Heart Tracks - Two Horizon's

      Horizon's play quite a role in much of the popular literature and cinema both past and present.  Tales abound of pioneers on both land and sea, who, after long travel, scan the horizon in hope of seeing the destination long sought, and the joy is overwhelming when that which is sought is seen, even if only in a very small part.  Yet hopeless despair is the result when there seems to be nothing on the horizon.  The reality is that there is something awaiting them, but the question that lingers is, what?   All of us, whether we are looking or not, searching or not, are moving towards our own particular horizon, and in matters of eternity, of the soul, there are only two, and everything depends upon which one of the two we are heading towards.

     T. Austin-Sparks said that "Death, spiritual death is Satan's horizon.  Resurrection is God's horizon in Christ.  Resurrection is the answer to death in all of its forms."  So, for you and I, it comes down to, whether we want to believe it or not, that all of us are heading towards one of the two horizon's.  Which is your and mine?  This is a question that must be asked not only as concerns our eternal destination, but our day to day one as well.  Sparks said that "Outside of God, there is no power in the universe so great as death."  Whose power prevails in our lives?  In the day by day, moment by moment working of our lives, what is prevailing, life, His life, or death, the enemy's  death?      In Paul's great prayer in Ephesians 1 :18-20, he says, "I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of the inheritance of His saints and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe."  This inheritance comes to us Paul writes through the resurrection of Christ, and through our believing, receiving, and entering into that very life ourselves.  It's not just a mental agreement and belief, but a true entering into the resurrection life of Christ Himself.  It is a life that the Father places before us, the horizon that He has for us, and it is not a horizon we must labor to reach, but is ours, our inheritance, in and through Christ.  Sparks says that it is when you and I begin to "see" with the eyes of our heart that inheritance come into view, that the devil will rise up and seek to do all he can to thwart our entering into it.  If he cannot prevent a soul from coming to and receiving Christ in the first place, then he will gleefully devote his time to preventing that soul from ever knowing the fullness of life that is offered him, that is his inheritance in Christ.  That inheritance is meant for us not just in the future, but now.  Life, full, free, abundant, the very life of Christ Himself, is ours now.  Death has for us no sting or victory.  Not now, not ever.  Not for those whose horizon is Christ.
      Today, and every day, we journey towards the horizon.  The horizon of the Father, or the horizon of the enemy.  Which one is yours?  Which inheritance, the Father's , or the enemy's, is yours?  What works in us today?  The Father's life, or the enemy's death?  These questions cannot go unanswered.  How do we answer?

Blessings,

Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - Experiencing God

     Experiencing God.  Henry Blackaby wrote a classic book and study under that title.  I remember the church I was a part of at that time having multiple classes going on that were studying that book.  They were not alone.  It was a "hot item" throughout the church.  Everyone wants to experience God.  Surely this class would offer the pathway on how to do just that.  That was many years ago, and I wonder, of all the people who participated in that study, how many were there who really entered into a true experience and revelation of the Father, and how many just took a class, and at the close of that class, closed their notebooks, the study guide they'd used, and placed them neatly on the shelf, right alongside all the other studies and notebooks they'd been in, filled up, yet emerged from.....the same?

      In my prayer book, I have written down a lengthy list of the attributes of God.  Savior, Deliverer, Redeemer, Provider, Bread of Life, Master, Almighty, Peace.  These are just a few, and I've known these characteristics of God for sometime now.  Perhaps you have as well, but do I, do you, know them as a descriptive list, or as a result of intimate encounter?  In the aforementioned prayer book, I ask Him to reveal to me, to those He's put on my heart, the fullness of those characteristics.  But just how does He go about revealing Himself?  Through a study?  By listening to a sermon or a song.  He certainly can, but only if we have an encounter with Him in the midst of it all.  We can "know" that He is Provider, Healer, Deliverer,Savior, but it is only by a true encounter with Him in that role that we know Him as such.  As pastor and writer Bill Johnson says, "An encounter with the Provider brings provision."  An encounter with the Healer will bring healing, with the Deliverer, deliverance, and with the Savior, salvation.  These are no longer things that we believe that He is, we know He is.  We have encountered Him, we've been healed by the Healer, provided for by the Provider, saved by the Savior.  In His mercy, He may well have done all these things in a life, but in the midst of it all, that life never encountered Him, and so they went on, unsure as to whether He really is who He says He is, and that uncertainty will only grow.  We may do another study, join another group, listen to another sermon, and sing another song, but we still will not know Him.  We will still not have encountered Him.
     A.W. Tozer asked, "How many Christians harbor in their own spirit the daily expectation of God's presence"  He did not mean a vague "I know He is with me," expectation, but an expectation of encounter, of interaction, of intimacy?  Do I harbor it in mine?  Do you in yours?  In Exodus Moses told God that what would distinguish the Israelites from all the other people's they would contact was that His Presence was with them.  This, His Presence, is as Johnson says, what distinguishes us from all other people.  It can not be had through any means other than a one on one encounter with Him.  Most of the people who followed Moses, never encountered the God that Moses Himself followed and knew.  His Word tells us that Moses talked to the Father "face to face, as a friend."  The heart of the Father never wanted it to be only Moses.  He still doesn't.  He calls us to encounter, to come and see; to come and know.  Simply, to come.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Airbrushing God

     I remember once hearing an actress, in a surprising moment of honesty, tell about a conversation she had with an admiring female fan concerning a recently published photo of herself.  The photo, featuring of course a great deal of exposed skin, caused the fan to lament that she didn't have a body like the actress, to which the actress replied that she also lacked such a body, that the photo had been airbrushed to present her in the most desirable way possible.  What people saw was what he who held the airbrush wanted them to see, not who she actually was.  I wonder to what extent we have done this with God?  To what extent have we "airbrushed" Him in order to make Him more acceptable, more "user friendly" to the masses?  What aspect of Him have we sought to enhance, while at the same time covering up those parts of Him that many find "hard to take?"  When the Father looks at our finished portrait of Him, does He, like the actress, say, "That's not who I am."

     We make much of the love of God, and everyone loves to hear of it.  Yet we are so reluctant to speak of how His love is tempered by His holiness, that indeed, He cannot perfectly love apart from His holiness.  As Randy Alcorn writes, " Many modern Christians have reduced Him to a single attribute God.  Never mind that the angels in God's presence (Isaiah 6:3) do not cry out day and night 'Love, love, love,' but 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty."  He goes on to say that we're right to rejoice in His mercy and love, but we can't forget that He is "relentlessly holy, righteous, and just."  Our version of His love seems to make mankind totally deserving of it.  He should love us because after all, we're good folks.  The true beauty of His love is that we're not deserving of His love at all, that we're a fallen race, born with a bent towards sin, and with hearts that want to run from Him, not to Him.  The wonder of His love is that in our sin, He loves us, but His holiness demands that our sin must be dealt with, and in Christ and His cross, in they alone, it is.  In Christ, it is dealt with, without Him, it will be dealt with still.  To try and get around this reality with a watered down God, Christ, and Gospel, is to present a God who not only isn't, but never was or ever will be.  The airbrushed version of Him, so popular today, can save no one.  Will never save anyone.
     One way or another, we who are His, will paint a portrait of Him with our lives, our message, our church.  Will that portrait be one that displays Him as He truly is, or an airbrushed version that has wide appeal, but no power to save or transform?  One is painted in the blood of Christ.  The other, in the artificial colors of the culture we live in.  Which is ours?

Blessings,

Pastor O
     

Heart Tracks - Undone!

      Pastor and writer Michael Catt says that there are two God's being worshiped in the American church, God as He is, and God as we've created Him in our image.  Before you pull back in horror, think on his words.  Dwell upon much of what we call "worship" in the church today.  How much of what goes on is tailored to our needs and desires, what we like, what we want?  How much of "church" is about "us" rather than being all about Him?  How much of our music and preaching is geared towards getting a favorable response from people, instead of being an offering of brokenness to Him?  I once has an irate congregant tell me after a message that displeased him that "I come to church to feel good."  If we don't leave a gathering feeling "good", we feel shortchanged somehow.  We're "paying customers" aren't we?  Shouldn't we be getting what we came for?  In Isaiah 6, when God appeared to Isaiah, all he could say is "Woe is me, I am undone."  Catt says that this element is missing in modern worship.  The sense of awestruck wonder in His presence is missing.  Few of us are "undone" in most "worship" experiences today.  We may sing fast paced choruses or traditional hymns.  We may clap and dance, or stand in somber silence, but when we are done, how many of us have been undone?

     I once preached on this matter, and in the course of the message, I mentioned how so many of us, at the immediate end of a "worship service," immediately check our phone messages, or begin texting, or pick up a conversation right where we had left off before "worship."  I didn't detect that anyone was not "listening" when I said that, yet, as the service closed, I saw a number of folks immediately do what I had just spoken of.  Were they being defiant?  I don't think so.  Though they heard, they didn't hear.  I believe the reason they could disengage from Him so easily was that they had never been truly engaged with Him to begin with, and this disengagement was not a Sunday morning thing, but a day by day reality for them.  Is it the same for you and I?
   Jesus, in John 4, told the Samaritan woman that those who would worship the Father would worship Him in "Spirit and truth."  I think many wonder just what does that mean.  I like the meaning that Catt gives; those who truly worship Him in Spirit and truth will do so as a way of life, surrendering moment by moment to His Lordship, living with an ever growing, ever deepening sensitivity to His Spirit, a day by day dying to themselves, and a step by step obedience to His Word.  This is a lifestyle of worship.  This is a lifestyle that will live in His Presence.  For sure we will be undone by this lifestyle before Him, be remade as well.  True worship encounters Him as He is, not as we wish Him to be.  One cannot truly worship Him and remain unchanged.  True worship comes to Him as He is, with a willingness to be shown who and where we are.  This is the worship that He'll joyfully receive, and worship that we must joyfully give.  Which God will we come before, the one we've created in our image, or the One who is?  One way or another, we'll answer that today.  What will that answer be?

Blessings,

Pastor O  

Heart Tracks - Cover Story

      Most folks seem to enjoy a good "thriller," be it book or movie.  A favorite theme in these is when the main character goes into "deep cover" in order to infiltrate and subvert a crime or spy organization from within.  Always, they are given a "cover story," something that creates knowledge about the character, knowledge that is almost always false.  The other day, a good friend shared some great insights on just how this applies to the lives of those who are His.  I thought I'd pass on some of those insights, as well as some the Lord has shown me since then.
      If we're honest, most of us only know each other through our "cover stories."  We have surface knowledge of each other.  We know each others favorite teams, foods, TV shows and movies.  We know a lot about each other, but very little of each other.  Is it any wonder then that the same is true of our knowledge and relationship with Christ?  We rarely get beyond the surface with Him.  We rarely enter into the place, the secret place as His Word calls it, of truly knowing Him.  We know lots about, but little of.  We're satisfied to know one another's cover story, and in a way, Christ's, but that's where it ends.  There is a "deep cover" in each of our lives, but few of us ever discover it, even as concerns ourselves.  As a result, like some of the characters, we've been in deep cover so long, we can no longer distinguish between our cover story, and who we really are, and who He really is.  In the Word, John tells us that we shall behold Him, that we shall see Him, Christ, "just as He is."  Many think this is a future promise, but I believe that the fullness of His Word tells us that this beholding of Him can begin now.  That we can begin to see Him, the fullness of Him, now.  But we must desire to get beyond the cover story.  In Exodus, it's written that Moses "entered into the deep darkness, where God was."  The Father has no desire to remain under "deep cover" in His relationship with us.  He longs to be known, but this knowing is a journey of discovery, and at times, it will require entering into the unknown, but in that unknown, we will come to know Him more.
     There's another element in all of this that my friend shared.  It's the role of the believer living in "deep cover" in the midst of broken, lost culture.
In His Word we're told to be "in the world, but not of it."  How do we truly live that out?  First off, those who continue to live only on the surface, the cover story, can't live it out.  We can "do church" even engage in good works, but if the lives involved are not living deeply in Him, the results will not be lasting.  It is, and will be, lives lived out in the resurrection power of Christ, that will "turn the world upside down."  This is what Paul and a few followers were accused of in the book of Acts.  The were able to do so because they lived so deeply in Him, deep cover in Him, that the power of His life through them, shook the world.  They "subverted" their culture, not nearly so much by what they did, but by who they were in Him, and who He was through them.  We who are His are called to the same, and nothing less.  To do so, we must go beyond the "cover story" we've been living and have been content to have as the filter in knowing others, and knowing Him.  From the place of our deep cover in Him, we live lives of Holy Spirit power, lives that can and will, turn the world upside down.  To such a life we're called, but we must drop our cover story.  Will we?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Living In Nowheresville

    "Living in 'Nowheresville.' "  That's where pastor and writer Greg
Matte said Moses called home as he tended sheep on the backside of the
desert.  His father-in-law's sheep, not his.  It's a place where far
more often than not, I've found myself living.  Maybe you have as well. 
Maybe you are now.
      Maybe you can describe this place.  A place where you feel you're
unseen, unnoticed, perhaps unappreciated.  Pastor's can certainly be
familiar with this place, but so can husbands, wives, children,
employee's, really, just about everyone.  Nowheresville is a lonely
place, and it's also a place where our enemy, if he can catch us
unawares, will seek to convince us that it's God who put us there, and
that He's as unaware of us as everyone else seems to be. The first may
well be true, He may well have placed you there.  He surely did so with
Moses, but the second will always be amongst the devil's great lies. 
There is never a place, never can be a place, where He does not see us,
is not aware of us, and more, does not join us in.
      It is natural, and human, to want to be noticed, appreciated, and
yes, applauded.  Yet, we live in a fallen world, one that will only be
too happy to take and use us, and then discard us when its finished. 
There may be some recognition along the way, but it's fleeting.  The
culture has always been and always will be a "what have you done for me
lately" one.  The church, to our shame, has not been immune.  We can be
as gulity, even moreso, than the culture we seek to reach, because,
tragically, that culture, in so many ways, has had more influence upon
us, than we upon it.  Even so, when living in Nowheresville, there is
still opportunity to see and be swept up into the glory of God.
     Moses, chief citizen of Nowheresville, saw that glory in the
burning bush.  Hagar, driven out of the camp of Abraham by a jealous
Sarah, sat in the desert waiting to die, when the Father came to her,
revealed Himself to her, and let her know that He was not finished with
her yet.  In Genesis 16:13, she calls Him, "the God who sees me......I
have seen the One who sees me."  In her own Nowheresville, she beheld
His glory.  Yet such encounters are not confined to the persons of the
Bible.  Singer and speaker Sheila Walsh, having suffered an emotional
breakdown, checked herself into a sanitarium.  Her marriage had
crumbled, her ministry seemed ended, and in the small room where she
changed into a hospital gown, she felt totally alone, forgotten, and
unnoticed.  Yet at that moment, a nurse she had not seen before, and
would not see again throughout her stay, entered that room and said,
"Sheila, the Shepherd knows where you are."  She too beheld the glory of
God.  So may you and I.  So must you and I.
     In his autobiography, "The Heavenly Man," Brother Yun, a Chinese
believer who had suffered terrible suffering in a number of Chinese
prisons for his faith, could say in the midst of it all, "I am nothing. 
Christ is everything."  For anyone who has read that book, there can be
no denying that Yun saw, so many times, the glory of God, and always, in
his own particular Nowheresville.  I have written in my prayer journal,
that I would have the strength to be nothing.  To live, willingly, in
Nowheresville.  Unknown. Unnoticed.  Perhaps to everyone, but never to
Him.  To see, in that place, His glory, to be swept up into it.  Living
in Nowheresville....with Him. Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Standing In The Shadows

     Acts 5:15 tells of the wondrous witness and testimony of the power of Christ's life in Peter, that the people would often bring their sick and crippled out into the street in hopes that should Peter pass by, his mere shadow falling upon them would bring healing and wholeness.  There can be no doubt that Peter walked, lived, and ministered in the power of Jesus' resurrection life.  True Holy Spirit power coursed through him and countless lives were touched powerfully by his life.  Yet, I have so often wondered if those upon whom his shadow fell, and all those who received such powerful ministry from him, did they ever come to know for themselves, experience for themselves, the life that Peter knew.  Did they live, move, and yes, minister, in that same resurrection power?

    I think we in the church have always flocked to see and hear those who have truly seen, encountered, and have known Almighty God, but perhaps never more than in this day.  We want to know what He is speaking, what He is doing.  We want to know what these men and women are hearing.  Somehow we miss the reality that these ones are not "superspiritual believers," living lives that can only be obtained by a select, privileged few.  They are merely ones who have so hungered and thirsted after Him that they would allow nothing to come between they and the Christ they so loved, and so passionately sought.  It is lost to so many of us that the life they are leading is also the life He invites us into as well.  In our spiritual laziness however, we'd rather someone else do the "hard work" of going deeply into His life.  We'll be content to just "stand in the shadows" of those who have.

   Pastor and writer Francis Frangiapane writes that he was very much once among the latter.  He was always asking godly men and women he admired what they were hearing from God.  Finally, one replied to his question, "Tell Francis I miss him."  Might the Father be saying the same to you and I today?  If He is, are we even in the place spiritually, where we could hear Him?
   More than 50 years ago, A.W. Tozer wrote, "We are turning out from the Bible schools year after year, young men and women who know the theory of the Spirit-filled life, but do not enjoy the experience....who turn out a generation of believers who know nothing personally of the inner fire.  The next generation will drop even the theory."  We need, desperately, to be a people who know of Him only through what we've read or heard.  We must be a people, a church, who are able to relate to those around us what we have seen, heard, and felt, and lead them to the place where they too may encounter Him, see Him, hear Him, and encounter Him.  We need to cease standing in the shadows of men, and stand instead in His presence.

Blessings,
Pastor O

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