Until

 "Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6...."Hold fast to what you have until I come." Revelation 2:25...."Occupy until I come." Luke 19:13...We are living in the great 'until.' " Vance Havner

Weariness. It's something we're all feelling. Weariness over the ongoing political and social turmoil. Weariness of the pandemic and its multi-layered effects. Weariness over the steady erosion of trust in government, media, and in some cases, the church. The people of God are not exempt from this weariness. Indeed, we may feel it more acutely than anyone. Even so, the Father calls us to press on, and to press on in hope.

I love Jesus' words in Luke 19. We, His people, are to "occupy" until He returns. One translation reads that we're to "do business" until His return. We're to be occupied with the business of the Kingdom. We're not to be deterred by the rising tides around us, or the seeming sinking sand beneath us. We're to faithfully live out our trust and belief in Him day by day, moment by moment, until He returns. And He will return. And He has issued sobering words concerning His return. He asks, "When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith on the earth?" Will He find that in me, in you?

The hope of the believer is that regardless of what is happening around us, He is at work both in the circumstances before us, and His life within us. He has purpose in both, and He means to bring all of it to completion. Our part is not to just surrender to the day to day events of life, but to live our lives out in faith that all that He has promised will be done. We live for Him and in Him....until He comes.

Havner writes of "living in the great until." It's a process of waiting, but not a passive process. When the Bible speaks of waiting, it is anything but passive. It is a position of actively clinging to Him, listening to His heart, acting on His direction, and living in full expectation that He will bring to pass every promise He has made to us. Waiting until He's put every enemy under our feet. Waiting until He "subdues all things to Himself." Waiting until He has made all His enemies "His footstool." And as we wait, we are occupied with the business of the Kingdom.

What will occupy us today? What business will we be conducting today? Will we be living out a robust faith in Him, or yielding to the weariness that the enemy seeks to neutralize us with? We need to hear His words anew, "Look up, for your redemption draws near." We must press on, in hope that will not disappoint, until He comes again. And His coming is assured. When He comes, may He find us faithful.

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Whisper

 "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?' And I said, 'Here am I. Send me!' " Isaiah 6:8...."God is on the lookout today for a man who will be quiet enough to get a message from Him, brave enough to preach it, and honest enough to live it." Vance Havner....."You have to be close enough to Him to hear Him whisper." Samuel Logan Brengle

I think all who profess to be a follower of Christ would agree that God is always speaking. If this is so, why then do so few of us ever seem to hear what He's saying? Why do we most often depend upon the preacher to tell us what they've heard from the Lord? In some places, huge conferences are held where believers flock to hear what the Father is saying in these days we live in. Now, I believe we desperately need preachers who hear from the heart of the Father and proclaim to the people what they've heard. Yet nowhere in Scripture have I seen any indication that God limits Himself to a select few to speak with. Nor do I believe, as do some, that He has ceased to speak in these days. As Brengle says, we need to live close enough to Him that we can hear His whisper. Few of us are to be found in such a location with Him. So we depend upon those who do....to our great harm.

I've a retired pastor friend who has remained beloved in the hearts of those the Father entrusted him with. He was and continues to be recognized as one who walked close enough to hear His whisper. As a result, many of his flock would come to him and ask him what he'd been hearing from the Lord. One day a brother, we'll call him Jim, came and asked him that question. The pastor, only partly in jest, replied, "He says that He misses you Jim." His point was that the Spirit had much to say to Jim, but he wasn't in any kind of position to hear. How like Jim are you and I?

In Havner's above quote, we have much of the reason so many hear so little from Him. We're rarely quiet or close enough to hear. And we lack the courage to act upon what He'd be saying if we were. Last of all, too many of us are not living out daily what it is that we have heard. and say we know. Until we do, we won't hear more, indeed, we won't hear much at all.

I believe the Father is speaking the same words to the church today as He did to Isaiah more than 2500 years ago. Who can He send to a culture sick unto death? Who will go for Him to it and address the sickness both in the culture of the church and of the world? Do we hear His whisper? You don't have to be a preacher, evangelist or missionary to be sent out. If you truly are His, you've already been sent. You don't have to compose an eloquent message from Him. Your life is to be His message, a message His Word says has been written upon our hearts. That is, if we have lived close enough to hear His whisper. Have we? Have you? Listen for His whisper. Blessings, Pastor O

Whose Hands?

 When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. I Peter 2:23

In response to the above Scripture, I have written in my prayer journal, "Father, may I at all times, leave my 'case' in Your hands." ....All of us have our "cases," often many of them. Things, people, needs, situations, that we are heavily invested in. We expend great amounts of energy, emotionally and spiritually, in seeing our cases come to the fruition that we desire. Because of this, we rarely allow them to leave our hands, and so, we never really place them in His.

Can we even begin to imagine the scenario the Scripture from 1st Peter describes. Jesus Christ, in whom the Bible says "all things hold together," is seemingly at the mercy of those who hated and reviled Him. With a word He could have put them all to flight, even destroyed them. He knew His purpose, and though He was seemingly controlled by the actions of others, He trusted His purpose, His "case," to be held in the mighty hands of His Father.

Paul echoed the same when he wrote, "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to keep (all) that I have committed unto Him against that day." Neither Christ, or Paul, or an endless line of faith heroes took it upon themselves to engineer their own results, but entrusted themselves and all that concerned themselves, to Him. Can we? Do we? And if we don't, why not?

We have never been in control, but we have held to the illusion that we are. This past year, especially in the west, has shown us we are not. As individuals, families, churches and ministries, we are seemingly at the mercy of government agendas, social pressures, and yes, public opinion. Our flesh is greatly frustrated by this, and if it holds sway, the result will be the loss of our peace, joy, and hope. Our hands are inadequate to hold all of it. His are not. So why do we hold back? Why do you hold back?

The evangelist James Robison once spoke of how he had struggled to release all the concerns of his ministry to the care of His Father in heaven. He said that in the struggle he heard the whisper of God's voice saying to Him, "If you won't give this into My hands, into whose hands will you give it?" He would ask the same of us. Whose hands could be more trustworthy than His? Jesus asked His disciples in John 6 if they, like so many others, would also leave Him. Peter replied, "Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life." Have we come to such a place as to realize there is no where else to go for life, for help, for hope, for that which we were created for?

We can be held in either the grip of our circumstances, cares, needs, and desires, or, we can be held in the grip of His love. Where do you think your life belongs? Why not come to the foot of the cross and release your grip upon the issues of your life, and with palms upward, commit them all into His hands? If you won't, into whose hands will you commit them?

Blessings,

Pastor O

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Two Tunes

 "For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God." Hebrews 11:10...."The world has been moved most by those who have contradicted it most." G.K. Chesterson

Vance Havner tells the story of a group of small boys who were marching in a parade where one little boy was out of step with the rest. A closer look at it afterwards revealed that the little fellow had a transistor radio hidden in his shirt. He was marching to music a thousand miles away. To this Havner wrote, "That's the way a Christian ought to go through this old world - out of step with its music and its movement, marching to the drumbeat of another realm."

What's the music that we in the western church are marching to? Is it the drumbeat of the world, or that of the Kingdom? It can be very hard to come up with an honest answer to that. By the very nature of our faith, we are to appear "peculiar" to the world. Yet it seems the majority of professing believers want to appear as anything but that. We seem more interested in marketing an image than we are in bearing His image to a lost world. Many pastors and fellowships have sought to present a hip and cool Jesus to a world that is also hip and cool. The cross of Christ is put in a storage room in the back of the church as we seek to be relevant. Relevant to what? As someone said, we have been trying so hard to be relevant that we no longer know how to be reverent.

Do you know the verse from the old hymn "Higher Ground?" ...."My heart has no desire to stay where doubts arise and fears dismay; Though some may dwell where these abound, my prayer, my aim, is higher ground." How many of us can say that it is truly the desire and aim of our hearts? We seem to be far more comfortable with our focus being on what's to be found in the lowlands of this world. Comfort, security, success, applause. We, including pastors, are more enthralled with building our own kingdoms than seeing His come to fullness. We never behold the wondrous views to be realized from the high places in Him. We're content with the limited scenery of this world. Abraham sought tirelessly and constantly for that "city," that "country," whose builder and maker was the Father Himself. He was never in step with the world around him, and so, illustrating Chesterson's words, he left an impact that carries onto eternity. What impact have we?

Oswald Chambers spoke much of getting into the "stride" of God, moving in unison with Him. Moving in such intimacy that an observer could not see and space between the Father and ourselves. I want to walk in His stride. I want to be like that little boy in the parade, in sync with the music of heaven, out of sync with the drumbeat of the world. I want something only He can make possible. I want to spend my life on this side of eternity looking for that city that Abraham sought, while at the same time, living in the One who built it. Such a life is possible when we walk in step with Him. When we get into His stride. Two tunes will come to our ears; that which is composed by the world, and that which is composed in the heart of the Father, written in the blood of Christ. Which tune will we hear? Which are we hearing now?

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Cloak

But Amasa lay in his blood in the middle of the road, and Joab's officer saw that a crowd was gathering around to stare at him. So he pulled him off the road into a field and threw a cloak over him." 2 Samuel 20:12

Amasa was a man appointed by David to replace Joab as commander of the army of Israel. Joab, though loyal to David, had carried out a number of acts of lawlessness, including murder. When he encountered Amasa at the great stone in Gibeon, he approached him with a greeting, all the while concealing a dagger, which he then stabbed and killed Amasa with. Naturally, a crowd gathered to see the results, and Joab's man, wishing to distract from the act, pulled the body off the road and covered it with a cloak. In this act, I see a correlation with both our current secular culture as well as the culture of the church.

I don't wish at this time to delve deeply into what we see happening through this election season. Suffice to say that all are seeing, though many will wish not to, the deep level of corruption present in our culture. Lust for power, control, wealth, and influence, have taken over that system. God is exposing it and God can be the only remedy for it. No matter how they strive to "throw a cloak" over it, the "body" lying in the road will be seen. Nothing will be the same again. Yet, I see a wondrous opportunity for a move of God as I believe the agent to bring His healing will come through His people. But before this can fully happen, the church must deal with the corruption that exists within itself.

I love the church. It is His Body. Yet corruption and decay are present, though many within have tried mightily to cover the "dead bodies" with various kinds of "cloaks." And we don't lack for cloaks or bodies.

We all know that many have been wounded in the church. In too many cases, wounded severely. Very often it has been the result of the sinful acts of some towards another, or many others. The trail of blood left by broken pastors and broken ministries is seemingly infinite. I remember a woman once telling her pastor, who had been walking through the endless slings and arrows of some angry congregants, that she had dreamt of him. She saw him covered in blood as the result of the "beating" he was taking each day. There are so many fine pastors who, because they didn't preach right, lead right, act right, or simply, wouldn't do what they were told or expected to do, suffered in such a way. Almost always, they end up being forced out, and leave a place they have given their lives to in such a bloody state. Most often, the church, along with those with bloody hands, throw a cloak over what has been done, and begin the search for a new pastor. The prevailing thought is "things will be different" with a new leader. But the body is still lying there, covered with the cloak. And it festers.

This is not limited to pastors and leaders. It also happens to those who have been driven off or shunned by the majority for some kind of failure, real or imagined, or simply because they were "different." It could be because they dared to speak up about an ungodly spirit present in the church or the leadership itself. Churches can be very creative in the ways they can make a person or family know they're not welcome. Even in cases where sin has happened, instead of offering healing, restoration, and forgiveness, the church offered only condemnation. And so the bloody bodies continue to pile up, though we always seem to find some cloak to throw over them. We can't see them, so we think they're not there, but they are. And the stench of them permeates the church. Somehow though, we get used to the smell. God never does, and never will.

Many believers are livid over the obvious corruption and fraud we are seeing in this election. They want, rightly, for the corruption to be exposed and cleansed. Do they, we, have as much or more zeal to see corruption cleansed within the church. Particularly that one we call "our church." Where have we "covered the body" in our fellowship? If there is such a case, or cases, can, will we, as a fellowship, confess it, repent of it, and receive His healing and cleansing. Countless congregations are sick, some unto death, because such has never happened in their midst. All the cloaks that we have used, along with the blood that covers them must be brought to Him, and be cleansed, along with all who bring them. When this happens, revival, an awakening, will happen. Until it does happen, we won't have the awakening so many are praying for.

There's an old saying, much used, that certain people "know where the bodies are buried." Are you and I among them? Let us remove all the cloaks and bring them out from where we've hidden them. Let the decay and corruption be healed and cleansed. Then, let His Spirit fall down upon us.

Blessings,

Pastor O 

The Claim

 "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." I John 2:6....."Do we seek a salvation that doesn't disrupt our lives? Do we claim to live in Him yet not live like Him?

Most of us welcome the invitation, when at another's dinner table, to "help ourselves" to the bounty placed before us. That invitation gives us license to take freely of what has been placed before us. Yes, we welcome that, but, do we place such an invitation before the Father as pertains to our lives? Do we invite Him, joyfully, to help Himself to any and all of our lives without reservation? Or, do we prefer and seek a life, a "salvation," that doesn't infringe upon what it is we really want? Have we placed boundaries before Him that say He can go this far in us, but no further? Have we sought to keep His "disruptions" of our lives to a bare minimum, or none at all? If so, we will never walk as He did, live as He did, and as He still does. In truth, we'll be hard pressed to give any evidence that we're really "in Him" at all, despite all our claims to the contrary.

Paul said that he had been crucified with Christ, and that it was "no longer I who lived, but Christ lives in me." He said that he was no longer his own, that he belonged, all of him, to Christ. He lived at the pleasure of His Lord, and he did so with great joy. Why is it that we think that such a life is only required of a few "super saints" like Paul, those called to full time ministries? How can we have become so deceived that we feel the Lord gives us an "out" on all of this because, well, we're not called to such ministries....are we?

Chris Tiegreen gives a wonderful portrait of what the life of a believer is to be. He pictures a 5 star restaurant where the finest service is offered to the patrons. In such a setting there will be one or more attendants assigned to a table. Their role will be to stand back and be aware of every need of the diner. When their glass needs refilled, or a plate cleared away. Their attention is focused solely on those that they serve. This is to be the life of a true follower of Christ, but in reality it is the life of far too few of us. Most of us are more aware of our own needs than of His desires. Few of us are so devoted as to just literally sit at His feet and wait upon Him, listening for every word, responding to every direction. To do so would bring unlimited disruptions to our agendas. In fact we much prefer a portrait where it is Jesus who waits upon us, attentive to our desires and wants. This fits our flesh much better. We're blind to the reality that it makes a total mockery of Christ and His cross.

We're to live totally at His disposal. Our flesh sees this as bondage. Paul saw it as freedom, because in being a slave to Christ, he was free from all else. He knew that true abundant life could be realized in no other way. We no longer claim to live in Him, we actually do. And, the only claim upon our lives is His, and with His whisper of grace, promises us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Where have we found such truth in the midst of all the claims of the world upon us?

What are we claiming today as concerns Him? What do you claim? Our lives will either bear witness to our claim, or make a mockery of it. Which is it for you....for me?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Passing By

 "I perceive that this is a holy man of God, who passes by us continually." 2 Kings 4:9...."In the Bible, 'man of God' indicates a man who kept company with God continually." Vance Havner

Havner tells the story of his first pastorate at a church that had once been led by several men who had gone on to become prominent preachers. Yet, none of these were spoken of by the congregation. The one who was had a name Havner had never heard and could find no great "success" stories about. His name was Josiah Hilliard. The people spoke of him with love and respect. Years removed from the church, his memory was still strong upon the fellowship.

Havner had formed a friendship with a farmer who was a long time member and who had known Josiah Hiliard.. One day he asked the farmer about him, "What was the secret of his strength and the grip he had on you?" The farmer thought for a moment, and then said, "He just loved us." As Havner made his way back to the church, the Scripture from 1st Corinthians came to his mind, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love, it profits me nothing." The young Havner bowed his heart and spirit before his God and prayed that he might live his life out in the truth of that verse.

2nd Kings 4:9 speaks of the Shunammite woman who had noticed the prophet Elisha frequently passing by her and her husband's home. Her perception was that he was a holy man of God, and she wanted them to build a room for him to stay in when he did pass by. Havner connected that verse with the man Josiah Hilliard, who, to all who knew him, was "a holy man of God who passed by continually" through the lives of those he pastored and encountered. They knew him to be a holy man of God. One who spent much time in His presence. Whether we're pastors, preachers, evangelists, or simply believers, who are we to the ones we "pass by" in our day to day living? Does anyone perceive us as holy men and women of God? Do we spend such time in the company of God that others remark, if only to themselves, that there is a real presence of the Father, of His Spirit, about us? If they don't, can we dare to consider why they don't?

Josiah Hilliard was the least known but most memorable pastor of a church that had produced many "names" in ministry. He was the one remembered. He was the one who gave off the scent of heaven to all he came into contact with. He was the one to whom those he ministered knew had been keeping close company with God. For we pastors, do those entrusted to us say the same? And this is not confined to pastors. As men, women, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers, friends and fellow workers, does anyone speak this of us? Again, do we dare to consider why they don't? Do we dare to pray such a prayer as did Havner, that we would come to live in the truth of 1st Corinthians 13? Do we realize that we cannot apart from living closely with Him, in His company, as a way of life?

I think the foremost attribute of a person of God is that they bring no attention to themselves and live lives that point to Him. Their lives bring glory to God as they just live out His life before those that they "pass by" each day. They model His peace, joy, abundance, hope and love, all as they pass by. May it be so of we who confess Him as Lord. May we pass by always in the company of our Almighty God. Recognized as men and women of God.

Blessings,

Pastor O