The Riches

 Oh, how great are God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his ways!  Romans 11:33......."Here is a fountain that will never run dry, a treasure that can never be used up, a wealth that can never be exhausted. All other pursuits and quests and interests pale, but the riches of God in Christ Jesus will thrill us forever. Hallelujah!.....How can any preacher ever run out of sermons, with all this to ponder and preach?" Vance Havner

Not just any preacher, but how can we who are His ever cease to wonder and be amazed at the depths of who He is, and the neverending riches He gives to them? How then can it be that so few of us ever even scratch the surface of knowing? How can we remain so ignorant and unaware?

I think part of it lies in that we have centered our faith around ourselves and not Him. We dwell upon all that He can give to us, do for us, and accomplish for and through us. We are earthbound in our thinking and though we may look to Him, we never seem to really see Him. He's our Helper, our Aid, and sadly, tragically, oftentimes just an Accessory to our faith. We know much about what He can do for us, but we know so little of Him. We think His riches are realized in our accumulation of the silver and gold of this world. We think they are our inheritance. We don't realize that it's He who is.

So many of the sermons preached today focus on His love. His love for us and all that His love brings us. Healing, renewal, provision, protection, and abundance. All of these are certainly part of what we realize in Him, but they are not in themselves Him. How many preachers take to their pulpits overwhelmed by the awesome wonder of who He is? How many even attempt to take their fellowships into the very throneroom of the Father. I have often thought that no greater thing can be said of a preacher than that He showed his congregation the Father, that he revealed to them a portrait of who He is. That He made real to them the wonder and glory of the three in One God; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Every preacher is inadequate to come to describing this, but every preacher has the responsibility to seek to do so. Yes, we will fall short, but we must never stop reaching for words and images to do so. But we can only do so to the degree that we ourselves have beheld Him, seen His glory, and have partaken in the fullest degree possible of His riches. Too many messages ask us to love Him because of what He does. That kind of love is easily broken when we feel He is not doing for us what we think He should. When we come to love Him for who He is, all that He is, that is a bond and a love that is unbreakable.

I challenge you, and myself, to dwell upon the infinite depth of His riches today, this week....this life. Eternity will be about the ongoing discovery of those riches. May the yearning for those riches begin now, today, in all of us. Jesus said that "eye has not seen and ear has not heard all that the Father has prepared for those that love Him." Our flesh bound minds and understanding tend to put that "all" in terms of what can be counted and measured. He puts it in terms of Himself. May we yearn for the realization of it all. May the yearning begin today.

Blessings,
Pastor O

More Random Things

Just a few more from my prayer journal.....

"We must come to the place of letting go to God even the most precious of His promises and our dreams." I wrote this down a number of years ago when I realized I had made idols of some of His promises and too many of my dreams and desires. By this I mean that I was so intent on His bringing to pass in my life a promise that I had claimed or a desire I had that its realization had begun to consume me. It, or they, had become an idol. I needed to surrender the promises and dreams to Him. At some point, we must realize the danger of having our dreams and the realization of a promise becoming the focus of our life. Our focus is no longer on Him but upon the goal we want to reach, the result we want to realize. These become idols to us. God is simply a means to be used in realizing them. It can happen very easily, and our only safeguard is to surrender them, all of them, to Him. We can still have the desire and hope for the result, but we rest in Him in the midst of it all. His will for us is supreme. Christ came with a mission from His Father, to bring the message of life, forgiveness of sins, and the healing of broken hearts and spirits. He desired the fulfillment of it all, but the desire was surrendered to His Father. That's why when Satan tempted Him with the giving to Him of all the kingdoms of the world if He would serve him, He refused. He would not take the devil's counterfeit way to fulfillment. He would surrender His way, the way of the cross to Him, and trust Him. In our most cherished dreams and hopes, and the promises we stand on, can we also surrender them all to Him?

"When the Son sets us free, He expects us to be and live free. Completely free." Chris Tiegreen....Scripture tells us that "when the Son sets you free, you are free indeed." This is one of the great truths of His Word, yet it is a truth so few of us are really experiencing. When one comes to Christ in believing faith, receiving Him as Savior and Lord, the claim of sin over us is broken. In Christ we are forgiven, made new, and made whole. We have been transferred and transformed from the kingdom of darkness and death to the Kingdom of Light and Life. We have been made sons and daughters of the King and heirs of His Kingdom. Yet so many never walk in this freedom. We live like prisoners of war when the war has already been won by our Lord and Savior. It was won and sealed at the cross and in the resurrection, but the enemy convinces us that it's not really so. We have been given resurrection life, and the power that conquered sin and death, yet we continue to live in bondage to both. We are "more than conquerors" in Christ. Christ Himself said we have "all things" in Him. We are called to abundance, but we live with lack. The central reason is that we don't really know who we are in Christ, and the enemy works overtime to keep it so, to keep us in darkness. He calls us into the Light, and if we will walk in it with Him, His Word, His Life, and His presence will soak every chain from us. We will live free because we are free. This is the way He expects us to live. Calls us to live. Are we meeting His expectations?

"We seek to serve Him with whole hearts while drinking His Living Water with half a heart." Alicia Britt Chole

....Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that He offered Living Water, the water of Life. He said that those who drank the water of the well would only grow thirsty again, but that the ones who drank of His Living Water would never be thirsty again. This is true....if we will continuously drink His water. Our problem is that we so often go back to the well water of this world to slake our thirst, and we end up being even more thirsty. We may still drink of His Living Water, but not as fully or deeply. We do so, as Chloe says, with half a heart, yet we seek to serve Him with all our heart. Jesus said that out of us will flow rivers of His Living Water, but this won't happen when we take only sips of it at a time. The result is service, ministry, which becomes burdensome and tiresome. We begin to resent it and those we seek to serve. Eventually, we burn out. Too little of the water of His life flows into us and so eventually, none of His water flows out. We dry up because the richness of His Holy Spirit, His Living Water, ceases to flow into us, and so nothing flows out of us. Where, in your living for Him might this be happening? Where do you drink of His Water of Life with half a heart....or no heart at all?

Just some more random things......Blessings from Pastor O 

Everything

"....so that in everything He might have the supremacy." Colossians 1:18...."Groups of Chinese students regularly leave their homeland on a march to Jerusalem. Why? Because the route goes through strongholds of every major religion in the world, and the students' passion for telling the story of Jesus is strong. They know that many of them will die from persecution along the way. They know that they aren't allowed to turn back, even if their family members need them. Regardless of health and hardship, they will continue until they reach Jerusalem or die. In their lives, Christ is supreme.....Intellectual faith in the deity of Jesus requires little risk. Lifestyle faith in the deity of Jesus requires everything." Chris Tiegreen

What are the risks we are willing to take as we follow Jesus? How far will we go into the areas of danger and loss? What cost are we willing to pay in our obedience? These and even deeper questions are staring at us and have to be answered no matter how difficult and no matter how we may seek to avoid answering them.

Tiegreen's telling of the Chinese students is real. Their desire to be a living sacrifice for Him is real. They forsake all, even the demands of family, in order to live out a witness for Him. I know as we read that, we, especially in the west, think that is going beyond what He would ever ask of us, but is it? Is our commitment to Him so deep that we will follow wherever He leads even if it brings pain to those we love? Even if it means losing their love. Many would say that they would draw the line at that, but Christ had no such line. In His earthly ministry, even His family didn't understand Him, and tried to dissuade Him from His purpose, but fulfilling the purpose for which He'd been sent was His priority. Loyalty and devotion to His Father outweighed His devotion to any earthly person or thing, even to those He was closest to and loved deeply.

What I relate now is not for the purpose of casting me in some perfect light. My flaws are many and often glaring, but there have been places in my life where I had to choose between what others I loved desired and obeying and continuing on with Him. The most trying was in my marriage. Without seeking to cast my former mate in an ugly light, I will just say that she came to hate her life as it pertained to my ministry. Her pressure upon me to make major compromises in my calling and belief grew by the year, eventually coming to the point of demanding I leave it completely. For me, and I stress for me, that could never be an option. I make no judgement on others who say it would be, but it wasn't, couldn't be for me. His Word says that His gifts and callings are irrevocable, so how could I turn away? For me, I couldn't turn back. To do so would be a turning of my back on Him. I would not, could not do that. The result was that I lost my marriage, and so much more. My grief was deep, the wounds were deep, but in the depths of my heart, I knew that my choice was the right one. I could not lay down my cross, and I could not leave off following Him completely....no matter the cost. I grieve the loss and the cost, but I don't regret my choice. For me, there never was a choice.

I want to add that the immediate result was crushing. When she left, I had to step out of ministry. No pathway back in seemed to exist. The enemy mocked me relentlessly. That my choice for Him brought the loss of everything. There seemed no pathway back to the life I had given all of myself to. All I could do was trust in His calling. Trust in Him. In due time, despite all that seemed against me, He proved the truth of what Peter wrote in I Peter 4:19, "....and trust yourself to the God who made you, for He will never fail you." He never has, and I know that He never will.

I don't write any of this for any reason other than I believe we are entering into days when such choices will be placed before each of us and all of us who take His name. Following Him is going to bring ever increasing cost and loss. It will affect us, and it will affect our loved ones. Will we press on in Him regardless? We are going to have to answer. We cannot evade His question forever? When He confronts us, when He confronts you, when He requires everything, how will you answer?

Blessings,

Pastor O 

5th Gospel

 13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Matthew 7:13-14

A man named Juan Carlos Ortiz speaks of a 5th Gospel, popular among many in the church. You'll not find it actually written anywhere except in the hearts and minds of many who struggle to accept and live out the truth of Matthew 7:13-14. Ortiz says that the central message of this 5th Gospel, which he calls, "The Gospel Of The Evangelicals" is, "We take what we like from His Word and take out what we don't. God the Father and Christ His Son make no demands upon us. Jesus accepts us whether we fully accept Him or not."

He says this Gospel creates a third gate and road, the Middle. The large gate and road are for those evil sinners who do all manner of evil deeds. They're the ones heading to destruction. The Narrow gate and road is for all those called to full time ministry; pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and various full time workers in the Kingdom of God. The Middle gate and road is for the rest of us. It give us a lot of leeway. We can walk a bit on some aspects of the destructive wide way while maintaining a walk on parts of the narrow. That is, those parts we can accept and live with. The Middle way he tells us is the invention of men. That's true, but that bogus way has attracted and seduced so many to their destruction. It continues to do so today. Are you walking upon it now?

The truth of all of this can be seen in the message being proclaimed in so many parts of the western church. Jesus made clear that if we are going to follow Him, we are to take up our cross, the cross that will lead us to our own encounter with our own Calvary and follow upon His way. The narrow way. The way of the cross. I ask you, how often are you hearing this message from the pulpit of your fellowship? Have you ever heard it? Or have you been saturated with Ortiz's "Gospel of the Evangelicals?"

This is what Ortiz had to say about what is marking so much of the modern message of the church; "We're always appealing to man's interests. Jesus is Savior, Healer, the King coming for US, for ME. ME is at the center of the gospel message." Think on how true that is. Think on how we have presented Jesus as someone who will make your life better, richer, more abundant. It may be good now, but if you add Jesus, it will be even better, a life filled with blessing. In truth, we have proclaimed Him as more of an add on to our lives than as He who is not just Savior, but Lord. In the Bible, He is called Lord far more often than He is called Savior. Entering into the fellowship of His sufferings isn't part of the package. As Ortiz remarks, "We're anxious to be relieved of the burden of our sin, but we want our 'self-life' to walk away unchanged." In short, He can save us, but He can't "have" us. This is the Gospel of the Evangelicals. It's not just coming to a church near you, it's already arrived.

The time for this message to be put to death is now. It begins with our willingness to die out to its attraction. Our flesh embraces such a message. His Spirit and Life never will. May we hear the true message of Christ, of His cross and His life. May we cease trying to walk a non-existent middle road and enter in by the narrow gate. And may we know something more. As someone said, His narrow gate leads into a wide life. It is not a life of rigidity, but of freedom and abundance in Him. The Narrow Gate is Christ Himself. Those who have really experienced Him will choose no other. May He be chosen by us, by you today. Enter in by the life gate of Christ.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Random Thinga

Just a few random things from my prayer journal......

"The prince of this world approaches. He has no power over Me." John 14:30....There are "modernists" today who want to interpret all of Jesus' encounters with Satan and his demonic activity, especially as concerns demonic possession, as actually being cases of severe mental illness. This is a fallacy. In all of these instances, Christ identified who he was dealing with as a demon, even commanding them to give Him their names. He spoke many times of the reality of Lucifer, the fallen angel, and of his evil purposes against the human race that the Father loves. He often referred to the devil as the "prince of this world," meaning the Father, because of the sin of Adam and Eve had allowed Satan certain rights in this world and dominion over it, but the boundaries are set and controlled by Him. As Scripture says in so many places, "It is God who rules." So, the devil is real, but what we who follow Christ must know is that just like our Lord, "he has no power over us." Christ spoke these words to His disciples shortly before He was arrested and then crucified. He knew the enemy's full frontal assault had begun, but He also knew that it was His Father who ruled and was in control of all that would unfold. We must know this as well. Our enemy will approach us constantly and through many devices. He will seek to convince us we are helpless against him, but he can only accomplish against us that which we allow him through unbelief, disobedience, or ignorance. When we know who we are in Christ, we know we have His authority over the enemy. We know he will approach us. It's who He is. When we know who we are, we know he has no power over us. The power lies with the Lord we follow, believe, and trust. And in Him, we too have that power.

"So I am willing to act like a fool in order to show my joy in the Lord. Yes, and I am willing to look even more foolish than this..." 2nd Samuel 6:21-22....."Are we willing to look like fools for believing Him....even in disappointment?"
David had been leaping and dancing before both the Lord and the people as the Ark of the Covenant was brought into Jerusalem. His wife Michal disdained him for it. She thought such a display beneath a king. David didn't care at all about how foolish his faith and relationship with his God would look to anyone else, no matter their station. How about us? Are we willing to look like fools for trusting in Him when everything is against us? When it makes no rational sense to believe Him? When circumstances say we face nothing but impossibilities? We may say yes in all these, but there is one more; when He does not act in the way we expected....when we are disappointed with the immediate results of our faith.....when we look like complete fools before all eyes for our faith.....will we still trust Him regardless? Are we so surrendered to Him that no matter what the immediate situation may say or look like, and no matter how unreasonable our faith may seem, we are steadfast because "we know who we have believed, and we are persuaded" that He will, in His perfect time and way, come through for us, deliver us, provide for us, bring victory to us? Even when everyone calls us fools for doing so. Are we willing to have that kind of faith and trust? Do we have such faith and trust right now?

"Philip, don't you even yet know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you?" John 14:9.....Where, as followers of Christ may He be asking this of us, of you, today? Where are we doubting His character, His faithfulness, His power and authority?  How much more time must go by before we really know Him? Will we ever really know Him? Philip had asked Jesus to show them the Father. He was blind to the fact that everything Jesus had said and done had been His showing them the Father. He had told them plainly that when they saw Him, they were seeing the exact representation of His Father. Of their Father. He had been doing so directly for nearly three years, but Philip didn't yet see it. Didn't see Him. Do we? How long must He go on displaying before us who He is, coming through for us time and again? Doing His miraculous works, showing His wondrous love. Proving Himself faithful....before we believe Him? Before we trust Him?  How much longer must He go on putting up with our unbelief. Unbelief that, intended or not, slanders His character. Unbelief that says we don't really believe He is all that He has told us of Himself. Jesus said that "He who has seen Me has seen the Father." Have we ever truly seen Him? How much longer until we do?

Just a few random things to share with you today.

Blessings, 

Pastor O 

Stifled

 Do not stifle the Holy Spirit.  I Thessalonians 5:19....."Are you remaining loyal to the Son of God in the things which beset His Life in you?"  Oswald Chambers

This Scripture and the quote from Chambers have particular relevance to me today, and in a very unexpected way and from an unexpected source. I'll explain:

I normally write these devotionals the day before I send them out. That means that todays would have been written yesterday, which was Sunday. I had every intention of doing so. However, I first wanted to "enjoy" watching my team, the Steelers, play that day. I figured that there would be plenty of time afterward to delve into the "spiritual realm" after I'd indulged myself in the temporal. Let me say that I didn't enjoy my experience. My team played horribly and lost, and in the most frustrating manner. Now I had thought I'd put getting frustrated over what is really insignificant well behind me. This game revealed that I hadn't, and this is where what I write today comes in.

After the game, I set my attention on seeking out what He would have me write, something I always do. What I found instead was that spiritually speaking, His Spirit wasn't flowing to me or through me. It wasn't that I was fuming with anger, or suffering some great level of frustration. It was simply that I had invested so much of my energy and focus on something that had neither spiritual or eternal significance. My attention was well away from Him, and as a result, I'd stifled His Spirit. I had put up an obstacle between His presence and my heart and mind. It wasn't intentional, but it had happened. A dullness had come into my spirit and along with it, a dullness towards His voice. I looked over many treasured Scriptures, quotes, and thoughts. I wasn't hearing His voice in them and my heart wasn't being warmed. I had not lost Him, and I had not gone against Him. I'd just taken my eyes off of Him for a moment, and with them, my heart as well. I had stifled His Spirit, or as another version reads, I'd quenched it. It wasn't until reading this morning's devotion from Chambers that my heart really responded to what he was saying. I had allowed something of little value to push He who is of the greatest value out of my spiritual vision and focus. When I read that, I confessed it to Him, received His forgiveness, and my spiritual edge was restored. This writing is the result.

In this life, there are an infinite number of ways we can knowingly and unknowingly stifle and quench the flow of His Holy Spirit to and through us. There are so many things, anxieties, stresses, activities, ministries, even those which we enjoy, that can so get our attention and focus that we lose our focus on Him. What the Bible calls "leanness" enters our souls. That happened to me yesterday. Where does it happen for you? Where is it happening now? 

Chambers asks where our loyalty to Him wavering? We may answer that we have not been disloyal at all, but the truth of it is that wherever we allow something else to push Him out, that something else takes His place, even if it is but for a moment. In that moment or moments, leanness will enter our souls, and our sense of Him, His Presence, and His Life will diminish. If left unchecked, such a state will become acceptable to us, and eventually, we can suffer what Paul called "shipwreck to our souls."

I share this today in the hope that all of us will realize how easily we can thrust Him aside, and the possible long term consequences of it becoming our spiritual lifestyle. May our spiritual "edge" remain sharp because our hearts are always undergoing the shaping that comes from His hands being constantly upon us.

Blessings,
Pastor O

The Prayer

 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing." Matthew 23:37

In the midst of using my prayer journal today, I came upon this prayer that I wrote down some years ago. I don't remember the source of it, but I can never read it or pray it without being convicted of how far I still am from fully living it out. Even so, it is something I pray will become my life. Would you dare to pray with me?

"May I see this dying world with His heavy heart." When Jesus looked down upon the city of Jerusalem, He did so with a broken heart. The very city, people, and nation to which He'd been sent had rejected His offer of life and freedom. They chose death and darkness. How do we look upon a culture that is equally ignorant or rebellious towards His message of life? Does our heart break over the state and the fate of all those who choose against Him? Do we live with heavy hearts about it all, or are we far more concerned with our personal comfort, and that we receive all of His blessing that we can?

"That I would hurt wherever He hurts and love everywhere He loves." This was simply the way Christ lived. Wherever He was, He was deeply affected by the condition of those He had come for. He not only saw their pain, He felt it, shared in it. He longed to heal it. As He hurt for and with them, He also loved them. Even those who rejected Him, hated Him, and sought to kill Him. What are our lives like in comparison? Do we hurt along with those we see hurting around us? Do we love them as He does? Or, do we seek the safety of our church fellowships, trying our best to keep the fallen world around us out? Jesus ran to those who were wounded and broken, coming alongside them. Do we do the same, or do we run away?

"That all of my being will be an instrument of His love, power, and authority." Are we so focused upon Him that all of our energies are directed upon displaying not only His love, but His power and authority over a fallen world and the devil who operates in it? Do we seek to be vessels of His life, His healing, His deliverance? Do we believe that we have at our disposal His power and His authority? Do we know that we can not only love those He has placed around us, but that we can display that love for them through the use of His power and authority over that which holds them captive? Or, do we live as though we're helpless against the darkness and death of this fallen world?

"That I will love and minister where He loves and ministers." Jesus did this wherever He was. He journeyed everywhere in His earthly ministry, and He ministered all along the way of every journey. There was not any place where He ceased to be the Messiah, the Savior. Is this our lifestyle? If we are His, then we are to live out His life in every place we find ourselves. We are to  offer His life in every place He puts us. If we are His, there is no place we will find ourselves in by accident. He has us there for a reason, and the reason is to be vessels of His life, love, and authority there. Does this describe the way we currently live? Or do we choose when and where we will be so, based on whether it is convenient for us to be so or not?

"Last, will I drink the cup, no matter what it holds, that He offers me?" The brothers James and John asked Jesus if they could sit at his right and left hand in eternity. He asked them if they could drink the cup, take on the life that His Father had called Him to, as He had. Can we? Can we no matter what that cup holds? Are we so dedicated and surrendered to Him that we will take that cup, drink that cup, no matter the pain, adversity, and sacrifice it may contain? Many of us, like James and John, dream greatly of doing great things and being great in the Kingdom of God. How many of us have taking His cup of suffering as being part of that dream? Are we willing to drink of His cup regardless of what it contains, and all because He offers it, and that the drinking of it will be for His glory, even if no one else knows or sees?

That's the prayer. Can we pray it? Can we live it out? Or do we sidestep it?

Blessings,
Pastor O