Heart Tracks - Alone In The Deep

"The first time I was brought before the judge, no one was with me. Everyone had abandoned me....."But the Lord stood with me, and gave me strength...." 2 Timothy 4:16-17....."Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch." Luke 5:4....."The next time you feel in a helpless situation and know you're in over your heard, remember the sovereign Lord who placed you there....He knows what awaits us there. He is Lord of the wind and the waves, the harvest, the loneliness, or whatever else might face us 'in the deep.' " Chris Tiegreen

These two scriptures speak to me today. After so many years of walking with Him, I have found that as He did with Paul, and with His disciples, He often leads us into lonely places. Dangerous places. Places where we feel bereft of all human comfort and help. Places we would never choose to be. Be it ministry, relationships, health, or simply in the day to day affairs of life, He will take us into "deep places." Places where we know full well that we are "in over our heads." Maybe we're in such a place right now.

Paul, knowing he stood before a representative of the mightiest empire of the ancient world, was very aware that in himself he had no hope. Any hope he may have had in his "friends" was gone since those friends had left him alone. Yet it was in that forlorn place that He experienced the wondrous presence of His Lord. Christ stood with Him there, and if he had been depending upon or experiencing the mere comfort of men, he never would have had the unforgettable experience of knowing what it was to stand with and in Christ and Christ alone. Such a place is a terror to our flesh, but a glorious opportunity to know Him. I think I know in a very small part something of that.

Twenty seven years ago, living on a denominational campground that was virtually abandoned now that it was early winter, 2 Timothy 4 became a reality to me. Having nowhere else to go with the collapse of my marriage and ministry, I was living there in a small cottage. Coming home after a long days work, I felt as Paul must have. Alone, abandoned....forgotten. Then I read that passage of scripture, and I immediately knew that I was none of those. He, as He did with Paul, stood with me. He, and not my circumstances were the reality. And with Him, I could do all things.....including seeing my life and ministry restored....in and by Him......I would never wish to re-live those days, but neither would I ever exchange what I learned and experienced of Him in those days. I was indeed in over my head, in deep waters I never sought to be in. They were too much for me. They were never too much for Him. Whatever our, your, deep waters may be, they will never be more or greater than He is. He is the master of every lonely place, and every deep place. No matter how dark, how lonely they may be.

It made no sense to Peter and the other disciples to head out into the deep water. They'd caught nothing before, so what was the point. Oftentimes, most times, His leading will make no more sense to us. Yet lead us He does. To that place He calls us to obediently follow Him to. There, we will discover His Person, Power and Presence. It likely will be deep, dark, lonely and frightening. The perfect scenario to encounter the risen Christ. If you are not there, you will be. In that place, will you flee from Him, or run to Him? What is more real to you? The deep, the darkness, the loneliness....or Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Image

"I have come to bring fire to the earth.....Do you think I have come to bring peace? No, I have come to bring strife and division!" Luke 12:49,51...."The world hates Me because I convict it of sin and evil." John 7:7......"The miracle of Divine life is that we go on in a world of death and are not destroyed by it. A place where everything is against us." T. Austin-Sparks

There's a common saying in the entertainment and political realms: "Image is everything." Who you really are is not what matters. It's who you can make people believe you are that counts. We are seeing the fruit of that everywhere in our culture. Images are crafted in order to "sell" the product of the crafting to a watching public...who likely is only paying attention in part. Oftentimes a very small part. People buy into the image, but so often to their own harm, even destruction. It makes me wonder just how much of this is taking place in the Church as we, often in alarm, even panic, seek to present an image of Jesus that is far more acceptable to an unbelieving world than He Himself ever was when He walked this world.

Let me say that I am no fan of anyone who presents the Father as a vindictive, punishing, and unloving God. The very life of Christ shows that He is not, for Jesus said "He that has seen Me has seen the Father." Let me also say that I am just as opposed to any portrayal of Him as some kind of flower child Christ. A Jesus who just loves people, doesn't offend, never confronts, and just lets us be ourselves. He receives us just as we are. He makes no place for allowing us to stay that way. The Father is the Potter and we're the clay. And His hands can be painful as He shapes us through His Word and His work. We come with the thick coating of sin, dross, and in His love, He is dedicated to bringing us forth as gold. And the process can be harsh. As His word says, "He wounds us that He might heal us."

It often seems that the Church wants to apologize for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus never did. We don't like to talk of sin and judgement, yet Christ did, and a great deal at that. No one in the Bible spoke more about the reality of hell than He did. We like to emphasize His mercy and grace, and He has those in full. But He did not hold back in speaking of His justice and wrath against sin and evil. He did come to bring people to the Father, and the offer of His peace to all who would receive Him. But as the above scripture shows, He knew that His very life would be a consuming fire in this world and in His Church as well. Though His heart longs to bring all men to Himself, He knew and knows that His life and words would surely bring sharp division, hostility and hatred between Himself and those who would not listen. He never felt the need to apologize for this and neither should we. He needed no "image consultant," but trusted Himself to His Father, and never to men. Christ bids us come to Him as He is...."in the raw," where He makes no attempt to soften His image. You can accept Him, or reject Him, but you can never be neutral before Him. He is who He is....not who our flesh would like Him to be.

In the Old Testament, the Father forbade the Israelites making any kind of image of Him. It was a great sin to do so, as they discovered when they sought to make a golden calf at Mt. Sinai. That golden image was their idea of who He was. Can we face the question of whether that is what we are doing when we try to present a Christ that is more acceptable to a lost world? Trying to soften One who never softened His words or actions. He is mercy, He is peace. He is also fire, thunder, and earthquakes to the world and people He speaks to. He is Jesus. As He is, and not as we wish Him to be.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Abandoned

"For this reason I say to you, do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink, nor for your body as to what you shall put on. Is life not more than food, and the body than clothing?" Matthew 6:25....."Our faith is not to be in God plus man, but in God alone." Watchman Nee...."The great word of Jesus to His disciples is, abandon." Oswald Chambers

T. Austin-Sparks said, "In the midst of need, we seek natural, not supernatural remedy and healing. We seek help in the same places as unbelievers." How close to our day to day way of life do these words, and those of Nee and Chambers "hit?" How much of the testimony we give as to the faithfulness and sufficiency of God really just lip-service? When the pressures and needs of life come upon us, and oftentimes in waves, who do we really see as our help?

Both Watchman Nee and George Mueller, great men of God alike, had as a heartfelt and life conducting conviction that in any material or financial need, they would tell no one but God about it. They would not seek help from brethren in the Church, or solicit funds from those known to have giving hearts and lives. They trusted in the One who had promised to supply "all their need." They took Him at His word, and the result were lives that witnessed the unending faithfulness of the Father to care for them. Mueller raised literally hundreds of thousands of dollars (millions in today's money) for his ministry to orphans simply by never telling anyone but Him of the need. So a question arises for you and me; Did God love him more than He loves you and I?

I have been a pastor now for over 30 years, and one of the ongoing concerns of ministry has always been finances....money. I, and so many of my brethren have spent countless sleepless nights and held innumerable meetings to try and figure out how to get this need met. The results are appeals made to congregations, denominations, and "friends of the church." I do not condemn such things, I just ask, in all of it, where is He? In all of it, who do we really look to? Who is our real help? This is a question for every one of us.

It is not just in the material and financial realm that we do this. In the health and care of our bodies, who do we look to first? If a physical need or disease does attack us, who is it that we first go to....run to? The Doctor, the specialist....or the One we have called the Great Physician? Yes, Doctors, medicine, medical science, all can be and are used of Him, but who is it that we really have entrusted ourselves to? Do we really believe that He is the Healer? We in the west have become dependent upon our modern health care system. For out brethren in countries and regions that provide no such access, they look to, and believe in a God who can do all things, including healing their diseases. Small wonder than that reports of miraculous healings among them abound. Meanwhile, we in the west continue to gather together in our "prayer meetings" and ask each other to pray for ours and our families sicknesses. Those kinds of requests never cease. Reports of those prayers being answered are few. Have we even the expectation that they will be? More, do we live in such depth with Him that we don't even feel the need to get others to pray about them....because we trust Him in all of it? Even when He does not act in accordance with our desire we trust Him. We trust Him because we are, as Chambers says, abandoned to Him. And we're at rest.

Abandoned to Him. That's really what this writing is about. Not a guarantee that money flows in when we ask, or healing is automatically received when sought. No, it is a holy confidence in Him, the Author and Finisher of our faith. We know, as Paul wrote, that "all things hold together in Christ." So we live in peaceful, confident, assurance. We know the One in Whom we have believed.....and we are persuaded that He will keep (everything) until that day....Do we know that? Do you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Native Language

"When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies." John 8:44...."The use of a counterfeit is satan's most natural method of resisting the purpose of God." Stephen Slocum....."The best lies are slight variations on the truth." Chris Tiegreen

If you've been a professing follower of Christ for any amount of time than you "know" that satan is a liar. You likely know, or should, that Jesus called him the "father of lies." Armed with this knowledge, why is it that so many who say they are His, fall into the lies and traps of the enemy....and very often at that? Why is it that many are often deceived, indeed, live in a state of deception? How has he been able to blind so many to that which is Truth and instead get them to embrace a lie....lies? Last question.....Just where is it that he may have succeeded, is succeeding, in getting you to believe his lies?

We are masters, in our flesh, at believing, rationalizing, justifying, what it is we want to believe and do. Even when those beliefs and actions collide with the revealed truth of His Word and Words. It has always been so in the world, but it is rampant in the church as well. The devil's great ploy with Eve in the Garden was to ask her as to the Father's clear direction to not eat of the fruit the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, "Did God really say that?" He spoke his native language, and she was deceived....in deception. His tactics have not changed at all, and throughout His Church, the enemy continues to put that question before His people as to the full authority and truth of His Word: "Did God really say that?" As we entertain that question, the door is then opened for him to present his counterfeit "truth," his "slight variation," and deception and destruction are, and will always be the result. His Word will never lose its power, but it will lose its power in and to us when we begin to believe a counterfeit, a variation, of what it is He has said. That He has spoken, and still speaks. We end up a powerless Church, filled with powerless lives and people. We end up with a counterfeit as to what God's love actually is, and how it ministers, reaches out to, and deals with both those who are His, and those who are not. We end up with "slight variations" on what grace, mercy, justice, and yes, His wrath, actually are, and his lie becomes our truth. His deception, our reality.

Jesus said that his lies were his native language. Is there anyplace where we, by justifying our sin, rationalizing our behavior, telling ourselves that "God didn't really say that," have adopted that language as well? In His Word, it was said of the people of Israel that they were "drunk on a spirit of delusion." That same spirit is everywhere in this age. What inroads have it, with its lies and delusions, made into your life, relationships, and church fellowship? Is there any place where you, we, have embraced the counterfeit, the slight variation? For the power of the lie to be broken, we must bring all it is that we have believed about Him, His Word, and yes, ourselves before the One who is Truth. With a willingness to know His Truth, which He has promised to reveal to us. Having every lie dispelled can be painful, a "bitter persuasion" as a song put it, but also as the song said, "it's end is so sweet." Truth always is. Will we in all things, know His Truth, and be free....from the lies, the counterfeit, the slight variations?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Looking Through

"While they were at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas came upon a man with crippled feet. He had been that way from birth, so that he had never walked. He was listening as Paul preached. Paul looked directly at him, and saw that he had faith to be healed." Acts 14:8-9

A friend, remarking on the ministry of Christ, said that He could, "Look through a leper and see a man cleansed. Look through a cripple and see a man who could walk." In short, Christ was able to look beyond the outward to something within each one that told Him that there hearts were ready to receive Him. Not just what He could give them, but Christ Himself. This is seen throughout His ministry. He obviously passed many lepers, cripples, and broken people. Yet He didn't heal them all. When He sat at the well outside the Samaritan village, there had to have been others who came to it, or passed it by, but it was the woman to whom He spoke. It was because when He looked at them, He saw not only what they were, and even more than what they could be. He saw within them, even if it was just a small part, a heart that was being drawn to Him, even if they didn't fully realize who He was. He was able to look through them, as was Paul, Peter, and Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch. They had discernment of heart and sight that told them that the ones they had been brought into contact with, were ready to hear and see the Christ that the Father had brought them to. They were able to look through and "see." Are we?

This is something more than just about faith to be healed, made to walk, or be whole. In fact, it is far more about the one who gives than they who receive. It's about we who are the Body of Christ, walking in such spiritual awareness that in any situation, we, like Christ, Paul, Peter, and countless others who followed, are able to "look through" the outward appearances, and recognize hearts that are even now being drawn to Him. Jesus discerned those who could hear Him and those who could not. Paul in the midst of his preaching, could see in the eyes of that crippled man, someone who was ripe for the harvest. I believe it is the purpose of the Father, indeed, I know it is, to bring such ones before us.....consistently. Can we see them? Can we look past the outward appearance to see the heart being prepared by God? Found in the diary of one of the young girls martyred for her faith at Columbine was the simple prayer, "Father, please put me in the path of brokenhearted people today." Dare we pray such a prayer?

To see, discern, and minister as did Jesus, Paul, and so many others throughout the ages will require a radical change in how we live and see. We in the church are so in love with our "selfie" lifestyles that we rarely see anything but ourselves and our concerns. From time to time we make resolutions to change, but we never resolve the problem. To enter into such a life requires a heart that longs to enter fully into His life. That yearns to see and discern as He did and does. Do we have such a yearning? Do we have the ability to look through? Do we have hearts that welcome His looking through them?

Jesus is constantly passing by our hearts. As He does, does He discern in us a longing for the wholeness, healing and freedom only He can give? Does He discern in a faith, a yearning for more, for all of Him that we can receive? And then, can He through us, bring us to all those whose hearts are being drawn to Him? Or, will He just pass by today because, after all, our eyes and hearts are too clouded with "us" to be able to really see Him? Especially in the hearts and lives of those around and before us.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - New Things

"Be still in the presence of the Lord." Psalm 37:7....."We need to learn to unburden ourselves and so become still. In being still we are to become empty. And in our emptiness we may look to God to fill us with new things." Dietrich Bonhoeffer

We know how to be busy. We don't know how to be still. I've a friend who likes to say that one of our great failings is feeling in the midst of a crisis or need that we've "got to do something." Notice that the emphasis there is on "we, me, I." We move out, and God obediently moves out with us. We form a plan, and He signs on to help us carry it out. We're very aware of our mind, but oblivious to His. But we're OK with that because after all, He couldn't possibly not be on board with what we're thinking, planning, and doing.......I may be oversimplifying here, but I don't think so. We live in a state of exhaustion for the most part. Worn out and burned out....and all because at root, we are living outside of Him. We "abide in Him" only in theory. We're burdened beyond our ability to carry. And we don't know how to unburden ourselves as Bonhoeffer advises. There is only one way that we can. We need to live, abide, at all times, in His presence. And we simply can't do that when our fleshly impulse is always to move, to act, to do.

On the Mt. of Transfiguration, when the glorified Christ was revealed to the three disciples, Peter's first impulse was to do something. The Father gently rebuked him. The only thing He expected of them was that they just be still in His presence. Peter didn't know how then, but he would learn. Will we? Or do we just go on, pushing ourselves and those around us, and all the while wearing ourselves, and them out? Is this how we're living, doing ministry, our jobs, carrying out our relationships, simply "doing life?" Do we know anything at all about being empty before Him? Empty of old, hurtful things, and filled with new, life giving ones.

We know so little of stillness, peace, and renewal, because we know so little of being in His presence. It is only in His presence that we can be empty. Empty of everything that is not of Him and against His nature. His Word tells us to be still and know that He is God, but we can only know that by becoming empty of all that works to keep Him from being Almighty God in our lives. Empty of the old life that is all about self. Our old plans, goals, visions and desires replaced by His newness of life. And this can only happen at His designated meeting place. At the altar that is His cross. It won't be realized in a ten minute devotional and pre-printed prayer, but at the place where we come to Him as we are, and He meets us as He is. As the old hymn says, "Burdens are lifted at Calvary." But we have to come to Calvary. He's made the way and He gives the means. At the cross, we are empty, and at the cross, we are filled. Old for new. Death for life. Woundedness for healing, self-centeredness for Christ-centeredness.

Have you ever really come to His cross? There's an old hymn that has the line, "On a hill far away stands an old rugged cross." Has that hill remained far away for you? Do you continue to try and keep it at a distance....keeping Him at a distance as well? Continuing to be controlled by the old things, while He stands before you with His new. He calls us. Do we come?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Disagreeable Places

"That the life of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh." 2 Corinthians 4:10......"It is the disagreeable things which make us exhibit whether or not we are manifesting His life." Oswald Chambers....."When men meet us do they meet the surpassing love of Christ? When they touch us, do they touch something of God?......While He was on earth, Jesus was Himself the vessel of divine life. When men touched Him, they touched God.....Today, what do they see?" Watchman Nee

These two spiritual mentors, Nee and Chambers, speak to me today. They bring the piercing question to my heart that, in the disagreeable places of life, whose life do I manifest? The life of fallen Adam, or of the risen Christ? It's a question for you as well. Whose life do you manifest in those places?

When Christ manifests Himself anywhere, He is manifesting the very presence and character of the Father. Of Himself. It is something powerfully real. As Nee said, to encounter Christ was to encounter the very reality of God. When people encounter us.....especially in the disagreeable places of life, what reality do they see? When they touch us, do they also touch Him? As someone once asked, has anyone, upon meeting us, ever remarked, "What a presence of Christ is about them?" Especially in those disagreeable places of life?

Chambers said of Christ, "He was at home with God anywhere." Then he asks this question which goes to our very heart: "Is there any place where you are not at home with God?" That's the key to it all isn't it? It's no great challenge to feel at home with Him in the midst of good and plenty. When people behave as we would want. When circumstances are all playing out as we wish. We feel very much at home with Him there. But what of those places where we are in the midst of disagreeable people, unwanted circumstances and problems, and everything else that seeks to take our eyes and heart away from Him? Does He manifest Himself in our lives to the extent that even in there, He lives through us, speaks through us, touches others through us? In those places, unwanted places, are we at home with Him even there? Are you....am I?

Disagreeable, unwanted places will be a part of every life. God's people will never be exempt from them here. Indeed, we may find ourselves exposed to them more than anyone else. How then should we live? How will we live? It's in those disagreeable places that Christ in us must cease to be our ideal, and become our reality. Where He lives through our words, our touch, our presence.....and through us, He speaks, He touches, He lives. How can this be so? It can happen only at the cross...where we surrender to Him. to His life, in even the most disagreeable place. Only then, will He really be seen in us. Only then will He really touch and minister through us.......Are we at home with Him today.....even if the disagreeable place? Or, is there someplace, places, where we are not at home with Him?

Blessings,
Pastor O