Heart Tracks - The Marks

"From no on, don't let anyone trouble me with these things. For I bear on my body the marks that show I belong to Jesus." Galatians 6:17...."Celebrate your scars as 'tatoos' of triumph. They are proof that God heals. He tells His story through our scars." Sheila Walsh

Being scarred usually brings to mind negative images and thoughts. We look at them as disfigurements that should never be there. Most often, we're ashamed of them, and would give anything to be free of them. That attitude was never found in Paul and most especially in Jesus Christ.

No one gets through this life without scars, and the deepest ones can be those that no one else sees but us. They cripple us, disarm us, paralyze us. We have scars over the deep losses of life. The loss of loved ones, cherished possessions, positions, and the regard of others. Then there are the deeper scars that come from the words, actions, abandonment and neglect of others. The pain of these is intense, and we know it's a lie when we hear that "time heals all wounds." It doesn't. It just covers them over, but the bleeding is always just below the surface.

Jesus suffered as no one ever has. His pain went far beyond the physical agony of the cross. His deepest suffering was experienced when He took upon Himself all the sin of the world, and in doing so, endured what He'd never known before, the turning away of His Father, Who could nothing less because He literally became sin on our behalf. He took upon Himself the penalty of death because of our sin. When He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, He still bore the scars from the cross. Walsh makes the point that He could have chosen not to retain them, but He didn't. He didn't because He wanted to prove that in His resurrection life is the power to heal the deepest wounds, make whole the most crippled life, restore that which sin sought to destroy. His story is told through His scars. He continues to tell His story through ours.....if we'll surrender them to Him. Have you surrendered yours?

Paul said that his scars were the marks of Jesus upon his life. They showed that he belonged to Christ alone. His scars were also proof that nothing the enemy came against him with could deter what Christ meant to do in his life if he would be yielded to Him in all of it. You and I tend to nurse our wounds...and our scars. As we do so we "nurse" our anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, and shame. The bleeding goes on beneath the surface of the scar. Paul and his Lord Jesus suffered physically, emotionally and spiritually, and were left scarred by all of it, but those scars did not point to their defeat, but to their victory. The cross was a despised symbol in the ancient world, but through it, Christ achieved the greatest victory the universe has ever, or will ever know. Victory over sin and death, and a gateway to His resurrection life. Life in all the fullness in Him that is possible. Their scars were the symbols and proof of His victory. Are yours and mine?

You already know you won't get through this world without scars, and you've many to show for the proof of that. What are your scars proving to you and a watching world? That you're a victim, or a victor? Can He tell His story through your scars, or do your scars just tell everyone about you, and how unfair life and He have been to you. I don't demean your pain, but can you trust Him with your scars? Can you yield them all to Him? Can He make you, through them, a symbol of His victory? A symbol of His Life? Do you bear the marks of Jesus?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Do You Want To?

6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

7 “Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

8 Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.” John 5:6-8

The above passage of Scripture paints a picture of a too large portion of the Church. The pool of Bethesda was considered to be a place of healing among the Jews. The legend was that when the waters bubbled, it was believed they were being stirred by an angel, and that whoever would be first into the water afterwards would be healed. Into this place of hoped for healing steps the One who is healing incarnate; Jesus Christ. He sees a paralytic lying by the pool, and knows that he has been in that condition for 38 years. Obviously, the man had hope of being healed, yet Jesus asks him a seemingly foolish question, "Do you want to get well?" The man doesn't rebuke Jesus for asking the obvious. In fact, his answer reveals something hidden within him that keeps real healing from ever taking place. He answers in effect, "I can't," and then lists the reasons for that being so. In the natural, his reasons are legitimate, and those "reasons" keep him from seeing the One who is the Healer. His reasons keep him lying at the side of the pool, even when the One who can end all of his suffering stands right before him. How like him are we?

In 35 plus years of ministry, nothing has grieved my heart more than pointing wounded, hurting people to a Healer that stands right before them, and yet they cannot see, and they cannot believe. They see all the reasons why they cannot get well. Physical, emotional, and spiritual reasons why they must remain trapped in their crippled state. Jesus knew the man at the pool desired healing, but the "bonds" that kept him at the poolside were stronger than that desire. Jesus wasn't stating an obvious question. He was asking him, did he, more than anything else, want to be well, to be free and whole? Did he want to be delivered from that which crippled him on every level of life? It's a question He asks all who lie at the side of the "pool." Does He ask it of us today? How long have we been lying there, wanting to be free of the wounds of yesterday, the captivity that our actions, or th the actions of others have left us in? How long have we been in our own "crippled" state, emotionally, physically, spiritually? Do we want to get well, or are we trapped in that place by all the reasons we can come up with for why we can't?

Day after day, week after week, year after year, we come to our own pools. We "do" our devotionals, attend our Bible studies, go to our worship services, and yet we emerge with the same afflictions we've been trapped in for so long. The Healer is before us, but we don't see Him. We only see the reasons why we can't "get into the pool." To each of us He asks, "Do you want to get well?" The question unasked is, "Or do you wish to go on in your suffering?" How are you answering that? Do you say to Him, "I can't," or, do you, in faith proclaim, "I will!" In Him, by His grace and might, I will be free. I will be whole. I will take up my "mat," and I will walk. All by the power of the One who heals. The One who stands before me now.....with healing in His hands.

How long have you been going to the pool? How long have you been focused on what has kept you by its side instead of the One who is before you? He asks what seems to be obvious; "Do you want to get well?" Do you? Or, will you just keep coming back to the pool, but never stepping in?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Irritants

"You are the salt of the earth." Matthew 5:13...."The world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." John 1:14...."Real living Christianity rubs this world the wrong way....this world resents the light that exposes its corruption." Vance Havner

Likely you've heard, or even used the expression, "rubbing salt into the wound." It's rarely, if ever, associated with something pleasant. Salt is an agent of purification. A common military punishment at one time was flogging. Afterwards, a man's back was severely lacerated. Salt was rubbed into the lacerations as a means of protecting against infection and corruption, but it was painful. The body rebelled against that which was trying to save it. Exactly as does the world in response to the "salt" that those who are His are to be in its midst. Yet how many of us are?

I am not advocating for followers of Christ to be obnoxious, overbearing, unloving and judgemental people, though many of us are. But one who lives for and in Him, is going to, by His very presence in their life, bring light into darkness, and "salt" into corruption. Jesus went about doing good, but they crucified Him for what He spoke and taught. His presence in a fallen world brought open conviction of their sin and lost state. They didn't kill Him for what He did, but for who He was. Where Christ is, sin and darkness cannot be. They will either flee from Him, or seek to destroy Him. That was the response of the world to Him as He walked through it. It remains the response as He walks in it through us. To what, if any degree, are we experiencing any of this ourselves?

In the west, many see the church as irrelevant. The church seeks to respond to this by trying to be relevant, yet I think we miss the real reason they see us as such. We lack in too many ways, the Almighty presence of God within us, and so within this world. We do seek to do many good works, to show love to a world desperate for it, but if the fullness of His Life and Spirit are not in us, and flowing out of us, than we become just another "organization" doing good things, but doing them all in the our own strength. We may get people to join our organization, but He has not taken hold of their hearts, transformed their lives, and brought them into His Kingdom. We try to get people to accept us, and our Lord, without bringing offense. Jesus knew nothing of this approach. He still knows nothing of it. Saul the Pharisee sought to overthrow the church and its Lord. After meeting the Lord Christ on the Damascus Road, he was transformed into a man who was part of a church that turned the world upside down, and "rubbed" countless numbers the wrong way in doing so. They were salt and light, and while they loved their lost world completely, they would never allow themselves to be anything less.....irritants to the darkness and corruption, never ceasing to "rub" the world the wrong way.

Someone said that in the early church, the world kept telling the church to shut up, but that today, the church spends most of its time trying to get its parts to speak up. It's much easier to be silent than to upset the world. That brings a price with it. It's easier to be nice folks doing nice things, than to "preach" not just with actions, but with our words, a message that directly confronts a fallen world value system. So we're faced with a choice; we can "stroke" the world and allow it to be unchanged in its lostness, or we can go against the grain, rubbing it the wrong way, and bring the offer of life. Which one is the result of your life and mine? Are we really bringing purity to the corruption, or do we aid the decay?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - For The Joy

"Keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish, who endured the cross for the joy set before Him." Hebrews 12:2

Disappointments are a part of life. Disappointments can be crushing, paralyzing. They can feel like death. To many, they are death. No one can escape them, and sometimes, oftentimes, they seem to be the lot of those who are His. Maybe they're your lot right now.

Hebrews 12:2 speaks of the Lord Christ enduring the cross in order to lay hold of the joy, the joy of bringing life and freedom to all who would believe upon Him, that was set before Him. The meaning of the Greek word for endure is to be in a place much longer than had been expected. Many are, maybe you are, in a place of hardship, loss, pain, defeat, sorrow, disappointment, much longer than you ever expected you would, or could be. The weight of the cross you bear, and all the sorrow that goes with it, is beyond anything you ever expected to encounter. You never thought it could be this way. You may be in the midst of the most crushing disappointment. Maybe you're even disappointed in Jesus Christ Himself. You may feel yourself to be in the darkness, but darkness is never darkness to the One who is Eternal Light Himself. In the pain, the disappointment, He calls us to, by His grace, endure. Endure for the joy that is also set before us. The joy that through faith is within us. This place is not the final place. He calls us, leads us onward.

Romans 5 tells us that we can rejoice in the midst of the deepest problems and trials because He is at work to bring glory to Himself and good to us. He calls us to live in a confident expectation of His salvation and deliverance, a living hope....and that "this hope will not disappoint us."

In my life, I have known deep sorrow and loss. I have experienced crushing disappointments. I have known what it is to feel disappointed in Him, to be in a place of suffering far longer than I ever thought possible. He did not leave me there....ever. He did not reject me even when I was tempted to reject Him. In the place of seeming hopelessness, He instilled hope. And while there have been events in life that have disappointed and wounded me, He has not left me there, and the hope He has given while there seemed to be no hope, has not either. He never will. If we'll endure, if we'll hold to Him in hope....even if by the most slender of threads, He will not disappoint us.

I am thankful for so much this Thanksgiving. For the love of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. For the saving grace that they have brought me. I am also thankful beyond words for the hope that does not disappoint. Hope that enables me to endure, with joy, all that I may walk through. Thank you Father. Thank you Jesus. May we each, press on, and all for the joy set before us.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Counterfeit

"God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." John 4:24...."Those cannot worship God aright who do not worship Him alone." Matthew Henry...."Every Christian has a moment- by moment- choice of which kingdom to stand in, which cup to drink from, which worship to embrace." Chris Tiegreen

I write this on an early Sunday morning. All over this nation, over the next several hours, people will be gathering for "worship" in fellowships across the land. How many will be gathering to worship Him in "spirit and in truth?" How many will be coming together as a group of "consumers" seeking good "bread and fish" from the Lord? How many will be there because it's what they've been doing for a very long time. "Going to church" is in their DNA, just like going to work, school, or tuning in to this weekends big game? How many will come with the sense of what can He do for them, as opposed to what can they offer Him?

I'm not seeking to remove the human element from any of this. We have needs, and it's not wrong to want the Father to minister to them. Jesus does invite all who are weary and heavy laden to come to Him. The problem is that too many of us are like nine of the ten lepers that Christ cleansed; only one turned back to praise, honor, and worship Him. The nine were very happy with what they got, but they missed out on what they could truly have laid hold of; the fullness of Christ Himself. How like them are so many of us?

So much of our prayer life, our "worship life" is really all about us. We're looking for Him to do something to make our lives better, easier, happier. Erwin McManus once said that Christ is being lost in the religion that bears His name. Going deeper in that, I think Christ is being lost in much of what we call "worship" in the church today. He's there as our servant, our helper, our, as Mark Buchanan put it, "heavenly caterer." All the while we miss, even ignore the Almighty Sovereign God who is in our midst. It's a tragedy we repeat week after week. Isn't it well past time for it all to stop?

I'm both moved and convicted by Tiegreen's words. We do face moment by moment choices as to "which kingdom we stand in, which cup we drink from, which worship to embrace." We have a great deal of double-mindedness in this. Our other kingdoms, cups, and worship, constantly distract us from the only One worthy of worship. We are so distracted that when we come through the doors of our fellowships, that it can take 2/3 of the service before we even begin to feel like focusing some part of ourselves on Him. We bring our counterfeit kingdoms, cups and worship with us.....and we miss Him. Is there anything more tragic than that?

If you read this today, if you did find yourself in His house of worship yesterday, what was your "worship" really like? Can you say that you really did worship Him in "spirit and in truth?" Or, did your other kingdoms, cups, and idols steal away what belongs to Him alone? Giving ourselves away to counterfeits. I know that these are hard questions. Dare we come up with the hard answers?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Squandered

(Jesus said) I am not saying these things to all of you; I know the ones I have chosen." John 13:18

Chris Tiegreen has written that we can know Him in ways that no one else can. Can we stop our breakneck pace of life long enough to allow that to saturate both our minds and our hearts? Take a breath and contemplate just the beginnings of what that can and does mean. God, whose capacity to be known is infinite, tells us that we may each have a knowledge of Him that is held only by us. No one else ever has or ever will know Him in just such a way. That's an intimacy beyond words to describe.

We may know the characteristics of God by memory. Goodness, mercy, healing, wholeness, righteous, wise, almighty, and on and on to infinity. What He wishes for us to know and experience is that we can have a personal knowledge of Him in these that is given to us alone. No one else has known or experienced Him in quite the same way. We have a piece of His mind and heart unique to us. He has never given Himself to someone else like He has given Himself to us. What an awesome gift. What a divine privilege. Are we aware of that gift? Do we, are we squandering it?

The Apostle Paul, a man of tremendous intellect and spiritual power, had as his deepest desire "to know Christ, and the power of His resurrection." I think his second deepest desire was that those he ministered to would have that desire as well. Certainly all of his writings point to that reality. In fact, he said that he claimed to know nothing except "Christ, and Him crucified."

His Word says that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made." Can we grasp, even in a small way, that as He fashioned us, shaped us in creating us, that He put within each of our hearts, the potential to know Him as no other could? That among the sea of souls that are His, He has given the opportunity to know Him as none other can? What a gift. What a privilege. Are we realizing it?

No one knows our hearts like He does. No one knows the deepest needs of our hearts as He does. What I need is often not what you need at all, so He won't speak to us both in the same way. He deals with us unique to what He has created us to be. We have blundered terribly in expecting God to relate to all of us in the same way. Your salvation experience must be like mine. Your convictions must be my convictions. How you deal with sorrow, loss, failure, and more, must be as I would. None of this is so with Him. Where He knows He must give a hard word to us, He will. Where His gentle voice needs to be spoken, He speaks. And He will speak in a voice that only our heart can hear and receive. We say there is no one like Jesus. He says that's true, and for Him, there is no one else like us. Like you. Like me.

The ability to know Him as no other can; a blessed gift, and wonderful privilege. Are we squandering it? No one else will ever love us like He does. No one else can ever love Him like we can.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Burning Incense

"For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9....."Why do you call Me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?" Luke 6:46..."It meant everything in those days to say 'Jesus is Lord'......"You cannot willingly take Jesus as Savior and wilfully deny Him as Lord." Vance Havner

Polycarp of Smyrna was a second century leader of the Christian church, a man said to be a disciple of the Apostle John. At the age of 86 he was killed by the empire of Rome for refusing to burn incense to the emperor. To do so was unthinkable for Polycarp and so many other believers of that day. In the burning of that incense they were saying that the emperor was their lord, that he occupied a place above all others, including Jesus Christ. In the burning of the incense, the word they would use for the emperor was Kurios, which meant "Lord above all." No true believer could or would do this, as for them, Christ and Christ alone had this place in their heart and life. So Polycarp, and so many others, died before they would call anyone or anything else their Lord over all.

Vance Havner makes a chilling statement concerning the church. He writes, more than 50 years ago, "There has been a cheap, easy profession of Christ as Savior, but no real confession of Christ as Lord. The lips claim Him as Savior but the life shows no evidence of His Lordship. We love the same things we've always loved; we do not abhor that which is evil, we live our own lives. Christ has no say in the matter." In short, in so many ways, we burn "incense" to Caesar, and to many other "lords" as well.

In His Word, Christ is called "Lord" far more than He is "Savior." He is both, but He cannot be our Savior alone. He must be our Lord, and that Lordship must be evident in our lives. It must be so deeply placed in us that like the early believers, we would choose death before we would give allegiance to anyone, and anything else. A death that goes beyond just a physical one. It means we choose to put to death our dreams, desires, hopes, pleasures, joys, relationships, or whatever it is that calls our hearts to in some way forsake Him, and choose them. Anything that asks us to "burn incense" at their altar over the altar of God. What things, what people, what habits, what loves, are asking this of us right now? Where is it that we burn incense to other, less worthy "lords" than Christ the King?

Havner is right. We love to call Him Savior, but we have little idea or experience of Him as Lord. In the Old Testament, it was said of the people of Israel that, "Word from the Lord was infrequent, everyone did what was right in their own eyes." Their hearts had wandered very far from His, and as a result were too dull to hear anything He might be saying. Are we not seeing much the same today? Are we not doing what seems right, sensible, and reasonable to our flesh, even when it stands in blatant opposition to His Word? Are we not, in so many places and ways, calling Him Lord while not doing what He says? We are casually doing what was unthinkable to the early church; burning incense to other gods and lords, giving our hearts to that which will eventually destroy us.

At what altars are you burning incense? At the altar of ambition, success, pleasure, riches, relationships.....
ministry? The number of competing "altars" are as endless as the number of our desires. Where are they located in your heart and mine? Where have we joyfully taken Him as Savior while coldly rejecting Him as Lord? Why do we go on calling Him Savior but refusing to live with Him as Lord? We all have "incense" to burn. Where are you burning yours?

Blessings,
Pastor O