Dulles Family Life Church

     Writer and theologian RC Sproul tells this story of 16th century reformer Martin Luther’s last sermon.  In it, Luther shared his deep concern and burden for the church.  He preached that though there had been a great awakening to the reality of God’s grace and the authority and power of scripture, people still tended to flock to what were known as holy relic centers, where one might find what were believed to be splinters from the cross of Christ, finger bones of John the Baptist, or the pants of Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus.  Luther said that they were looking for power, and thought it could be found in these relics, rather than in the revealed word of God.  Sproul, speaking of the modern American church, said, “We’re still looking for Joseph’s pants.”  He said that the only difference is, instead of relics, we believe the power is to be found in some new program, technique, conference, or seminar.  Even worse I think, is that we tend to run to men, anointed though they may be, for answers instead of to Him, and to His Word.  We think that somehow, if we can just lay hold of the right “thing” or person, we will break through.  The people of Luther’s time thought that if they could just touch these relics, the supposed power in them would bring healing, freedom, breakthrough.  If they could just lay hold of Joseph’s pants.  How different is much of what we’re doing from that?
     It’s commonplace to talk of the time of Pentecost in the book of Acts, and the explosive growth of the church, and how it should be happening now.  Yet it’s not, not in our nation anyway.  We say that God has not changed, His Word has not changed, His Holy Spirit is still among us, so what is different?
……We are.  Probably the greatest and most shameful criticism of the people of God is that we do not live what we say we believe.  The reality of the early church is that they did.  They knew His Word, believed it, lived by and in it.  And as Acts tells us, they were those who “turned the world upside down.”  They lived with a holy awe, reverence, and yes, fear of God, and in response, God moved, with mighty power, in and through them.  They lived and stepped out in the power of God.  We are moving out in the power of….Joseph’s pants.
     Take the simple matter of sickness.  His word tells us that if any be sick among us, that we’re to first seek the elders of the church for prayer and the laying on of hands.  How many of us do that?  How many of our people would even be comfortable with a healing service?  We may ask for prayer, but not until after we’ve seen the Doctor.  Doctor’s and medicine can certainly be, and are, used of God, but they are not God, yet so often we treat them as such.  Could this be Joseph’s pants again? 
     Lastly, as concerns living by the power and authority of His word, I have to touch on this political season.  We will elect a President, many Senator’s and Congressmen, and countless state and local officials.  Polls tell us that the major concern of people is the economy, or dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq.  These are important concerns, but it is not a candidate’s stance on these issues that should, must, matter to we who are His.  What matters is, does what the candidate believes and stands for align itself with the power, authority and word of God, or run counter to it?  Answering this transcends party, gender, or race loyalty.  Yet, is this the case for you and I?  If we do not use this measure of judgement, are we not at root, denying the power and authority of scripture?  Is that not unbelief?
     Our nation and culture are crying out for answers.  We, the church, claim to have them.  What answers will we point them to?  His word and its power, or…..do we show them Joseph’s pants?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     Larry Crabb is his book, “Shattered Dreams,” makes the statement, “Satan’s masterpiece is not the prostitute or skid row bum, but the self sufficient person who’s made life comfortable, adjusts to living in the world, and likes living here.  Their only dream is to be a little better than they already are.  The Spirit’s masterpiece is the person whose life here is consumed with preparing to meet Him there.”
     Those are very sobering words, and I think they hit most of us far more closely than we want to admit.  I think the unspoken goal of so many of us is to achieve what would be called “The Good Life.”  Nice home, money in the bank, good kids, good marriage, and most of all, not too much discomfort in our lives.  We trust Him…..to a point, and that point is usually found at the end of our “comfort zones.”
     We are in the midst of a highly visible political season.  According to pollsters, most everyone is mainly concerned with the economy.  I understand the concern, but is it really the most important issue going on, or merely what’s most important to us?  As I read the headlines each day, the most used word seems to be FEAR.  People are afraid.  Afraid of losing something, of what the future might hold, that their lives as they know them, may be changed forever.  Fear isn’t to have a place in the lives of His people, yet in all honesty, how much of a place does it have in yours and mine?
     Let’s go back to Crabb’s words about the Spirit’s masterpiece, about being consumed with meeting Him in eternity.  Does that strike a chord in our hearts, or do we tend to look at that as being a bit unrealistic, what with all the really important issues swirling around us?  It doesn’t seem very practical, and we are a very practical people……aren’t we?  Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled,” but they are, and with good reason we can say.  It’s time, I think, for we who say we are His to decide some things.  We need to decide if we truly believe that no matter who wins a political contest, no matter what happens in the economy, or with our 401K, that regardless of what is said on the left or the right, our God is still, and will always be, firmly on the throne of the events of this world and our lives.  Jesus told us to “seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS will be added unto you.”  Too many of us have spent years pursuing “these things,” and only moments pursuing Him.  This hard question must be asked.  Whose masterpiece are we more closely resembling?  Whose masterpiece do we truly yearn to be?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     There seem to be so many passages of the Bible we merely glide over, not truly understanding their meaning.  One such is found in Matthew 13:11-13.  Jesus is speaking to the crowds that were constantly following Him about.  He was using a favorite teaching method, speaking to them in parables, stories that required spiritual insight to get to their deeper meaning.  Afterwards, His disciples ask Him why He chooses this method.  He replies, “To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.  For whoever has, to him shall more be given, and he shall have an abundance, but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.  Therefore I speak to them in parables, because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing, they do not hear, nor can they understand.”
     There is great depth and mystery to what He says here, but I would ask, how much of what He says applies to you and I?  How many sermons have we heard, teachings have we sat under, conferences have we gone to, and yet we still don’t see, we still don’t understand?  How many challenges has He issued to us that we still haven’t acted upon?  How many commands that we still haven’t obeyed?  How far have we drifted from where we once were?  How unfamiliar has become the voice that we once longed to hear?  How muddled have our lives, which were once so clear, become?
     Part, at least, of what Jesus is saying to us is that if we will act upon what He has told us, commanded us, more understanding, more growth, more power in Him, will be ours.  He will take us into an even greater place with Him, a higher place.  However, if we don’t put into our life practice the things He shares with and calls us to, we will not only lose that, but when it becomes our lifestyle, we lose all.  We see, but don’t see, hear but don’t hear.  We live no differently than the world.  We may go to every retreat, every seminar, every prayer gathering, and our hearts may be ignited by what we hear…..for a moment, but if we do not act in that moment, it will be lost to us, and the result will be a hardened heart, making “seeing” and “hearing” all that more difficult.  In fact, the more we attend such gatherings, the harder we become.  This is how the enemy, who always lurks about, takes away “even what we have.”  It happens through our neglect and disobedience.
     For all of us, I think we must, as the Lord says in Revelations, “Return and do the first things.”  Pure love for Him and others.  Obedience to what He has taught us.  Walking in the light, all the light that He has given.  By His grace, making straight, all that has become crooked.  By doing this, we’ll once more see and hear, and that which was lost, will be restored.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     David, writing down his thoughts and feelings in the third Psalm, says in the first two verses, “O Lord, how my adversaries have increased!  Many are rising up against me.  Many are saying of my soul, there is no deliverance for him in God.”  This is definitely a crisis moment for him, and the possibility of total panic is before him, but David does something here that changes everything.  Following these two verses is a simple but powerful word: Selah.  This word occurs 74 times in the Bible, all but three in the Psalms.  The generally accepted meaning of the word is “a pause.”
     We often forget that the Psalms are actually songs.  They’re at root, musical.  One of the most effective things in a great piece of music is the interlude, a kind of musical pause that builds toward a powerful climax.  This is exactly what takes place in the 3rd Psalm.  David then writes in verse 3, “But Thou O Lord art a shield about me, my glory and the One who lifts my head.”  Beth Moore has said that in the midst of our crisis times, we need to have a “Selah moment.”  In our deepest needs and challenges, we need to stop, take our focus off self, or the problem, and look to and upon Him.  David goes on to write in verse 4, “I was crying to the Lord with my voice and He answered me from His holy mountain.”  There appears then that word, “Selah.”  He next writes, “I lay down and slept.”  From chaos to perfect peace.  From disharmony to harmony.  The music of his soul was composed by and before the peace and presence of the Father.  He ends up writing, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”
     Crisis seems to be the order of the day in our culture.  So many of us think it’s all about the economy, but it isn’t.  It goes to and affects the very roots of the soul of this nation.  We cannot and should not ignore what is happening in our culture but the crisis will not be addressed by any candidate or political platform, but by the One who is the Keeper of our souls.  The only One able to compose the music that will see us through even the most intense and frightening situations imaginable.
     His Word says that in the last days, “Men’s hearts will fail them because of fear.”  In what place is your heart right now?  Are you in need of a Selah moment?  Are you in need of the peace and harmony that only He can bring, not from without, but within?  Colossians 1:17 says, “And He is before all things, and in Him, all things hold together.”  Before bank failures, job losses, terrorist threats, and unstable political situations, Jesus was.  Jesus is.  All things held together in Him before, and do now.  Whatever the landscape of your life looks like right now, take a Selah moment, and allow His peace to saturate your soul and life.  As Moore says, “Our victory is as far away as our God, and our God is as present as our next breath.”  Breathe in.  Selah.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     Back in the 1960’s, Barry McGuire, who’d not yet met Christ, sang a song titled, “Eve of Destruction.”  It was a song filled with gloom and doom, which makes it quite at home with all that is happening around us right now, what with economic fear, and fear is the key word here, running rampant.  One of the song’s lyrics was, “You may leave the earth for 4 days in space, but when you return, it’s the same old place.”  The same old place, abounding with the same old fears, anxieties and heaviness.  In the midst of all that is happening right now, with shrill headlines and newscasts predicting chaos, are you finding it to be the same old place for you as well?
     Author Henry Blackaby says that in every generation, the first thing we have to decide concerning our relationship with the Father is, “Do we believe God?”  Do we?  Do you?  Revelation 1:8 says, “I am the Alpha and Omega-the beginning and the end, says, the Lord God, the One Who is, Who always was, and Who is still to come, the Almighty One.”  Do we believe this?  Do we believe that He is the God of our future, with all its unknowns, with all its scary possibilities, and with all the dire “threats” that the enemy would seek to paralyze us with fear over?  Do we believe that He is God NOW, despite what has gone before, and what MIGHT yet happen down the road?  Beth Moore, commenting on this verse says, “Our ‘Was’, and ‘Is to come’, are robbing us of our ‘Is.’ “  Have they robbed you as well?
     I don’t believe that the followers of Christ are to just disregard what is happening around us right now.  Indeed, I believe we are to be on our knees in prayer, interceding for the church, for the nation, humbling seeking Him and His mercy, seeking His intervention into a nation and church desperate for Him.  However, we must not panic, or live as if we are helpless in this time, or that our God has lost His power.  Is, as Moore warns, the unknown future robbing you of the peace, joy, and assurance to be had NOW in your present?  As Blackaby asks, “Do you believe God?”  Do you?
     In John 8:53, the Pharisee asked Jesus, “Who do you think you are?”  He answered simply but powerfully, “I Am.”  With all that He knew was about to come upon Him, He spoke in perfect peace.  He knew.  Do you?  Will you now?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     I grew up very much a part of the TV culture of the 50’s and 60’s.  I remember in the latter part of the 60’s and early 70’s a trend in TV programming that stressed it’s show’s needing to be “relevant,” in relation to the changing times.  What followed was a large number of programs that network executives hoped the viewing audience would find “relevant” to their daily lives.  It changed television forever, and I will leave to you to answer if the change has been for the good.
     Over the last decade or so, the word “relevant” has also become an action word in the church.  Now, before I say anything else, let me make clear that I am no agent for “traditionalism.”  In truth, the church I pastor is anything but a traditional fellowship, and I do believe that the message the church brings must be relevant to the culture it is trying to reach.  Seeking to reach 21st century people with 1950’s methodology is a recipe for failure.  The saying, “Change the methods, not the message,” has become familiar to many.  What I would ask is, in our desire to come upon relevant methods, do we truly have a relevant message?  If we do, what’s the evidence for that?  If we do, why is our culture in the state that it’s in? 
     Those who are in Christ are new creations in Him.  We’ve been created to live supernatural lives.  Yet we seem content to live like everybody else.  It can’t be argued that the degree of divorce, addictions, abuse, and so on, are the same, and in some  cases, more, than what is found in the world.  The church has been raised up to transform the world, but is that really happening?  To what proof can we point to?  What does it matter how many are in our services if, upon leaving, they are no different than when they came in? 
     I remember my Bible College professor Dr. T.C. Mitchell sharing a story concerning Acts 3.  A man born crippled was sitting at the gate of the temple begging.  Peter and John came by on their way to worship and teach, when he begged them for money.  Peter’s answer in verse 6 was, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have, I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, rise and walk!”  Dr. Mitchell shared a conversation he’d heard of between Anglican bishops concerning this verse.  The first bishop said, “Well, we can no longer say we have no silver and gold,” to which the second replied, “Yes, and neither can we any longer say rise and walk.”  Can we, as individual fellowships, and as a Body, say it either? 
     Our relevancy is not going to come from replacing piano’s with keyboards, choirs with worship teams, and hymns with praise choruses.  We are not wrong to do this.  We have done it, but while they may draw a crowd, that same crowd will not stay if someone comes along who does it better.  Brethren what will make us relevant to the world around us, is the transforming, Holy Spirit power of God in the midst of His church.  No one does that better than Him, and it is the need, the desperate need, of both His church, our church, your church, and the world we have been raised up to minister to.  When all our “stuff” is removed from us, what is that we truly have to “give” to all those born crippled into this fallen world?  Will we, can we, say to them, “Rise and walk?”

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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