Shakings

 After this prayer, the meeting place shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Then they preached the word of God with boldness.  Acts 4:31......"The church from the Upper Room invaded the world. Now the church from the supper room is invaded by the world......Before God shakes the earth, may He shake the pulpits." Leonard Ravenhill....."The world will never believe in a religion in which there is no power." Samuel Chadwick

We tend to think of a church that is moving in power as one that is showing great and miraculous works, where wondrous things are happening and to which people flock to be a part of or at least witness. That can certainly be an element of it, but I think His power being displayed is often more subtly displayed but just as mighty in effect. It begins with the church on its knees, crying out to God. Someone said that the church has many men and women who pray, but few men and women of prayer. And the one who fills the pulpit must not only be among them, but a leader in prayer among them. Ravenhill said that the preacher who touches God in prayer touches the hearts of the people who hear the prayer. May He raise up a generation of preachers who do just that.

There is much crying out for an awakening, a revival, and I count myself among them. Yet what exactly would be the fruits of such a move of God? Miracles? Large crowds? Excitement? Such may accompany a move of His Spirit, but they would not be the center of it. It would be the witness of lives transformed from the inside out. It would be the production of lives that understand that the "greater things" Jesus promised we would do were not what would bring applause and notoriety, but simply meant living a life that mattered and spoke a powerful witness of the message of His transforming grace. It means a church and people where His love is freely demonstrated and given. Someone said that it was not the miracles that took place for which the early church was known, but the great love they displayed toward each other and to a surrounding world that was often hostile to them. It meant a church and people that freely gave of themselves, who freely forgive one another, and who made no distinction concerning social or economical position. These are all marks of a church that moves in power. These are the marks of a church that has not only been shaken by the Holy Spirit, but one that in the Holy Spirit, shakes the world around it. 

What would happen in your church, my church, if when we next come together, God shook us as He did so regularly in the early church? Do we even expect that? Do we even want it? How disruptive would that be? How much of our agenda would not be accomplished? How inconvenient would it be to our after church plans? It is all those things and more that keep such a move of God from taking place. Meanwhile we go on praying for an outpouring of His Spirit, but an outpouring that we control. A move that changes what we wish to be changed around us, but doesn't touch or change anything within us. God forgive us. May it be that He lays hold of us as He never has before, and then lays about us in His Spirit as He never has before. May we cease just being people who pray and become a praying people. May He awaken us from the inside out. A lot of shaking must happen before that can take place. Let the shaking begin. In you, and in me.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Perishing

 That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day.  2 Timothy 1:12....."It's not important that we understand every detail of our lives but that by faith we yield control of every detail to the Spirit." Patrick Morley

I wrote in my prayer journal this morning, "May we bring all of our unknown unto the One who is known." We can only do this if we actually know Him. Just as we can only live out the truth of 2 Timothy 1:12 if we know Him. It is a great tragedy and blemish upon our witness that so many of us who inhabit seats in multiple worship services each week, don't really know our God. We don't because we don't know His Son, which in turn means we don't have any real knowledge of His Spirit. Vance Havner once said that today's churches are filled with believers who have never been made disciples. We are believers who do not know the One we say we believe in.

There are positive signs of change though. Just in my small circle of influence I have had people say to me, "I have no real prayer life and spend little if any time in the Word.....but I want that to change." Most don't know how that can change. It's easy for us to say "just dig into His Word and set up definite times of prayer." That's what I did, but if it was all that I had done, I doubt I would have gotten far into my knowledge and relationship with Him. I was fortunate to have been surrounded with people who spoke into my life and helped nurture me in my walk. It started with a pastor who took an interest in a young man fresh out of the world and with the "aroma" of the world still upon him. It continued with professors and pastors that He brought into my life during my years of study for the ministry. The reality is that my walk has always been centered on prayer and time in His Word, but equally upon the mentors and influencers that He brought into my life. They were willing to teach, and I was willing to learn. They showed me a Jesus I wanted to know more, as well as a  Jesus who deeply wanted to be known. 

I think the problem in the church today is two-fold; the hunger of the average believer for Him is not deep. At the same time, the desire of the church, particularly those charged with seeing to the spiritual welfare of their people, is also not deep. I think the greater lack lies with church leadership. John Eldredge said, "I want to know Jesus. The real Jesus." I don't think we're presenting "the real Jesus" in much of the Body these days. We either present a Christ who is nothing but warmhearted, totally accepting love, and who requires very little of us. Or, a Jesus who is harsh, demanding, and doles out His forgiveness and mercy very slowly. Neither is real. A.W. Tozer said, "The God worshipped in many places in America today is simply a God of the imagination....not the God of the Bible." In the modern church, we are interested in drawing crowds, but not so much in presenting the "real" Jesus and the real God. In "doing discipleship." If we do, we risk some leaving our churches, because the real Jesus does make demands, does call us to a cross life, and a life of sacrifice and denial. We prefer a Jesus that allows us to seek His blessings but not His presence. A Jesus who is useful, but not a Jesus who demands total surrender.

As I said, I'm seeing signs of this changing. I'm seeing churches making real discipleship a priority. The need to do this is beyond desperate. In the OT, Scripture says that the Israelites were "perishing for lack of knowledge." I believe it is even more so today. May we see Him raise up a generation who can proclaim with Paul, "I know who I have believed." It must begin with His raising up a generation of disciple makers. Will you be one of them?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Pearls

"For our momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,"  2 Corinthians 4:17

In our humanity, we can see little good in suffering. That's why we go to such great lengths to avoid it. That's understandable, but the Father would have us learn and grow through that which we suffer. He does not put it upon us, but He will lead us into it. If we will trust Him, press on with Him, He will bring forth what He promises in the above Scripture, " a weight of glory far beyond all comparison." His Word says He will bring us forth as gold, or for the purposes of this writing, pearls. Pearls of great price.

A pear is formed in an oyster when a grain of sand embeds itself in the soft flesh of the oyster. This bring about an acute irritation to that flesh. In response, it begins to wrap that granule in a combination of salvia and calcium. Eventually, in a process that can take as much as three years, a pearl is produced. That which began as pain produces a pearl of great and lasting beauty. He will do the same in us with even our deepest sufferings and sorrow. There is a classic work titled, "Don't Waste Your Sorrows," which I read in a time of great sorrow and suffering in my life. I determined I would not waste mine. I can only hope that pearls have been produced in my life. He, and others will have to determine that.

Sheila Walsh tells the story of a little girl with a severe reading disability. One of the ways her mother sought to encourage was to tell her how pearls were formed, and that God was working through her hardship and pain to produce them in her life. Later on, the mother went past her daughter's room as she tried to come to grips with a reading assignment. She could hear her daughter's expressions of frustration, and with a mother's heart, sought to comfort her. She was taken back by the young girl's reply; "It's OK mom. I'm making pearls." The little girl, even at her age, was grasping the truth of 2 Corinthians 4:17. God was bringing her forth as gold, and for His glory and her good. In our suffering, He enters into it with us, but in it, He seeks to bring us forth as His pearls. Pearls that display His glory to an onlooking church and world. Yet the pearls will not come forth unless we yield ourselves to His process. The life that seeks to give Him glory will also give Him, and a world in desperate need of them, pearls. Pearls that give Him glory and hope to the hopeless and despairing who are walking through their own sufferings and sorrows. 

None of us will ever look for suffering, and He doesn't expect that we should, but we will suffer. Jesus said that we would, that suffering would be a part of life. It was a central feature of His life. He called Himself "the Man of Sorrows." His ultimate suffering was upon the cross, but it was also His ultimate means of glorifying His Father through His death and resurrection. His sacrifice brought forth the ultimate pearl of great price. It still does to this day. Will ours?

Our own trials, hardships, and tears will either bring forth bitterness, anger, and other destructive effects to our spiritual and emotional lives, or......they will bring forth pearls. As the mother was with her daughter in her own pain, so is He with us. As we walk even through the valley of the shadow of death, can we trust Him, believe Him, press on in and with Him, knowing that as we do, we proclaim His glory and......we produce His pearls. Will we be His pearls? What have your hard places produced in you? What are they producing now?

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Location

 "Then the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:9...."It's 'location, location, location.' Where am I in relation to Him right now?"  Ann Voskamp

Adam and Eve had sinned, disobeying God, partaking of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. With their disobedience, sin entered the human race and all of creation. They instantly knew they had sinned and their first impulse, as it always is in relation to sin and a holy God, was to hide. God, who knew exactly what had happened and exactly where they were, came looking for Him. He didn't need to know where they were. He needed them to know where they were. Where were they in relation to Him right now? It's a fitting question for each of us.

We are born separated and disoriented to Him. We were created for fellowship and intimacy with Him. The presence of sin in our lives has broken that connection, and nothing we can do of our own efforts can restore it, though so many have tried mightily to do so. All other faith systems provide some path of works and self effort to connect with Him. You must work your way to Him. All those efforts are futile. Only the Christian faith shows forth a God who does not seek to have you come to Him, but who has come to us in His Son, Jesus Christ, and all that exercise true and believing faith in Him, have the barrier of sin broken. We are forgiven, cleansed, freed, and restored. If this has not happened with you, please, my friend, it must, for as Jesus said, "No one comes unto the Father except through Me." 

Yet even those who have entered into this saving, restorative relationship with Him can become disoriented to Him. Open sin and disobedience will certainly cause that, but I think the more common and subtle way it happens is by simply becoming more preoccupied with that which is not Him, than He Himself. We can seek the good things of life over the best that is Him. We can become overly busy or stressed. We can pursue our dreams more than we pursue His dreams for us. We can become captive to destructive attitudes and behaviors that quench His Spirit and diminish His presence. I think more than any of these, we just become lazy in our relationship with Him and slowly have a gulf develop between us. We are not so much hiding as drifting. A drifting that will eventually lead to destruction if not corrected. We lose sight of where we are in regards to where we once were. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus warned the church in Ephesus of how far they had drifted from Him and how their love had grown cold. They were doing all the right things but their hearts were not alive in His. He told them to go back and do again the first works of love and devotion. Might it be that many of us need to do the same? Where is our location to Him right now?

Realtors say that location is everything. How much more is that true in the spiritual realm? Jesus knows right now where you really are. Do you? If you are trapped in the darkness of not knowing Him, you can, as I saw someone say, simply cry out, "Jesus, come get me!" He will come, and you will have the choice of receiving Him or rejecting Him, but He will come. If you are one who simply has drifted from Him, perhaps far from Him, you can cry out with those same words. He will come, and He re-orient you to Himself. Anyone who has been spun about for any real length of time knows the resulting imbalance and disorientation we feel. Life has a way of spinning us about and doing that same thing to us spiritually. The difference is, physically, we can just be still and all around us stops spinning. Not so in the spiritual realm, because it is we who are spinning. Only the Lord can make things balanced again. Do you need that today? All you need do is call out, "Jesus, come get me!"

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Broken

 For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  Luke 19:10....."Don't fear broken things and places, for its where He'll do a new thing." Ann Voskamp

Luke 19:10 has long been a precious verse to me. Precious because of how real and true it has been in my life, and in the lives of so many others. Precious because of how He has worked its truth and power into my life. It has always seemed to me that no one was more lost, broken, cut off, than me, and yet He came. He laid hold of me. Made me whole and made me new. 

It is also precious to me because it not only was what He did in me personally, but what He did as concerns me. He saved and restored so much that I believed had been lost to me forever. Lost hope and lost dreams. Lost relationships and lost ministries. Lost future and lost identity. All had at one or another seemed lost beyond recovery, and yet they were not. There's a chorus from the 90's that goes, "He went into the enemy's camp and took back what he stole from me." There is great biblical truth in that, and it is exactly what He did for me, and countless others. I pray that truth has been experienced by you, and if not, that it will be. No one seeks, finds, and saves that and those that have been lost but Jesus. Believe upon Him to do so.

Voskamp's quote connected to Luke 19 is also powerful. Powerful because it is so true. We fear the broken places and things of this life. The devil convinces us that the broken place will be our permanent place. God wants us to know and experience that He is the God of new things, and He does these new things through His Son Jesus. Jesus said in His Word, "I make all things new." All things, even the most broken things. I can't explain how He does so, but He does so. He turns the dead end into a doorway. A doorway into a new place filled with new opportunities. He takes our shattered dreams and hopes and gives us new ones, better ones. 

There is an old saying that when one door closes, God will open another. He will, but sometimes we may spend some real time waiting for it to open. As someone said, "It can be hell in the hallway." It's there we must hold on, trust, and believe that the hallway will not be our lifeway. Voskamp says that "faith gives thanks in the middle of hard stories." It can do so because it knows that the hard story is not the end of our story. He won't leave us in the hallway. 

Whatever you feel has been lost forever, trust Him, in ways only He can, to seek, save, and redeem it. He knows where you are, and He knows what has happened. He made no promise that He will not keep. Hold to it, and experience His making all things new in you, and even around you. He is faithful.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Nuggets

 I wanted to share a few nuggets of truth from my prayer journal today. I hope they speak to you.

"The level at which we're willing to be honest with God is the level at which we'll trust Him." Sheila Walsh I have so often preached and taught the Scripture, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding, and He will direct your path." Yet, so many never seem to be able to live it out. I think the central reason is our inability to live out what Walsh says in the above quote. We're not really honest with Him. Not really willing to come clean with Him. As a result, we never really are honest with ourselves either. Nor do we come clean with ourselves. Because of this, our trust levels in Him are low. We never achieve more than a shallow faith. We may pray, but so much of our prayer is just repetition. We say the same things in different ways. We talk around things with Him. We rarely if ever talk directly to Him. We never enter into His depths, and we never truly know what it is to trust Him. We give lip service to it, but nothing more. For all of us, isn't it time, past time, to truly be honest and open with Him? Isn't it time to launch out into the deep things of what it is to trust Him and know Him? He calls us to launch out into the deep. How much longer will we ignore His call?

"We were never meant to build an identity. We were meant to receive it." Michelle Cushatt....Starting in the 60's, and growing ever stronger was a movement for people to "find themselves." It seems they didn't know who they were so they embarked on a journey to discover who they really were. As a result, husbands and wives often left their families on this journey of self-discovery. People quit jobs, left professions, even abandoned the church, all with the hope of discovering who they really were and what their identity really was. All the while the answer was before them in Jesus Christ. His Word is filled with the Father's and the Son's words addressing who we really are and who we were created to be. Scripture says that He knew us even before we were in our mother's womb, before even the creation of the world. Our true identity will never be found in a journey that centers upon self. It will be found in a heart that seeks Him. As we discover who He is, we will discover who we are. Paul wrote a great deal on what our inheritance in Christ is, of the depth of the riches to be found in Him. St. Augustine said that our hearts will never be at rest until they find their rest in Him. The identity seekers who seek their identity apart from Him will never find anything but emptiness if they have never discovered Him. We may fill our lives up with an abundance of counterfeits, but all they do is leave us hungering for more. C.S. Lewis said in effect, if we find in ourselves a hunger which nothing in this world can satisfy, then perhaps we must realize that we were made for another world; His. As you read this, do you know who you are....really? We will never make a true identity for ourselves, but in Christ, we can receive it. May we each receive its fullness now.

"Success is doing what we're called to do and having peace there." Anthony Evans I can't think of any Scriptures that specifically promise us success. At least, not success as we define it. Jesus never promised us position, possessions, or power, at least not the world's kind of power. The book of Hebrews, in speaking of the heroes of faith, only mentions a handful of names, and then points to the multitudes who also displayed heroic faith, but are never named. They're unknown. Anonymous. The world has forgotten them, indeed if they ever knew them. Their names are lost to the church, and lost to us. I can remember when I first came into the faith some of those who were highly visible in the Body of Christ, but who now, forty plus years later, have passed on, and for the most part, are forgotten. We are destined for a life of futility if we measure success by the world's standards. One day, we will stand before Him, and as Alicia Britt Chole has written, He will not ask us if we were appropriately recognized and sufficiently applauded. He will ask if we loved people to Him. If we lived for what He died for. If people around us saw Him, and not us. If we are hungry for this kind of lifestyle, He will grant it. He will be blessed and pleased by our desire for it. We will be doing what He has called us to, and we will have peace there, and that will be enough. That will be a success.

Just a few nuggets. Receive them as He would have it for you.

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Mystery

 "I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings." I Corinthians 9:23......"In the mission of God, you can never sacrifice more than you'll receive.....Remember that when it's time to give, pray, or go. The mystery of the mission is waiting to be discovered."  Chris Tiegreen

Jesus said that in this world we would encounter suffering. We live in a fallen world where death reigns, albeit temporarily. We will not be exempt from its effects. This will be especially true for those who have given their life to Him, though many think that they are. Suffering has no place in their belief system, which is strange as it certainly had a place in Christ's. And He uses it for His glory and our good.

If you have set your heart to follow wherever He leads, you can be certain that He will lead you into the "valley of the shadow of death." There will be pain there. Sometimes deep pain. We must remember though that it is only the shadow death. He is the Lord of Life and He will not permit what is in that valley to destroy us or cause us permanent harm. Moreover, if we will trust Him in that valley, He will take us ever deeper into the mystery of who He is, and who we are in Him.

The Father has always said of Himself that He is covered in mystery, but it is a mystery He means for us to unravel and discover ever more about. A great part of eternity will be about going deeper and deeper into His mystery, but the discovery begins now, and part of the mystery is that He chooses to show Himself most clearly to us in the place of darkness. Likely that's because in the dark, we can see little of anything, which makes for a perfect opportunity to see Him. If the eyes of our heart are searching for Him, then He will use the darkness to blind us to all that has distracted us, kept us from seeing Him, so that our heart eyes may now see the One that all the world's darkness cannot keep us from seeing, if our hearts truly desire to.

The people who have most impacted my life for Him are those who have suffered the most for Him. The riches of what they discovered of Him in the darkness and pain were treasures for them to share. Treasures that they could not have known in any other way. Someone once asked if we were leaving "footsteps worth following." I have found that the footsteps that have been the most precious to me have been those left by those that have traveled through the valley of the shadow of death. Friends and mentors who followed Him onto mission fields where their faithfulness cost the loss of a child or a mate. Others who, in walking the path of pastoral ministry, suffered hardships that tested the very foundation of their faith, but who emerged stronger and more in love with Him than ever. This is the great mystery. Our enemy, the devil, would have us renounce Him due to the pain, but it was the pain that drove us into His arms, His life, and His love. It was there that His mystery was, and is revealed.

To follow Him is to be a life mission, but the mission is not to accomplish something or reach a goal or achieve a result. That may be a part of it all, but the crux of the mission is to know Him in the deepest levels of intimacy. To unravel the mystery of a Father God who longs for His children to know Him. This will be costly. It won't happen along sunshiney paths. It happens in what one called "the shadowlands, where light and darkness clash." Scripture tells us that He often comes near to us "covered in darkness," and in Exodus, it's written that Moses "entered into the darkness, where God was." Darkness isn't darkness to Him, and if we will cling to Him, we will discover and know what He longs for us to know, but few of us ever do.

The great writer and believer Francis Shaeffer said, "Modern Christians are so committed to personal peace and affluence that they never get to really know God." They never even begin to discover the depths of holy mystery He means to reveal to us. The pathway is frightening to our eyes of flesh, but not so to the spiritual eyes of our heart. May we not fear the mystery that is our God, for in that mystery is a love and a life beyond all that we ever believed possible. Let us enter in, no matter how daunting the way appears.

Blessings,
Pastor O