Dust

The songs of Keith Green, a key figure in the Jesus movement of the late 60's and early 70's, have always spoken into my heart and spirit. One of these is his song, Rushing Wind, and the lyric, Rushing wind blow through this temple, blowing out the dust within....Holy Spirit, I surrender, take me where You want to go. Plant my by Your Living Water. Plant me deep so I can grow.

As I listen, I have to wonder how much "dust" may have accumulated in my heart. It doesn't take long, as anyone experienced with house cleaning knows. How much of my life truly needs the fresh wind of His Spirit blowing through it, blowing out the "things" that, like dust in our homes, has accumulated due to neglect or complacency? These things may even be what I've deemed to be precious, but when placed beside the surpassing riches of His life are nothing more than dust in comparison. Or as Paul put it, "dung." Either way, I need those constant blowings of His Spirit through mine, ridding me of the dust that clogs my heart and mind. In your heart, you know you do too.

It's so easy as we journey through to pick up a great deal of "traveling dirt." We can get used to it and come not to even be bothered by it. We just accept it as part of the walk. Green didn't know such a sentiment and wrote in this song, Separate me from this world Lord, sanctify my heart for You. Daily change me to Your image. Help me bear good fruit.

We don't hear much of the word "sanctify" in the church these days and we understand it even less. Do we even want to? I get that the church needs to speak to the world in language they can grasp, but that doesn't bring inner transformation when we are nothing more than outwardly clean versions of themselves. I've a quote in my prayer journal from an unknown source that says, "The world doesn't need a religious version of itself." It doesn't. It needs a holy one, walking and ministering in His Holy Spirit power, bearing good fruit and more, being the portrait of Christ to a world desperate for Him. We can't when the dust of this world has become so thick in us as to render us powerless. We need the rushing wind. We need it now.

The rushing wind Green speaks of is the wind that came upon the church at Pentecost as related in the second chapter of Acts. Every year churches commemorate Pentecost Sunday without really knowing or experiencing its reality. It's deteriorated into little more than a tired remembrance of what once was instead of a celebration of what it is in us right now. It reminds me of the picture of a powerful locomotive from years gone by and now sitting in a museum. It looks powerful and it has all the equipment that can make it run powerfully, but it lacks one vital thing: there is no fire fueling the engine. It's only a shadow of what is meant to be. So too is much of the professing church these days. We need the fresh wind of His Spirit restoring His Holy fire within us and His church. Blowing out all the dust within.

One more line of the son; Jesus, You're the One who set my spirit free. Use me Lord. Glorify Your name through me. We may know He's the One, but has He set our spirit, your spirit, free? Can He really use us? Are we living dust free lives that bring glory to His name? That is what a sanctified, set apart, filled with His Spirit life is all about. Is it what our life is all about? The winds are blowing. Will they blow through us?

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Bush Dwellers

 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” Genesis 3:8

....."We will not emerge from behind our chosen bushes until we admit we are hiding. We can become very attached to our bushes." Dudley Hall

The need for transparency in the church is a deep one, yet transparency may be the most lacking trait in the people of God, including those who are His preachers. It's ingrained in us and it started with our "parents," Adam and Eve. Perhaps the greatest reason we are not is a mixture of two elements, pride and shame. Pride, because it is so hard for us to admit to anyone else that we've failed, don't have it altogether, and are just as imperfect, even moreso, than they are. Shame, because we condemn ourselves, with the enemy's help, that we failed, sinned, and fell short of what we believed He wanted for us, and we wanted as well. We see both elements in the actions of Adam and Eve. Their first response was to hide. To "hide" from each other by the use of the leaves to cover their nakedness, and then to seek to hide from their Father when He came to talk with them. They didn't want to come out from the bushes. We rarely do. As Hall said, we get very attached to them. Many of us have spent years hiding in them. I did.

Someone told me just this morning that they appreciated my transparency in my writings. I told them I could be so because the Lord allowed all the bushes I'd spent so much time hiding behind to die. My failures, real or imagined, were put on display for all to see. I told them that after going through the humiliation of it all, there was little I could do to keep hiding. In the end, it was a blessing. A painful blessing, but a blessing nonetheless.

What I'm talking about in this was what I walked through in the collapse of my marriage and the temporary loss of my ministry. My marriage had been steadily deteriorating almost from the beginning of my ministry. I knew that it was, and sought help through prayer, counseling, and so on, but I was paralyzed with fear that anyone should know how bad it was. I exhausted myself trying to keep the secret, and the mask I wore got more and more difficult to wear. In the end, everything collapsed upon me. My church, not just local, but district wide, saw the ruin. Added to that was that I was accused of behaviors that I was never guilty of, but at the time couldn't disprove. All I could do was trust Him for His vindication, and He did vindicate me, but in the meantime, just about everything was out in the open. My pride, my mask, my bush, no longer hid anything....and I was ashamed. Yet, He did turn the horror of this time to blessing. He restored my ministry, and my honor. And He showed me that I no longer needed to live in the bushes.

I'm not saying that we need to be open with everyone about everything. I am saying that we need to have trusted people in our lives that we can be transparent with. I'm also saying that we need to find true freedom from the fear of being "found out." God knew where in the bushes Adam and Eve were, and He knows where we are as well. He not only wants us to come out, but I believe He wants us to share with all those still hiding in their own bushes how they too can come out from them. Bush dwellers no more.

May we find freedom from the bondage of the bushes and the pride and shame that have kept us there. We were never fooling anyone anyway. They say that sharing the Gospel is a matter of one beggar telling another where to find bread. So too is it one of former bush dwellers telling current ones how to come out and be free. Let's leave the bushes and enter into His broad place of freedom.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Altars

 We've all experienced how near and dear the Lord is to us in our mountaintop spiritual experiences, but how distant from us He may seem in our everyday valleys. The reality is that life, especially our spiritual life, is often a lot more about living in the valleys than it is about living on the mountaintops. But our intimacy with Him need not be affected by this reality...but too often, it is.

I think we've tied our relationship with Him to what He is and isn't doing in our lives. When His actions bring blessing and the reception of what we've asked for, we feel close to Him. Loved, accepted, BLESSED! But when He leads us out into the desert and all those outward things can be stripped away, we start to question His love and care. We don't feel blessed at all. We suspect that He's let us down, forgotten us...failed us. He's shown us a way past all this, but like so much of what He's shown us, we tend not to see it.

Many today disregard the Old Testament as not relevant to the new relationship we have in Christ as shown in the New. We do ourselves great harm in that. In Exodus 20:24, He commands the people to, "Build altars in the places where I remind you who I am, and I will come and bless you there." Altars signify and number of things; consecration, sanctification, but above all, a place of worship. A place where we can truly meet with Him. God knew what desert times lay ahead for the Israelites. All the challenges and all the time spent in dry, waterless places. He knows the same about you and me. He never promised that we wouldn't know such times. If we're truly following Him, He promises that we will. What He spoke to them, He speaks to us as well. Remember who He is, what He's done. Worship Him, and in your worship, you will encounter Him. Worship Him not as a Sunday thing, or even a devotional time thing. Worship Him as your way of life. Worship Him, as Christ said, "In spirit and in truth." Even in the most barren places of life, He will send reminders of who He is, and sometimes in the most miraculous of ways. Our degree of experiencing this will depend upon whether we see "worship" as something we do, or go to, instead of it being what gives and sustains our lives. 

The altar is becoming a lost place in the church today, and I don't mean whether we do or do not have one in the church sanctuary. The altar, His altar, is where He calls us to live, with His presence always before us. When this is our life, worship becomes our moment by moment breath. We inhale and exhale the atmosphere of heaven, even in the most mundane and barren places. What's going on within us is greater and more real than whatever might be going on around us. 

This is the life He calls us to. It's the life I want to live. Do you? Building altars all along our way of life....all pointing to Him in worship. Experiencing Him moment by moment as He comes and blesses us there. Blessing us not with the things He gives, but with the new life, the new wine He pours into us moment by moment and day by day. This is the life, the victory that overcomes the world, every desert, and all enemies. He has commanded us to build these altars. When's the last time we did? When's the last time you did?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Limitations

 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. Psalm 16:6

I've been mulling something I heard a woman named Sarah Hagerty speak of for several days now. She was talking of the tension that can exist between a Christ follower believing there are no limitations in living out what He has called us to and the reality that in our human condition, there really are stark limits that we live under. Grasping this and living in the full faith and hope that we have in Him while grappling with the very real limitations that can take place in our lives is one of our great faith challenges. God does allow things that do place limitations on what we can do and be. Coming to grips with that determines whether we will live as victors, or victims.

Clint Eastwood's iconic character, Harry Callahan said, "A man's got to know his limitations." None of us, man or woman, really likes to think in such terms. We want to believe in a life with no limits in Him, which makes it very hard to deal with the many limitations He allows entry into our lives. We have dreams, desires, even visions of that which we want to do and be in His Kingdom. And then circumstances enter in. Circumstances, limitations, that He allowed, that He could have prevented, but didn't. We wanted a life partner to enter into the dream with, but He never gave one. We wanted children to enjoy and love along the journey's way, but they weren't given, or worse, were given but lost. We wanted a wide vista of ministry opportunity, but instead, He placed us where we seem to be forgotten, unseen, and unknown. Where we are is not where we ever thought we'd be. What we're doing is something we never thought we'd be doing. Why? How? How could this be His will for us? How could He let this be?

We're in good company here. Job. Joseph. David. The apostles Paul and John. They all found themselves in places where the dream had died. Where they had severe limitations upon them and on every level. They had the same questions we do. I feel sure that all of them went through the process Hagerty described as I listened to her speak. You may be going through it right now. If you're not, the time will come when you will.

Hagerty said that in life, we will come to the place of death. The place where a dream, a desire, a loved one, a ministry, has died. The trauma that hits us is intense. It leaves us reeling. We are confronted with the fact of suffering coming to those that He loves with an infinite love, and what is happening to us doesn't seem like His love at all. 

From there, we enter into the next place, and that's the place of grief and suffering. We would never go to the place willingly, but if we enter in, we will discover His beauty there. We'll discover Him. Hagerty says that in this place, He comes and He enters into our suffering and grief. He grieves with us. This is a concept we struggle to accept. We see Him as standing apart in our pain. He doesn't. He enters into it with us. As we grieve and sorrow, so does He. We cling to Him as He clings to us. However long He must stay, He does. And then He leads us out.

This takes us into the last stage, resurrection. All that we learned of Him in the grief, in the suffering, in the loss, is now added unto our lives and we are now equipped to minister His life to those who come after us. He comes to others through us. We can be His vessels now in ways we never could before. All our losses and limitations, painful as they were, have revealed to us a Jesus we never knew as we do now. What we suffered in the "death" has yielded a life beyond limits. Our limitations brought about unlimited and abundant life in Him.

God uses our grief and our suffering to do His works of life in us. Hagerty spoke of our "grieving well." She writes "Jesus says, 'Come to Me with your ache.' Many of us have years of splinters we never brought to Him, and we wonder why hope is lost? Hope is never lost." In our grief, He does His deep work of healing and restoration. He not only heals the wounding of the immediate loss but if we will have it, He will remove all those splinters, causing all those small but ever bleeding wounds. The place of our pain becomes our gateway to the fullness of His life. We enter into our inheritance. The limitations He allowed and allows will lead us to experience an unlimited Savior. Our lives will experience the trauma and pain, the Friday and Saturday of pain, loss, and suffering, but so too, if we will trust Him, we will behold the Sunday that follows. Take hope. Take heart. Sunday has come!

Blessings,
Pastor O

Loopholes

 I once read a story about the 1930's comedian W.C. Fields. He was found on the set of one of his movies reading the Bible. Fields was a notorious carouser and drinker, so the one discovering him reading a Bible was truly amazed. "Bill," they inquired, "why in the world are you reading the Bible?" To this, Fields simply replied, "I'm looking for loopholes."

Looking for loopholes. I wonder just how much like Fields you and I really are? Oh, we say we believe His Word, His Truth. We consider ourselves ready to do His will, to be obedient. But when it pierce our hearts, challenges our lives, calls us to change, convicts us of sin, how quick are we to look for "holy loopholes" in order to escape the confrontation? What loopholes do we look for in order to justify our wrongdoing, or for not doing anything at all?

Keith Green, a major figure in the Jesus Movement of the late 60's, wrote a very powerful song titled, "The Sheep And The Goats," referring to Christ's teaching about who and who will not inherit the Kingdom of heaven. Jesus said the Kingdom was for those who truly did the will of God, who ministered to the real needs of those around them, and who saw in these ones, the face of Jesus. Green says everything came down to what "they did, and didn't do." In his singing, he lists some of the reasons, the excuses of those who "didn't do." To me, the most powerful of these was, "Well, Lord, I didn't really feel led." That's a major loophole isn't it? How often have we not acted on something that in our heart we knew was right, that deep down we knew was of Him, but didn't because it was too hard? It demanded too much sacrifice, too much change. Because it called upon us to die to ourselves and our own desires? It was easier to just declare that we didn't feel led in that direction. We didn't have a burden. We didn't feel called. We'd found our loophole. 

Jesus said, "My food is to do the will of My Father." His breath and life was to carry out the will of His Father here on earth. He said that He did only what He saw His Father doing and He didn't do anything else.  In His Word, we see what the Father is doing through His Son. We know what He calls us to....but we have jobs, families, demands upon us. Loopholes. Everywhere around us, He is doing something, and we're to be there with Him, doing it as well. Living, breathing, the will of the Father. It was and is His food and life. But is it ours? Or do we look for loopholes, the reasons why it can't be. Why we don't have a burden, don't feel led, and why we miss, if not heaven, Him. 

Loopholes. How many exist in our lives today. Will they remain open, and if they do, what will be the end for those He sought to send us to? What will be the end for those of us who have sought to hide in our loopholes? I don't want to wait for the day I stand before Him to answer these questions. Do you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Welcome To Hope

 I wanted to share something today that I first wrote about 14 years ago. The point I was making then was that there will always be places in our lives that hold traumatic memories and have left deep scarring. Because of His healing blood, we needn't "live" there or be held prisoner, but neither can we deny what happened or try to hide from it. In Christ, we can face it, and whatever power it may have held is broken when we do so. It may be a bit longer than my usual writing, but I think it worth the time.

I recently returned to a place I was sure I'd never go back to....the place where my life and ministry were shattered more than 20 years ago. A place of broken dreams, hopes, and deep loss. A place I wanted to forget and move on from. A place I was sure I'd done just that.

I don't want to give the impression I was carrying open wounds. The Father has done such a great work of healing in this and so many other areas of my life. The pain of such an experience never completely leaves, but its power had been broken long ago by the wonderful grace and blood of Jesus. I knew I was free, and yet somehow, something about it all seemed left undone.

Over the years I'd passed a number of times via the interstate, never without some touch of troubling in my spirit. A sense that the Lord wanted to do one last thing for me in all of it. I found myself in the area again and I knew I wasn't to once again just drive by, but to take the exit and the long road leading into the town, and go back to the place I was sure I'd never return to. Back to a few things that had once been central to my life.

As I rode through the town, not much had changed, but the memories came flooding back. I drove the streets I'd once walked and prayed on, bringing the needs of the church, my family, and myself to Him. I drove past places that were once businesses I'd frequented or that still were. I drove past the house we'd lived in, saw the windows to each room, saw the lawn I'd once cut....saw the place where I'd watched my wife and daughter drive away from and out of my life on that long ago day.

I drove down the road and turned onto the street where the church was. It didn't look much different either, but I remembered how I had come there, so full of hope and expectation and the love and care I'd had for the fellowship and people. And I remembered how it all ended, and the wounds inflicted on my heart and spirit as it did so. I remembered the day I'd left, carrying most everything I owned in a 1984 Dodge Colt. I remembered the tears falling as I drove back out that road, thinking that life could never be good again, that I'd ever know joy again, and more, that He could ever use me again. I thought I was driving into darkness and oblivion, which is exactly what the devil was whispering to me. But I was wrong. The devil is a liar and he always has been, and that's why the Lord had led me back here and why I share this today.

I am no victim. Not at all. I'd made my own mistakes in those days and there were things I'd needed to repent of, but He hadn't brought me back to tweak my nose about it all, but to do two things. First, to affirm anew His truth for me. That place stood for everything that had been in my life. What was. That town and place was what had been. Jesus, the Great I AM, is and will always be what is! He's the great reality and He's greater than anything and all things that we could ever have walked through. Despite the devils lies, accusations, and tireless efforts to destroy my life, Jesus the Lifegiver again and again gave me His Life in every place. He not only rebuilt my life but He made it better and richer than it had ever been. He gave me a future with hope. Because He did, I didn't have to avoid going back to the scene of my greatest failure and deepest wounding. I could go into it, fully facing it, knowing He had redeemed all of it. Yes, there was sadness and heaviness as I drove about, but not from bitterness or anger. I prayed for the town, the church, and the people. A town, church, and people He continues to love and seek after with the fullness of His life.

I heard a minister tell of coming into a town called Hope, noticing a sign saying "Welcome To Hope." He said what struck him was that as he continued to drive through, he never saw a sign that said, "Leaving Hope." He said he wanted to live in and with a Christ that always welcomed us into hope and never allowed us to lose hope. When I left that town so many years ago, I felt without any hope. I wasn't. I never am. Neither are you. He'll prove it, again and again if you'll allow Him.

If you're in such a place with the devil's lies whispered into your ear, please, believe the promise: "Hope in God....for He will yet save you." In His way and time, and He won't be a second late. He's there in the journey, in the pain, and in the trauma. Cling to Him. He'll bring you out. You will live in His victory. You need not live in what was. You can face it and triumph over it.....because HE IS! Welcome to Hope!

Blessings,
Pastor O

Freedom Road

 Author and pastor Dutch Sheets has written of the steps he believes must happen in a Christ followers life in order to come to the fullness of life Jesus offers through His life, death, and resurrection. He calls it "The Freedom Road." I thought I'd give a little of my own insight as to what's involved in these steps.

Step #1 - BELIEVE - Friends, we are going nowhere with Him if we have not made, once for all, the decision to believe Him. Not just in our heads, but in our hearts. There are no conditions. Whether we understand all that is happening or not, we believe Him. Whether circumstances contradict His promises or not, we believe Him. Our position is like that of Paul on the Roman ship that was slowly sinking, threatening the lives of all aboard. Jesus had appeared to him and promised his and the crews deliverance. As the ship sank, Paul declared, "I believe it will happen just as He promised!" Such must be our position in Him as well.

Step #2 - ABIDE IN HIS WORD - To abide in His Word is to stay there, live there, and persevere there. We live in it and are surrounded by it. Just as we unconsciously breath in life-giving oxygen, so do we live and breathe in the atmosphere of His Kingdom through His Word. It is our life. It is what gives us life. Christ is His Living Word and as Scripture says, "In Him we live, move, and have our being." He is our permanent residence.

Steph #3 - KNOW THE TRUTH - Again, this is not a mental knowledge, but a heart centered one. We know the truth by our living experience of it, of Him who is all Truth. Jesus said we would know the Truth and the Truth would make us free. The enemy and his world spirit have done a very good job of deceiving us into believing his lies. Christ offers His Truth. He invited us into it. We live in it as we live in His Word. His Truth reigns in our hearts and saturates our minds. We don't just know about the Truth. We know the One who is Truth.

Step #4 - BE FREE - This is the natural result of walking this road. When we believe, abide, and know Him as the Truth, we enter into real freedom of the heart, mind, and soul. The chains of all the lies we've believed have been broken. Lies about ourselves, others, and most of all, about Him. We are free of the prison cells that these lies have held us in. Just as the prison door that held Peter swung open by the miraculous power of God, so too does every prison door holding us do the same at His word. He speaks "Be Free." May we be so,

Step #5 - BE FREE INDEED - Jesus said that, "He who is free in Me is free indeed!" Freedom, His freedom is emphasized. He adds His exclamation point. It means that the freedom He gives is beyond whatever idea we have ever had of what freedom is. There's an old hymn with the lyric, "It's the song of the soul set free." This is what it is to be free indeed. Our souls, who we really are, are set free, fully free in Him. The shackles of sin, the world, even our own flesh have been broken by His resurrection life. We are free....free indeed.

These are the steps of the Freedom Road. May we, you and I walk them today and every day. May we Believe, Abide, Know, Be Free, and live each moment free.....free indeed. It's our destiny in Him, but we reach that destiny only through this road. His road. The Freedom Road.

Blessings,
Pastor O