Wine Or Whine?

9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside 10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” John 2:9-10

I likely have told this story before, but I don't think it ever gets old. In the early days of walking through my divorce, I was visiting with my pastor and his wife. I was in a dark, broken place. I ached....mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. All appeared lost, and nothing appeared on the horizon. Everything was a bleak grey turning to black. Yet into this my pastor spoke. He told me, "Remember. Christ always saves His best wine until last." Those words took hold of my heart and mind, and the seeming iron grey skies were pierced with His almighty light. All the pain was still there, but a new and deep realization that He was there too broke through. I would go on believing, knowing, that His best wine for me was yet to come. I have experienced the truth of that again and again. I will go on experiencing it here and into His eternity. All of us can.

I've been mulling this writing for some time now, and I think it will speak to all of us on some level. I think it will do so through a simple question; what is it that has the upper hand in our day to day lives? His new wine, or our unending whine? Which shows forth in our lives? Which is showing forth in yours?

We're complainers by nature. Certainly some are more so than others, but all of us have a point where we will pour out our complaint, to other people and to God. This can be healthy, especially if we do so with the Father. David did. Job did. Countless believers through the ages have. We need to pour our hearts out to Him in our pain. He welcomes it. Yet it is how we do so, and in what spirit that makes all the difference. Too often we come to Him with either an attitude of being offended, as in how could He let this happen, or with entitlement. He should be doing a lot better by us than this. These attitudes aren't just wrong. They're sinful. What He, and everyone else hears from us is "the whine." We don't ever tire of letting those around us, and Him, know how hard our lives are, and how we want everything made better right now. We live in the whine, and the skies just grow darker all the time.

What He calls us to is the place of the new wine. The new wine is symbolic of His Holy Spirit, which He's always eager to pour into our lives. He calls us to live in expectation of it. Jesus Himself said that the Father loves to give His Holy Spirit to those that ask Him. The new wine will always be the portrait of the new way, new place, new hope that He wants to pour into our lives. We live in a fallen world, and we will never be immune to the troubles and pain that come with it. In this fallen world He pours out His new wine for His people. We can choose to live in the outpouring of His new wine, or in the constant outpouring of our own whining. Which is it for us right now?

Wherever you may find yourself, know that no matter how dark or seemingly hopeless you find it or feel in it, He has His new wine for you. Ask Him for it. Expect Him to supply it. Reject the lifestyle of the whiner, and embrace the unending supply of His new wine. His best wine for you, for me, is always yet to come.....if we will have it. Will you have it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Uncomfortable Truth

"For the time has come that judgement must begin at the house of God." I Peter 4:17....."The great sterling test in preaching is that it bring everyone to judgement. The Spirit of God locates each one to Himself...Every element of self-reliance must be slain by the power of God." Oswald Chambers

Oswald Chambers also said, "In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgement is always brought out, it is the sign of God's love." This is not a teaching much heard in the church today. Yes, we hear of the love of God, but little of this aspect of it. We love the Gentle Shepherd who touches, heals, and makes whole. We don't care for the Lion of Judah who confronts us with our sin. In the Old Testament, the Father, His patience gone with His obstinate people said, "Israel, prepare to meet your God." At some point, individually and as a body of believers, He'll do the same with us. I believe He's doing this right now.

It has commonly been heard throughout the Church that the Lord is coming back soon. Wherever your thinking falls on that, the central truth is that when He does return, it will be for a pure and holy Church. What have we been seeing in the midst of the western Church in particular that gives witness that we are that? To what degree do we see compromise, the increasing influence of the surrounding culture, and outright disobedience? When Moses went up Mt. Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments from God, the people who remained in the valley ended up constructing a golden calf to be their God. They were not rejecting that He was God, they were rejecting what He was revealing about Himself. Golden images were something they were more comfortable and familiar with. They tried to make Him into a God more acceptable to them. In so many ways, we've done the same, especially with Jesus Christ. We love the Gentle Shepherd, we reject the Lion of Judah.

I do not believe that God is the cause of this pandemic, or any other destructive event, but He has allowed them, and He is using them. To get the attention of the world, but even more, the attention of the Church. Has He? Has He gotten yours and mine?

As we look at the surrounding culture, it cannot be missed how much anger, hatred, abuse, and perversion is present.....and growing. These things, most often in subtle, easily overlooked ways, have seeped into the Church as well. The reality of this is playing out in individuals, marriages, families, and fellowships. Many find it easy to live in ungodly ways throughout a week, yet come and sing songs of praise to Him on Sunday. A woman once told me how she and her partner, unmarried and living together, has begun attending a church, had been asked by its pastor to take on a leadership role there. Your and my response to that will reveal much about where we really are today. No, its not the norm....yet....but such instances continue to grow, and the Church's tolerance of such grows as well. God told Israel that the stench of their sin had reached His throne room in eternity. Look about us, and then look within. How do we think it all "smells" to Him now?

God is love. This is Truth. But God's love does more than comfort, and His love will never comfort our sin and disobedience. It will confront it. Powerfully, ruthlessly. This is Truth. Uncomfortable Truth. And it is the Truth, spoken in His love. He speaks now in the midst of all the real suffering that is happening. He did not bring it upon us. We did. We the Church in the west have drifted far from His heart. He responds with Holy confrontation in order that He might bring us to and back to Him. It is decidedly uncomfortable. In fact, it is decidedly painful. It is His love reaching out to us, calling us home. As a nation, as a world, and foremost, as a Church, we're on a collision course with Him. Will we be shattered and scattered as a result, or will we be made whole? What will be the result for you.....for me?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Lost Authority

Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you." Luke 10:19...."God does not give His Presence to rebels." Unknown

I've heard many say in recent days that you don't hear much preaching anymore on the cross, the Holy Spirit, sin, confession, and repentance. I think they're correct, but I want to add another subject much missing; the authority of the believer and of the Church.

I heard a preacher recently say that he believed the church in the west has been steadily surrendering its authority in the culture, to the point that we really have little if any in the midst of that culture. I also read an article that said polling revealed that 77% of conservatives, those usually identified as friendly to the church, didn't feel it needful for the church to be allowed to come together during this virus outbreak. Not needful for the church, but needful for Wal-Mart, Liquor stores, and now, golf courses.

Alexander de Tocqueville, a French diplomat who traveled extensively through mid- 19 century America, and wrote a classic titled "Democracy In America," said that the goodness of America as a nation flowed from the righteousness being proclaimed from its pulpits. How many would say such in our day? What, really, is being proclaimed from our pulpits? Indeed, the role of the pulpit ministry has been steadily decreasing for some time now, replaced by corporate models of leadership and decision making.

Jesus said that He gave His disciples authority to "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, and raise the dead." Some believe that ceased with passing of the 1st century church. I don't, but it seems many of us agree. Where are the miracles in the midst of our gatherings? Where is His glory truly falling? Where has the expectation of such been in the hearts and minds of the preachers and leaders themselves, let alone in the fellowship in general? I ask these questions of myself as well. Where is the authority of the believer in Christ being powerfully manifested today? Why isn't it?

We just observed a National Day Of Prayer. This is wonderful, but what comprised our prayers in most places? Did we merely petition Him to make all this "stuff" go away so that we could get back to our "normal" lives? How much, if it all, was there a brokenness before Him? A confession of sin, and the repentance that must accompany that confession? As the anonymous quote above states, God does not give His Presence, and the authority that goes with it to rebels....and beloved, rebels we have been. Will we continue to be? If we do, what little authority we still walk in will be lost.

His Word commands the church in such a condition to go back and "do the first works" again. Brokenness, confession, repentance, repeat. If we the church ever truly do this, His "mantle" will once again fall upon us. We will rise up in the midst of this badly diseased culture and speak anew with the authority of our God, as well as His healing, cleansing, demon crushing power that comes with that. Are we ready for such? Are you, and am I? Or, do we just go meekly on, being dictated to by government, scientists, medical personal, who have taken the place of authority abdicated by His church? Let us, the Church, go crush some snakes and scorpions.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Battle Cry

54 Then Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “When you see clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you are right. 55 When the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. 56 You fools! You know how to interpret the weather signs of the earth and sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the present times. Luke 12:54-56....."Believers ought to steadily mature in their faith so they're able to receive deeper and deeper words from God. If they aren't, something is wrong....God will not reveal more truth to you than you're capable of receiving."....Richard Blackaby...."The real enemy is the deceiver, the father of lies." James Robison

There are three things that I believe are disappearing in the western church, and to a shocking degree. Wisdom, Understanding, and Discernment. His Wisdom, Understanding and Discernment. How can this be? Why have we become so comfortable with its lack in our midst?

I think the greatest reason is that we've become so dependent upon our own understanding, wisdom, and discernment that we don't feel the need for His. The ongoing lack of emphasis on the Person of the Holy Spirit has played a huge role in this. I think many have simply believed that coming to faith in Christ just enhances the gifts we already have. In short, our fleshly talents have now been greatly improved. What we miss is that they're still just that, fleshly talents. He didn't come to improve us, but to transform us. No matter how many times we may have read or heard in His Word that we are not to "lean unto our own understanding," we still do. So how we "see," understand, and perceive what is happening around and before us is anchored in ourselves and not Him. What has happened is that a strong spirit of deception has infiltrated the church, and we are blind to what He's speaking and doing in the times in which we live. I think we're seeing the fruit of that in the times in which we find ourselves.

It's been a fact for some time now that we live in an information soaked age, and nowhere has that been more evident than in what we hear about this pandemic. The question is, what is it that we're hearing? Many people are saying that despite all the information coming out, what they feel is frustrated and confused because "facts" seem to change each day. What is the truth? What is the lie? Is frustration and confusion, and the anger that goes with them to be our lot, especially the lot of the believer? No! A thousand times and more, no. Not just in this pandemic, but in everything happening around and before us.

Available to us, if we'll dare to walk in it, is the discernment of the Holy Spirit, along with His Wisdom and Understanding. Armed with that, I believe He'll give us a growing sense of what is true and what is not. I think He'll give us a sense of who is pushing a personal agenda and who is not. Our understanding and discernment over what is being presented in order to lay hold of power and control, as opposed to what is good for His Kingdom will grow as well. In so many places in His Word we're told to "test the spirits" that we might know from where they are coming. How many of us actually know what that is, or have the depth to do so? We can when we walk in His Spirit, in dependence of His Spirit. This holds true not only as concerns are current world situation, but in all situations. Now more than ever, we need to be a truly spirit-filled and led people.

James Robison said that the enemy is "trying to destroy God's Kingdom purpose in our lives, His Church, and in this nation." But we have, in Christ, all the means to totally defeat the purposes of the darkness. His Word says that we are "more than conquerors," but as Robison points out, we cannot be that unless we are actually conquering. In the lives we are living, individually, as families, and as His Church, are we conquering?

Scripture says, "Let God arise and His enemies be scattered." The foremost means of the Father's arising is through His people. He arises through us as we live risen lives in Him. When this happens, the confusion the enemy meant for us is thrown back upon him. He, and all his forces are scattered. The Church, as it has been raised up to do, holds the ground....as conquerors.....Let God arise, in us, and let His and our enemy be scattered though us. Let this be our battle cry against the one who is our true enemy in all things.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Wild Church

So the disciples went out, telling all they met to turn from their sins." Mark 6:12-13...."It's time to stop building and maintaining zoos. It's time for us to figure out what it means to be the Church in the wild." Francis Chan

The above quote from Francis Chan came after he discussed the similarities between the animated animals in the movie Madagascar, and the average modern day believer in the west. In the movie, a number of animals who've never known anything but life in a zoo, suddenly find themselves living in the wild jungle of Madagascar. They were born for such a place, but have been so "tamed" by the zoo that they have no idea of how to live in the wild that they were created for. He sees a clear parallel between those animated creatures and we who've been "attending church" for varying lengths of time. We've been tamed. Like the animals, we don't know how to live in the wild. Circumstances forced the animals to learn who they really were. Circumstances are forcing the church to do so as well.

This pandemic has forced a reality upon us that most have not been prepared for. Our many seminars and conferences have told us how to "do" what's needed in order to be a church in the 21st century. All of it though, was centered upon having a kind of "central" planning center that was the church building itself. As it has for generations, everything revolved around and flowed from the weekly "worship service." By the second week of March, that form was lost to us. No longer could any church produce the kind of ministries that attracted, and yes, impressed people. We could no longer "create" an atmosphere that touched people's emotions as much as their spirit. Most of the props that we've always depended upon were taken from us. We were left with......ourselves. Seemingly.

Someone said of the western church that "Jesus is being lost in the church that bears His name." That was never the intention, but somehow we became more dependent on our presentation of Him than we were on His presence in and through us. We wanted people to come because of what we were doing. Now, we're faced with the reality that we can't do almost anything that we'd been doing. And that may be the key that lets loose His Holy Spirit upon His Church.

We've been forced out of our "zoos," our buildings that we've grown so comfortable with. Yet we're still seeking to be a worshiping body of believers. We can't any longer put our energy into getting people to come to us. We're now forced to go to them, and we're having to be very innovative in order to do so. Besides the "virtual" worship services that many churches are now doing, we are also having to find new ways to reach people in desperate need of Him. Like the animals in the movie, we've been "dumped" into a jungle, but its a jungle we were created for. This is how the Church has always been meant to function. This is the body the Church was been meant to be. We've been forced to come to grips with the truth that the Church is not a building, it is His people. We've been saying that all along, but the truth is, some part of us has always believed that the church really was a building....and that it was ours, and we were in charge.

This pandemic will end. When it does, what happens with us? With you and me? Once the "cage doors" are opened, do we go back to our zoo? Or, do we go on living out what we're learning in this time? Do we go back to seeing "church" as what we go to each week, looking for some kind of, any kind of help after barely surviving that week? Or, do we come together as a vibrant body of believers, celebrating His Life in us, after spending a week actually being His presence and person to a world without Him? Questions to ponder.

I deeply miss the weekly coming together of His people, and look forward to its resuming. But when it does happen, I pray it is far more than we have ever realized it to be. In one of the regular Tuesday prayer times I attend, a good brother said, "We're helpless. We can only depend on Him." This will be one of the greatest truths to emerge from this time. We're not in control. We have never been in control. This is not our Church, it is His. It's His Body. He's the Head. He's our Lord. He's Almighty. There's a lyric in an old song that goes, "Let the Church be the Church." May it be that we in the west finally leave our "zoo" and be the Church He has raised up to be.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Essential?

"For in Him we live and move and have our being." Acts 17:28...."I would not have you ignorant...." Romans 11:25...The outstanding characteristic of this intellectual age, believe it or not, is ignorance. We do err, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God." Vance Havner

In this pandemic, there are a great many things for believers to be upset about. The overreach of government. The hysteria of the media. The constantly conflicting "facts" presented by "authorities." Leading them all may be the listing of the coming together of the church as not being "essential," while liquor stores, abortion clinics, and marijuana dealers, where it's legal, are. The fact that politicians of both sides have carried out prohibitions for coming together shows the lack of regard the church is held in. New York's Andrew Cuomo has publicly stated that the recent downturn in Covid-19 cases and deaths is not because of people's prayers, but of scientists and doctors work. Such views have always been in the culture of the world, but it has grown at an alarming rate over the last 50 years. I'm both grieved and angry, because I know, as do legions of believers over all the earth, that as Scripture points out, it is Christ that holds all things together. It is Christ who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. It is Christ who was, and is, and always will be. People may reject that truth, hate that truth, but it remains truth.....However, I have a very disturbing question for each who does profess and confess Christ as Savior and Lord.....Have we, the church, given the unbelieving culture around us good reason to see us as "non-essential?"

Let me tell you some things that I know are non-essential as concerns the Body of Christ.: Celebrity preachers who promote the idea that Father God desires all of us to be financially well off, fully healthy, and very happy and blessed. Both they, and the self-absorbed, self-indulgent crowds they preach to are non-essential when one compares the message of the cross to their message of comfort and plenty. They and their disciples are not essential to a culture lost in darkness and death and heading for an eternity of the same.

Neither is a timid and fearful priesthood of believers, who are afraid of angering the culture with the full message of the Gospel. Jesus said that those who hated Him and His message would hate us as well when we brought His message to those who would reject us as they did Him. A church that wishes to play to the crowd in order to attract it, is not essential to a lost world.

There are so many more examples of where the church is non-essential, but I will speak that which makes us more essential to this world than all other things: A church fully alive in Him. Fully awake. Full of His Holy Spirit. Presenting to the world a portrait, through the Holy Spirit, of just what the Father and the Son "look like" and who they are. When an unbelieving world beholds such a church, they, even if they don't fully believe, will welcome our presence and ministry. The fact that they are not presently doing so has to be owned by us, at least to a real degree. Are the lives we are living, individually, communally, corporately, essential to the culture around us? Dare we ask the question? Dare we allow Him to bring us to the true answer?

I want my life, the life of my local church, and the life of His universal Body, to be essential to this world. It is, but are we? When we're willing to turn from all that makes us non-essential, we will be so. Are we willing? Are you? Am I?

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Atmosphere

"But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh." Galatians 4:16...."When His Holy Spirit is having His way with us, we live according to His standard without knowing it." Oswald Chambers

I think the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit are fast becoming lost in the western church. This isn't a new thought. A.W. Tozer, Leonard Ravenhill, and Oswald Chambers warned of it generations ago. More recently, Francis Chan and others have sounded the alarm. How have we not heard them? Why has it continued to mark us?

The Word of God calls Him our Helper, Comforter, Guide, and much more. Can we admit that a great part of our problem is that in our hearts, we don't really believe we need Him in these roles? We've become very accustomed to our own self-sufficiency. We trust in our ability to figure things out, maneuver a way through, get to the place we want to be. We want a faith-walk that we can control. We fear a life that is beyond our control. I think that this is the greatest reason that we know so little of what it is to walk in the Spirit. It is also a major reason that we seem to carry out the desires of our flesh markedly more than the desires of His Spirit. We believe in the existence of the Holy Spirit, but we're strangers to His Person and personality. There's little surprise then that we're much more comfortable living in the flesh than we are in the Spirit. Yet a life in His Spirit is what we're called to, commanded to enter into. Besides the above reasons, there's another; our ignorance. We think such a life is impossible, yet if we let the truth of His Word sink into our hearts and minds, we'll find that it isn't. It isn't impossible at all.

I heard someone say that we're to live in "the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit." In the physical sense, we live by breathing in the oxygen of our earthly atmosphere. We breathe in, and we breathe out. Living in the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit is to do the same. There are two atmospheres available to a believer. The first is to choose to depend on the atmosphere of the world. This is easy and natural. We're born fallen creatures into a fallen world. To be able to live in the atmosphere of heaven, of the Holy Spirit, will require His work of saving grace in our hearts. This brings us into the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, yet, so many, familiar only with the first, choose to continue to live there. It's what they've always known. They have a sense of control there. No such control exists in the atmosphere of heaven and the Spirit. The key to entering into His atmosphere is....surrender. Complete surrender. And it's a moment by moment choice.

I don't remember the source of it, but written in one of my prayer journals is this definition; to be filled with His Holy Spirit is a moment by moment surrender to His moment by moment infilling." Breathe out all reliance upon self, and breathe in His Life, Power, and ability to live in the fullness of life He has promised. Our great problem is that we don't know how to live in moment by moment dependence and consciousness of Him. He's a part of our lives, but He's not our life. There's only place where He can be; at the cross. We can live out a moment by moment surrender because we live moment by moment at the cross. The cross is the doorway between life in the atmosphere we've always known into the atmosphere that we were created for. We leave the polluted atmosphere of the world to the pure atmosphere of heaven. Impossible? He's promised it. Can we dare to put His promise to the test?

To walk in His Spirit is to breathe free air. I think all of us, confined during this pandemic, are longing to breathe "free air." I'm believing that such a longing for the free air of His Spirit is growing by the day in His Church. May we live in the atmosphere of His Spirit, saturated by His Presence. Free.

Blessings,
Pastor O