Dulles Family Life Church

     The verse I want to share with you today is powerful beyond words.  In fact, if we could just begin to grasp the depth of its truth, it would revolutionize and fully transform our lives.  We need to embrace it.  It’s a verse you may well have heard before, but that doesn’t mean you know it.  Henry Blackaby, speaking about the promises of God says, “If (they are) in your head only, it will not change anything in your life.”  His promises must, as Blackaby states, “Hit your heart.”  In Revelation 1:8 Jesus Christ says of Himself, “I am the Alpha and Omega-the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God.  “I am the One Who is, Who always was, and is still to come, the Almighty One.”  You may well have heard or read this verse countless times before.  It has hit your head, but has it ever hit your heart?

     The scope of this promise is too great to ever be fully understood this side of eternity, but there are 3 areas that I believe we need to come to understanding concerning it.  First off, He is the Almighty One, the One who is.  The One who is greater, stronger, bigger, more, than anything or anyone that could ever come against us.  Whether we face crippling fear, heartache, loss, affliction, fiery trial, or overwhelming flood, HE IS greater.  Today, in the midst of anything and everything, He is Lord over all of it.

     Secondly, no matter what’s happened to us, been done by us,  or haunts us concerning the past, it’s powerless against He who was, Who has always been.  We can take what has been, what was, in our lives to Him, Who is, and receive healing, deliverance, and freedom.  That which was in our lives, which has doggedly followed us for years, possibly all of our lives, is overcome by Him Who has the power to not only forgive the past, but cancel its power and tyranny over us.

     Last, there may be some of us, many of us, who face an ominous, maybe terrifying future.  The unknown can be just that, and more.  Much in our families, marriages, relationships, and affairs, may be very unsettled right now.  That which is still to come must yield to Him Who is still to come.  He who is the Almighty One as concerns our past and present, will continue to be the Almighty One in all of our tomorrow’s.  The future may well have more than its share of unrest, but we may be at rest in Him, because He who was mighty before, is mighty now, will be mighty then.  He was so in the beginning, He is so now, and He will be so till the end.

     Has this truth hit your heart?  Would you dare to embrace it?  Revelation is called a “mystery” book, and truly, it is, but this promise, this reality, His reality, found in Revelation 1:8 needn’t remain so.  Jesus Christ really is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  The Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end…..to the end.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     I just “finished” a book by Henry Blackaby entitled, “Holiness.”  I’ve encased finished in quotes because I haven’t finished it at all.  It’s still speaking to me…loudly and strongly.  I’ve heard it said that we don’t read the Bible, it reads us.  This book was much like that.

     The book is barely 100 pages long, yet it took me some time to read it.  Anyone who’s read anything by Blackaby knows that he writes and speaks to the heart.  His words were powerful and convicting.  This is Easter week, and many of us are preparing for a time of celebration, rejoicing in Christ’s victory over death, and sin, on the cross, and out of the tomb.  Thousands of sermons will be preached, perhaps even listened to.  Thousands more songs will be sung, and then….then we’ll go home, but how much of the life He came to give us is ours?  On the cross He cried out, “It is finished,” but is it finished for you and I?  In you and I?

     I pastor a church that is part of what is described as a “holiness movement,” yet if I understand His Word, it’s a movement that we are all called to be a part of.  It’s not a movement that is meant to follow a rulebook, but a Person, and following the Person will always mean carrying our own cross to our own Calvary.  It will mean following His heart, His life, into His holiness, a holiness that is much more than a manageable list of do’s and don’ts.  It’s a lifestyle, a lifestyle that is saturated completely by His life and His holiness, affecting every relationship, how we think, speak, see, and choose.  It doesn’t observe the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, but participates in it.  The question I must ask myself, and so must you, is, how often have we been mere spectators of that life, and not partakers at all? 

     In the 6th chapter of John, Jesus has called His followers into a wholehearted commitment to His life, His walk, His holiness.  Verse 66 says that, “….as a result of this, many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”  I don’t think they just suddenly turned and walked away.  I believe they were greatly torn, gazing at Him, part of them wanting to continue on, but the greater part afraid, unsure.  Willing, yet unwilling.  I think many of us, when it comes to our walking with Him in ALL of His ways, are the same.  Willing, yet unwilling.

     I’m reminded of the father of the demon possessed boy in Mark 9:24, who when told by Jesus to believe, said, “Lord I do believe, help me in my unbelief.”  I think we need to take our torn hearts to Jesus and cry out, “Lord, I am willing to follow You into all the depths of Your life….make the parts of me that are unwilling, that want to turn back…..willing.”

     Maybe what I write today is just the response, or overresponse, to a strongly written book, but somehow, I don’t think so.  I think it’s His call to me, to you, to come out of the areas of compromise, or self justification, or have just been conveniently overlooked, and come to the cross, to His life, His holiness….to Him.  Lord, I am willing, help me in those areas where I am so unwilling.

Blessings,

Pastor O

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     Singer and author Sheila Walsh tells of an instance in her ministry where she was speaking at a “Women of Faith” conference and relating a story about her 10 year old son.  They had been to the Doctor, and after running a number of tests, found some concerns in the bloodwork.  When she pressed him for what the concerns might be, he told her that it could well be anemia, but there was also a chance it was leukemia.  It would be another several days before they would know for sure.  Walsh, heavily burdened, went to the Lord, and it was in His Presence that a number of emotions came forth.  Anger, fear, sorrow, she opened them all to Him.  The time came to return to the Doctor, for the tests had come back.  It was anemia.  She shared the story as a testimony to the wonder of His grace.  Afterwards, a woman came to her, and told her that she too had a son, and he too had problem areas show up in his bloodwork.  She said to Walsh, “I got the other answer.”  Embarassed, and feeling she had offended the lady, Walsh began to apologize, but the mother stopped her, saying there was no need, stating, “Whether you get the answer you pray for, or the answer you dread, the grace is the same.”

     In this “name it, claim it” religious world we live in, where we seem to feel that blessing, abundance, and carefree life are our due, even our right, such truth can be hard to accept.  Many of us, maybe most, have quoted time and again 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you,” but I think we quote it with the belief that His grace will sustain us as we wait (comfortably) for the answer we want.  Anything else is quite unacceptable.  This attitude will always cause us to miss the deeper, the deepest experiences of His amazing grace.  Only the grace of God can take us through that which is humanly, in every way, unacceptable. 

     I believe in the might and power of a healing God, a restoring God, a prospering God, a miracle working God.  I believe He does such things abundantly.  I have observed it, and I have experienced it.  I have recieved many answers that I prayed for.  I have also gotten, like Paul in 2 Corinthians, who sought with all of his heart to have what was causing him terrible pain, removed, the answer I dreaded.  I didn’t know why and He didn’t explain, but He gave me His grace.   The same grace I had received so many times before in answer to my prayers, was there for me in His “No.”  In truth, it was in His “No” that I truly began to discover he real depth of that all sufficient grace.

     It may well be that today finds you as you were yesterday, and will be tomorrow, praying intensely about some deep need or burden.  Your own particular ”thorn in the flesh.”  His answer will come.  My heart’s desire for you is that it will be the answer you seek, but, if it should be the one you dread, His grace will be the same.  It will be mighty.  It will be sufficient.  It will be….His grace….for you.

Blessings,

Pastor O 

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     Most of us, if we’re really honest, would prefer to “follow” a very safe God.  Safe in regards that He not only keeps us safe, He Himself is very safe.  He’s predictable, solid, doesn’t rock our boat, and certainly never asks us to get out of it.  He would never violate our comfort zones.  He will provide, and do so abundantly, meeting all of our needs.  In short, He’ll be our heavenly caterer, on site when needed, and conveniently quiet and removed when not.  Our God keeps us from earthquakes.  He would never bring one….would He?

     As I look back on my early years with Him, young in body and spirit, I’m amazed at the things I did in totally blind faith.  If I felt He was calling me to something, I went, and I didn’t think twice about it.  However, the years have passed.  I’ve acquired “things” I didn’t have then.  I’ve responsibilities I didn’t have then.  I’ve found that I need to be more sober, cautious.  I spend a lot more time looking at the risks.  Playing it “safe” seems like wisdom.  I expect that this is human, but it certainly isn’t God, and He has a bad habit, at least from my perspective, of showing up in my safe world in the form of an earthquake.  Beth Moore calls them “Lifequakes,” and says that they’re anything that splits our lives wide open.  Some come just as a matter of our day to day living, but there are others, perhaps the most fearsome, that come from Him alone.  Godquakes.

     Such quakes shake us to our very foundations.  Everything falls and all that’s left is rubble.  Those things we had relied on, trusted in, hidden behind, are gone.  We’re exposed.  Moore says what will happen now will either shape or shatter our lives.  Too many of us have constructed safe worlds where we can hide, and no one ever knows who we are, and where we are.  An earthquake will take that screen away, and we will either be shamed and shattered, or humbled and shaped…….by the hand of God.

     You may be familiar with the happenings in Acts 16, where Paul and Silas were beaten, chained, and placed in stocks in the deepest and darkest part of a Philippian prison.  It was there, while they sang praises to God, that an earthquake, a Godquake, came, and destroyed the prison that held them.  This will always be the objective of the Father, to destroy the strongholds that keep us imprisoned.  Hebrews, which most believe was written by Paul, says in 12:26-27, “When God spoke from Mt. Sinai, His voice shook the earth, but now He makes another promise.  ‘Once again I will shake not only the earth, but the heavens also.”  This means that the things on earth will be shaken so that only eternal things will be left.”

     I have found in my life that my “safe” place, my comfort zone, is really my prison.  It may be a seemingly pleasant one, but it’s my prison nonetheless, a stronghold because I fear to leave it, and fear is the greatest prison of all, for it will always keep us from Him.  When I get there, and I still do at times, He sends a Godquake, and the walls of the prison, the stronghold, fall, and He leads me out….again….to a new land.  A deeper life, and a greater awareness of Him.  You may well be in the midst of such an earthquake today.  What will you do?  What will it do to you?  Will it shatter you, or shape you?  Will you seek to try and rebuild what has fallen, or will you allow the Holy Spirit to demonstrate Himself as He did at Philippi?  All you had been standing on may be gone, but the One Who cannot be shaken remains.  Stand upon Him.

Blessings,

Pastor O

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     I recently heard Beth Moore teaching on John, chapter 2.  The wine has run out, and Jesus’ mother, Mary, came and presented Him with the need.  Verse 3 reads, “The wine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus’ mother spoke to Him about the problem.  ‘They have no more wine ,’ she told Him.”  Commenting on this, Moore said, “There needed to be more where there was no more.”  Maybe today, you and I find ourselves in the same place.  There needs to be more where there is no more.  There needs to be more love, more forgiveness, more healing, more understanding, more patience, more joy, more hope….but there is no more.  Just like the empty jars at the wedding, we are empty.  We need more, but there is no more.

     The thing about the empty pots is that, at first glance, one would not know they were empty.  There is no visible difference between a full and empty pot.  You have to get close up to discern that.  However, when we are empty, being close up with anyone is the last thing we want, and sometimes, the last thing we want if for that “anyone” to be God.  So we just keep moving on, keeping our distance, looking like a full pot to the casual observer, but inside, we’re empty.  We need more, but there is no more.  And so, relationships die, hope dies, faith dies, our spiritual life dies.  We become empty pots.  This all takes place at a wedding, and to run out of wine at a wedding in this culture was the ultimate embarassment and shame.  What had begun as a celebration was about to take on the atmosphere of a funeral.  For some today, it may well describe what their walk with Him has become.  Yet, this is not where He would have us, and is certainly never where He will leave us.

     At first, Jesus’ response to His mother looks like indifference.  Mary however, turned to the servants and said, “Do whatever He tells you.”  Her words, her counsel, are really the key to everything.  When all has run out in our lives, when we are faced with a complete lack and emptiness, will we, can we, do whatever He tells us?  It’s the key to restoration, renewal, and healing.  The restoration of broken relationships.  The renewal of lost hope and faith.  The healing of festering wounds and hurt.  Jesus told the servants to fill the pots with water, something that would make no sense to them, and much of what He tells us to do makes no sense to our human logic, yet they obeyed, and the pots, empty of even an inferior wine, became filled with the best of wines.  This is the way of the Father, and it’s the way of Jesus.  As Moore says, “God loves to put much more, where there is no more.”  Would you dare to allow Him to do so for you?

     Where in your life today, in your relationships, in your walk with Him, is there no more, yet in your heart, you know you desperately need more?  Much more.  Standing there, is the One who has the means, the power, and the desire to fill your empty pot, if only you will do as He says.  Will you?  Will you allow Him to fill your emptiness?  The chief steward, upon discovering this new wine, said to the bridegroom, “You have kept the best (wine) until now.”  This will always be so with Jesus…if we will do as He says.  Let us bring our empty vessels to Him today, and allow Him to give more where there is no more.  It will be His best.  It is always His best.

Blessings,

Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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