Heart Tracks - Do This

25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’[a]; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”

28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

From time to time in my preaching, I'll share with our fellowship some of the things I pray for them, and for all He's moved on me to intercede for. I thought I might do something of the same today, as, if you are receiving these writings, you too are counted among those.

It's a simple prayer really, but one with powerful consequences if we allow Him to work it out in our lives. I ask Him that we would, in all aspects of our being, fully live out all it is we say we believe about Him. That we would live life to Life, heart to Heart, and mind to Mind with and in Him. To experience the reality of what it is to love Him with all our heart, soul, and strength, the reality of this prayer has to come to be in us. It is impossible to love Him in this way when our hearts, our souls, and our strength are given to anyone or anything else. So the question arises for each of us, is this prayer being answered in your life and mine? If it isn't, why is that so?

The teacher of the law that asked the question knew exactly what the answer was, that's why he was an expert. Yet his motive was anything but pure. He sought a means to try and expose Christ as a false teacher and prophet. The fact that he was blind to who Christ actually was mirrored the blindness of his heart and how far he was from God. The "expert" in God's law could not recognize God as He stood before Him. He had given himself to many things, but he had never given himself to the Father. He had the right answer, but he didn't have the right life. Do we?

Let me share with you the last part of my prayer; "Father, walk with us today. Fill our lives with Your heart. Fill our hearts with Your Life." Most of us would say we desire this. How many of us can say we are living and experiencing it? Divided hearts that give their strength and soul to other things will never know such life. Jesus told the teacher of the law that if he would live out what he said he believed, he would have true life. He hasn't changed that statement concerning you and me. If we will live out what it is we say we believe about Him, we will have such life as well. We will live. We will move from just knowing what the definition of true life is to actually experiencing it to the full right now.

The Father calls us, in Christ, to literally walk life to Life, heart to Heart, mind to Mind with Him. It will never happen unless we give as our offering of worship, all of our hearts, minds, and life to Him. Whether we do or not will mark us either as ones who only know the definition of what real life is, or ones who actually live that life. What marks you and me?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Restoration

"He must remain in heaven until the time of the final restoration of all things." Acts 3:21...."When your focus is a restoration of all things, you align yourself with the heart of God." Chris Tiegreen

In one of his devotional writings, Chris Tiegreen asks that we consider all the "broken walls" in our lives and relationships. That's quite a challenge, especially so when that question is broadened and brought into the corporate life of the church. I think every true pastor with a shepherd's heart will agree that nothing so grieves us as when a member of the fellowship leaves in disagreement, anger, or pride. I say this without trying to place all the responsibility upon the one leaving. Churches and pastors can bear just as much, sometimes more, responsibility than the one, ones, leaving. Yet the bottom line regardless of who is most responsible is that a "wall" has been broken down. Not a wall that was meant to divide, but one meant to protect, nurture, and grow those who lived within it. A breach has occurred, and what comes through that breach is rarely something good. One of the greatest tragedies within the Body of Christ is that what is meant to be a living example of restoration and reconciliation is more often an example of division, separation, and isolation. The enemy and the world strike at the reputation of the Father through the failures of His people. Nowhere more so than in our failure to love, forgive, and be reconciled.

It's to our shame that the people of God seem no more able to to live in peace with one another than does the world. The proof is in our divorce rates, our church splits, and the trail of broken relationships that we leave behind. Most often, what is at root are pride and a determination to have our way, to be in control, even at the greatest of costs. And we wonder why a watching world has little interest in becoming a part of it all.

What would happen if we really began to align our hearts with that of the Great Restorer? What if restoration and reconciliation actually became our deepest desire. We say we want people to come to Christ, but there are so many that we're not interested in coming to Him with. Something I like to do from time to time is visit another pastor's fellowship on Sunday morning, since ours meets on Saturday nights. On one such visit I saw a brother who'd recently left a church he'd been a central part of for many years. What I saw in his eyes was a deep sadness, and a great sense of loss. The question is not who was at fault. The question is, how could such a place be reached when the healing power of the King is so available to us all? There are times when the Father leads both pastors and people out of a fellowship for a new post and place in the Kingdom. Sadly, more often, they leave in anger, or are pushed out in anger. And little if any attempt is made for, or are they open to, restoration and reconciliation. And His heart grieves over all of it.

Acts 3:21 says He will, in the end, restore all things. I rejoice as I look forward to that day. Yet, can it not be that He would restore so many things right now.....if we would have it? If we'd lay down our pride, surrender our bitterness and unforgiveness, and come to Him....together...and be restored and healed. That's what He is about. Isn't it time for us to be about it as well?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Whose Story?

"From now on, don't let anyone trouble me with these things. For I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus." Galatians 6:17...."He tells His story through our scars." Sheila Walsh

I don't think anyone would consider scars, be they physical, emotional, or spiritual, to be attractive on any level. We tend to think of them as something that leaves us disfigured, less appealing, even ugly. We can have a whole range of emotions and thoughts about them, from embarrassment to outright shame. We can try to hide them, even deny them, but they're there, in every life. As believers, how should we see and experience them?

The Apostle Paul knew suffering. A great deal of suffering, and in every level of his life. Yet they were not scars that caused him shame or that he sought to deny. For Paul, the scars that the enemy sought to use to wreak havoc in his life and ministry, were instead proof of the reality that he belonged to Christ and Christ alone. And the power of his ministry and witness was sealed by those very scars. He knew the truth of Walsh's above words. He knew that His Lord and Savior told His story through his scars. It was a story of His triumph and victory. A story of His power to overcome in Paul's life, the very worst that all the might of the devil and the world could bring against him. Jesus Christ told His story of strength in the midst of weakness, hope in the midst of despair, light in the midst of darkness, and life in the midst of death. As a man, Paul walked through all of these places, and all of these places scarred him. Yet Jesus Christ used these scars and events to tell the story of His redeeming, healing, and transforming life in all of it. He told His story through the scars in Paul's life. Can He also tell His story through your scars and mine?

A great part of our problem is that many of our wounds never do become scars. They just remain open, bleeding, and unhealed. They cripple us in the emotional and spiritual realm. We live in perpetual mourning, or anger, or bitterness and unforgiveness. And because of this, it's the enemy's story and not His that gets told in our lives. The story of our enemy is that in this fallen world we can never live a risen life. That in this world of chaos we can never know His rest and peace. That in the midst of the darkness His light cannot reach us. It is a story that is nothing but a lie, but it is a lie that we allow to be constantly repeated through us because we won't allow Him to heal the wounds, and minister to and through the scars. Christ bears the scars of the cross. They are the proof of His victory. Bring your wounds, all of them, to Him in surrender. Allow Him to make them marks of His victory in you.

As I said, we all have scars. A story will be told through yours and through mine. It will be the story of the King, or that of the usurper, satan. Whose story is being told through yours today, and tomorrow, and the days after? Who do your scars show you to belong to?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Your Kingdom Come?

"Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Matthew 6:10

Numbers beyond counting have prayed what is known as "the Lord's prayer" over many centuries. I believe He is, and has been answering that prayer, but a very direct question remains; is He answering it in you and me? One of our great shortcomings in prayer is that we tend to be a lot more vague than we are specific. This is certainly true of the 10th verse of the sixth chapter of Matthew. We may pray for His kingdom to come, but how passionately do we seek for His kingdom to come in us and through us?

In one of his devotionals, Chris Tiegreen suggests a prayer that each of us can shape to our own life situations, and make it very personal to ourselves. He writes, "Try praying this prayer with specifics. 'Your Kingdom come in my heart.' 'Your Kingdom come in my family.' 'Your Kingdom come at the office.' 'May Your Kingdom invade my Monday.' 'Let Your Kingdom rearrange my assumptions, my relationships, my world.' However you can think to apply it, pray it fervently. It's a prayer that is always according to God's will."

If we start to view the prayer, speak the prayer, with the desire to see the fullness of His Kingdom come into every aspect of our lives, than that changes everything. It's very easy to "offer" up some blurry, even shallow prayer about His Kingdom coming while leaving out our desire for it to come and reign in every part of our lives. We do this because there are parts of our lives where we don't really wish for His Kingdom to rule at all. When His Kingdom comes, our kingdoms fall. That's a very scary proposition for our flesh. The kingdoms of the flesh can be very deeply rooted in our hearts and minds, and they don't ever leave willingly. They can only be rooted out when the irresistable power of His Kingdom is invited in. When these false kingdoms are overthrown, His Kingdom advances....in all parts of our being. And we are more and more transformed and changed into His image. As His Kingdom forms more deeply in us, His will is done more fully in and through us. It reigns in all parts of our lives, and touches all who are part of our lives.

So if you tend to pray this prayer, how will you pray it now? Does it continue to be a vague, non-specific request, or a fervent, passionate desire of your heart and life. Of my heart and life? His Kingdom has come, and continues to come. Where has it come, and continues to come, in you and me?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Interruption

"Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who had heard the message." Acts 10:44

Peter had been charged with a momentous task. The Father had shown him a vision of all kinds of animals, previously declared unclean for all Jews to eat, as now acceptable for their diet. It was a prelude to His telling Peter that he was to now take the message of life in Christ to the Gentiles, those outside of the Jewish nation, and heretofore considered "unclean" by the Jews. Directly after this vision, a messenger came to him from Cornelius, a Roman centurion, who was "a devout man who fears the God of Israel." Cornelius begged him to come to his home and minister to his household. Peter discerned that the vision and this visit were connected, and that he was to take Christ's message of life to these Gentiles, which he did. Upon his arrival, he began sharing with them the gospel good news of the life to be found in Christ. As he spoke, the Holy Spirit fell upon them all, Jew and Gentile alike. All who were present were amazed at the goodness and working of God.

This is a wonderful account, but how does it speak to us? For me, it brings about this question; can God "interrupt" us in the midst of our lives, even lives being lived out for Him, and take over our "vision," our dream, our hope and desire, and yes, our agenda? Can He come into the midst of our painstakingly planned "worship services," our song lists, our sermons? Can he come into the midst of our strategic planning sessions and vision casting? Can He move upon our prayer gatherings and prepared prayer lists? In short can He interrupt us not only corporately, but personally? Will we stand for His interruptions, and humbly allow Him to be all that He is, or, are we so stubbornly committed to all of these that we leave no room for Him in any of it? Think on that, and allow Him to search our hearts as we do.

I once read a man's account of how he was invited to preach at a large, growing fellowship. Before he took to the pulpit, he was presented with an order of service, and was told how much time would be given to each part, including his message. Everything was planned out to the second. The "worship" gathering would proceed like a well oiled machine, which was what it was. There was no room for anything else. There was also no room for a sovereign God. I know most fellowships are not so robotic as this, but how like them are we in so much of what we call "free worship?" How much like them are we in our own individual worship? Someone said that we cannot have freedom in our worship services when we ourselves are not free. The only path to true freedom is found in a full yielding of all of ourselves to Him. We fall captive to all that we don't surrender to Him. Captive to our own agendas, plans, and yes, even what we believe to be our visions from Him. Peter brought a world changing message to the household of Cornelius, yet he didn't insist on being the center of the message. His God was, and His God moved. Are we surrendered enough that He can do the same in the midst of our gatherings, and in the midst of our own lives?

I believe He seeks to interrupt our lives on every level, every day. He interrupts our schedules, our plans, and our relationships. He sends human interruptions with a divine purpose. Do we allow any of it, or are we so bought into our own plans and agendas that we miss, even reject them all? Can He interrupt us to the point that we dare to stop, hit the "pause button" and let Him open our eyes to our reality and His. Can He interrupt us, or, do we just press on with our dreams, desires, goals, and visions, and miss Him in all of it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Onlookers?

" Then Elijah stood in front of them and said, 'How long are you going to waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him! But if Baal is God, then follow him!' But the people answered him not a word." I Kings 18:21..."Elijah's audience was noncommittal. They did not declare themselves. They were spectators, onlookers." Vance Havner

This passage of Scripture and what follows it in I Kings should give us great pause, for it is repeated weekly across our fellowships. Elijah had boldly declared the power and supremacy of the one true God, Jehovah, over and against that of one who is no god at all, Baal. He confronted the people with a choice, one that required an answer...."but they answered him not a word." I believe the crowd had gathered here in anticipation of watching a good "show," a contest between Elijah, God's man, and Baal's priests, 400 of them. They came to be entertained. If you read further, you see that God did indeed move with great power in the midst of it all, and the people most certainly had a wondrous "show" before them, but nowhere do we see them worship the Father. Can we dare to ask if much of the same is happening in what we call worship today? Are a great number of our people coming for "the show" rather than to come humbly before Him, to behold Him, to choose Him with all of their being, and simply worship Him? In I Corinthians, Paul writes of knowing and experiencing "the simplicity that is in Christ." Have we become so dependent on appealing to the senses that we have lost the simplicity of knowing Him in the Spirit?

I do understand that we live in a time when people are more "sense" oriented to sights and sounds than ever before, yet I have to ask, have we gone too far in all of it? Have we tried so hard to bring about a "mood" of worship that we're missing the One we're to worship in the midst of it all? Have we so made our sanctuaries to resemble movie houses and arenas that we've made it very easy for the people to be anonymous onlookers, spectators in the midst of it? They may love the effects, and greatly enjoy the show, but when it comes to the purpose of all worship, giving all of themselves to Him, are they too, "answering not a word?" Do they exit the sanctuary no differently than they exit the movie theater? In all the glitz, have we lost the simplicity....and wonder and beauty, that is Jesus Christ?

I ask these things not with harsh criticism but with a desire to really allow Him to search us out in all of this. Are we ruled more by cultural trends, or the One who is unchanging, and who needs no supporting props? Are we raising up a generation of onlookers, or worshipers? I leave with this; back when I first came to Christ, I was hungry beyond words for Him. I'm of the generation that fully embraced what could be visually experienced, and embraced it myself. Yet the church that drew me had nothing to offer in this realm. What it did have was a preacher devoted to His Word and life, and who could make Christ real to me. I knew little or nothing of the Bible, and I was a stranger to what a church worship service was, but I knew He was in the midst of it.....and I wanted all of Him that I could lay hold of. That was enough, He was enough. I believe He's still enough. Is He enough for you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Resolutions?

"When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, 'Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?" John 21:15...."Jesus does not need your resolutions, your recommitments, or your promises to try harder this year....Jesus asks for your love. If you truly love Him, your service for Him in the new year will be of the quality He desires."

Someone said that we constantly make resolutions but never resolve anything. We can be aware of our failings, at least vaguely, and we can resolve to do better, and even do so for a time. But it isn't very long before we fall back into the old patterns and habits. Where we fall captive to the same taskmasters, idols, and gods. We turn over a new leaf, only to have it soon join all the other turned over leaves in our "backyard." We make some surface "changes" but remain the same, unchanged, in our inner lives. We settle for spiritual mediocrity. Jesus called this being "lukewarm." Francis Chan said that a lukewarm Christian is an "oxymoron." How can one be a "little Christ" and yet be indifferent to the very life that is Christ? Somehow, we find this acceptable, and we continue on this road year after year. We make resolutions that make us feel like we are committed to victory, to transformation, and then deceive ourselves into thinking change has come, when nothing has changed at all. We may identify and admit to our need, but unless we surrender it all to Him and His transforming grace, nothing changes, and we continue of the road of spiritual sloth.

We live in a culture obsessed with the self life. We spend huge amounts of time concerned about what is going on with us. At the same time, we know little of what would be called "soul searching," an introspection that comes from placing ourselves before Him and allowing Him to search out our hearts, and all the motives and ways that can lie hidden there. That can be a painful process. Healing and change always is. Yet it is the only way to true resolution of our need, to real change and transformation. Most of us don't want to go there, so instead, we vow to do better, work harder, try more this time around. And another year goes by, and faced with the lack of real transformation in our walk, do it all over again.

How much of what you "resolved" to address last year, remains to be addressed this year? Are all the stumbling blocks that were there then, still there now? Are you still falling prey to the same snares and traps now that you were then? What will you do with it? Will there be a new list of resolutions, or new you as a result of His transforming grace? We all have "stuff" that needs that grace. Will it once again be the same stuff as before, or, do we allow Him to take us deeper into Himself in this unending journey of transformation? Jesus' question to Simon cut to the very center of his need and problem. And as He ministered to him there, Simon was changed into Peter. He'll do the same with you and me. It will cut to the quick, but wholeness and victory will be the end of it. Or, we can just make a new list of resolutions.

Blessings,
Pastor O