Dulles Family Life Church

     The book of Romans can be a tough read.  I know.  I’m in the midst of it right now, and as always, He speaks to me through the writings of Paul in ways that are distinctly uncomfortalble.  We don’t like to be uncomfortable, and when we are, we react in a variety of ways.  Anger, fear, or simply running away from that which makes us so. 
    In Romans 6:16 Paul writes, “Don’t you realize that whatever you choose to obey becomes your master?”  What are you choosing to obey?  Impulses to be angry, unforgiving, bitter?  To be afraid, ashamed, to live in denial, to run?  In this life, we’ll experience a multitude of impulses, choices really.  Those choices determine who, and what, will master us.  What “masters” us today?  What is mastering you?
     Sin is a very unpopular word these days.  Many would say outdated.  To bring it up means we’re focusing on the negative, and we need to be positive.  Talking about personal sin, to some, means we’re damaging one’s self esteem.  We need to build people up, not tear them down.  I agree, and for sure there has been much destructive preaching and teaching as concerns sin.  I don’t find such in the Bible.  I find much, as in Romans, that makes me very uncomfortable, but nothing that will destroy me, only free me.
     In Romans 7, Paul chronicles in verses 14-24 his struggle with sin.  Born a devoted Jew, he was also born with a total sin nature.  Though he tried mightily to live a righteous life, ultimately he failed, again and again.  In verse 21 he says, “It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.  But there is another law (sin) at work within me that is at war with my mind.  This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still in me.”  So many have this same experience.  They want to be free of the destructive impulses within, but they’re not.  They keep falling back into the old habits, into the hands of the old masters, and it shows in how they think, speak, carry out relationships, and day to day activities.  Like Paul, they cry out, “Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?”  He immediately gives the answer, the answer he found.  The answer he found to his own need, the answer to your need, to all need.  In verse 25 he says, “Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
     Who masters you today?  What masters you?  Are you, as Paul did, as we all have, seeking to do what’s right, but “inevitably” doing wrong?  Are you in the midst of a battle between living life in the flesh or in the Spirit?  The first is natural to us.  The second, life in the Spirit, is only found through Christ.  Such life is only found through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.  Has such a work taken place in you?  Have your found the answer?  You may well have received Him as your Savior.  Can you believe on Him to set you free, to end the battle, to cease living in two worlds.  It’s a work only He can do through the Holy Spirit.  Has He done it in you?  Need an answer?  It’s Jesus.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     The land of milk and honey.  Most of us have heard that term, even if we’ve never spent much time reading the Bible.  Most of us would like to live there.  The Israelite’s did.  It was what God promised them.  In Exodus 3:8, God promised Moses that He intended to lead the people out of their slavery in Egypt, “Into their own good and spacious land.  It is a land flowing with milk and honey…..”  The generation He spoke to never entered into that land.  Far too many of us never do, never will, either.  Why?  What keeps us out?  I think part of the reason is we don’t have any real understanding of what that land really is.
     Gerald Fry in his book, “In Pursuit of His Glory,” gives fascinating meaning to what this land really is.  He says, This phrase, ‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’ is quite intriquing.  It actually refers to two kinds of occupations and two areas of blessing.  For the ‘milk’ referred to the herdsman who lived in the mountainous regions of Canaan.  It speaks of the blessings of health and productivity on the livestock, especially the sheep.  The ‘honey’ refers to the farmers who occupied the valley regions.  It is not the bee’s honey spoken of here, but actually the jams made from the fruits common to that region, such as figs and dates.  So the promise of a land flowing with milk and honey has to do with blessings on the mountains and blessing in the valleys.  Blessings on what we tend-our relationships, our families, our fellow employees, and blessings on what we sow-our endeavors, our tasks, what we desire in God to accomplish.  One speaks to the arena of our relationships, the other to our personal sense of vision.  We can know blessing in both of these areas – if we cultivate a heart of faith.”
     There can be no doubt the people wanted such blessing, as do you and I.  They missed it, never entering into the promise.  Why didn’t they?  Why don’t we?  The people, despite following Him to the very border of this land, never cultivated that heart of faith.  They wanted that land, but to get it, they had to face battles, challenges beyond anything they dreamed.  The price was, for them, too high.  So they wandered in the wilderness.  For 40 years, they wandered, till all that generation had passed away, and a new one, one that was willing to cultivate such a heart, and therefore willing to face those giants and battles, was able to, and did enter that land.
     That same promise and that same land are still before us.  The land of milk and honey is no fable.  It’s real.  Just as real for you and I as it was for them.  So is the wilderness.  Which are we living in today?  There is a vast difference between living in abundance and having your needs met.  In the wilderness, the Father continued to care for and provide for His people, but it was subsistence living in comparison to what He’d promised.  Is is so for you?  Subsistence or abundance?  Land of milk and honey, or land of the wilderness?  A heart of faith, or a heart of fear and doubt?  What are you entering into today?  In which land do you live?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     Gerald Fry in his book, “In Pursuit of His Glory,” speaks of a time when he was held captive by fear, anger, and hopelessness.  Desperate for God, he went away to spend time at a small seaside motel.  In his room, face down upon the floor, he cried out to the Father, seeking to be free of the chains that were holding him in such bondage.  During that time, something happened that he’d never before experienced.  He writes that he had a sense that Jesus entered the room, manifesting Himself in an overwhelming way.  He heard Him speak these words into his heart, mind, and spirit.  “Son, I Am Alive!”  With those words, he came to his feet, leaping and dancing about the room.  The chains and power of fear, of death, were broken.  Jesus was alive.  He was free.  Death had been speaking into his life through fear, anxiety, hopelessness.  Christ spoke life.  His life.  Life that has, and always will, conquer death.

     The spirit of the world is death, and it is always speaking to us, always seeking to destroy us.  It seeks to destroy our marriages, our families, our hopes, dreams, our very lives.  The bondage of fear, worry, discouragement, hopelessness, these are weapons of the enemy, of death.  They seek entry into our lives, our hearts, and spirits each and every day.  I Peter 1:3 says that “We have been born into a new and living hope.”  Yet so many of us do not live in that hope, in His life.  We live instead in the dark, dreary realm of hopelessness and death.  Too many broken dreams.  Too many disappointments.  Too many expectations not met.  Over the course of life there can be so many.  They can become our prison.  They can become our death.  There is only one solution.  We must bring them to Him, to the cross, the place that leads to life, and surrender them to Him.  At the cross we bring death, and at the cross, we find life.  A living hope through His resurrection. 

     What inroads has death made into your life?  Have the disappointments, broken dreams, and unrealized hopes, left you in a kind of prison you can find no way out of?  If so, could you dare to believe that Jesus is seeking you, as He did Fry, longing to speak into your life, your heart, those same words: “I Am Alive!”  In the midst of the darkness, the unknown the defeat, the destruction, He is Alive, and to what the enemy intends to bring into death, He will bring into life.  Look to Him.  Trust Him.  Surrender the disppointment, no matter how deep, and the anger, fear, and hurt that go with it, to Him.  Receive life, healing, peace, joy, and above all, hope.  Into your death, He speaks life.  Resurrected life.  Lay hold of it.  Lay hold of Him.  He is life.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     There was quite a difference between Moses’ desire for the Father, and the desires of the people he led.  The people had a desire for His presence, but Moses desired His fullness.  In Exodus 33:18, he cried out to God, “Please show me Your glory!”  For the people, knowing He was “around” seemed to be enough.  Around to meet their needs, provide protection, security, blessings.  With these they were satisfied.  They don’t appear to have wanted much more than that.  I wonder, who do you and I more closely resemble? 

     In response to Moses’ plea, God allowed him to see the afterglow of His glory, for he would not have been able to look upon His fullness and live.  Even so, that glimpse of His glory so affected him that when he returned to the people, his face shone with such a light that they were afraid to come near him.  In truth, they were afraid of the glory, of the fullness of the Father.  For them, His being “around” was enough.  What Moses had experienced was too much for them, and more than they desired.  Moses had to veil his face as a result, and for too many, the glory remains veiled to them in their day to day lives.

     Moses wanted more than just his needs met.  He wanted more than the security of knowing God was “there.”  He wanted more than blessing.  He wanted the Father.  All of the Father.  He had a hunger, and thrist, for all the fullness of Him that He could take, and that the Lord could give.  It was the consuming desire of His heart.  What is the consuming desire of our hearts?  What goes on in our times with Him?  Are they times when we listen even more than we talk, or ask?  Are they times when we allow His Spirit to search our hearts, rooting out the things that are coming between He and us, and we and others?  Do we look for answers without first hearing His questions?  The difference will always be that those who are content with His presence will make everything to be about themselves, while those who seek His glory will know everything is about Him.  What is everything about in your life?  You, or Him?  Presence, or glory?  What does your heart cry for today?

Blessings,

Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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