Invitations

 "Then Jesus said to His disciples, 'Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Me." Matthew 16:24

Here in the western church, we emphasize "inviting" people to come to Christ. This is a good thing, as Jesus is "the Way, the Truth, and the Life," and that, "No one comes unto the Father" but through Him. Yet can we take a moment to answer a serious question? Just what is it that we are inviting people to? To what "kind" of Jesus do we invite them to believe in?

We love Christ's invitation to, "Come unto Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." That's a true and powerful invite. We stress it a lot in our talks about the Lord. However, we're not so keen on His invitation spoken in Matthew 16:24. Carrying a cross where the ultimate destination will be our own Calvary holds little attraction to our flesh. Rest, blessings, health, healing, wholeness, abundance, prosperity. These are very attractive to us and we have no problems following a Christ who exists to give us all that and more. In that invitation is a kind of attitude that says, "Christ paid the cost so that I don't have to." It's true that only He could meet the cost of opening the door to God that original sin had put upon the human race, but a costless Christianity never had any place in His message. Not when He walked this world, and not as He walks it through His Holy Spirit today. Even so, we've grown very comfortable with proclaiming such a message. Jesus said directly to those who heard Him that they must "count the cost" of becoming His disciple. Little of our modern message speaks of any kind of cost at all. We proclaim a blessings based message far more than a cross centered one.

There is a Chinese evangelist who is known as Brother Yun. He has been imprisoned and tortured by the Communist Chinese government innumerable times for his faith. His suffering has been intense, but his witness and power in Christ have been immense. He said this; "The cross of Christ is soaked in blood. If we will carry it, it will be soaked in ours as well." Jesus promised His disciples an abundant life. He kept His promise. To them, and to all who have followed Him down through the ages. He also promised them a blood soaked life as well. That promise came to pass as well. Every one of the disciples except John suffered a bloody death. John was horribly tortured and then sent to die on a prison island. The history of the church is filled with those who have suffered for His cause and His name. The impact of those lives and the cost they paid continue to bear fruit years, centuries beyond their giving. Their witness will stretch into eternity. Will yours and mine?

So, let's be confronted with the question again; to what kind of Jesus, and what kind of life are we inviting the lost to? If it is anything else but a cross centered one, we invite them into a life that will not stand in the crucible of affliction. We invite them into a lie. Into a false gospel. Jesus was unafraid to issue an invitation that was blunt to the extreme. Indeed, He discouraged people from coming after Him until they had counted the cost of it. We can do no less. Such an invitation will not draw a crowd, but it will draw those whose hearts are being drawn to Him.

Former U.S. Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie told the story of a conversation he had with one of his seminary professors about discipleship. Ogilvie was stumbling over the true cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. His professor said to him, "Mr. Ogilvie, you cannot sneak around Golgotha." Golgotha was the place of Christ's crucifixion. Ogilvie was attempting to follow Christ while avoiding his own Golgotha. He couldn't. We can't either. We cannot sneak around Golgotha in our following. We must go to the place of the cross. It's the center of the invitation Christ gives. Do we come?

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Command

 "On the Day of Pentecost, seven weeks after Jesus' resurrection, the believers were meeting together in one place." Acts 2:1

Scripture tells us that after He rose from the dead, Jesus appeared to more than 500 people, yet on the Day of Pentecost, there were just 120 gathered in the upper room. Where were the other 380 plus?

The Bible doesn't tell us where they were, but preacher and writer John Bevere said, "Those 120 were dead to their own agendas," suggesting that perhaps the others were not, at least not at that time in their faithwalk. As a result, they missed out on what may have been the most momentous event the church has ever known, Jesus' promised an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon His church. Before He ascended to heaven, He had commanded His followers to "not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you what He has promised." He didn't suggest this. He commanded it. This points to a much neglected teaching within the church; we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit. We, like the 120, are to be still before Him, focused upon Him, and passionately seeking all the fullness of His Spirit. Yielded and surrendered to and before Him. Empty of the control of the self-life that we may be filled with all the fullness of His Life. Bevere believes that only 120 of those He'd appeared to were at such a place in their faith lives, the rest were not. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. So, dare we allow ourselves to be confronted with the question; He has commanded us to seek all the fullness and infilling of His Holy Spirit. He has promised that fullness if we will. Which group are we going to be found in the face of His command? Those who have died to their will and way, or....those who have not....and may never at all?

Some years back, Francis Chan wrote a book titled, "The Unknown God." He was speaking of the Holy Spirit, of whom He said most of the professing church knew little or nothing about. We don't understand His Personhood, so often thinking of Him as a "thing," rather than a Person. We don't understand, indeed fear, His ministry and presence in our lives. We are so intent upon running not only our lives, but His church according to the leadings of our flesh and not of the Spirit. We trust in our own natural gifts and not upon His supernatural gifts of the Spirit. In truth, we have made the Holy Spirit a kind of "silent partner" in the church. We admit that He's real, but we don't really want Him to actually show up in that which we're doing. We give Him lip service, not heart service. As a result we quench His Spirit, and have no real sense of His Presence, and don't really know we might be, or are completely lacking His Presence at all. As Bevere says, "The Holy Spirit comes with power, but He leaves very quietly." I think in many of our fellowships, we have so neglected His Person and ministry that He has receded, withdrawn....and we haven't even noticed.

There are many things as concerns the ways of God and His church that I don't know, but I do know this; we have no future if we continue upon the man centered path that too much of the church has been following. We are coming up against challenges, opposition, even hatred, and the enemy that is behind it all, that we cannot hope to overcome apart from the power and ministry of His Spirit at work in us. The hour of need is upon us. The command has been given. Will we be found obedient to the command, and the recipients of the promise?

I close with a repeat of His command, to both wait for and seek with surrendered hearts and lives all the fullness of His Spirit; the fruit of Pentecost which He still gives. With that, I offer up a question that the early church would always ask those they encountered who had come to faith in Christ; "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you first believed?" We can debate what it means to be Spirit filled, but what can't be debated is that we are to be filled with His Spirit, and exhibit lives that show the world that we are. Lives of power, victory, and miracles. Are we and our churches exhibiting such power? In our hearts we know the answer. In our hearts we know whether we have, or have not, obeyed His command to be filled with His Spirit. What do our hearts say of this right now?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Leaving Moab

 "And again they wept together, and Orpah kissed her mother-in-law goodbye. But Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi." Ruth 1:14

Naomi was the wife of Elimelech, a Jew who had left Bethlehem in Judah to live in Moab, a foreign land, during a time of famine. While there, he and Naomi found wives for their sons, Mahlon and Kilion. In time, first Elimelech, and then his two sons died, leaving all three women widows. Naomi set her heart to return to her homeland and people, and her daughters-in-law decided to return with her. Yet Naomi knew that an unknown and likely difficult future awaited them. She encouraged them to stay behind and find new husbands in Moab. Orpah, in spite of her love of Naomi, felt that staying in what she knew made sense. Ruth, however, was determined to remain with Naomi, joining her in the journey, regardless of what the future held. In this scenario is a lesson for all of us.

There are many heartbreaking aspects to ministry, and one of the most painful is observing lives that never seem to be able to leave their wounds, addictions, attitudes, and prisons of besetting sins and behavior behind. It seems that they prefer a known condition and life, dark as it may be, to an unknown future, regardless of the promise it might hold. As one person put it, Orpah was not willing to leave Moab behind. Ruth was, and her reward was to find new life in Bethlehem, where it was her destiny to be.

Elimelech and his family were never to have left Judah, but allowed what they thought was a need to outweigh His will for them. After suffering such loss, Naomi knew her only hope would be to return to her land, her family, and her God. She knew the way would contain hardship, as did her daughters-in-law. One shrank from the challenge, and one stepped into it. In Bethlehem lay the fulfillment of God's will for not only Naomi, but Ruth as well. In Bethlehem lay the promise of life, Naomi and Ruth would enter in, Orpah, who never left Moab, never did. Ruth eventually became the husband of Boaz, a prosperous relative of Naomi's. Naomi, who lost her sons, received many grandsons, and with them, saw her mourning turned to joy, her ashes to beauty. We never hear of Orpah again, because she remained in Moab.

How many of us never enter into the fullness of His promises for us because we won't leave our own "Moab's?" Because we won't leave our Moab's behind? We may say we want the freedom, healing, joy that He promises, but we don't want to risk the journey we need to undertake, the journey to our "Bethlehem" that He calls us to. So we stay trapped in our Moab. Trapped in our addiction, our anger, our bitterness, woundedness, our defeat. We may hate our Moab, but we hate the thought, the risk, of what will be ours if we undertake the road to Bethlehem. Bethlehem represents home. Home in Him. We may long for that, but Moab's hold is strong. We can't let go of it. Our desire to remain in Moab is stronger than our desire to live in Bethlehem. So, we never know the reality of His promise.

What is your Moab today? Before you lies His promise and the road He calls you to in order to enter into it. It's an unknown road for sure, but as Corrie Ten Boom said, never fear to trust an unknown future to a known God. If you do, then it is because you don't really know Him enough that you might trust Him, and leave Moab. The road home, in Him, to Him, lies before you. To walk it means you must leave Moab. To have the chains of Moab broken means you have to take that first step home. Will you take that step, or like Orpah, turn back to Moab? How do you answer?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Reminders

 "That is what the Scriptures mean when they say, 'How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.' " Romans 10:15 "Whenever an unbeliever meets a Christian, the unbeliever ought to be face to face with everything he needs to know in order to follow Christ." Henry Blackaby

I don't remember whether it came from His speaking to me or through another, but I have written in my prayer journal, "We're to be 'reminders' and 'refreshers' as to who He is." Such a lofty ideal. How many, or how few of us, ever really are? When an unbeliever encounters us, especially outside of the walls of our church, when our guard is down, what and who is it that they meet? Someone who looks like Jesus? Someone whose home is obviously not in this world, but in His? Do our lives and ways refresh with the atmosphere of heaven, or do we just give off the recycled stale air of this world?

In the political realm, an ambassador is to be the embodiment of the nation he represents. When he speaks, he speaks for his country. Everything that his country is, is to be found in him. He speaks its values, and he's to be a vessel of its worldview. The apostle Paul said that he, and we, are to be ambassadors for Christ and His Kingdom. We are to represent and be vessels of all that He is, of His life, His love, and His power. When they see us, they should be seeing Him. No, we do not possess His perfect nature, and we are flawed, but we do possess His nature to the fullest degree possible on this side of eternity. Political ambassadors are not citizens of the country to which they've been sent. In fact, the ground upon which their residence stands is considered part of their country, and not that on which it is found. It's no different for the believer. We are not citizens of this foreign country in which we dwell, and the ground we walk upon is His ground, holy ground. We're citizens of His Kingdom, and as its citizens, we show forth the values and life of that Kingdom. Wherever we are and go.

We live in a culture that once was at least aware of Christ and His Kingdom. There was a basic knowledge of His personality and realm. That's no longer the case. That knowledge and awareness is fading by the day. The need for a generation of representatives of a Kingdom this world doesn't know but desperately needs is greater than ever. In every heart, no matter how far from Christ, there is an awareness that there must be something more than this. There must be someone who offers more than this. We, His followers, are to be those who remind them, refresh them as to who that Someone is; Jesus Christ.

The question for each of us is; what kind of ambassador of His Kingdom are we? Ones whose witness and life put forth a picture of Him who we represent? Or, ones who bring dishonor and reproach to His name? Do we remind a dying world that there is a Kingdom whose citizens never die? Do we bring refreshing to a culture that is suffocating in its own sin?

In former times, an ambassador was often sent to another land bearing a proclamation from his king or government. A letter, so to speak. We are Christ's "letters" from His heart to a world passing away. Wherever we go or are, we are to be read, will be read, by those He's "written to" through us. What do they read? They will read a message. Does the message put to Him, or away from Him?

Some, usually those more at home in the world than the Kingdom, like to say of those who live deeply in Him, that "they're so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good." I believe such a state is impossible for those who have given themselves completely to Him. When that's the case, we then, as one put it, "are so heavenly minded as to be of much earthly good." Let us be such people. Reminders and Refreshers of the Kingdom and it's King. Letters from His heart, read by all we encounter.

Blessings,

Pastor O

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Captured

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

Recently, I heard evangelist James Robison say of Pastor Tony Evans, that he'd been "captured by the Kingdom." I began to think about what that looks like and means. What would it look like in me, in you, in His church, if our hearts and lives really were captured by the Kingdom? Would they resemble what they look like right now?

I think the church's worldview has been greatly affected by the values and views of the culture that surrounds it. That culture has had more effect upon the church than the church upon it. We look at the world with the eyes of the world, and not the eyes of the Kingdom. We reason about what we see with the mind of the world and not the mind of the Kingdom. We seek to relate to the world with the heart of the world and not the heart of the Kingdom. In many ways, we have become just another organization of the world trying to operate in that world. Jesus, when He stood before Pilate, said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." Pilate represented the values and viewpoint of the world system. Jesus rejected that system and saw everything in light of the Kingdom of heaven. Do we? Do you, and do I? At root, how affected and infected have we been by the decaying culture around us? A culture Jesus said was passing, is passing away? The church, you, me, all of us, need, like Evans, to be captured by the Kingdom. His Kingdom. We need to renounce the one that in so many ways has captured our hearts in its place.

Recently I read of an upcoming preaching conference to be led by one of the ministers in my denomination. In his profile, it gave an address for a blog he published his writings on. I only read a handful of them, and I don't mean to pass judgement upon him, but of the 4 or 5 I did look at, all of them dealt with social issues of the day, and one of them was even on his views and appreciation of folk singer Bob Dylan. I don't condemn him on this, and certainly the church needs to have a voice concerning the issues of the day, but the social issues are not where our voice is to be most loudly heard. It's in the spiritual realm that we must speak with the most force. We need to boldly and forcefully proclaim the message, the full message of the Kingdom. Heaven, hell, eternity, holiness, purity. His message of love, forgiveness, healing, and the consequences of rejecting that message. We need to proclaim the Three in One God; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Without compromise, without fear, and without hesitation. We can only do so if our hearts and lives have been captured by His Kingdom.

For three years Jesus ministered to His disciples and His listeners, who were never really able to see what He spoke of from the perspective of the Kingdom. Their flesh always got in the way. They did not see and understand things in light of the throneroom of heaven, but from the view of the footstool of the earth. It took Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to change that. It will take another such move of His Spirit to do the same in us. That begins with the simple prayer of Matthew 6:10, "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done." If we will pray this with a hunger for it to be answered, a hunger that nothing but the fullness of His Kingdom will satisfy, I believe we will experience that fullness. The need is desperate. How desperate are we for that need to be met?

May the pulpits of our nation and world, and those who fill them, be captured by His Kingdom. May our churches, mine and yours, be captured by His Kingdom. May my heart, and yours, be captured by His Kingdom. There are two kingdoms to be found in this world, the Kingdom of heaven, and the kingdom of the world system. One of them will capture us, take hold of us, and direct our way. Which one has taken hold of you...and of me?

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Table

 "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows." Psalm 23:5

I recently heard Pastor/Author Louie Giglio talk about his book, "Don't Give The Enemy A Seat At Your Table." He was referring to the 23rd Psalm and it's promise in the above Scripture. The enemy is the devil himself, and not the various flesh and blood people he works through. As I heard him speak, I was impressed anew about how many times I have not only given the enemy a place at my table, I have willingly invited him to do so. I'll wager that you have as well.

Satan, the enemy of our souls, has a naked hatred for the children of God. He is totally committed to destroying every purpose of the Father for our lives. However, though there are times he displays his hatred in openly blatant ways, it isn't his usual approach. He's far too subtle for that. Most often, he approaches us through our thoughts. Through those darts of fire he constantly aims at our minds. He does so through the offenses we have suffered. He does so through our own doubts, especially our doubts about our worth, or our ability. He makes "suggestions," and through them, kindles our anger over the offense, or intensifies our doubt about ourselves, and ultimately, about the goodness of our God. When we allow these darts, these thoughts to lodge in our mind, we have given him a stronghold out of which he'll operate. We end up justifying feelings and attitudes that we know are sinful, but he's convinced us are not that at all. Or, he's convinced us that the place we find ourselves in will be the place of our doom, that we'll not make it through. That this will be the place where we suffer defeat, once and for all. This will be the mountain that stops us, the place where the giant slays us. He operates from the seat that we've given him. A seat he has no right to, but a seat he's convinced us is his.

Perhaps the great tragedy here is that also seated at that table is Jesus Christ, but it is not His voice we're hearing, but the enemy's. The Psalm says that He's prepared a table for us in the presence of our enemy. It is our table, and His. It is a table filled with His abundance. An abundance of His Word, His Presence, His Promises. All of these overflow to us. All the enemy is meant to do is look on...in helplessness, as we partake of His riches and abundance. Unless he has somehow managed to get us to invite him to sit down....and begin his conversation with us. A conversation that will always lead to our harm.

I said that I've given him a place at my table, and I have. I've allowed his darts to lodge in my mind. Anger over anothers words or actions towards me. Doubts about my ability to persevere, to get to where He is leading me. Doubts about the goodness, the reliability, the power of the God I serve and follow. Despite the abundance of the "food" He has placed before me, I partake of the garbage the enemy has deceived me into consuming. Yet this is not where I must remain. At His table, He provides a way out.

What I need to do, and you as well, is examine where all these thoughts and suggestions are coming from. Do they agree with what He's spoken in His Word? Do they match what we have learned about His character? Do they align with what He has told us about how He views us? Do they lead us closer to Him, or further from Him? When we do this, we are doing what His Word tells us, taking our thoughts captive to Him. When we realize how far from him these darts, these suggestions and thoughts are, we can surrender them to Him and replace the lies that they are with His Truth. When we do this, we evict the devil from the seat he has no right to. Isn't it time for all of us to do just that? To evict the devil from his seat at our table?

May we live in the reality of all of the 23rd Psalm. May we never cease to partake of the bounty of His table, our table, and do so in the very presence of our enemy. The only seats at this table are ours and our Lord's. He's prepared the table before us. Will we now partake of it's bounty.....and starve the devil as we do so?

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Limp

 "Jacob named the place Peniel, 'face of God,' for he said, 'I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.' The sun rose as he left Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip." Genesis 32:30-31....."Never trust a leader who doesn't walk with a limp." Rabbi Jason Sobel

Jacob, the son of Isaac, and grandson of Abraham, was a twin to his brother Esau, and the second of the pair to be born. Yet it was Jacob, and not first born Esau that God chose to be the inheritor of the promises made to Abraham and Isaac. Despite this, Jacob was an oftentimes devious man. Some bible scholars nicknamed him "The Trickster," because he often used trickery as a means of securing what he wanted, even the fulfillment of God's promises. Rather than trusting and depending on the God of those promises, he schemed and manipulated in order to get to the place God had already promised to put him. At Peniel, after a lifetime of such behavior, he met and wrestled with God, in the form of a man, the pre-incarnate Christ, face to face. In the struggle, God touched and dislocated Jacob's hip. He would forever walk with a limp, and the Father meant that it would be a reminder to him of his need for and dependence upon God, and not upon his own devices. At Peniel, Jacob the Trickster died. At Peiel, he not only became a man others could trust, he became a man God Himself could trust.

When one looks at the full picture here, we can understand what Rabbi Sobel meant in his declaration about leaders and limps. It is the one who in his walk with the Lord, has persevered through severe trials, wilderness experiences, and wrestling through great matters of faith that can be trusted. Such a person has been shaped by the Lord to be dependent upon Him alone. The limp signified that about Jacob. He was no longer his own man. He was God's man. And he would live out God's will for him, and concerning all those to whom he was entrusted with. God trusted him, and so, those who followed him could trust him as well.

All the truly great men and women of the Bible were those who walked, spiritually, with a limp. Moses, David, Esther, Isaiah, Paul, Peter, and countless more that we'll never know of this side of eternity, walked with such a limp. They were those who through suffering, pain, and every type of "wilderness," had been shaped by Him to be those who could fit in His hand as His instruments. In a sense, His only Son, Jesus Christ the Messiah, walked with that same limp, for He said, "I do nothing except that which I see My Father doing." That is the attitude, the "limp," that all leaders and disciples must walk in. Without it, we are sure to, at some point, conduct ourselves as did Jacob before Peniel; as Tricksters. Scheming, manipulating, working the angles to get to the place we want to be. Trusting ourselves far more than we will ever trust Him. And for that reason, we can never be trusted. Not by Him, and not by His people.

Who do your spiritual leaders most resemble? Who do you most resemble? Jacob before Peniel, or after? Do they, do you, walk in your own strength, or with a limp that makes you dependent upon Him? Do you reject that limp, or embrace it?

For most of us, the idea of walking with a limp is an unwelcome condition. Our pride rejects it. We don't want to be "crippled" in any way. A limp seems like weakness to us. Not so to Him. I've a friend who likes to say that we need to declare "total disability" as it relates to our walk with Him. Doing so will prove His promise that when we are weak in ourselves, we begin to discover our strength in Him. Have you and I really discovered that truth. Are we willing to declare total disability that we may have all ability in Christ? Do we dare to walk with a limp? If not, we, like Jacob, the Trickster, need our own Peniel.

Blessings,

Pastor O