Presumption

 "Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.  James 4:13-16....."But he (Samson) did not know that the Lord had departed from him." Judges 16:20

Sin kills. The evidence of this is seen throughout the history of the human race. The fruit of sin will always be death, both spiritual and physical. Even so, both within the church and without, we seem to easily make peace with a great deal of sin. For the church, one on which I want to focus upon today is the "sin of presumption." We may practice it more than any other, and be totally unaware of it, or more correctly, deceived concerning it.

I saw it defined as our presuming that He gives His approval to our actions or practices because we either assume we already have it, or worse, we don't think it needful to even inquire as to whether He does. This is widely seen in the life of the church and in the lives of those who comprise it. The examples are nearly endless, and I fear, all of us have been guilty of it. Perhaps even now.

James 4 gives a clear picture of how so many of us approach our day to day living. We assume that if we want something, and we see that something as "good," then surely, He must see it as so too. This plays out in so many of our choices, whether in relationships, work decisions and practices, where to live, major purposes, even where to go to church. We base our decision, our choice, upon how we feel about it, weighing the pros and cons and then following our feelings and thoughts. All the while, we presume that He is with us in all of it. After all, He wants us to be happy....right? In all of it, we never really sought His heart on it. If we prayed about it, it was mainly that He would bless what we had already decided to do. We have presumed upon God, and God will not be presumed upon. 

The consequences of this can be devastating. Marriages that are entered into apart from Him. Business endeavors, ministry direction, the stewardship of our resources. In all of them we assume His favor and act upon how we feel and what we want. The Bible is full of examples of this Hezekiah the King wanted to display the splendor of his possessions to the Babylonian emissaries, never asking God if he should, and so not realizing that they would take the report back to their king, whose kingdom would eventually conquer and enslave Hezekiah's. Yet none is more shocking than the actions of Samson. He was anointed of the Lord and had his favor, yet he spiraled steadily downward as he followed after all his lustful desires, always believing that the Lord was with him. Eventually, his sin was so severe as to cause His Spirit to withdraw from him, so deeply had he grieved Him. After being seduced and deceived by the Philistine woman Delilah, her countrymen came upon him. He arose to fight them off, as he always had, but found that His great strength was gone. The One who gave him that strength had withdrawn, and the great tragedy for Samson was that he hadn't even realized it. Where might such a tragedy being taking place in our lives, our ministries, and our church fellowships?

Presuming upon God may be the easiest and most deadly sin for us to fall into because we are so talented at assuming things about Him and about our walk with Him. We come up with our agenda, and then we assume He's with us on every point.....all the way to spiritual shipwreck. We find ourselves like Samson, bereft of our spiritual power and at the mercy of our enemy.

May each of us take the time to bring our lives, plans, goals, and aspirations before the throne of grace, where He, and not us, will pass judgement upon them. If there are areas where we have presumed upon Him and are presuming upon Him now, may we confess it, repent of it, and turn back from it. May we consecrate ourselves to His ways and not our own. May we live by the leading of His Spirit and not the leading of our fleshly desires, and above all, may we learn to discern the difference.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Longings

 Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart" Ecclesiastes 3:11....If you don't keep the eyes of your heart on the paradise that is to come, you will try to turn this poor fallen world into the paradise it will never be. Live in hope for paradise is surely coming and stop asking this world to be the paradise it will never be." Paul

Tripp

Writer and Pastor Paul Tripp made some points concerning Ecc. 3:11 that I'd not thought much upon. He said that every cry of our heart that springs from disappointment, pain, sorrow, and so on, is a cry from our hearts for the eternity, the paradise for which the Father created us. I think that this is so.

We were not created to die, to experience disease, loss, aging, weakness, divorce, hatred, and constant conflict, as well so much else. All of these entered into the human experience with the sin that ushered them all in. Whenever we are faced with some reality, some reminder of the consequences of sin, we are also reminded that this was not what we were created for. We were created for eternity. His eternity. For His Paradise. A Paradise Lost, as Milton wrote.

I am now in my 7th decade of life. I am beyond thankful for all the good He has done for me and all the good things He has given. There has been much beauty in my life, but there has been so much pain and sorrow as well. I think it has been so for you as well. When the pain and suffering come upon us, within each of us in some sense that this is not what should be. That's why we constantly ask the question, whether directly to God or not, "Why?" Why pain, why suffering, why loss, why death? Planted within us by our Creator is the sense of eternity, paradise. We long for it, and we spend our lives seeking it out in this life......and it always evades us. It evades us because as Tripp says, we can never lay hold of it in this fallen realm. Even so, we keep looking. We seek it in relationships, marriage, children, jobs, possessions, success, and whatever we say means personal fulfillment to us. Yet, no matter how much of any of these we attain, there remains a hollow emptiness in our souls. None of them can fulfill us because we were designed so that none of them could. But we keep trying. If one marriage doesn't do it, the next one surely will. If a beautiful, large home doesn't, then we seek an even bigger, more beautiful one. If the seemingly perfect relationship turns out to be not so perfect, then we seek the perfect one that is surely still out there. And the longing remains, and it just gets stronger.

There is only one way to secure "paradise," and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve were created to live in perfect harmony with their Creator God forever. They were to be fruitful and multiply, but through their sin and disobedience, sin tainted the human race, and brought the fall not only of the race, but of the universe around them. We have been seeking to regain it ever since and getting further from it all the time. Christ is the open door to regaining what was lost. He said that He was, "The Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but through Me." To the Father and to the realized longing for that paradise lost.

C.S. Lewis said that if we find within ourselves a longing for what this world can never give, then perhaps we need to realize we were made for another world. You have those longings. You know you do. You've learned that this life cannot fulfill them, though you keep trying and searching that it would. Could you dare to believe that what Christ has said and promised is true? Could you trust Him to fulfill what was lost and you still long for? It's why He came. It's why He came for you. Let Him fulfill the longing, beginning now and stretching into and throughout.....eternity.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Lean

 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:8....'But when He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. for He will not speak of His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come."

John 16:13

I was listening to a song by worship leader Darlene Zschech recently, and I was moved by something she said as she exhorted those she was ministering to into deeper worship. She called them to "lean into the Spirit." That really spoke to me. She was affirming that the Holy Spirit was very present in the worship, as He always is in true worship, and that He was moving among them, as He always will in true worship. She didn't want anyone to miss Him as He moved. Thus the exhortation to "lean into Him," as He did so. The Spirit is always moving, but we are so often missing Him as He does. Mostly because we are unprepared, distracted, or just outright ignorant that He is. To lean into Him is to stretch ourselves to receive all that He is pouring out at that moment. I sense, along with so many others, that the Spirit of God is moving upon the church in these present days. Moving mightily. Upon His church and through it into the surrounding cultures. I don't want to miss the moving. Not any of it. I don't want any of us to, especially you as you read this. Let us each and all "lean into the Spirit."

How prepared, how ready are we, are you, for His Spirit to move upon you. To fall upon you? At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon 120 people who comprised the church at that time. They were "all together in one place," seeking and waiting upon this move that Jesus, before He ascended into heaven had promised them would come. When He did, they were empowered by His Spirit in ways they never knew were possible. 120 people who had feared to be identified as His followers went out proclaiming Him in power. Thousands came to Christ that day, but many thousands more did not. The Spirit was moving in great power, but they missed it. For whatever reason.....they missed it. Perhaps at some future time they didn't, but we're not promised a future opportunity to encounter Him. When He moves, we have to be ready, in position to move with Him.

The 120 had been fervently seeking the fulfillment of His promise of His Holy Spirit. They were seeking. They were praying. They were leaning. When He came, they were swept up in His moving. And nothing, not them, not the church, and not the world He had come to save would ever be the same again. And I believe that such an outpouring, one we may have no idea as to the magnitude of, may well be coming upon us once more. May we be found leaning into His Spirit.

The Bible speaks of "not missing the time of His visitation." His visitation meant to become His habitation of His people and His church. May we be found, in our prayer time, our corporate worship, wherever and whenever we gather together, leaning into His Spirit. The picture I have here is of a sprinter, heading for the finishing line. When they get there, they lean toward every part of their mind and body, hoping to break the plane and receive the prize. This is how we must be in our stretching forward into the fullness of His Spirit. All of our being reaching for all of Him we may have. We seek the prize of the fullness of His Spirit. May that be the position we're found in when He comes upon us. As He comes upon us now.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Renovation

 "For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and My blessing on your descendants." Isaiah 44:3

I recently saw an ad for a church leadership conference on Facebook. It was about innovation. About how innovative church leaders could share their innovative ideas with other church leaders. Now, let me say I am not against innovation or innovative ideas in the church, so long as they are innovations that come from the heart of God and are fueled by His Holy Spirit. But my first thought, which I think was actually a thought from Him, was that the church is far more in need of renovation than innovation these days.

We're always looking for new and innovative ways of doing ministry. We go to conferences and seminars to learn them. We do so almost in desperation. We sincerely want to reach unchurched people, especially young people. We want to be effective, and we want to hear how those who have been effective came to be so. We seek with a deep desire for this knowledge. I get it, but I fear we have become so attuned to the voice of men that we've become dulled to the voice of God. 

When I think upon renovation as compared to innovation, I get the picture of an older home in need of a total makeover. A complete renovation. That has to start with the foundation. If you don't attend to that, it doesn't matter what you do to dress up what shows above ground. It's a temporary fix that doesn't address the real problem. A problem that will eventually bring about its fall. In the church, all the innovative ideas and fresh way of doing things will come to nothing if we do not allow Him to attend to the desperately needed renovation of first our foundation in Him, and then His building upon that foundation. Indeed, oftentimes, what is most needed is for a strong wind to come along to blow down the rickety structure we've built so that a new one, constructed by Him, may be raised up. I believe that we, the church, are in desperate need of the strong winds of His Holy Spirit to "blow down" all the rickety structures we have been building, no matter how "innovative," so that He may renovate His church according to the purpose and image He has for us.

Someone said that when God begins a renovation project upon a life or a church, the great difference between that and what one would experience if it were a home, is that you don't get to move out while it is going on. That means His Holy Spirit will "blow down" that which needs to be discarded and then build upon a renovated foundation that will result in a fully renovated life and church. Renovations are not easy and indeed are greatly challenging. They stretch us in every way. Yet here's the wonder of it all. As He renovates, He innovates through His Spirit. Innovation becomes the natural outgrowth of His renovation. We don't have to hold countless meetings and conferences to discuss what we can do, too often in our own strength. His Spirit leads us into new ways we could never have come up with apart from Him.

I have been in ministry for almost 40 years now. I sincerely appreciate all the seminars and conferences I've been a part of, as well as those who led them. But I've grown weary of them. What I long for is the fresh wind, the outpouring of His Holy Spirit. May all the chaff of what I've been doing, what we've been doing, be blown away. May whatever cracks in our foundations be repaired, made right. May He raise up a church, a people, that fully displays His glory. Let the renovation begin.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Teach Them

 18Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. 19Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

I recently watched the wonderful and powerful movie, "The Jesus Revolution." I was deeply affected and since it depicted what was happening in both the nation and the church during the late 1960's and into the 70's, it was very much a time travel kind of experience for me. As I contemplate all that the movie portrayed as to how the Holy Spirit captured the hearts of a great part of what we now call "the baby boomer" generation, I was impressed by His Spirit as to how we must be prepared for what looks to be another great move of God in this nation and the nations, and most especially among what we call "generation Z."

The late 1960's brought upon a mostly unsuspecting older generation, a horde of young people who rejected their values, and even mocked them. They had long hair, funky clothing, experimented freely with many types of drugs, and broke all the sexual mores. They were a generation in a beyond desperate need for Christ. And God, through His Holy Spirit, began to move upon them. They came to a church that wasn't ready for anything like them. In so many cases, the traditional church turned them away. Some, like Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel, and Jack Hayford's Church On The Way, welcomed them. Eventually they transformed the face of the American Church. I eventually became part of that. But the transformation was a messy one. Those coming in were in desperate need of being discipled, taught, just as Jesus commanded in the above Scripture we know as "The Great Commission." Pastor and teachers like Smith and Hayford, and many like them, met these young people where they were. They didn't demand immediate change but taught them the Word, defined sin, holiness, and the authority of Scripture. They obeyed Christ's command and trusted the Holy Spirit to work the transformation. Some of the young people fell away. Most didn't and their voices are among the most potent in the church today. Michael Brown, Greg Laurie, Richie Furay, and so many more, all were swept up by His Spirit in that move and all came from a counter cultural background. Now, we who are the church, are faced with something very similar, yet even more threatening. The beliefs and practices of a generation caught up in a world gone crazy. Our great challenge is how do we meet them? Our parents' generation in so many ways failed. Will we?

What will you and I do when people who have been caught up in lifestyles that are openly counter to the Word of God? How will we respond to people who have been living in and practicing sin, much of it in ways we rightfully deem to be a perversion of God's intention in creation? Will we turn them away, or, will we embrace them in love, and in love, confront them with His Truth? Will we demand that they immediately start believing and living as we do, or claim to, or will we patiently teach them His way and life, all in the power of His Holy Spirit, and all the while trusting God to honor it all? These, and many more are the challenges we'll face. We need to be prepared to do so. Are we prepared? Are you, and am I?

When I came to Jesus in 1979, nothing about me fit with the church I attended. They were, as I was once so fond of saying, "squares." Yet they, starting with a pastor with a heart filled with love, just welcomed me and ministered to me. I dressed differently and looked differently. Though I was immediately set free from my drug use, I still smoked heavily and arrived each week reeking of tobacco. This was a fellowship that frowned upon that, but not once did anyone say anything to me. No one ever told me I needed to be free of that ugly habit, but each week, I soaked in the teaching of the pastor and church, and eventually, I was freed of that as well. And so much more than that. I think, as a new wave of young people come to our doors, we need to minister in that same way, and moreso. Will we?

Teach them. That's what He said. Not indoctrinate them. Not to try and force change upon them but teach them. Just as Jesus did a small group of disciples that He called out of a world trapped in darkness. He's doing the same right now. What will we do in response?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Between

 For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.  Matthew 5:45

...."Why is there so much good and so  much bad? Why is there that which is pleasant and that which is tragic and hard to live with? Because the earth lies halfway between heaven and hell. Halfway between heaven's beauty and hell's ugliness."

The human race has been wrestling with the problem of evil since its beginnings. This has led it to question the goodness of God, and ask why, if He is good and loving, does He permit the evil that goes on to continue to go on? The answer isn't complicated but it is made so by the simple fact that humankind doesn't wish to take any responsibility for the entrance of evil into the universe and more specifically, the earth. In Genesis, we're told that God made the heavens and the earth and all that is in them, including man and woman, and pronounced it "good." What happened to change that? Simply put, it was the entrance of sin into all of creation, and it entered through the sin and disobedience of our "parents," Adam and Eve. The entire race is now tainted with sin and is fallen, as is all of creation around us. God meant for the human beings He had created to have government over creation. By their sin, they abicated that place and it passed into the hands of the enemy of our souls, Satan. Just as Christ is incarnate goodness, the devil is incarnate evil. He also hates what God loves, and God loves the human race above all else. Through the fall, sin and evil entered into the human experience and we have no power to escape its grasp. That's why we needed a Savior and Deliverer, Jesus Christ. He broke the power of sin and death on the cross and in His resurrection and offered freedom to all who would believe upon Him. Yet we continue on in a fallen world, and the effects of that fall will be upon both those who are His and those who have rejected Him. The difference is that His people have Him to limit and control the works of evil and darkness. Those who are His and those who are not will both experience pain and suffering, but He works in and through it for the good of His people. He enables us to triumph over it and foil all the plans of hell to destroy us. As Tozer writes, we live between two kingdoms. The Kingdom of Heaven, and the kingdom of hell. The first seeks to save and redeem us. The second to utterly destroy us.

There is a great segment that will deride what I've written above. They call it myth and mythology. They say that we are constantly evolving, that we're ultimately good and we will find a way to eradicate evil entirely. Let me ask; where do you see any evidence of that happening? Of it ever happening? Satan used to do his works mainly in the darkness and out of sight. No more. He is blatantly at work everywhere. Violence, murder, the trafficking of women and young men as sexual slaves, drug use, mainstream pornography, and so much more grows by the day. What was thought unthinkable just 25 years ago is finding its way into mainstream acceptance. We have been desensitized to evil and darkness. We are not evolving. We are devolving and the evidence for it is clear. God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are real. Heaven is real. Sin, evil, the devil, and hell are real as well. And we, the human race, live in the middle of both every day. And we will be part of one or the other. In which do you reside?

Maybe this has all made you very uncomfortable. It is a lot easier to reject it all out of hand and deny it. If that's you, I pray you will not. I ask you this; would you ask God that if He is real, would He so move in your life as to show you that He is? Would you ask Him to reveal Himself to you as He is? He will never deny an honest, seeking heart. I was once one who rejected and denied Him. Then, as life between two kingdoms crushed me, I sought Him. I did so because He had always been seeking me. Scripture says Christ came to seek and save that which was lost. He also seeks you. Let Him show Himself to you. Don't live between two kingdoms any longer.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Nathan

 Then Nathan said to David, “You are that man! The LORD, the God of Israel, says: I anointed you king of Israel and saved you from the power of Saul.  2 Samuel 12:7

David was the King of Israel, but he hadn't come to the position easily. Saul, the king God had raised him up to replace, had sought his life for years. He was constantly on the run, and the Father had engineered deliverances for him time and time again. Reading of it always encourages me and reminds me that He is a God of Deliverance. We love to think of Him in that way. We don't hesitate to ask Him to deliver us out of the many life threatening situations we can come to. We want Him to save us from those outward things that seek to destroy us. We're less anxious about the inward things that seek the same. Indeed, we're often blind to them. David was.

David had seduced, likely raped Bathsheba, the wife of his loyal servant Uriah. Bathsheba became pregnant, and David resorted to every means he could to get Uriah to sleep with his wife and cover David's sin. Uriah, who'd been called home from battle, refused, and wanted to get back to the army. Finally, David instructed his general, Joab, to place Uriah in the front lines of an assault, and then withdraw those around him. Uriah was killed, and David took Bathsheba as his wife. Yet God would not let his sin go unconfronted. He sent Nathan the prophet who presented a case of an innocent who'd been terribly wronged and asked David what should be done about it. David wanted the man executed. Nathan then confronted him with the truth that the one who'd committed the crime was David himself. David was undone. How blind we can be to our inner corruption. Writer Paul Tripp writes, "We don't want to face the fact that what we need to be rescued from is us." 

I don't know anybody, including myself, who doesn't want to be delivered from circumstances that bring pain and misery. We want out. We want what is going on around us removed. That will be enough. We rarely want to see that what is going on around us is so often the fruit of what has been going on within us. That which is in our heart. The sinful attitudes, habits, and practices that hold us captive, and wreak havoc in and through our lives. We want to be rescued from the results of our own actions, but we don't want to look at the inner condition that put us in that place to begin with. The Bible says that David was a man after God's own heart. He had a heart for God, yet within his heart was corruption that resulted in adultery, rape, and murder. He didn't see it....until God confronted him over it. Where might God be doing that in us? Where is it in our lives that we need to be rescued from ourselves?

It was God's great mercy that He sent Nathan to David. He wanted to deliver David from himself and the reaping of the full consequences of His sin. Where does He need to send a "Nathan" to us? Maybe this writing is His Nathan. Where are we "that man," or "that woman," in our story? Wherever that is, may His Nathan come to us. May He confront us. May we melt before Him, and be rescued from ourselves. Thank you Lord for Your Nathan's.

Blessings,
Pastor O