Heart Tracks - Wasting Sorrow

      I think our greatest impulse in pain and sorrow is to find relief, comfort, escape.  I know it was so for me in what was the most painful period of my life some 25 years ago.  I hurt.  I hurt with a pain that was to me, indescribable.  I wanted it to end, and I sought Him constantly for it to end.  I prayed and read His Word.  I sought the counsel and comfort of friends in Christ.  I haunted Christian bookstores, looking for volumes that would offer hope and comfort.  One day, as I browsed such a store in Charlottesville, Virginia, I came upon a book with the unappealing title, Don't Waste Your Sorrows by Paul Billheimer.  Waste my sorrows? This would seem to suggest that there was some good in them, and such an idea was totally alien to what I thought life in Him was to be.  Yes, I knew that the Word called Him "the man of sorrows," but somehow, though I would never put it into actual words, I believed that sorrow was something He underwent so I wouldn't have to.  At least not to any great degree in this life.  Still, I bought the book and began to read.  I would not have thought it at the time, but the Father used that book as a door to coming into a fuller, deeper knowledge of Him than I had heretofore known.  I've a friend who likes to talk about praying "hitherto," and "henceforth" prayers.  In effect, before and after prayers.  How we not only pray but relate to Him before we enter into deeper revelations of Him, and how we pray and relate after He has revealed Himself to us in a much greater way.  Before this darkness, I knew Him in one kind of way.  He would use this place of pain and sorrow to cause me to know Him in a new, more beautiful way.  Beauty from ashes.

     As I said, we react to pain by trying to avoid it, and if that fails, to find a means of escaping it.  If we call ourselves His, then our expectation is that He remedy the situation, and in the fastest way possible.  We believe suffering and sorrow have no place in our lives, but He shows us that they not only have a place, but a purpose.  I'm not saying that He wills suffering and sorrow for us, but we have to come to grips with the truth that we live in a fallen, broken world, and though we are His, we are not immune from the effects of that fall and that brokenness.  His promise to us is not that we will escape it, but that in it, if we will allow Him, if we will not waste the sorrow, we will, in Him, grow stronger, deeper, and higher in our spiritual walk.  We will come to know Him not as we wish Him to be, but as He is.  Christ, the man of sorrows, leads us into the presence of a Father who not only knows our sorrow and pain, but can bring healing and life to us even in the midst of the deepest pain we have ever known.
     Psalm 18:11 reads, "He shrouded (covered) Himself in darkness, veiling His approach with dense rain clouds."  This is not an appealing picture.  As small children, so many of us are afraid of the dark.  Few if any ever really outgrow that fear in the realm of emotions and spirit.  Yet the Father tells us that He will use that darkness to display His glory, faithfulness and love.  Verse 12 of that same Psalm reads, "The brilliance of His presence broke through the clouds."  It will.  It did so for me, and continued to do so in the many dark periods that followed that time of pain.  It continues today.  So it will, He will, for you today......if you, if I, refuse to waste our sorrows.  He will use them as steppingstones to His life.  Life that is ours through Christ....the Man of Sorrows.  The Man who knows, understands, and heals yours and mine.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Homesick and Heartsick

     "The Messiah you are looking for is Jesus."  Acts 5:42......."O God, we are homesick and heartsick for You and we don't know it."  E. Stanley Jones......"But I still haven't found what I'm looking for."  Bono, of the band U-2

      One way or another, everyone is searching for, looking for something.  We may call that "something"by many different names; success, security, happiness, fulfillment, meaning.  But ultimately, and as Jones says, whether we know it or not, the One we truly seek is the Father, and the path to Him, as shown in Acts 5, is Christ, and Christ alone.
      As someone has put it, our hearts are restless until they find their home in Christ.  God spoke in the Old Testament to His people Israel and said in effect, "Throughout eternity, I have been your Home."  Whether we want to confess to it, admit it or not, we are born into this world homeless.  We may live in the finest mansion, and have a life filled with things, but without Christ, we are living under a bridge in a cardboard box.  He created us for Himself, but when sin entered the world through Adam, a separation took place between He and the human race He created.  We lost our home.  Christ was given to us, to die for us, in order that we might regain that home.  We are born with an intense desire to find that home on our own, but all our efforts fall short.  Sin is the blockage.  As Jones put it, all other so called "paths to God" involve ones climbing a ladder to Him, and finally, through our own efforts, we might reach that top rung of the ladder, and so reach Him.  We've passed all His tests and obstacles, and now we're entitled to know Him.  It's a lie.  Jones says, and says it truly, that it is only through Christ, who meets us not at the top rung, but the bottom, that we may know Him, and find our home in Him.  Our own efforts will never get us to the top of the ladder, though countless lives spend all their energy trying to do so.  And if it is not a literal god they pursue, it is one that shows himself through their striving for achievement, happiness, possessions, positions, and recognition.  None of which can ever be "home" to souls that were created to know home only in Him.  The great tragedy is that all the while, just as Jones wrote, our hearts remain homesick and heartsick for Him....while we remain oblivious to that truth.
     What home might you, we, be searching for today?  We may not call that home "Messiah," but we see it as our "savior" nonetheless.  We might call it our deliverer, our answer, our hope, or other names too numerous to list.  The reality is that none of them are or can be our home. And so long as we pursue them, our hearts will remain homesick and heartsick.  Yet all the while, He calls to us, standing at the bottom rung of the ladder, inviting us home.  Do we hear His call?  Do we come to Him?  Are we ready now to come home?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Mountains

        I never cease to be amazed at the distance between what Jesus meant in His words, and what we (choose to) hear and understand.  Too often, something, even everything, is lost in the translation.  Mark 11:23 is one such example, and a good friend gave me a wonderful insight of just how we can so easily miss His meaning, or at least, insert our own.

     Jesus says to His disciples, "Have faith in God.  I assure you that you can say to this mountain, 'May God lift you up and throw you into the sea,' and your command will be obeyed.  All that's required is that you really believe and do doubt in your heart." How many of us have claimed that promise, perhaps numerous times, only to look, and sadly, the mountain was still there?  Is Jesus misleading us, even lying to us? Is it because we simply haven't worked up enough faith yet, and so aren't pleasing Him, therefore, the mountain is still there?  Or, could it actually be that we might be missing what He wants us to hear and see in these words?  

     I know that for so long, I have understood them to mean that whatever obstacle, blockage, difficulty, and impossibility that stands before me and where I want to be, what I want to have when I get there, and who I want to be in the process, will be removed if I just have, speak, with enough faith.  My part is to have sufficient faith (willpower?) and His part is to come through in making my impossible desires and dreams come to pass.  If this doesn't happen, then my choice is to either condemn myself, or Him.  The mountain is bigger than ever, and my faith weaker than ever.  How close to your experience is this?  I think a great need within all of His followers is to not only hear the words He speaks, but to also know what He means as He speaks them.  This is a lifelong journey.  I think we hear His words, but not His voice and heart.  If this is so, we miss everything.
    That brings me back to my friend and his understanding of these words.  He felt that the mountain Jesus speaks of is not really that which blocks the way to what we want, but that which blocks us from seeing Him.  Think on that for a minute.  Which do you think is more important to Him; that we get what we want from Him, or that we get Him?  That we see all the things we desire be ours, or that we see Him in every place?  Where Jesus is, there is no impossibility.  Death, in all of its forms is banished.  There is only life.  Having everything in Him takes the place of having everything we want, and we find then, that what we want is Him. Having Him then brings us into the realm of what my friend calls "Nothing is impossible."  When every mountain that stands between He and us is removed, then so is every mountain that stands between us the life He created us for as well.  When this happens, the mountains that seek to keep us from Him are removed with a word, and I think that word may simply be "Yes."  We say yes to Him, and He says yes to us.  Our yes brings us to Him, and His yes brings all His desire for us.  It's no longer about ourselves, and the fulfilling of all our desires, goals, and plans.  It's about entering into the fullness of a life that His word tells us, "Cannot be destroyed."  The mountains that seek to keep us from that life become powerless as we live in the power of that life, and become "more than conquerors" in the midst of all of them.
    What mountains do we seek to remove?  The ones that stand in the way of what we want, or that which stands in the way of seeing, hearing, and having Him, and all the abundance of life He brings?  In our hearts, which choice do we really desire to make?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Tourists

       "As they went away Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: 'What did you go out into the wilderness to look at?  A reed shaken by the wind?  What then did you go out to see?.....A prophet?  Yes, and more than a prophet."  John the Baptist, of whom Jesus was speaking, drew a lot of attention from the people of Israel.  Wherever he preached, crowds gathered.  They listened to him, enjoyed him.  Many went away transformed by what they heard.  Many more just went away.  Some partake of the Kingdom he preached of.  Many more were just sightseeing, checking out what was going on.  Some were Kingdom of God seekers.  Many were just Kingdom Tourists.  There to take a few "snapshots," maybe even get close to John himself, interested in his message to a degree, but not enough for that message to lay hold of their hearts and lives. Jesus was speaking to those same people now.  People who had come to see John, were now coming to see Him.  Christ and His Kingdom will always draw those whose hearts are being drawn to Him.  It will also attract the "tourists."  Those who may have come there, but they don't, won't, live there.

      I had the joy of living in beautiful Colorado Springs for 4 years of my life.  The Springs is a great tourist attraction, drawing thousands upon thousands of tourists every year.  They can be seen everywhere, taking pictures, posing at famous landmarks. They're there a week, two weeks, seeing all they can, and enjoying all of it.  Then they go home.  The Springs was a great place to enjoy for the moment, but it was not where they lived.  It was not where they would abide.  They took memories home with them, photos of the wondrous mountains, the beautiful Garden of the Gods, and of course, Pikes Peak.  Those photos would go into albums, or be kept on their laptop, to be looked at from time to time, and with warm memories.  It went no further than that. That's where they had visited.  It was not where they lived.

     I contrast that with the life of the dear old woman I knew in the Nursing Home  I worked at.  She had a room with a large window that looked out directly upon majestic Pikes Peak.  I remember her saying to me one time, "I never get tired at looking at my mountains."  You see, she had been born there.  Had lived there all her life.  The beauty of that city and area were part of her. They weren't just something she looked at, they were hers.  Tourists, and residents.  There's a world of difference between the two.  It is even more true as concerns His Kingdom.  Are we tourists, sightseers of it, or citizens, dwellers within it?
    Eugene Peterson wrote this prayer as concerns Jesus' words in Matthew 11.  He writes, "It is a lot easier for me, Lord Jesus, to be an onlooker than a participant.  I get all the pleasures of diversion and excitement, and none of the stress of risk and discipline.....Forgive me for looking on, and enable me to enter in, by faith.  Amen.".......You and I may be found "in church" every time the doors open.  We may be in prayer groups, Bible studies, Sunday School classes, and countless other "church stuff," but still nothing more than tourists in the Kingdom.  We like what we see.  It may please our emotions, but our hearts and being remain untouched.  We may have our snapshot memories to look at, but what we have seen is not "ours."  We may have visited there, but we're not living there.  His Kingdom is not ours.  Our kingdom is found somewhere else.
   So, if you are one of those who finds themselves at anything that is being done in his name, how do you answer His question as to what you've, we've, come to see?  Have we come to look on....or to enter in?

Blessings,
Pastor O 

Heart Tracks - High Places

     "And Jehoash did right in the sight of the Lord all his days in which Jehoida instructed him.  Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places."  2 Kings 12:2-3  It's remarkable how many times a believer can read that scripture and walk away believing it has no relevance for us.  For the record, high places were elevated places or raised altars that were erected for the purpose of worshiping the idols and false gods of the nations surrounding Israel.  It was a snare the Israelites were constantly being entangled in. They were very willing to offer worship to the Living God, but they clung to those high places, those other "gods and idols" that they had welcomed (yes, welcomed) into their lives.  The high places are mentioned almost exclusively in the Old Testament, and therefore, we, who tend to only focus on the new covenant in Christ, tend to believe they have no meaning for us today.  We would be, we are, wrong.  We are saved and kept by His grace in Christ, but that doesn't mean we haven't reserved the right to keep our own "high places," places where we offer "worship" to other "gods" in our lives.  

     We can erect a high place just about anywhere, especially in "the church."  We can make a high place out of a person, be they our spouse, our children, a relationship, a friend.  It can be our profession, our favorite entertainments, sports, and yes, ministries, and that which we believe we are doing for Him.  The high place in our life is anything or anyone who has taken our heart in any way and to any degree from Him.  The Bible called it giving glory to something or someone other than the Father.  In Old Testament times they were highly visible, but they've become a great deal more subtle today.  We can find them in our home entertainment center, our IPads, laptops, fantasy leagues, recreation, relationships, careers, and especially in the church office and building, and everything that might go on there and beyond there.  It can be something good, very good, but it isn't God, and it's become a high place, and we're "burning incense" on it every day.  We are worshiping it, them, and not Him. Our hearts are divided, and so, not fully, really His.  The end of it will always be weakness and defeat.  It was so for Israel, and it will be so for us.  Good will always fail us.  God will not.

     We may deal with all these kinds of high places in our lives, and yet still be held captive by one whose presence can be the most deceptive of all, but will always seek to supplant His glory.  Our pride.  It lurks everywhere and seeks to overthrow Him in every place.  It comes disguised in many forms, including what looks like service and humility.  But the motive is not to bring attention, honor, and glory to Him, to Christ, but to ourselves.  We are not trying to point to Him, but to us.  It's the power of the self, and can only be destroyed by a surrender of that self on His altar, and a willing tearing down of all other altars that we've erected around Him.  Do we have the courage to allow His Holy Spirit to expose where in our heats these "other altars" are found?
     Some years ago I saw a "reality TV" program where the mother of a small girl held a birthday party for her that cost $50,000.  Part of the expense was in hiring a songwriter to compose a "theme song" for the little girls life, and band to sing it that day.  Absurd?  For sure.  Yet, don't we, in how we live our lives also compose a theme song?  We will, and it will be either all about us, and our desires, or all about Him, and His. Each of us today is writing one.  Is it about us or all about Him?  We will write the first at one of our high places.  The last can only be written at His cross.

Blessings,
Pastor O
     

Heart Tracks - The Hyena

       In the spiritual realm, there are two grave dangers; making too much of the devil, and making too little.  I think we have a great deal of both in the church today.  There are those who think their ministry is to go about rebuking Satan at every turn, constantly seeking to bind him, defeat him.  They end up bringing more attention to him than they ever do to Christ.  All those in that "group" need to know (again) that he is already defeated, and that all the power needed to resist him in their lives has already been given in Christ.  We're to be aware of his schemes, not obsessed by them.  And to know that we have all the spiritual weaponry to defeat every scheme in every place.  Yet there are also those who think of him as so obscure as to have no relevance in our modern, "enlightened" culture.  We're the Kings kids, and so the devil can't touch us. We can breeze through life relying far more on our own understanding than His, seeing with the eyes of the flesh and not the Spirit.  We forget that Satan really does "prowl about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he MIGHT devour."  Might he be devouring you right now....unawares?

     In explaining the story of Adam and Eve and their temptation and deception by the devil to a Swaziland family, a missionary used this story.  An African woman and her three children encountered a hyena sleeping by the side of the road with rattles around his feet.  "The woman and her children wanted to see him dance, shaking the rattles.  The hyena agreed to do so if she would give him a piece of the dried meat she was carrying.  One thing led to another and he ate not only all of her meat, but the woman and her children as well."  He then explained that "The hyena was like Satan.  He tempts us with something fun or beautiful, but ends up destroying us."  Such is the end for all who think they can dance with the devil and remain untouched.  Does not the Word refer to him as "The Destroyer?"  Yet, because we are so easily deluded and deceived by him, countless numbers of us do just that, leaving so much of our lives, families, ministries, and above all, walk with Him, partially or completely destroyed.  Satan is a dance partner with murder, ours, yours, in his heart.
     Yet, there is another "Partner" who invites us to dance as well.  This one is He who gives us Life instead of death, joy instead of sorrow, peace instead of turmoil, and abundance instead of devastation.  It's the Father Himself.  He calls us into the embrace of His Presence.  Not some vague sense of that Presence, but an intimate union with Himself.  It's a dance that makes us one with Him.  Not only in spiritual position, but in spiritual reality as well.  For all who enter into His dance, there is complete safety from every trick and scheme of the enemy.  Francis Fragiapane wrote that, "The true Presence of Christ is the only thing that keeps us from delusion and deception."  He is Truth, and where His truth reigns, deception has no place, and no power.     

     It's very much a thing of the past I believe, but there was a time when at a ball, a single young woman would have a dance card, and the names of those who wished to be her suitors would seek to have their names on that card in order to dance with her, and have the chance to win her hand in marriage.  Such cards do not exist today, but in the spiritual realm they do.  On whose card are our names found?  With whom will we dance, and be partnered to?  The Father, or the hyena?.......I close with this final thought/question. I believe it was Christine Caine, commenting on 2 Kings 18:32 who put both forth.  Sennacherib, the king of Assyria has invaded Judah, and threatens the people with destruction and slavery if they do not surrender to him.  He tells them that if they will yield to him, he will see to it that they are taken away to a wonderful land where all their needs and wants will be met.  He calls on them to "make peace with me......choose life instead of death."  Of course his "invitation" was a lie.  All the enemies invitations are.  Caine's point is that throughout His Word, the Father also calls upon us to "choose life (His life) not death."  She says that there are then two versions of life offered.  The devil's, and the Father's.  She asks, "Which version do we choose?"  Which are we choosing right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The End?

       There have been many places in my life when the devil, working through circumstances, pain, loss, and need, has sought, and still seeks to convince me that at that place, I have reached the end.  The end of my dreams, desires, ministry, life.  His persuasion skills are powerful, and while his whispers from the darkness can sound like truth, like reality, they are, as always, a lie.  Jesus said that he was a liar from the beginning.  He always will be.  Might it be that you're hearing some of his whispers right now?  Is he telling you, in the darkness you walk in, that this is the end?

     We are seeing a huge increase in opposition to the church of Christ throughout the world, and very much here in America. The enemy is coming against us on every front, both as the Body of Christ, and the individuals who comprise that Body.  Satan hates what the Father loves, and the Father loves His church and people beyond description.  The devil's hatred will also be beyond description.  His hearts desire is to bring about the end of His church and of His people.  He will paint a very convincing picture of this end for us, but it's a counterfeit one.  It only looks real.  God alone applies the brushstrokes to the lives of His people.  In the midst of all the darkness and need, He continues to paint the portrait of our lives and all that pertains to them.
     Matthew 10:16-23 gives Jesus' words to His followers; "I am sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves...."  He goes on to list all that His followers will face in their journey with Him, and it is not a list that the flesh can accept.  He states bluntly that, "The one who endures to the end will be saved."  First, know that Christ here proclaims that He, and not the enemy define "the end."  Secondly, we need to know that the only way we will "endure" is by and in the power of His resurrected life.  Anything else or less will surely perish.
     Of this scripture passage, Eugene Peterson writes, "We live spiritually and morally in hostile country.  We need to be realistic about that...... Family strife, social discord, church unrest are not the end.  Christ is the end."  Wherever we are, no matter how dark and dangerous, no matter how threatening to our very lives, it is not the end.  Christ is the end.  And the beginning.  As the devil prepares for us a gravestone, Christ prepares a door.  A door into a new place in Him.....if we will endure in Him.
   How can we?  Watchman Nee speaks on Psalm 118:27, "Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar."  This verse has to do with the Old Testament offering of burnt sacrifices to God on the altar.  It was a whole burnt offering to Him.  All of the sacrificed animal was consumed by the fire.  Romans 12:1 tells us that the New Testament sacrifice is to be a living one, yet one that is also wholly consumed.  Nee writes, "The meaning of the altar is that the offering of our lives to God is to be ever consumed, yet ever living: to be ever living,  but ever consumed."  Such a life will not only endure, but prevail.  Such a life will know that it is not the devil's words, but Christ's that are the end.  Whose end are we seeing and believing today?  The counterfeit one painted by the devil, or the true, ever unfolding one created for us by Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O