Splashes Of Heaven

 At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. 17But the LORD stood at my side and gave me strength 2 Timothy 4:16-17......."Christ will never give us a cross so heavy that it will outweigh the grace that accompanies it." Joni Eareckson Tada

Joni Eareckson Tada may be the most inspirational follower of Christ in the last 50 years. At the age of 17 she was a tremendous all around athlete with a wonderful future. Then, in a freak diving accident, she was turned into a quadriplegic. She then entered into a relationship of intimacy with her Lord Jesus Christ that few others have known. Her life has been one of unbelievable challenges, and I recently heard her speak of one of the most recent.

She discovered that she had stage three cancer, and began chemo treatments. One day, on the way home, strapped in place in their van, she and her husband Ken began discussing suffering. She said she felt that suffering was having "splash overs of hell" entering into one's life. The conversation continued until they arrived home, when Ken asked her what she thought splash overs of heaven might be? She thought for a moment, and then said that splash overs of heaven in our lives were not those times when all was bliss and no troubles assaulted us. She said she believed they were those times when we suffered the splash overs of hell, and that Jesus Christ came to us there and comforted, assured, and gave His neverending presence and life. In a fallen world, filled with suffering, those were the places where we could most expect to experience heaven; having the fullness of Jesus Christ.

I will not even begin to pretend that I know even the barest of Tada's suffering, but I can relate with an experience of my own, and it's the reason I chose the above Scripture from 2 Timothy. I was living on a church campground in the midst of a bleak, freezing winter. I had come "home" to the cabin I was in, feeling alone and forgotten, and feeling close to despair, as I suffered the reality of a failed marriage and my having to step out of ministry because of it. Not at all "feeling like it," I sought some kind of help from His Word. My current reading had me in 2 Timothy, and the above verse is what I read. Immediately, I sensed His presence. Whether you believe what happened next was real or not doesn't matter to me. I know that it was. In my desolation, I saw in my mind myself inserted into the picture the Apostle Paul speaks of. He stood before Caesar, ruler of the known world, and he stood alone, yet not alone because His Lord Christ stood with him. As I read that I saw with the eyes of the Spirit my own situation, my isolation, my feeling of abandonment. I saw myself alone......and then I saw Him, beside me, with me, in me. Caesar represented the power of the roaring lion of this world, satan. I felt I stood before all the power of that same enemy...until I saw Jesus. And when I did, I saw all the power of that enemy against me broken.....and I knew that where I was, was not going to be where He left me, and it wasn't. The same Christ who came to stand with Paul was standing with me. Into my own splash of hell had come His splash of heaven for me.

Someone said that all the power of hell, in the form of the roaring lion Peter writes of, was crushed by the power of God through His Son, the Lamb. At the cross, in His suffering, the Lamb of God, Christ, by the shedding of His blood, conquered all the power of sin and death. The Lamb defeated the Lion. Christ at His weakest defeated satan at his strongest. Suffering and pain will be real on this side of eternity, but the Father will use it to reveal to us, in the depths of our soul, how real, sufficient, and almighty He is. In that place we'll discover what is, "the hope of His glory" in Jesus Christ. As we go through our various "hells," that is what sustains us. In the midst of them, we experience the wonder of His fullness...the splash overs of heaven into the midst of those splash overs of hell. In those places, He whispers, "Will you trust Me? Will you believe Me?" If we will, we'll discover that all the power of hell cannot quench the wonder of His heaven in our lives. When you go through hell, if you're going through now, look for His splash overs. They will be there.....if you'll just believe, you'll see.

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Signature

 "By His wounds we are healed." Isaiah 53:5....."Every "signature" of wounding in our lives can be covered by the signature of Christ." Beth Moore

The wounds we receive in life leave their mark, their "signature" upon us. Try as we may to conceal them, deny them, or try to forget them, they remain. They may come from many different sources, places, and people, but regardless of who was the visibly responsible one, the one behind them is our enemy, the devil. It is he who writes his signature upon our wounds, and through them, seeks to afflict us, torment us, and hold us captive through them. That this is undeniable can be seen by the great number of people held in bondage by deep spiritual, emotional, and physical wounds of their life.

Many years ago, just before I left my home in Pittsburgh to begin to study for the ministry, a man visited the store I managed. In our conversation he shared that he was a psychologist, and I, in my exuberance, shared that I was a follower of Christ, and would be leaving soon to begin studying for the ministry I felt called to. He then said something I've never forgotten. He told me that in nearly 40 years of practice as a Dr. in Psychology he didn't feel that he had truly led any of his clients to real freedom from those things that held them in captivity. He said he had come to the conclusion that the only One who could was God. He didn't profess to be a believer, but he had come to see the futility of men and women to set other men and women free from the mental, emotional, and spiritual prisons they were trapped in. My nearly 40 years of ministry have only served to prove to me how right he was. How right he remains. The only remedy for those who bear the signature of the enemy upon their souls through that which they've suffered, is to have the signature of Jesus Christ written over it.....in the healing power of His blood.

I love that great Scripture from Isaiah, "By His wounds we are healed." The blood that He shed on the cross breaks all the power of hell and darkness, and covers all who believe upon Him as Lord and Savior. As the old hymn says, "There is power in the blood." Wonder working power. Greater than all our sin, and power to heal...even our deepest and most devastating wounds.

Everywhere in the church and in the world the effects of the woundings can be seen. Lives disintegrating. Marriages disintegrating. Families disintegrating. So much of the reason for it all can be found in the wounds, the signatures of death upon all as a result of the things they have suffered. Upon them all He can write His name, in His healing blood, and bring wholeness to what has been broken. Life to what has been held in the grip of death. Joy where there has been only sorrow. Peace where there has been only turmoil.

A signature signifies much. It can bind a contract, show ownership over a story. It carries with it the authority of the one who writes it. Right now multitudes suffer the consequences of the many "signatures" that have been written upon their souls by what they have both done, and seen done to them. Those signatures exercise great and destructive power in our lives. All of them can be covered, rendered powerless by the signature of the One who writes His name in His healing blood....Jesus. Have you brought your wounds to Him? Would you have the Wounded Savior cover your wounds with His Life and His love? By His wounds we are healed....you are healed. Let Him write His Name upon yours.

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Dragon

 "Jesus is 'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.' Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved." Acts 4:11-12...."The church knows that the real issue is sin, and it knows who the solution is; Jesus Christ, but it's afraid to say so." Christine Caine

It's been on my heart for some time now to write what I do today. Today I feel like I must, and so.....I write.

The above words from Christine Caine strike me hard, because I know how true they are. I think most reading this do as well. We do know what the real problem in this world is, that it is the sin that permeates not only the human race, but all of creation itself. There was a time when the church did not fear to bring that truth, and bring it boldly. Not in a condemning, angry way, but with a deep love for the lost, a love that came from the heart of God Himself. It was the reason for the sending of His only Son, Jesus Christ, because Christ's death on a cross on behalf of a fallen race was the only way to deal with the penalty and horror of sin. Yet for decades now, we have become ever more reluctant to proclaim that message. We've been told, by many in the church itself, that it's a negative message, that people are made uncomfortable by it, that we needed to focus on His love, His grace, and His forgiveness. This has led to a kind of thinking that really, we're not all that bad. Paul said that apart from Jesus Christ and His redeeming grace, there was no good thing in Him. We can admit we're fallen, but really not all that far. There is good in us, and Christ just makes us even better. So sin ends up being not all that terrible and our fallen condition not all that serious. The church has become afraid to boldly expose that delusion.

A.W. Tozer said this; "I look back and remember a day when it was common for men and women to come to an altar of prayer and kneel there, shake, treamble and weep in agony of conviction over their inequity. We do not see it now because the God we preach is not the everlasting Holy One who cannot look upon inequity." He cannot look upon our sin, and so hence our beyond desperate need for a Savior, and that Savior is Jesus Christ....alone. He does not merely make our lives better. He is Life itself. Without Him, death is all we can expect.

The church has bought into the deception that humankind is basically good, even though the witness of history shows that we're anything but that. I recently watched a documentary detailing the eradication of the Jews of Hungary during WW2. Jewish survivors of the death camps told how when the Nazi's were leading them away from their homes. often to be immediately executed, neighbors who'd once seemed friends lined the street jeering them, calling out for their deaths. Apart from Christ, every human heart has a sleeping dragon within, and it only takes the right "match" to ignite it and bring forth the deep evil within. In Christ alone is the dragon slain, but we cannot know that until we're first confronted with the truth about the dragon within, and the truth about the only One who can slay it.

We are all of us, watching our culture disintegrate before our eyes. Practices once seen as openly deviant, perverted, and evil, have found their way into growing mainstream acceptance. Violence against one another, and the hateful rhetoric that goes with it, grows by the day. Mankind cannot and will not evolve out of it. Neither can we be educated out of it. It is ingrained in our very natures. Our fallen natures. God alone has the answer, and that answer is Jesus Christ. A clear message about this must be proclaimed by the church, and we cannot shrink back from that message.

We are born trapped in our sin, and we are helpless to deliver ourselves from its penalty. That's what makes John 3:16 so real; "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes on Him should not perish but have eternal life." As the old hymn says, He gives "grace greater than all our sin." Yes, we must confront a lost world and race with the reality of our sin, but also with the Living remedy for all of it; Jesus Christ. The first is very bad news for our self sufficient flesh, but the second is the greatest of news. It is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Why do we fear to proclaim such wonderful news?

The pastor of my youth would often say of "converts" in the church, that it seemed like they only ever got about "half saved." In truth, such a state is actually a lost one. Throughout the Word of God the message is that we are hopelessly lost and without eternal hope. The message also is that we are desperately loved, even when we mock, reject, and blaspheme Him. He sent His Son to a race that for the most part didn't want Him and refused to receive Him. He continues to send Him through those who have. Jesus said the world hated Him because He convicted it of its sin. His message and life always will, but we must proclaim it anyway. He and His message are the only means to slay the dragon. The price of not doing so is beyond imagination.

We are all of us born into captivity to the dragon. We have no means of freeing ourselves, yet to Jesus Christ the dragon must yield. The dragon is powerless against the King. In Him, all who believe and receive are born into a Living Hope. At the cross, the power of the dragon was forever broken. In His resurrection, our freedom was given. What a message of Life and of hope. One, either the King or the dragon will rule over us. Who rules over you?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Where He Is

 Jesus told his disciples, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” John 14:3

We generally associate John 14:3 with Jesus promising those who believe in Him that He will be preparing their place in eternity, that He will return for them, and that He desires that they, we, be fully with Him right where He is. I think that is true in part, but its meaning goes far deeper than we allow ourselves to see.

Before anything else, here's a question for each of us: as we examine our lives in the leading of His Spirit, how much of our life can be found "where He is?" To be where He is means that we conduct ourselves in all places as He would. As He does. I don't mean imitating His behavior, but actually living our lives in the power of His. What this means is Christlikeness; in our hearts and in our minds. Christ has a definite desire and purpose for every aspect of our life. There is a "place" where He is in our marriages, our parenting, our ministry, our relationships, our stewardship, and above all, in our relationship with Him. To what degree are we "where He is" in each of them. I believe if we really yield ourselves to the searching of His Holy Spirit, we'll find there are places, perhaps many, where we're not where He is at all. We're somewhere else, and being somewhere else other than with Him, is death.

Jesus promised to prepare a place for us. In eternity for sure, but also for our lives in the here and now. He's prepared a place for where our marriages should be. For where our families should be. For where our service and ministry for Him should be. For where our walk with Him should be. For where our church fellowships should be. Is that place going unused in our lives and fellowships because He is alone in that place? He's alone there because we've either chosen it, or been deceived into believing that the place we're at is the place He would have us.

As He spoke the above words to His disciples, He told them that they knew the way that He was going, to which Thomas replied, "No we don't Lord." What he and the rest of the disciples still didn't comprehend was that Christ had been teaching them for some time that He was the way, the key, to entering into all the fullness of eternal life. He alone was the "the Way, the Truth, and the Life." The only way to be where He is was to live in His way, live in His truth, and live in His life. Scripture says that "There's a way that seems right to a man, but it's end is death." We end up in other places because we think our way is better, or that we can follow His way our own way. The result is that we're not where He's at, and every part of our life suffers because of it.

Early on in my walk with Him, I remember hearing someone say that the wrong way can become the right one when we invited Christ to fully come to where we're at. Everything changes with that heart cry. So many times in my life, I found myself in the wrong way, traveling away from and not to Him. In such times, we can simply cry out, "Jesus, come and get me." He will, and when He does, He's where we're at, and He brings us to where He is.....Where in you life do you need to make such an appeal? Where do you find yourself far from Him. He'll meet you there, making the wrong way the right one, and transforming all so that where He is, you are too.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Realistic?

19 I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 1:19-20....."There is a choice for us: we can fix our hearts on what Scripture says, or we can accept the words of those who tell us to just be realistic. In other words, we're going to have to choose whether we're going to have faith or not. What will you believe today? Chris Tiegreen

I think the greatest "faith killers" are to be found in the church, the Body of Christ. It is amazing that it should be so, but somehow, too many of us have settled into the belief that yes, we know God can do all things, but it is unlikely that He will. So, we arrange to protect ourselves from any kind of disappointment by having low, and oftentimes, no expectations of Him. Notice I said, "of Him." We have come to the place of low expectation because most often our expectations are centered on what it is we want Him to do. We ask, and then we have a certain outcome we're set on. When He doesn't respond according to our plan, our expectation, we're disappointed, discouraged. The enemy leaps upon this and tells us that it was folly to believe He would in the first place. It is folly if we place our expectations in the outcome. Our expectation is to be in Him, in the secure belief that He will do what is right, best, and for our good and His glory. This is true hope, and His Word tells us that such hope will not be disappointed.

Another aspect here is that not only do we have misplaced expectations, but we question, at least in ourselves, whether or not He truly is all powerful and almighty. Our belief in that shrinks in comparison to the problems and obstacles we face. They are gigantic and He.....isn't. In these places, well meaning but faith killing brethren come to us and tell us, if not directly, that we need to be realistic here. Think on the last great trial you walked in. The last deep need. The last great mountain and huge giant you faced. The last seeming impossibility. What was your sense of how He would respond to it? What was your sense as to how fellow believers thought He'd respond to it? We tend to be like the disciples in the midst of the storm with its crashing waves. We think we'll drown. God would have us rest in the confidence that Christ will, as one man said, "come walking on top of the waves we think will drown us." For the true believer, this is what being realistic really is. We may not know how, when, or where He will burst through, but we know that He will. We're not focused on a particular outcome, we're focused on the Lord of all outcomes.

We must have a church, be a church that lives in, believes in "the incredible greatness of His power." A power unleashed in the lives and situations of those who believe Him, in the churches that believe Him. The waves of the culture we live in are higher and more dangerous than any we have ever known. We must know and look for Him to come walking on top of these waves that threaten us. He is Lord over all, rules over all. Too many of us have accepted this as a theory, and have accepted the view that the world calls "realistic." So as a result of our little or no faith, we see little or no miracles.

We in the church so often end up discouraging each other. I remember an occasion, years ago, when our fellowship was faced with overwhelming financial needs. We were located in an area with one of the highest costs of living in the nation. The monthly rent on our building was crushing us. God consistently provided in miraculous ways, but the burden was great, and our leadership would meet often to discuss it. All we usually ended up doing was telling each other how enormous the need was, and pushing each other deeper and deeper into discouragement and despair. Finally, one of our men spoke up and said that we needed to remember that we served and followed a God who could make the sun stand still. Nothing was too difficult. Nothing was impossible. Right then we had a fresh wave of His grace that enabled us to believe. He provided, and that was a turning point for us. The need remained, but the belief, the reality for us was that He would provide, make a way, bring us through. And He never ceased to do so. Our God would do it again....and again....and again. He will never cease doing it. He asks you, me, us today; do we believe Him? Do we?

Blessings,

Pastor O

 

Undiscovered Riches

 By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1:3....."We miss the life we have by wishing for another life." Christine Caine

Some years back, I wrote this in my prayer journal; "Father, I thank You, that though You may not have given me everything I ever wanted, You have always given me all of Yourself." I give testimony in this writing that the sum of every unmet desire or asking that I placed before Him, is less than a drop in comparison to what I have been given in Jesus Christ. Scripture calls Him "a gift too wonderful for words." This is infinitely true, as there exist no words that can begin to describe Him.

I have no idea of how much time I have left in this realm, but I know for sure that I'm coming to the end of my journey. As I look back upon my life with Him, I remember so many things that I asked of Him. Desires that at the time I was desperate for Him to fulfill. From the perspective of looking back, I now see how shallow, and even meaningless many of those things were even then. In so many instances, I fell into the very trap that Christine Caine speaks of. I missed the riches in my life at those times by wishing I had another life. Thankfully, that mindset and attitude disappeared years ago. It disappeared when I finally began to discover the depths of all that I did have in Him. The undiscovered riches found in Christ.

This is not to say that having desires is wrong, or wanting certain things added to our lives. What it does mean is that when our longings for them obscure our real longings for Him, we impoverish ourselves. We also open the door for the enemy to come in and convince us that our life is incomplete, lacking without them. What begins to rise in us is frustration, anger, and a deep sense of resentment, because we feel He is holding something back from us. We begin to feel entitled, and that He owes us what we seek. We doubt His promises. We doubt Him. We question His character and His love. We not only no longer believe that He will "set a table before us in the wilderness," we don't believe that He can. When this happens, satan has achieved his purpose. He's ensnared us, and we're blind to the truth that if he can lure us into turning upon our God, we will not be turning on him. So he goes on to wreak ever deeper havoc in our lives.

Here's the beauty and the truth in all of this. All of our temper tantrums over His not responding as we wish will not turn Him away from His pursuit of us. He will discipline us in this, but in the discipline will be His motive of revealing to us not only how much He loves us, but how sufficient, much more sufficient, is His grace to us in the seeming withholding of His blessings. He wants us to know and experience that His greatest blessing for us is found in His giving of Himself. God doesn't give grace, He is grace. This is what I discovered. This is what He revealed. He gave me Himself, and I found He really was a gift too wonderful for words.

I close with this story from Annie Herring, the gifted songwriter and singer of the Jesus music group, the 2nd Chapter of Acts. She tells of her conversion in the midst of her pursuit of a career as a rock star in 60's hippie culture of San Francisco. She and the group she was a part of had been offered a dream contact from a major record label. All she had wanted was before her. That evening, the Lord spoke to her heart, and what she heard was Him saying to her that she could have all that she had ever wanted, the fame and fortune she'd so long sought, or, she could have Him. She said that she answered Him, "Lord, after seeing and experiencing You, I don't want anything else." Friends, that is where you and I must live, because once we've truly "seen" and experienced Him, all other things lose their grip on us. We're now held in His grip. The undiscovered riches have been discovered. Have they been discovered by you?

Blessings,

Pastor O

The Flow

 37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”[a] John 7:37-38

........."Do I manifest the essential sweetness of the Son of God, or the essential irritation of 'myself' apart from Him?"

Oswald Chambers

In my prayer journal I've written the question, "What flows out of us; rivers of living water, or rivers of anger, bitterness, hopelessness, and despair?" There is always a "river" flowing out of us, what does mine look like, and what does yours?

Every river begins with a source, and that is the first place we must examine. Who and what is our "source?" What is it from which our lives, our being flows? I see there being only two possibilities; from our "self" or from Christ. The latter brings life, His life. The former only death. As an old chorus goes, the River of Life "brings refreshing wherever it goes." Can we ask ourselves a direct question here? Do our lives, our presence, mine and yours, bring a refreshing into the situations in which we find ourselves? Does our presence, anchored in His Presence, bring calm, joy, hope, peace, wisdom, and all the components of the fruit of His Spirit, in those places? Places, sometimes difficult, to which He's led us? Or, does our presence add to the already volatile circumstances we're in? Do we help fuel the anger that is already present? Do we add our bitterness to that which is already being expressed? Do we attack the character of one who is already suffering such attacks? Do we take a "hearsay" about a person or situation and pass it on with our own personal "touch" being added to it? If we're really honest with ourselves, there are places where we've done all of that to some degree. Rivers of pure, living water are to be flowing from our lives, but too often, what flows is a mixture of His purity and our carnal attitudes.

I remember that growing up, it was common from time to time that the faucets in our house would sometimes yield water that was brownish in color. It was because cracks would often develop in the pipes bringing water to ours and other homes carrying dirt that had gotten into the water flow, either from the cracks,, or from work being done on them. In any event, no one drank that water. Always, we waited until the impurities had been washed out. Eventually, the clear water flowing from the nearby reservoir, visible from our house, would expunge the filth, It was an ever pure source. In the life of a believer, "impurities" will always seek to find their way into our hearts and minds. If we are truly joined to Him as our Source, we can depend upon His ever flowing water of Life to constantly wash them away. However, if we are looking for other sources for our life and well being, the result will always be a mixture. Pure and impure, and no matter how we want to look at that, the bottom line is that what flows from us brings as much death as it does life, and sadly, oftentimes more.

Early in my ministry, I remember visiting a family that had left our church some years before I had arrived. As I sat at their table, I listened to them relate some of the reasons why they no longer attended any church at all. They remembered as children, teens, and even as adults, hearing others in the family, those who had given glowing testimonies about the Lord while "in church," spend the entire ride home harshly criticizing the pastor, or expressing jealousy, anger, or unforgiveness against another in the church. They saw it as hypocrisy, and it was, for hypocrisy is always the result when our lives flow with a mixture of the pure and impure.

Far too many professing believers are living lives that are made up of a portion of His Living Water, and a greater portion of "water" that is polluted with death. Just as the dirt tainted water of my childhood was undrinkable, so are our lives "undrinkable" to those around us. How much of our lives are so because of the pollutants we have allowed into them? In Scripture, the River of God is spoken of, and how it flows from the throne of God, bringing healing with its waters. It's Source is God Himself, and the effects of His flowing waters will always be healing and wholeness. Christ was and is the supreme Agent of His healing and wholeness. As His people, we are to be as well. Are we, are you and I, such agents? Or, are we adding to an already heavily polluted world?

I mentioned that you could see the reservoir that served our community from our house. It's still there, and still visible. This is what the church, you and I, is to be to a world in desperate need of His water of life. A visible church, connected to the Source of water of Life, and a vessel through which that water, that river flows. In the midst of a sin polluted world, we have tolerated our various pollutants long enough. May His River of Life flow through us, our fellowships, His Church, bringing life and refreshing wherever we go. That's what His Living Water does. May we never ceased to be filled and to flow with that water.

Blessings,

Pastor O