Unleashed

 Luke 11:1 reads, "Once, when Jesus had been out praying, one of His disciples came to Him as He finished and said, 'Lord, teach us to pray.' " Jesus taught them what has come to be known as The Lord's Prayer. That's not what I'm writing about today. In fact, I'm not really writing about what prayer is so much as what it's not.

I've considered myself to be a man of prayer, but am I really? How much of my life has really been one of prayer? We each need to ask ourselves that question. I think we've too often seen prayer as a "chip" we can use to get the Father to do what we want. Scripture says that "the fervent prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much." I think we get the fervent part, but I'm not so sure we understand the real nature of righteousness. Real righteousness has no agenda, yet I know in my heart that too many of my prayers have had one. More than one.

A number of years ago, a group of pastors in the area where I was serving Him began to come together to pray. There was great enthusiasm for it....in the beginning. After a time, attendance began to dwindle. The many became few, and then the few became none. Why? I think if we would be fully honest about our motives, we felt, at least in part, that our coming together would impress Him and cause Him to move on our behalf. Our churches would grow, the fruit in our ministries would increase. Much of what we'd been doing didn't seem to be working, surely prayer would. This may not have been all the reason for our gathering, but I know it was a strong part of it. It certainly was for me. Yet, when results were not quickly forthcoming, our fervor waned. Fervent prayer became much less fervent. In time, we ceased coming together. As I look back I know this; such prayer was not at all what Jesus taught and teaches still.

Philip Yancey says, "We worry if we sense the presence of God. We should worry if He senses the presence of us?" Jesus got alone with His Father at every opportunity He had. He was anxious to be with Him. He didn't come with an agenda, just Himself, which was all the Father wanted. It's still all that the Father wants.
C.S. Lewis said, "We need to lay before God what is in us, and not what we think ought to be in us." We need to come to Him as we are, laying at His feet who we are, what is going on in us, no matter how bleak or black it may be. As Yancey says, "We can't make Him visible to us, but we can make ourselves visible to Him." When we come to Him in such a way, our manipulations, power plays, and agendas fall away, and all that is left is us...and our God...and the sweet fellowship and intimacy that is the result. When that's our desire in prayer, He does become visible to us, alive to us. Prayer really does become fervent, and God in His wonder and glory is unleashed. To us and through us. 

What's the root motive of your prayer life? Is it a desire for blessing, relief, increase, success, or....just Him? Only Him. Where we're secure in the knowledge that He really is our deepest need and answer. We may have been saying that this is so, but is it really so for you today? Can we release all our mixed motives and agendas, and just pursue Him? Such prayer will not only unleash Him into our reality, it will unleash us into His.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Survivors

 I just read where the "Survivor" TV series is set to embark on its 50th season. It has had an enormous following. It's never appealed to me. Maybe it once would have, back when I did see life as a matter of survival, somehow, holding on, making it through, be found to be still standing, or at least not destroyed at the end of it all. Jesus Christ changed that perspective when He entered my life. I don't see life as a journey with survival as the goal. I see it as one of victory. A life of overcoming. Overcoming challenges, losses, heartache, and suffering. These are things that happen to everyone in this fallen world, but Christ does not mean to just get us through, to somehow make it to the end of life, even if we have never really lived along the way. He means for us to have life, His life, in abundance and all along the way. On the mountaintops and in the valleys. In the sunlight and in the darkness. In our triumphs and in our failures, because in Him, failure is not final, and He can and will turn even our greatest failures into His greatest triumphs in us.

The survival mode is ingrained in our fallen nature. It's in our spiritual DNA. It begets our living with an orphan/slave mentality. Orphans never feel secure. They always feel they must prove themselves. They always feel they must win acceptance, even love. We are all orphans apart from Christ, but through saving faith in Christ, we are no longer orphans, we are sons and daughters of God. Scripture says that we are "co-heirs with Christ," having the fullness of His Kingdom riches at our disposal. Most professing believers know that Scripture, but it seems so few of us really live it out. Somehow, we continue to live like orphans, trying to win the approval of God. Trying to earn His love and acceptance, as well as His gifts. We end up living in survival, trying to get into a "room" that we already have been given access to in Christ. Even though we mentally agree that we're "in Christ," we go on living as if we're alone, and on our own. It's a lie from the pit, but so many have believed it. We continue to worry and fret over what might happen, whether what we have today will last until tomorrow? Jesus told us to take no thought for these things, that He will be our Source in all things. Like the TV program, we live as if we're on an island somewhere, spiritual contestants in the enemy's game of "Survivor," and missing the Kingdom because of it. We're too busy surviving to ever really live. 

Christ calls us to leave Survivor Island and it's captivity, and come to Him and partake of the bread and milk of His Life. No longer survivors, orphans, or slaves, but sons and daughters, and co-heirs of the Lord Jesus Christ. No longer living in the waiting room, but in the throne room of the King. No longer in survival mode, but in the "Kingdom has come" mode. All you need do.....is to come.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Fanatics?

 Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' Matthew 22:37...."Go to church once a week and nobody pays attention. Worship God 7 days a week and you become strange. Let us become strange together and call it normal." A.W. Tozer

I think one of the great fears for the average believer in America is for them to be accused of being a religious fanatic. It's OK if we have a personal faith, so long as we're quiet about it. It's a personal thing the world says, and they want it to remain so. In other words, keep quiet.

Most professing believers know the above verse. They know that we're commanded to love the Father, His Son, and His Holy Spirit with all of our being. Every atom of our being and every impulse of our mind and spirit is to be directed towards Him. It is not that we can think of nothing and no one else, but that we cannot think of anything or anyone without being conscious of Him. He's to be a living presence that we're always completely aware of and totally surrendered to. Such a life doesn't just look strange to those who know nothing of it, it terrifies them. They believe you to be out of your mind, and when they see you coming, they begin looking for someplace else to be.

King David danced before the Lord in worship and in public. His wife berated him for it, believing it was demeaning for a king to do so. He replied that he was willing to look much more "undignified," foolish, than that for His God. He didn't fit her idea of normal for the occasion. We have our own ideas about worshipping Him, and most of them fit our idea of being dignified and not looking foolish. Too many of us fall into that category, but what do we miss and what are we not offering up to Him?

I close with something the young lady I wrote of earlier this week said to me. She said she had decided that she was going to worship Him with all of her being and she would not let her fear of what people thought prevent her. The result was the powerful experience I related in Monday's writing. May we, you and I, lose our fear of what people might think, and just worship Him with all our heart. It doesn't have to be dancing, or shouting, or running about, but it does need to be wholehearted and undivided. Worship that draws His heart and presence to us, and the hearts of those who are also present, to Him. This week, when we gather together in His name, may we worship Him in a manner that cares nothing for what people may think, but everything for what He thinks. Let us be strange together and call it normal.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Broken Worship

 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust me enough to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel, you will not lead them into the land I am giving them!” Numbers 20:12

This is the 46th year since I first started following Jesus. In that time I have seen much that is beautiful, holy, and pure in the church, and much that is not. I have seen the destruction that legalism and a religious spirit do to the church. I have also observed the damage done by a lax and irreverent one as well. My personal view these days is that we suffer more from the effects of the latter than we do from the former. I think we're blind to the consequences of it all.

In Numbers 20, the Israelites, as they so often did, were grumbling about their lack of water. God, as He so often did, overlooked their rebellious attitudes and directed Moses to "tap" a rock that God had chosen and that water would flow from it. Moses, angry at the people, struck the rock in anger. In doing so, he behaved in a manner that was not what the Father had intended or wanted. God said that he had not "treated Him as holy." In short, Moses was totally irreverent towards His God. Moses forgot whose presence He was in. He was not focused on his God, but upon himself and the people. He would pay a heavy price. He would not enter into the Holy Land that God promised them all.

Overly harsh you say? This is only one instance where the Father confronted the lack of reverential worship towards Him. There were many others. You may say, "Well, we're living under grace and not the law now," but nowhere in Scripture, Old Testament or New, is the holiness of God and His expectation of our reverence and fear diminished. We are still to treat Him as holy in all places. Not just in His sanctuary, but in our homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Not by rigid rule keeping but by a relationship founded upon His holiness, His majesty, and His infinite power. We think too little of these no matter where we're at. Sometimes I wonder if we think of them at all. What proof does our behavior give? Do we really live in awe and wonder in the presence of the God we call awesome and holy?

We've become so lax in our "worship." So much so that I think what we call worship is more often an offense to Him. We are to worship Him corporately and individually in ways that impact an unbelieving world and people so as to awaken in their hearts a hunger for the God we say we know. 

I close with a happening that took place in a recent time of worship in our church. The Holy Spirit moved upon our worship team in a very real way. What moved me more than anything else was the response of a young woman who is one of our worship leaders. As His Spirit moved, she fell to her knees before Him in adoration and worship....and in brokenness. It was powerful to see. I don't believe she was aware of anything or anyone but her Holy God. Broken worship. To what degree does it mark your life, your church? O Lord, may we come to you always in broken worship. Such worship will always be received by You. May it be our life offering to You.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Joni

 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love. Romans 5:5....."You need hope? Sure you do. You've been dying long enough in your darkness." Joni Eareckson Tada

I spoke with someone the other day who's walking through a wilderness they never dreamed they'd enter with affliction they never dreamed they'd experience. They're not alone, and their pain is very real and intense. It's to them that I direct Tada's words.

Today I want to briefly share 4 quotes from Eareckson Tada that have impacted me. I hope they minister to you if you find yourself in need of hope today.

"There's nothing sweeter than finding my Savior in the middle of my hellish circumstances." We can find many things in our suffering, almost all of them destructive. Self-pity. Anger. Bitterness. Despair. Too few of us find Him. Tada often speaks of how she is often awakened at night suffering great bodily pain. She refuses to yield to its tyranny but focuses on His precious promises to her and speaking them to her pain and suffering. She'll also sing songs and hymns that have ministered to her soul. She has often said that she has experienced her sweetest fellowship with Him in the midst of her suffering. We can as well. Do we dare to face our suffering with the hope and faith that she does?

Jesus, come meet me in my pain." Oftentimes, her suffering is so real and deep that all she can do is invite her Lord to come and meet with her, fellowship with her, in the midst of her sufferings. To experience what Scripture says is "the fellowship of His suffering." He has never failed to do so. In our pain, in your pain, will you invite Him to come, or will you demand that He go?

"My Jesus helps me to suffer well." Suffer well? How? Tada means that in her suffering, she doesn't turn from Him, blame Him, or accuse Him. She journeys more deeply in Him. She embraces a deeper intimacy than she'd known to that point. In her pain, He reveals more of Himself to her, gives her a greater knowledge of Him than she'd ever had. Her pain is not destroying her. It is making ever more whole in Christ.


"Jesus will defang your pain." It is the purpose of Satan to destroy you in the midst of your suffering. He has succeeded in doing so to too many in their pain. They'ver given up, turned back, or they simply are waiting to die. Tada has allowed, and continues to allow Christ to use her pain and suffering as a means to accomplishing His eternal purposes for her. Purpose she would never have realized apart from her suffering. He makes a toothless lion out of the devil.

These are just four of the powerful thoughts Joni Eareckson Tada has on suffering. If they speak to you, I would encourage you to view her video series titled "Songs Of Suffering." In her, you will see Jesus.

Blessings,
Pastor O

With Us

 "After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was taken up into heaven and He sat at the right hand of God." Mark 16:19.....'Christ is spoken of as seated at the right hand of the Father, but with Stephen's death by stoning, He stood....with Stephen." Chris Tiegreen

I love the reality and image of the Lord Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father. The right hand, the place of power. Infinite power. I love that He ceaselessly makes intercession for us, for me. Yet, this can also give us a Jesus who, though He loves us, is very far from us. At least in our thinking. That's why Tiegreen's quote concerning Christ being right there with Stephen in the book of Acts when he was killed for his faith and testimony in Christ is so powerful. I can't put into words how deep that truth is to me. While He is right there with the Father, He is also right here with me, through His Holy Spirit. In His Person and in His Almighty Power. Because of this, Stephen could be fearless as He faced death. In whatever it is we face, so can we.

I have had some very powerful instances where He came and stood with me. One that I will never forget and is the most awesome of them all is on a cold, snowy night in December of 1989. My wife had left several months before. I was out of the ministry and living on a secluded church campground in central Virginia. I was working the 3 to 11 shift at a Coca-Cola plant that was 40 miles away. It had been a very hard day. When I arrived at the cottage I was staying in, I was near despair. I saw no way out of the awful place I was in. What hope I had hung by a thread. I wanted to give up, yet I couldn't. I remember picking up my Bible and reading in 2 Timothy 4, Paul's words about making his defense before the power of Rome. He said that no one stood with Him, that everyone had abandoned him. This is exactly what I felt my position to be. Then he wrote the words that enflamed my heart, "but Christ stood with me." What happened to me can only be explained by the supernatural presence of the King. I "saw" a picture of myself standing before a raging lion, the devil. A lion whose sole desire was to destroy me and every bit of the purpose that He had created me for. I was paralyzed and unable to move. Then I "saw" Jesus come into the portrait, and without a word, silenced the lion/satan, who immediately fled. I was overcome with His peace...and His hope. I knew then that this place was not where I would die. It was not my end. A new hope was born in me and it was not very long after when a new door of opportunity opened to me. This led to another of His doors opening, and then another, as He rebuilt my life, my calling, and my ministry and His purpose for me. He has never stopped the rebuilding. He never will. Neither will He do so for you, both around and in you.

You may be on your own barren landscape today. You may feel alone and abandoned. You are not. The One who sits at the Father's right hand stands also with you. There is nothing to fear and there is nothing that can stop what He means to do and rebuild in your life. Believe Him. Trust Him. Obey Him. The doors will open. And the lion that threatens you....He will put him to flight. Every time. He will never fail you. Never. Press on my friends.

Blessings,
Pastor O

For Today?

 "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." Hebrews 13:8....."Is your Bible a 'Not For Today' version?" Jack Hayford

Hayford's question is one that should cause considerable squirming when we're confronted with it. How do we view what's contained in His Word? Things we say we believe, do we really believe them? Do we, as one person asked, "believe the God we say we believe in?"

We believe in miracles. We believe in His promises. We believe in the abundant life He gives. We believe in all of it...but so often, it seems to be in the past tense. We know He's done it all before, we stagger at the promise that He's still doing it all today. We struggle mightily to believe the God we say we believe in.

The reasons for this are seemingly endless. A great part is that we have come to depend so greatly upon rational thinking and logic. We depend upon our natural senses. Most of all, we depend upon what natural science says is impossible. That's our greatest problem I think. We depend so much more upon what's "natural" to us that we just can't seem to believe in the One who is beyond all natural explanations. Our supernatural God in 3 Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I think much of the professing western church has removed a great deal of the mystery of Almighty God. We have invested huge amounts of energy trying to explain Him, defend Him, and justify Him to an unbelieving world. We miss completely the fact that we can never adequately explain  the One who will always at root be unexplainable. We're finite beings and He's an infinite God. The beauty here though is that to those who will truly believe in Him, who seek, above all things to know Him, He will reveal so much that is a mystery to us. He wants to be known. By His grace, He invites us to pursue Him. As His Word promises, He reveals the hidden things. Things we only can know through intimacy with Him.

So often, Jesus prefaced His miracles with the question, "Do you believe that I can do this?" In the midst of your deepest need, your most crushing situation, your most desperate place, how do you answer this? Someone said that we all believe in His miracles, but few of us ever want to be in the place where we need one. Are you in the place of needing one? 

I will never promote a "miracle on demand" belief system. He is Sovereign, and all that He does and how and when He does it is in His hands, but in over 45 years of walking with Him, I have beheld so many of His wondrous works. I have discovered some small part of the mystery of who He is. There is so much more to know, and I believe I, we, will spend eternity discovering ever more of Him. May we not miss any of the journey of discovery in the here and now. The glory that Moses beheld on Sinai, that the disciples looked upon in Jesus, that they saw in His resurrected body, can still be known and experienced today....if we'll but believe. If you're reading this, I expect that you believe in Him. Do you believe the God you say you believe in? I expect you also have some translated version of the Bible. Is yours a Not For Today version? Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Is He really that for you? He invites you into a lifetime, an eternity of discovery. Are you coming?

Blessings,

Pastor O