Heart Tracks - Into The Deep

"Put out into the deep water, and let down the nets for a catch." Luke 5:4....."He calls us to launch out into places where we have no choice but to depend on His instructions and His power." Chris Tiegreen

In response to the above Scripture and quote, I have written the question, "Would Jesus put us into deep trouble or need?" That's a question most of us would rather not consider let alone answer. It flies in the face of the popular western Christianity conception of "faith" life. We'd much rather believe that He is always purposing to add good things and results into our lives. More. Bigger. Better. Comfortable Christianity some call it. How can a faith based upon a Savior and His cross come to such a conclusion? It can only do so by eliminating that cross, and remaking that Savior into Someone much more acceptable to our flesh.

Tiegreen writes, "The deep water can be a scary place to be. For Peter, it seemed like a pointless place to be." Jesus can and will send us into seemingly pointless places. Paul wanted to go minister in Asia Minor. The Lord sent him instead into Macedonia. Asia Minor appeared ripe for a massive move of the Spirit. Macedonia seemed anything but. Yet to it he was sent. For Paul, the question of whether he would go had already been settled....at the cross. Has it been settled with you and me? When He directs us to something, some place, someone, that seems just as pointless as His direction to Peter, has the debate already ended? Will we go? Will we venture into that deep unknown....in obedience and trust....with all fears, questions, and outcomes placed at the foot of the cross. At the feet of the King?

The deep is indeed a frightening place. It is dark and murky. It is threatening and dangerous. And He is Lord over all of it. He knows what's there and He has already conquered it all. The darkness, the waves, the wind, the threats and danger, all must yield to Him. If He's placed us there for Him, then we must know that they must yield to us as well. When Paul was sent out he was told by the Spirit that "a wide door for effective service has been opened for you, and many are the adversaries." We will not lack for adversaries in the deep. Neither will we lack for His overcoming power and presence as well. If we know this, then we can "put out" into the deep waters confident not in ourselves, but Him.

The call of the King is always to put out into the deep. The deep things of the Spirit. Jesus knows nothing of a comfortable faith. His way is the way of the cross, and that way will not cease to call us ever deeper into Him. A wide door of overcoming life will be opened to us.....and for sure, the adversaries to that life will be many. He has overcome them all....in the deep. He calls us into it, you into it. Do you come, or do you remain in the shallows by the shore?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Present?

"When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.' " Genesis 28:16

Often, after the completion of what we would call a "great worship service," the comment is often heard that, "God really showed up this morning." Somehow, such a statement seems to infer that we were, and always are, "present." It's God Himself who tends to be absent. In my prayer journal, in response to the above Scripture, I've got the question, "Who really needs to show up, God, or us?"

The other morning I was involved in a discussion with church leaders in some real questions as to why so many struggle with believing, expecting, God to work wonders and miracles in the midst of our needs, hardships and impossibilities. One young brother made a point that I've been thinking on. He said that our technology and culture have reached the point where we don't really feel like we have to depend on Him. We may not have any ready cash available, but we have credit cards. These, and an abundance of easy credit terms enable us to have access to things our spiritual forefathers never did. There has also been the huge increase in the dependency upon government and social agencies, medical technology, and science in general. I am not advocating a doing away with these, just that our first inclination in our need is to go to them, not Him. He is not our Source. He's our last resort. What we can see, touch, and feel is far more real to us than the One who says He is always with us, abundantly available, and commands us to trust and believe that what He says is so. Our expectations are not centered upon Him, but upon so much that is not Him. During the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, the nation was threatened with total destruction by the mighty empire of Assyria. Their king sent Hezekiah a letter demanding complete surrender and promising annihilation if they didn't. Hezekiah did not go to his advisers, but to His God, spreading that letter out before Him and seeking His mind...and power. God spoke. God moved, and a sudden emergency in the empire caused the Assyrians to break off their siege. Not long after the king of Assyria was killed by his own sons.

So I get back to my question; who is it that really needs to "show up," to be "present?" The Lord, or us? Almighty God, or you and me? Jacob, a man who lived by his wits and abilities was in the very presence of his God but didn't know it. How much of the same marks our day to day living? As the young man in that discussion said, we don't live in the midst of conscious dependency upon Him. There are too many other things we can see around us to depend upon. The reality of His presence remains a kind of vague awareness somewhere on the edge of our consciousness. We don't expect Him to show up because we don't. Small wonder then that in those gatherings we call "worship," we can predict most of what is going to take place. If the Lord is going to "show up," He'll have to force His way in. We leave little, if any room for the supernatural, for the miraculous. God is in this place....but we don't know it.

Back to my question for the last time. Who is it that really needs to show up in what you call your relationship to Him? God...or us. God or you and me? He is totally present right where you are, right now. Do you know it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Bursting Through

"So David named that place Baal-perazim (which means the Lord who burst through)" 2 Samuel 5:21

"Like waking up from the longest dream, how real it seemed
Until your love broke through
I've been lost in a fantasy, that blinded me
Until your love broke through

From "Your Love Broke Through" by Keith Green

I have written down in my prayer journal, "Lord, in all of our ways, show us again how You are "the Lord who bursts through." That's a prayer that none of us can pray too much because we are a people who can so often walk into the seemingly impossible place, or have loved ones and friends trapped in those places. David was the newly crowned king of Israel. The people of Israel had been dominated by their Philistine neighbors for generations. God directed David to lead the army of Israel out against them in battle and he won a great victory against overwhelming odds. In response David exclaimed that his God, "burst through my enemies like a raging flood," and named the place Baal-perizim, The Lord Who Bursts Through.

One of the first songs that gripped my heart as a believer was Keith Green's Your Love Broke Through. Its lyrics seemed to perfectly mirror my own experience with the love of God in Christ. It wasn't just His piercing of my fallen lifestyle, filled with drugs, dishonesty, lack of integrity, and dedicated to pleasure and self. It was how He burst through and into a life that I thought was real life, and was leading me steadily ever deeper into darkness and destruction. As He did with Saul/Paul on the Damascus Road, He burst into my darkness and death with His Light and Life. My blind eyes were opened and my dead heart was made alive. My own longest dream and fantasy dissolved and His reality took their place. Nothing has been the same ever since. His love, like a raging flood, broke through the bars of my prison and the chains that held me there. With the opening of my eyes, I began to see just how empty and superficial my life had been, how the freedom I thought I lived in was nothing more than captivity to a myriad of things, attitudes, desires, and compulsions. His love burst through all of them and all the lies that went with them. It would not be the last time that it did.

We are born into the grip of a fallen world where death gets all the attention. It is impossible for us to find a way out of it. It's power is great so Someone much greater has to rescue us. That Someone is Christ. He is the One who pierces all darkness and death and He is always doing so, but only the heart sensitive to Him will see Him. Others were on that road with Saul/Paul, and they heard a sound of thunder, but they did not see or hear Him. Paul did. What about you and me? We may weekly attend worship services, Bible studies, prayer gatherings. We may hear the "sound of thunder" in all of them, but do we see Him? Does He pierce our darkness, our captivity, our deepest need? Are we forever changed, or do we emerge the same as we entered? God is always coming in like a flood, but are we swept up into Him, or swept aside? An old Ray Stevens song contains the lyric, "There is none so blind as he who will not see." There is but one thing that can stand against His piercing light and life; your and my hardened heart. Where in your life are you standing against His light, His life? In some area, we all walk our own Damascus Road. Will He break through all the circumstances and impossibilities around us, transforming us, or, will we just keep on the road, hearing the sound of thunder, but never experiencing His wonder?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - One....or the other?

In my prayer journal, I've written the question, "Do we have an impartation of His life, or just information about it?" That's a piercing question and though we may employ every means of evading an answer, it demands that answer. Have we been living on information about Him, or upon Him? In Him?

One of my great problems with the traditional approach to what we call "discipleship" is that we have tended to treat it as a study of His Word and words. We ask people to "digest" great amounts of the truth that is His Word. Scripture memorization, doctrine, theology. Certainly we need to know Scripture and have sound doctrine and theology, but we can do so and yet not really know Him. The Pharisees were experts in what Scripture said about God, and in the teachings of the Law and the prophets, yet they failed to recognize the God they said they followed when He stood right before them. They could recognize and recite information about Him but they couldn't see Him. When He spoke, they didn't hear. When He revealed Himself before them, they didn't see. The Light of the world was before them, but they were trapped in darkness.

I have heard true discipleship described as "teaching people to hear Him." This may sound overly simple, but how did Jesus teach His disciples? Wasn't He constantly seeking for them to "see" and "hear" the words of the Father through the words He spoke? Scripture says that what set Christ apart from the Pharisees and their teaching was that He taught as "One who had authority." That is, that what He spoke was actually who He was. When He taught about His abundant life, He wasn't giving the facts about it. He was displaying that life before them. He was seeking to give them that very life. The disciples, for all their shortcomings and stumblings to believe, recognized this. In John 6, when most of His followers left Him because of His command to surrender every part of their life to Him, Jesus asks them if they too are going to leave. Peter replied, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life." Information would never have kept them to Him. Only the impartation, the actual giving of His life to them would. Information concerning Him will not keep you and me. But if we will receive His life, His life will keep us.

The church possesses a wealth of information about Him. Do we possess an equal or greater amount of His life as well? When we gather together in whatever form our "worship" takes, do we do so as spectators of Him, or partakers in Him? Do we "watch" a story about Him, or actually enter into that story ourselves? Does His story become very much ours as well? That's the difference between informing and imparting. Spectating and partaking. We are caught up in either one, or the other. Which is it for you and me; the One.....or the other?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - The Command

6 When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

7 “I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”

8 Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

9 Instantly, the man was healed! He rolled up his sleeping mat and began walking! But this miracle happened on the Sabbath,

John 5:6-9

I recently heard Samuel Rodriguez speaking on this passage of Scripture and there was a point he made that really spoke to me. He said that after Jesus asked the paralyzed man if he wanted to get well, He paid no attention to his reason for why he couldn't be well. He simply commanded him to stand up and walk. It made me think of all the "I can't" moments in my life. All those times that my response to Him, to the challenges He'd placed before me, was "Lord, I can't." Does it also speak to all of yours?

The man at the pool obviously wanted to be well and whole. He just didn't see any way for that to be so. His eyes were upon his lack. He couldn't put himself in the pool and he had no one who could help him in. His focus was upon his limitations and all that appeared to be against him. In how many places and ways is it the same with you and me? When we're faced with the seemingly impossible, how quick are we to say to the One who bids us to step out and follow Him, "I can't?"

Rodriguez made the point that the response of Christ was not to ask the paralytic to stand up, He commanded him to do so. In response to the command, his paralyzed body could do only one thing; stand. Let's stop right there. How does all that register in your mind? His Word says that what the Lord speaks, is. When Christ commanded him to stand up, the paralysis that held him captive could not keep him in that captivity. It had to yield its hold. His body could do nothing but heed the command. Our 21st century rational, logical western minds have a very difficult time with this. We believe in the miracle working power of Christ, but we're held captive by a mindset that struggles to believe it can be so for us. We're trapped in the "I can't" instead of living in the wonder of "He is." I was recently at an event where many were wearing t-shirts proclaiming Him as "The Chain-Breaker." Can we dare to believe that He can, He will, break the chains of every "I can't" that holds us in bondage?

I have walked in a lot of "I can't" places. Added to my own "I can't" were those around me who agreed, telling me I couldn't. Into those places He came. Into those places He still comes. He speaks His healing, freeing, all powerful command...and the chains of all the exclamations of "I can't" and "You can't" fall off. And I, we, learn anew, the truth that we really can "do all things in Christ." The paralytic had been in his condition for 38 years. Thirty eight years of saying "I can't" How long have you been in yours? Standing before you, me, is the One who asks, "Do you want to get well?" With every atom of your being, do you want to be "well," whole, full, free, victorious?

Thirty years ago, when my world and life came crashing down around me, I saw no way that I could go on, get past, have joy and life again. I was slipping into the attitude of "I can't." I couldn't see how I could know joy again, see my life and ministry restored, and come out of the mire that was slowly sucking me down, and threatened His very life within me. Into that Christ came, again and again, and said I could. I could because He was. He is. At His command, all the power of hell quails. He spoke that command to me, and out of the mire He brought me....then, and many times since. Today, in all of your "I can'ts," can you dare to believe He is? At His word, His command, every giant, every mountain, every chain, must fall away.

I have seen it put that when Jesus commanded Peter to step out of the boat and onto the water, Peter didn't step first onto the water, but upon Jesus' word "Come!" Greater than the storm that engulfed him, and the fear that gripped him, was the power of Jesus word and command. It is no less so with you and me. In the midst of all of our "I can'ts," He commands us to come to Him. When we step out onto that word, the power of every one of them is broken. He speaks that word to you now. Will you step out onto it?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Desperate

"For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." Acts 17:28.... "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." John 15:5...."I wake up every day needing Him desperately." Joni Eareckson Tada

Most of us know the truth of Acts 17:28 and John 15:5 in theory, if not in practice, in our day to day lives. When we read the above words of Tada, we are likely to think that of course she does; she's a paraplegic. Her needs are deep and she must have God fully at work in her life. We, on the other hand have full use of our faculties, physically and mentally. We have a lot of ability, a lot of talent, and a lot of strength. We can get a lot done with those. We do get a lot done with those. The question would be is what we're getting done amounting to silver and gold or wood and stubble? And more, do we realize that without Him, we are every bit as helpless as Tada?

Apocalyptic movies seem to be the rage right now. Scenes of cities, once magnificent and glorious, reduced to rubble and debris due to some cataclysmic event. Their builders are gone and forgotten, and what is left of them is being reclaimed by nature. It's as if they never were. Is there any possibility that our lives, spiritually, will end up amounting to the same? Who are we really living in and for? Ourselves....or Him? Who do we live and move in....self, or Christ? Do we really live as if all things hold together in Him....or as if all things depended upon and our held together by us? Do we give Sunday morning lip service to being weak and dependent upon Him while living the other six days trusting in our own strength and ability? We may often say that we are nothing apart from Him, but do we really live like that's so? It takes a deep level of surrender to live as nothing in order that He may be everything. Have we ever been willing to humble ourselves to that degree? Or any degree near it?

I think we are blind to the truth that in His eyes, we have no more strength or ability than does Joni Eareckson Tada. It is not her terrible accident that made her have to depend completely upon Him. She was born with that dependency. Her diving accident may have placed that reality upon her, but she would have been just as helpless without Him had it never happened at all. Self-sufficiency is an illusion and delusion that countless lives and souls are help captive by. The Bible relates how Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful and arrogant king of his day, was rendered totally powerless and helpless by God in order that he might learn that "it is heaven that rules." His pride was broken. Is ours yet to be?

Someone said that we move upward in our spiritual lives by first going downward. When we humble ourselves before Him, He in return lifts us up. When we acknowledge how truly weak we are, He in turn makes us strong in Him. The life of Tada gives witness to the truth of this. Does yours and mine? Or, are we too busy building our "cities," our kingdoms, to recognize and know that it is heaven that rules? If you're building your life on any foundation but Him, what will you do when that foundation crumbles? And it will crumble. In Him we live, move, and have our being. Is that your life testimony and reality? Or is it something you say amen to on Sunday, but forget about by Monday....and all other days as well? Every morning when we wake, we're desperate for Him. Some know that. Most don't. Are you among the "some," or the "most?"

Blessings,
Pastor O

Heart Tracks - Hardened Hearts

"Remember what it says; 'Today when you hear His voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled." Hebrews 3:15...."Are we living in rebellion, presumption, or submission?" Watchman Nee

What's the spiritual disposition of your heart? There may be no greater question asked of you or me. We may be the most active person in our church and community. We may abound in good works and generous giving. We may be doing all the "right things," yet the disposition, the attitude of our heart may be totally contrary to the heart and purpose of God. We may have all the surface qualities of a dedicated believer yet all the while maintaining a hardened, rebellious heart.

Watchman Nee asks a penetrating question. What heart attitude are we really living in? The first, rebellion, can be relatively easy to identify. We may justify, deny, or just ignore the symptoms of rebellion in our life, but in our spirit, we know when we're walking against light. We know where and how we're fighting God. Oftentimes over the course of my ministry I've heard people say in response to wrong and sinful behaviors, "The Lord has been speaking to me about that." Yet there's been no change or even an attempt to have change. They pretend to have an openness to His ministry that doesn't actually exist in them. They're fighting God and rebelling against what He seeks to do in their lives. It is one thing to be yielded to Him while He works to bring healing and wholeness, oftentimes in stages, and another to feign desire for transformation while all the while persisting in destructive habits and ways. And the heart grows harder.

A much more difficult heart attitude to come to grips with is that of presumption. There are so many things we presume about God, ourselves, and how He and we should relate, and how we both should relate to others. We presume things in prayer, in ministry, in choices and decisions. Many times this attitude of presumption comes with an attitude of entitlement. We feel we've earned or deserve what we ask for, or, that God certainly must desire the same thing we do simply because we do desire it. We call it good so He must as well. The sin of presumption ensnares us because we think we have thoughts and perceptions on par with His. We presume to know what He'll do and how He'll act. It's really just a subtle form of rebellion, and to persist in it brings about the same hardening of our hearts that open rebellion does.

There is only one pathway to maintaining a softened, teachable, and malleable heart.....that of living in the attitude of full submission to His will and way. We don't fight and resist Him and we don't presume to take on His role in our affairs. We place all of ourselves, and all the desires, dreams, hopes and plans at His feet and trust that He will do what is best and right with all of them. This will include our most precious and longed for hopes and yearnings. More than we want any of them to come to pass, we want His will for us to come to pass. A hardened heart can never do this. Only the soft, tender heart of the surrendered can.

So which heart attitude most describes you and me? We can be soft and open in many, even most areas of our spirit life.....except for that one place. That one attitude. In that place we've become hard, and with each refusal to heed His voice and leading, we become harder. Hardened toward Him and hardened to one another. We become desensitized to both. Rebellion and presumption each yield a bitter harvest. Refuge, peace, and safety are found only in surrender in and to Him. There is always one heart attitude that prevails in us. What's prevailing in you and me?

Blessings,
Pastor O