Disappointment

 Disappointment. We all experience it at some point. Things don't turn out as we had hoped. Life has not turned out as we had hoped. Disappointment can be so hard to cope with. Seemingly impossible at times. Never more than when we find ourselves disappointed with God.

When I first came to Christ, I remember being told about the "beautiful plan God had for my life." This was exciting. My life desperately needed beauty. It was so good to know that things would now be different. Let the beauty begin. I was ready. What a shock to learn the beautiful plan had a few stops that were decidedly not beautiful at all. I wondered if I had been misled. Had I believed in a God that wasn't able to bring "beauty from ashes" just as He'd promised? When would the plan begin to unfold? I was disappointed with God.

A great part of our problem is that neither those who proclaim it or those who hear it, really understand what God's idea of beauty really is. We,as we do with so much else, define beauty as to what we see happening on the surface. Our idea of a beautiful plan is one where He brings us through this life with as little pain, loss, and heartache as possible, and as great a supply of material and temporal blessings as we can hold. Then, He takes us home to heaven. Our idea has no place for a cross, for any kind of suffering, for any kind of real sacrifice or pain. We've believed in an illusion, and the result will always be disappointment. Especially with our being disappointed in Him. He hasn't "delivered." We've prayed, believed, even begged Him for a desired result, and it hasn't happened. We feel like we did everything right. We followed the "steps" and memorized His promises. Why hasn't He done something? But He has. He is....if we had eyes to see it.

I have had places of deep disappointment with Him. My disappointment came because my eyes were focused upon the outcome I wanted, and not upon the Lord who was working in me and in the circumstances around me. He was dealing with so many issues in my heart and spirit. My sense of entitlement, and yes, my sense that somehow, He owed me. I'd kept my part of the "bargain," now He needed to keep His. It was all about me and He was simply a "tool" I needed to get what I wanted to have and where I wanted to be. I wanted a beautiful life. He wanted a more beautiful me. Just as He wants a more beautiful you. How's the process going for each of us?

The Lord does give us beautiful things and He does satisfy so many of our here and now desires, but His deepest work is to make us more like His Son, Jesus, and He uses our disappointments to bring the dross in our hearts and lives to the surface, that we might be more and more His silver and gold. He polishes us until He sees the face of His Son in us. In Romans 5 Paul writes that we have been given a "confident expectation" and that this expectation "will not disappoint us." In our disappointments, He works so that our expectations are changed from being focused on what we want to have or see Him do, to simply having a full expectation of Him and His goodness. In the midst of even pain and suffering, we have a steadfast confidence in His goodness and love. We know that somehow and someway, He will bring beauty from ashes. This yields a hope in Him, not in the outcomes we want. We live in all places with a joy, hope, and peace that yields true beauty in our lives.

Scripture says that the hope He gives, "will not disappoint." It won't disappoint because it is rooted in Christ and the knowledge that He is in control, that He, as the Bible says, "holds all things together." He said we would have trouble in this fallen world, and trouble always brings some level of disappointment. Yet the trouble cannot sway what He is working in us and doing around us. As Romans 8 promises, "He works all things together for good." Even our disappointments. Weeping may last for the night, "but joy comes in the morning." Hold on in trust in the midst of every disappointment. Where you are is not where He'll leave you. He really does have a beautiful plan. Let Him show you how truly beautiful it is.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Forever

 I'm remembering a conversation I had with a couple of good pastor friends. We were talking about the prevalence of fear and uncertainty that is attacking our culture and the church. As we talked, one of my friends said, "I always tell my people that God is working with us from the perspective of eternity. I tell them, 'Jesus is walking around in your future.' "He spoke a deep truth in that, one that must weave its way into the very fabric of our being in the days we now find ourselves, living out our walk with and in Him.

Many quote Hebrews 13:8, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and yes, forever," but believing can be near impossible when today is so frightening and tomorrow even more so. How much of that is due to our living a great portion of our lives in our yesterday's and today's, forgetting, as my friend said, that Jesus is operating out of the realm of eternity, of our forever? We become ensnared by what we have lived through and are now living in. We can't see beyond them. We are so grounded in the temporal that we can't even begin to grasp the reality of an eternal forever. What was, what is, bad as they may be, are more familiar and sadly, more comfortable for us. They hold us in captivity. 

I go back to my friend's statement, that Jesus is walking around in our future. That means He has fully explored it and fully knows it. He knows our yesterday's, today's, tomorrow's, and best of all, our forever. He invites us to entrust them all to Him. He "walks around" in all of them. He is Lord over all that has happened, is happening, and can ever happen in all of them. Nothing that could happen, has happened, or might ever happen has power over Him, so in Him, they have no power over us. 

One day, there will be yesterday's, today's, or tomorrow's. There will only be forever. For now, we live in time, but we're to live looking forward to where our true home is. Where the Father is, the Son, and His Holy Spirit. The home for which He made us. Nothing in time or in this world has power over them. The Father, the Son, the Spirit, and our lives in them.....are forever.

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Accuser

 Who is the one who condemns us? Christ Jesus is the One who died [to pay our penalty], and more than that, who was raised [from the dead], and who is at the right hand of God interceding [with the Father] for us.  Romans 8:34....."The enemy accuses us day and night and Jesus intercedes for us day and night. We decide who prevails." Susie Larson

The people of God have an enemy. An enemy who despises and seeks our ruin. In seemingly infinite ways, he seeks to destroy us. The thing is, he can't. Christ's victory over death and sin on the cross has crushed Satan, He is literally under the feet of Jesus. The devil knows he's defeated, but as a good friend once said, "he refuses to accept that." So he attacks us relentlessly, and his primary weapons are lies, hurled like fiery darts into our minds. Lies about God, about Christ, and about ourselves. If he can get us to believe them, he can spiritually paralyze us, and rob us of the life we've been given in Christ. He's been very successful in doing this in too many believers' lives. Has he been so with you?

Satan is a thief and we need to not only be aware of that, but also see, as Larson says, "the patterns of his theft in our life."

Through his lies he has blinded us to who we are in Christ. As a result, we live as victims and not victors. He has made us believe the lie that we are at his mercy, and when he does that, he has a pathway to tormenting and attacking us on every level of life. Physical, mental, emotional, and above all, spiritual. He convinces us that we're defenseless, which may be his greatest lie. We're not, because if the Life of Jesus Christ reigns within us, then we have overcoming, victorious life in Him. His Word tells us that all authority in all things is His. Therefore, in Him, we too have spiritual authority, especially over Satan. Scripture says he's been crushed under the feet of Christ through His victory on the cross and in His resurrection. So, as Larson says, "We have the authority to put our foot on his neck," because Christ's feet are already there.

As quoted in the beginning of this writing, the devil will ceaselessly accuse and condemn us "day and night." Christ, as Scripture promises, will ceaselessly intercede for us before the Father "day and night." He will seek to lay guilt and condemnation on us for sin that has already been forgiven. He will try to convince us that despite His free offer of grace, we must work to win His approval. In one way or another, he will try to make us believe that we simply "are not enough," that though we may be forgiven, we will never be enough to be accepted by Him. 

The Accuser is not going to leave us alone this side of eternity, but we must rejoice in the reality that the One who intercedes for us will never leave us to his devices. He will prove to us, over and over, that the One who is with us, in us, is greater than the one, along with all his demonic power, that is against. The devil's lies against the King's Truth. Which is prevailing in your life today? Dare to trust in the One who lives to make intercession for you.

Blessings,
Pastor O  

The Cave

 "Have you ever felt like just running away? Finding someplace you can escape to, someplace where you can hide? David did. He had fled, first from Saul, who had tried to kill him, and then from Achish, king of Gath, where he had also feared for his life. I Samuel 22:1 says, "David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam." When he got to that cave he was spiritually, emotionally, and physically exhausted. In such a condition, cave living can be very attractive. It was to David. Might it be to you as well? Are you tempted today to find your own cave? Are you in one now?

David was a man after God's heart, with a rich relationship with Him. The last place we would expect to find him would be a cave, yet there he was, and through no fault of his own. All he'd tried to do was to serve his Lord and his king. His reward was to be falsely accused, hated, misunderstood, pursued, and in danger of his life. God had promised David a kingdom, but a cave is not much of a kingdom, yet it was in that cave that his kingdom began to come into being. We've been promised a Kingdom as well, and for us it often begins in a "cave" as well.

Verse 2 of this passage reads, "And everyone who was in distress, and everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about 400 men with him." From these came David's "mighty men, the core of his army, the strongest army that area of the world would know to that point. And it began in a cave.

Bryan Cutshall, in his book, Where Are The Armorbearers?, writes about the many beautiful songs David composed in that cave, and other types of cave he would find himself in. He calls them "cave songs, " and talks of how often David would call on the Lord from "out of the depths," which is where he so often felt his life was. We can relate to this. Coming into the fullness of our Kingdom inheritance is never going to be easy despite much of the popular preaching and teaching of today. The journey to His throne room will have many a cave, many a tear, and above all, a cross. We'll have our own times of crying out from the depths, and we'll stand alongside some excellent company; the woman with the issue of blood in Luke, the Old Testament prophets, the woman who broke an alabaster box upon the feet of Christ, and washed them with her tears, and Paul and Silas, beaten and chained in a Philippian jail. Cutshall calls these, "the choir of the cave," those who cry out to Him from the depths. Their song, as did David's, as will yours, gets God's attention and heart, and it will carry us along into the Kingdom He calls us to. His Kingdom, which is only reached through a cross and a cave. 

God brought to David, the cavedweller, 400 more cave dwellers. Perhaps this sounds a lot like your situation, your family, your church, and your ministry. What will you do? What will I do? Will we sing in the cave, out of the depths, and by doing so, lay hold of our Kingdom inheritance? There's an old hymn whose title I can't remember, but has a lyric that says, "It's the song of the soul set free." That song is written in the cave and first sung there. It leads to the cross. It leads to freedom. It leads us home. Out of the depths and unto the heights. With Him, from the cave.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Denial

 Living in denial. Many do, and to their own harm. Some do, and to their own well-being. How can this be? Read on.

Author Dutch Sheets says that we can live in two types of denial; bad or good. Bad denial is to "bury our emotions and try to pretend we're OK when we're not. We're deeply wounded." Good denial is living in such a way that "despite our feelings or the circumstances we're in, we choose to believe God's Word and what He says about us." We deny the power of our feelings and circumstances to control us. As Sheets says, "It's not what happens to us that controls us, but what we believe about the situation." So, which state of denial will we choose to live in? The first leads to death, the second to life. The life He has for us. His life.

Paul speaks to this in Romans 8:35-37, "Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or are hungry and cold, in danger, or threatened with death?....No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us." Overwhelming victory! It's ours, owned by us because of Him. Because of His victory over death on the cross. His victory denied the power of death to hold Him, or to hold any of us who have believed upon Him in truth. Christ denied that power to hold Him, as did Paul, Peter, John, as have millions more. As have I. Have you?

We are born into a world that is filled with trouble. Christ promised we would encounter it, just as He has promised that in Him we would overcome it. The circumstances of our trouble may be daunting, as will the emotions and feelings that may accompany them. Will we dare to believe that what we see and feel may be real, but that what He says and who He is is more real. Infinitely so. We must not, as I've heard it said, confuse the diagnosis with the verdict. Sheets speaks of a couple with a young child who'd been diagnosed with a terminal illness. They were told to prepare for his death, that there was no hope. God had spoken something different to them. He would not let them lose hope. He led them to Doctors who saw the situation differently, and who treated the illness differently. The child lived and he lives today. They refused to accept the diagnosis as the verdict. They denied the power of their circumstances to shape their future and their hope. Will we dare to live in such hope? Will we, in all places, hope in God?

However grey or gloomy your surroundings may be today, deny the false claims of their power over you. Look up, above the mountains of oppression and find the answer that David found in the Psalms. "From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord." So will yours. Dare to live in denial. Dare to believe for His victory. If He has promised you it, then it is yours in Christ. Own it.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Seasons

 There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:  Ecclesiastes 3:1

I recently heard a woman named Grace Wakube Klein speak about the seasons of life. What she said rang so true, and I thought I'd pass a bit of it on to you today.

The idea of life being one of seasons is nothing new. We see from Ecclesiastes 3:1 that it isn't. Neither is labeling these seasons after the natural seasons of the earth. What I liked was what she said each season could stand for in our lives. It's this that I want to elaborate on a bit, especially since all of us are found at any given time in one of these seasons.

First, there is the Fall Season. Klein said that this is the season for "letting go." The Fall is the season where the green leaves of summer begin to turn to various beautiful colors, but eventually, the trees they hang upon release them. They let them go. So too must we, in our own Fall season, let go of things, even good things, that are keeping us rooted in one place, or so weighing us down as to choke His life from us. Things that in one way or another, hold us captive, take from us the next level of life He seeks to lead us into. If you're in your own Fall season, would you allow Him to search your heart and reveal to you what it is time, overtime for you to let go of and release to Him? The gold, red, and purple leaves of Fall are beautiful to behold, but they must be released. In the end, they all will turn brown. What are you clinging to that He has extended His hand to you and bids you place it in His hand?

The Winter season is the time of trial, loss, and pain. It is a time when all the landscape looks dying and dead. Yet that is an illusion. In truth, the Winter season of our lives is when He is most at work in our hearts. He is doing intense planting of His seeds of life, nurturing them in the midst of a world that looks grey, bleak, and dead. In the Winter season, He is at work in our pain to bring us into a deeper experience of Him. Drawing us ever closer, revealing ever deeper truths about Himself and about us. Showing us things that we would not discover in any other season. It is a season that He would not have us miss or waste. It's a season that, if we allow Him to do His work, will yield the beauty of Spring and Summer.

The Spring season is a time to act upon all that He has spoken to us through the Fall and Winter seasons. The spiritual yield that He wishes to see come forth in us can only do so through our obeying and living in the truth He showed us there. New doors to new realities have been opened. It is for us to go through them. Fresh understanding about Him, ourselves, our lives and His purpose for our lives has been given. Things we didn't see before we now see. Things that were a mystery before have now been opened to us. We begin to realize how so much that we thought was going to destroy us was used by Him to bring new and greater life to and in us. He has done a creation work within us. We have a sense that all things are new. Hope and expectation abound.

The Summer season is a time for "celebration." We celebrate because we are experiencing life as He means it to be. We celebrate because we didn't just survive the seasons, we have come to thrive in and through them. We have discovered a much deeper meaning of what abundant life is. It isn't having a wealth of "stuff," but a wealth of Him. Abundant life is a life that is overflowing with His life. We rejoice in the season of summer.

As I said, we will all travel through these seasons in our journey with Him. Let's not miss anything He has for us in any one of them. We cannot stay in any one of them, but we can gather the riches to be found in each of them. Let us not miss any of them. Don't you miss any of them. Don't waste your seasons.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Surgery

 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Matthew 4:1

If you truly walk with Jesus, sooner or later, you'll be led into the "wilderness" just as He was. We will encounter so many different circumstances, obstacles, and feelings. We will encounter the devil for sure, as he seeks to turn us back from following Him. We will also encounter our God, and in ways we have never expected or experienced before.

For most of us, when we do enter our personal wilderness, whatever the root cause of it might be, our emphasis is generally on just getting through. We want to come out on the other side of it. We see it as something to be endured. God means it to be a place of inner transformation.

I listened recently to a woman named Jennifer Benfield speak of her own wilderness experience. Her focus had been on achievement, success, and living her dream life. All that changed when she and her husband learned that they would be having a Down's Syndrome child. Her world was shattered. She was in a place she never wanted to be and she didn't believe she could make it through. She was advised to abort the pregnancy, but as a believer she knew she could not. She also didn't know how she could cope with the reality that was hers. As she entered her wilderness, she began to learn about herself and her God in ways she never dreamed possible. She also discovered what it is that the Lord seeks most to do in every wilderness He leads His people through. Spiritual open heart surgery.

She said that while we focus on getting through, the Lord seeks to get us to undergo. Undergo His deep surgery into our hearts and lives. In His surgery He probes into all the areas of our lives that are keeping us from all the fullness He has for us. He realized that His best operating rooms are always found in our own wilderness. He does intensive surgery on us there, and He means for it to be complete. Attitudes, desires, habits, and a host of other things that keep us from wholeness in Him are "under His knife" as He extracts them from our life.

You may be in your own wilderness right now. The obstacles are real just as Satan's attacks are real. How do you face it? Do you scream for Him to take you out and to do so right now? Failing that, do you just hope to get through it without too much loss? Or, do you surrender to His sovereign leading and undergo what He means to do in you in this place. That's what Jennifer Benefield did, and she not only finds herself the mother of a special and beautiful little boy, one she can't imagine living without. She also finds herself with a ministry she never envisioned would be given her. A ministry that gives hope to all those who come after her, entering into their own personal wilderness. The Father's surgery was successful. So will it be for you, if you're willing to undergo it. Are you willing?

When He leads us through a wilderness, I think His greatest purpose is to so work in us that when we emerge from it, we are able to offer help, encouragement, and guidance to those who come behind us. That purpose will be realized....if we undergo the surgery. If....

Blessings,
Pastor O