all was calm. The disciples just sat there in awe. 'Who is this man?" they asked themselves. 'Even the wind and waves obey Him.' " Matthew 8:26-27

I think one of the great stumbling blocks of our faith is that we have too often neither asked or had answered the question "Who is this man.....Jesus Christ." I recently preached on our refusing to settle for "hand-me-down truth," or "second-hand faith." I think we have been content to allow others to tell us about who Jesus is. I think we've been content to too often trust in the faith of someone else, while possessing so little of our own. The result of that is our faith walk is not a real walk of faith. When we get out into the "middle" of a crisis, as did the disciples in the midst of the storm, half-way to their destination, we are at the mercy of the winds and the waves, and not living upon and in, the promise and presence of the King.

We're oftentimes hard on the disciples as they stumbled around in their belief and trust. I think we tend to miss the fact that in their stumbling, they did not fail to ask questions of their Lord. I think we also miss that He rarely rebuked them for it. Jesus is not afraid of our inquiries, or our doubts, when those doubts spring from a heart that desires to know Him and His Truth. He'll take all of our questions, and in His answers, reveal to us who He is, who the Father is, and who His Holy Spirit is.

Jesus continually did and said things that left the disciples awestruck. He moved in such a way that often, the only thing they could do was ask, "Who is this man?" Then He would minister to them in such a way as to show them who He was. It went on throughout His three year ministry on earth, and it continued to go on through the ministry of His Holy Spirit after His resurrection and the outpouring of His Spirit at Pentecost. I believe that eternity, for those who are His, will be a never ending journey of discovering just who the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are. And eternity for the believer begins now. And I think it begins with the question, "Who is this man?" More than we want to know the answer, He desires for us to have it. Have you ever, from a sincere, seeking heart, asked that? Have you ever, in yielded stillness, waited upon Him for the answer? Or do you live upon assumptions and presumptions about Him? Trusting in what others say, write, and believe. Living on hand-me-down truth and second-hand faith....and that is not living at all.

Someone once said that too many stand in the shadows of others. They meant that we are content to be in the shadow of the one who stands directly in the Light of Christ. We, like the people of Israel, depend on them to tell us what they hear from and know of Him. What is real for the one standing in the Light, is not so for the one in the shadow. It's hear-say, not reality. Christ bids us to come to His Light, and stand there, with all of our questions and doubts. Assuming and presuming nothing, bringing only ourselves and our desire to know Him. That's a desire, a hope, that will not disappoint. "Who is this man?" Have you ever really asked that question? Do you really know the answer?

Blessings,
Pastor O