Heart Tracks - The Realistic Way

"You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Mark 8:33....."Is Jesus naive about the ways of the world? No, we're naive about the way of the Kingdom." Chris Tiegreen....."There are no crown - wearers in heaven who were not cross - bearers here below." Charles Spurgeon

In the above Scripture, Jesus has told His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to die upon a cross. This shocked his listeners, none more so than Peter. Jesus was in the midst of a wonderful, miracle working ministry. He was the Messiah. Why in the world would He allow such a fate to be His? Peter, who was sure He had a better perspective on everything than did his Lord, took Jesus aside to explain to Him what he was sure was a more realistic way. Jesus' response was to preface His above reply in Mark 8:33 by saying to Peter, "Get behind Me Satan." Two questions; can we imagine how that reply/rebuke would have sounded to Peter? Secondly, how often have we been guilty of doing the same with Him as did Peter?

Christ's way made no sense to Peter's flesh. His way never does. Our flesh will rise up against it every time. Every time, so long as we live and operate in our flesh, we will dispute, not come. Not die. Every time we do so, we will have the interests of our flesh, and the devil who operates through it, at the forefront. We're sure our way is the better one. We're sure He must be mistaken. We don't want His way, and we certainly don't want the cross, His cross, that He leads us to. We desire the resurrection life He promises, but we don't want to have to die in order to lay hold of it. There must be an easier, less costly way, and that's the way we want. So we go on...in our flesh...in our weakness....and in our defeat. We may strive valiantly, but in the end, we are overcome. The more realistic way becomes what it has always been....the way of death.

Where are we disputing, rather than coming, yielding, dying today? So many keep "bumping up" against the same sin, the same crippling habit or addiction, behavior, or attitude. Jesus Christ's answer to all of it is His cross. Our flesh is sure there is a better, more realistic way, so we continue the bumping up, and we never rise up in His life. We keep taking Jesus aside, whereas He calls us apart.

There are always two ways before us; what we think is the realistic way, and His way, which will always lead to a cross, which leads to resurrection life right now. In John 6, Jesus presented to His followers the spiritual ultimatum that if they were to follow Him, they like Him, must choose the way of the cross. Scripture tells us that most of them did not continue to follow. He presented His Way. They chose what they saw as a more realistic one. As He presents the choice to you today, what do you choose? Do you seek to to take Him aside, or worse, choose to go no further? Or do you come, as you are, with all that you are, as He calls you apart....and out from?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Praying Through

"Commit your way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass." Psalm 37:5....."A man quietly reading a newspaper may not look as pious as a man on his knees in prayer. But if he has committed his way unto the Lord and left it with Him, while he calmly moves on to something else, he is a better Christian than one who never leaves his way with the Lord but is always trying to." Vance Havner

Why do we find it so hard to actually live out the command, and it is a command, and a promise too, of the above Scripture? Why are we so often much more like the man on his knees, constantly seeking peace and rest, than we are the man with the newspaper, actually living in His peace and rest? Why can we not reach the place that we know we want to reach? What's the blockage? Does God just dangle His promised rest before us like a carrot on a stick? Of course not, but so few of us ever enter into the fullness of that rest. We're in the main, an anxious, stressed out, weary people. Why does His promise not bear fruit in us?

I think the answer is found in how we approach this promise, and how we pray it. First off, we seem far more familiar with all that works against the fulfillment of His promises than we are of experiencing their fullness. They seem to just be too good to be true for this fallen world we live in. More than that, I think we know little of what it is to "cast our burden upon the Lord," and what is involved in that. Casting involves effort on our part, and I'm not speaking of a works kind of effort, but an effort of our will. By God's grace, our will is yielded fully to His. We let go, completely, and surrender the burden, all of the burden, to Him. We do this at the cross. We give to Him all that robs us of His peace, we spiritually nail it to His cross. It is now His, and subjected to all the power of the cross, His blood, and His resurrection. What's been surrendered is rendered powerless there, and it can oppress us no longer. Coming to this place in Him is by way of prayer, and we have to realize the enemy is going to do everything in his power to prevent it. He will do all he can to oppress us and rob us of His peace. All those obstacles will fall as we press on and through them in grace empowered prayer. Christians of an earlier time called this "praying through." Praying through all the blockages to our laying hold of that which He's promised. In our "instant results" culture, this spiritual discipline is fast disappearing. Along with His promised rest. But if we will do this, we will lay hold of His fullness, of His rest, and the grace to trust as He works, and He always works, to bring us to the place He desires for us.

Where in our lives is unrest prevailing? Right before us, in Him, is the fulfillment of His promise. Commit, trust, rest. The adversaries to having this from Him are many, but if we determine to "pray though" them, we will have His peace because He has us and all that concerns us. There is so much to be anxious about today. There is only One who can release us from that bondage. There will be blockages to reaching Him, but He has given us all the grace needed to persevere, to pray through them all. If we will commit our way to the One who is the Way, we will know and experience His rest, live in believing trust and faith, and see Him bring to pass all the fullness of His will for our lives. Praying through to Him is a matter of of the will, being determined that we will have Him, all that is Him, all the while having what is not Him cleansed from our lives. Our flesh desires to be anywhere but at the foot of the cross, but its there, and only there, that we find the fullness of His Life. We die to all that is not Him in us, and come alive to all that is His Life. We don't struggle to find peace, we are peace, in Him. May this be our testimony. May this be our life.

Blessings,
Pastor O

  

Heart Tracks - Real

Come, let us reason together, says the Lord." Isaiah 1:18....."The Bible is not a book to carry around and read for information on God, but a voice to listen to." Anonymous

If you look at the full context of Isaiah 1, you may think I've chosen a strange verse to feature. The Father is speaking to a generation of His people Israel who have forsaken Him, embraced a lifestyle of rebellion and sin, and whose hearts are far from Him. He is justifiably angry, yet at the same time, His heart longs for them to come to Him, with all that they are, sin and rebellion included, "and reason together" with Him. He wants relationship and intimacy with them, and to be able to give them a new, fresh revelation of who He is. John Eldredge once said, "I want Jesus. The real Jesus." In His constant call to us, it is His desire that we know Him, in all aspects of who He is. The real Father, real Son, and real Holy Spirit.

I once read that the Hebrew word for "Bible" translates to "to call." Personally, that impacts my heart. It's so easy to see the Bible and the "study" of it as an exercise in information gathering. Whether individually or in a group setting, we can fall into having nothing more than discussions on what we think the Bible says, all the while missing what He is saying through it. So much of what we call "Bible study" is nothing more than this. Jesus Christ is the Word made Life, and the Bible is His Living Word. Simply put, the Bible is not merely nice words of wisdom printed in ink on paper. It is God breathed revelation and it is filled with Himself. All of it is a call to our hearts to come to Him, reason with Him, listen to Him, and be ministered life by Him. If we really knew and believed this, our Bibles would cease being "that book gathering dust on the table," one we know we should read, but rarely have the desire to do so, to being a means of partaking of His Life. If we knew this, preachers and teachers would have to cease almost begging people to read it. All, including those very preachers and teachers, would come hungry for the bread of His Life that is found in those neglected pages.

There's a chilling verse in the Old Testament that relates how the people of that day had hearts that had wandered very far from the Lord. It reads, "Word from the Lord was rare." For too many of us, it is the same. We may diligently be going to church, paying our tithes, even dutifully reading our Bible, but actually hearing Him, relating to Him, growing deeper in Him, is rare. Our physical bodies may not have wandered far from organized church services, but our hearts have drifted far from Him. His Word and Presence have little impact on our day to day living. We may not be in open rebellion and sin, but we are missing the real Three in One God revealed in His Word, and that He longs to make real in our lives. So here's a penetrating question for each of us; when was the last time you picked up a Bible, read it, and heard His voice and heart? More, when was the last time you actually expected to?

Whatever spiritual state you may be in today, He calls to you. He invites you, me, all of us, to come to Him, talk, reason, and yes, question Him. He doesn't fear that, because when we do, He is faithful to respond. He may not explain all, reveal all, but He will give of Himself. He will give us His heart and His Life. The call of His Word leads us to His heart, leads us to pray, leads us to worship Him. We move from practicing a religion to experiencing intimate relationship. He calls us to come, open His Word as He opens His heart. His is a Voice to listen to. How deeply do we desire to listen? How clearly do we even hear?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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Heart Tracks - The Seed

"But other seed fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Matthew 13:8-9...."Jesus preached the Kingdom and reaped Kingdom lives."...
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The verses above are from Jesus' parable about the sower and the seed. Of how the sower, representing the Spirit, spread the seed of the Kingdom, His Word, upon different types of ground. There were varying responses to the seed, from total failure to produce "fruit," through a short lived response to the seed that had initial fruit, but then withered and died, to that seed which produced an abundant crop. My questions for each of us are these; just how often have you heard this parable, and, what kind of "ground," that is, your heart, are you? What kind of ground am I?

In Jesus' ministry of the Kingdom to those who came to Him, He spoke constantly about His listeners "receiving" that Kingdom, of receiving His words. This implies something far more and deeper than just hearing the words, or even memorizing them. To receive His words means that they take root in our hearts, that they become a literal part of us, of who we are. Out of that flows Kingdom fruit. There are so many who have heard the word, who "know" His word, but who have never received His word. His words have no real power in their lives, have produced no eternal fruit in their lives, because those words have never really been received into their lives. As someone put it, they may know what the particular verse says, but not what Jesus said, and meant in that verse, in those words. There's a very great difference. As I heard it put, when His word has its way in us, we live, work, and yes, look like Jesus. That's the proof, the fruit of really receiving His word.

One of the greatest definitions of what real discipleship is, said that to truly disciple someone, we have to teach them to really hear Jesus, to hear the voice of the Spirit. We see this in the ministry of Christ to His disciples. For three years they literally sat at His feet, listened to His words, yet continually missed the fullness of what He was saying. They heard the words but missed His meaning. It was not until Pentecost, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that all those words He'd spoken to them, began to have growing and deeper meaning to them. They began to understand. That is how we "teach" people to hear Jesus. We don't just give them verses to memorize; or even a Savior to "accept." We lead them to a Christ who will saturate their lives with His. He will then till the "soil" of their lives, as He tills the soil of ours, removing all the stones, thorns, and shallowness found there, making it rich in His Kingdom. When we come to Him in every part of our lives, He comes into every part of our lives with Himself. That is what is meant to receive Him. He enters in, and He is not satisfied with anything less than full entry into all of our life. This can happen only at the cross. Has He had full entry into ours?

Jesus said, "To you has been given the mystery of the Kingdom." He does not mean that it should remain so, but that He would then open that mystery to those who receive Him, and it's a process that begins in this realm and will continue throughout eternity. His expectation then is that we who have truly heard and received His word, will then begin to sow that word into the lives and situations we encounter every day.....starting with our own. Are we doing that?

Jesus said, "Freely have I given, freely must you receive." He has already given us the fullness of Himself, who is the Living Word of God. Have we ever truly received? The answer is in our fruit. We may know all that He has said, yet know nothing, experience nothing of what He meant. What springs from the soil of our hearts? Do we know what He has said, but have no understanding or experience of it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - River Of Life

37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” John 7:37-38...."The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles...The obstacle is a matter of indifference to the river which will flow steadily through you if you remember to keep right at the Source." Oswald Chambers

Behind the home I had in Northern Virginia was a waterway named Bull Run Creek. I'll never forget how, on those times when heavy rains came, it would rise far above it's banks and would flow with an amazing rate of speed. It could be an awesome sight to behold. One day, when I came to the above verse in my Bible, the picture of that fast, overflowing creek came to my mind. I knew it was the Lord showing me just what the life of a believer is supposed to look like to both the world, and to Him. We are to be a fast flowing river of His life to all we come into contact with. Culturally, socially, and spiritually. The Source of the river is Himself, and the vessels of it's flowing are His people. When that creek would rise, it would claim land not normally covered in drier times. So should the lives of His people be; overflowing with life, blessing, and His presence. Does that look anything like your life and mine?

That question brings me to another memory of a place I once lived. I served Him for the first few years of my ministry in West Texas, a usually dry area of the world. I remember my District leader Gene Fuller remarking, "We have rivers in West Texas, there's just no water in them." He wasn't really wrong. Most of the time the water flow was little more than a trickle, if it flowed at all. I wonder if our spiritual lives are not a great deal more like the rivers of West Texas than they are that creek behind my home in Northern Virginia? Why is it that they are? How can it be that they are? The answer is simple but convicting; we either lost, or never really had a deep connection with He who is the Source of all Living Water.

Jesus said that "Whoever believes in Me, out of them will flow rivers of living water." If our response is "we do believe in Him," then how can it be that those waters are not flowing out of us? It can only be that our "believing" is a surface belief at best. It doesn't go deep, it doesn't connect with Him. It is not rooted in Him. It is not a deeply personal and intimate belief. We trust and depend more on the temporal than we do in Him. What's around us is more real than what we profess to be within us; His Spirit of Life; the Source of our Living Water. As a result, we're as dry and thirsty as the world we've been sent into. To that world, we look nothing like Bull Run Creek. We look like the dried up rivers of West Texas.

In the arid Middle East, wells were and are a source of life, and usually, one has to dig deep to reach the waters below. But when they are reached, life is available in the arid lands above. In our spiritual lives, we will not reach these waters with a few verses each morning, and a generic prayer prior to heading out for the day. We will also not reach them when we have blockages of sin and disobedience in our lives. We reach them when we confess that we are literally dying of spiritual thirst, and we cannot survive unless we drink of His water. When that happens, we will not only drink of His river of life, we shall be vessels of it. So much of it that His Life will overflow the banks of our life and lay hold of land where it had not previously flowed. I want that to be my life. Do you want it to be yours? Or, are we going to be content to be a West Texas river that's a river in name only?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Stroll

"My soul follows hard after You; Your right hand upholds me." Psalm 63:8

If it is your profession and confession to be a "follower of Christ," a "believer," most likely you would describe your relationship with Him as a journey, a walk. So here's a question for each of us; is our walk a leisurely stroll, or a journey of determined purpose?

The word stroll is described as a "leisurely walk." The scene that comes before my mind's eye is to go along focused on nothing much in particular, and easily distracted by one scene after another along the side of the road. We're very much aware of what's around us, and ever more oblivious to what's before us. When we attach that reality to the meaning of Psalm 63:8, it's small wonder that our journey is marked by, at best, constant side trips from the path, to at worst, the shipwreck of our faith. Too few of us know the reality of what it is to "follow hard after Him."

Other translations of this verse render it as "following close behind Him," which, while not bad, I think fall short of the meaning of "following hard" behind Him. To me, following hard gives the picture of being so pressed into Him that we cannot be distinguished from Him. To an onlooker, it would look like one person. It is impossible to stroll along with Jesus. To walk with Jesus is to walk with purpose. Not our purpose, but His. To walk with Jesus is to be completely aware of not only what is right before us, but what is ahead of us. To where we are going, no matter how far off that may appear to be. He may have shared only a small part of where that destination may be, but He shares enough so that the vision of it is always before us, and the roadside "attractions" that are almost always distractions intent upon getting our eyes off of first, Christ Himselt, and then, to where He's taking us. Onto what will ultimately lead us away.

Some may read this and see that "vision" only in terms of what He wants to do with us in this temporal realm. He does have purpose for us here, but as the Word says, our lives are but a breath, and we were not made for this realm, but His; which is eternity. C.S. Lewis said that if we walk through this life with the sense that there is something missing in this world, than perhaps we need to realize we were not made for it, but for another. That "other" is His eternal Kingdom, and that is the destination to which He leads each of us that are His. Here's the joy, while we journey to all His Kingdom's fullness, we can do so with all the Kingdom fullness available to us now. It is the enemy's purpose to distract us from that destination, and the joy of the journey right now. And he most often does so with things that look good, even are good, but are not Him, not His best. Those who only stroll with Him are always prey to falling far behind, or off the path altogether. Only those determined to follow hard after Him will experience His Life here, and it's fullness in eternity.

I remember an old Family Circus cartoon strip where Billy, the oldest son, is sent by his mother on an errand only a few houses away. The cartoon showed his steps and what should have been a short journey was made a long one because of all the side stops he made along the way. How much like that does our "walk" look to Him? Are we on a stroll, or a walk of Life? Are our eyes fixed on Him, or are they captivated by all the enemy's "roadside attractions?" Do those observing our lives see us being one, fused with Him, or lagging behind, enthralled by everything but Him? How like Billy are you and I?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Where We Live

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those are being saved and among those who are perishing." 2 Corinthians 2:14-15....."We are not to abide in Christ so that we get results in our work. We are to abide in Christ so that we are transformed into His image; we begin to look, sound, and yes, even smell like Him." Karen, a missionary to Central and Eastern Europe

I read an illustration of the meaning of 2 Corinthians 2...The writer remembered a time they worked in a store located next to an onion packing plant. She said that every Friday, on payday, the workers would come to the store to purchase needed items. She could always tell the workers from other customers in that they smelled of onions. She said the aroma was "a natural outcome of where they spent their lives, day in and day out." They lived in the atmosphere of that plant and the result was an aroma that proved it. Should it not be that the people of God should live in the atmosphere of heaven as did, and as does Jesus Christ, and therefore give off the aroma, the fragrance of heaven? Should it not be, but is it? Christians, followers of Christ may say a lot about Him, about heaven, even about holiness. Does the fragrance of our lives prove that we live in the atmosphere of all that, or are our words made null and void because, in the end, the fragrance of our lives doesn't smell any different than those who are of the world?

We live in a fallen world, and definitely a fallen culture, but that doesn't mean we have to carry the soil of that world, or be defined by it. We know that we're to abide in Him, but too often that's reduced to our worship time on Sunday, or our weekly Bible study or prayer group. As for being a fragrance, too often we think that is connected to what we do and achieve, but it's not. It's to be the essence of who we are. The appearance of success can mean a lot more to us than the essence of really abiding in Him. We can do lot for Him, but our fragrance remains little more than rotted flesh.

In my prayer journal, I've marked down the question, "Has anyone ever remarked about me, us, that there is a definite presence of Christ about us?" Not remarked about how active we are in our church, or how many we've invited to church, or what great ministry we've built, but simply, how clearly they see, and yes, smell Jesus in our lives? This comes about only by abiding in the atmosphere of the Kingdom. We smell like the places we abide in. We give off the aroma of where we live. If we're "abiding" in the places of bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, or secret sin, the fragrance of those places is going to show through our lives, no matter how much we're "doing for Him." The only way out is to abide in Him....and His fragrance. And like those workers in the plant, we give off that aroma and identify to whoever we may be among, both those who know Him, and those who don't.

When Jesus had His experience on the Mt. Of Transfiguration, Peter, John, and James were with Him. At that place, the glory of the Father was manifested. They were literally in the atmosphere of heaven. They saw Christ as He was and is, fully man, and fully God. Afterwards, they came down from the mountain and into the valley, where they encountered a father and his demon possessed son. None of the disciples, including the three who'd been with Jesus, could help the boy. Jesus could, and did. Why couldn't the three, who'd basked in that atmosphere, do nothing? It was because when they descended, they left the atmosphere they'd been in. Christ did not. He lived in that atmosphere but the three didn't. They were once again breathing the air of a fallen world while Christ the King lived and breathed the air of the Kingdom.

We're going to smell like where we live. Where are we living today? Does the fragrance and witness of our lives betray the words and witness of our mouths? In John 2, the disciples asked Jesus where He was staying, where He was abiding. He answered, "Come and see." He invites us as well.....into the atmosphere in which He lives. Will we live there as well? Or, despite our words, choose to live somewhere else?

Blessings,
Pastor O