Dulles Family Life Church

     I have been doing Heart Thoughts for nearly 7 years now.  What began as a devotional for my congregation and few friends and family, has truly grown to a degree far beyond anything I ever expected.  If the research of my “computer guy” can be trusted, there are now more than 2500 people receiving this devotional.  Believe me, I am humbled by this.  Some of you I know, having met you, and though distance, circumstance, or both, have never allowed a more regular relationship, you are on here because you remain important to me.  Many more, far more, I have never met, and may likely never meet this side of heaven.  Whether you have been here from the beginning, became a friend along the way, or someone completely unknown to me, but fully know to Him, I send you this Christmas wish from the heart.
     Luke 2:13-14, which records the angelic visitation to the shepherds, announcing the birth of Christ, reads, “Suddenly the angel was joined by a vast host of others-the armies of heaven-praising God: Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace on earth to all whom God favors.“  John Piper in his book, When I Don’t Desire God: How To Fight For Joy, writes, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”  This is my desire for you this Christmas, and all the days beyond.  That you would find a satisfaction in Him, in the wondrous gift of Christ, that brings you a well being and joy beyond anything the world can offer.  That you would know the peace, joy, and favor of the Lord God Almighty.
     I remember a Christmas nearly 20 years gone now.  It was my first since the breakup of my marriage, and I was home in Pittsburgh.  Not much was going right in my life at the time.  I was out of the ministry, lonely, and facing a very unknown future.   I remember going for a walk Christmas day through the neighborhood of my youth.  As I did so, a family pulled up to one of the homes, and a mother, father, and I would guess, grown child got out of the car.  They were carrying bags of gifts for those inside, but all the while were yelling and cursing at each other.  I remember being deeply grieved that here, on a day meant by the Father to be a day of joy, peace, and celebration, were 3 people who knew nothing of that, and seemed filled with anger and hate.  Lives that appeared to be totally without Him.  At that moment I realized that though my own life was at a low ebb, I still had His peace, His joy, His hope.  There was a satisfaction, even in the darkness, that the prince of darkness could never steal.
     As we live in a culture that seems to breed dissatisfaction, and in a time when so much of what we have always felt so secure in is threatened with destruction, I wish, pray, that you would find in Him a satisfaction that truly brings Him glory.  A satisfaction that the changing events of life, whether financial, relational, familial, or personal, cannot be taken from you.  A satisfaction that comes from living in the favor of God, and knowing that this favor results in far more than material things.  It comes from the fullest experience of His love and blessing that we may have this side of eternity.  The fullest of favor to be found in Christ alone.  This Christmas, this year, always, may you know that favor and experience that satisfaction.  May you, we, live lives that truly, and fully, glorify God.  Glory that shows forth in the highest heaven, and deepest valley.  The glory of God.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »

     One of my earliest Christmas memories is of a Christmas Eve, when going to bed, my grandmother said to me, “Make sure to listen for Santa’s sleigh bells when he lands on the roof!”  I tried.  I remember lying awake for what now seems a very long time, listening.  I drifted off to sleep, but I drifted off completely believing it would happen.  My grandmother had told me so, and she wouldn’t lie.  I knew he’d come, reindeer, bells, and all.
     All these years later, from the “wise” perspective of adulthood, I can smile at all that.  Why would Santa land on the roof, since we had no chimney?  How would he get down if he did?  None of this entered my 5 year old mind.  I just believed.  With all my heart, I believed.  You see, children find it very easy to believe the impossible.  It would truly be miraculous for one man to cover all the earth in a single night, knowing the exact location of every child, and to bring just what was asked for.  All that would be impossible, to anyone who had “sense,” but not to a child who simply was willing to believe.
     Heidi Baker, a woman, who along with her husband, ministers in Africa, and many parts of the world, seeing God do, mostly in 3rd world countries, miraculous works of healing, and witnessing countless being saved, said this:  “All children believe God can do miracles until some adult tells them He can’t.”  Has this happened in your life?  All of us must and do come to a place where we realize Santa isn’t real.  At some point, someone tells us the “reality.”  Has this happened to some degree as to the wonders of our God?
Have we in the west simply become too sophisticated, too secularized, to believe that He still makes the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the dead to rise?  Not just figuratively, but literally as well?
     In His Word, He tells us that “I am the God who heals you,” yet who is it we first turn to in sickness?  The Father, or a Doctor?  In His Word, we read how Jesus fed 5000 with a few loaves and fishes, yet how much sleep have we lost, how much anxiety have we gone through, worrying about how we will get through the month?  Some of us, maybe all, likely once believed He would do exactly as He promised.  Somehow though, other “voices” began to speak to us, voices that told us we needed to be more “realistic” when it comes to our faith lives.  Yes, God did move in miraculous ways throughout the NT, but that was then, and this is now, and He has chosen a more reserved role in the world, at least in our world, these days.  Now, no one may actually say that, but it certainly appears to be the way too many of us live and believe.
     Have you still the faith of a child?  If not, where has it gone?  Why has it gone?  Who was it that first told you that such a faith life wasn’t possible?  When was it?  Are you ready, once more, to have the heart of a child, a heart that simply believes what it’s told, by a Father Whose love for that child knows no limits?  Are you ready for Him to show up in your life, moving in the miraclous?  Are you ready to be a child….again?  All things truly are possible to him who believes.

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »

     Author Gerald Fry says, “Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the unification of all that’s been broken.”  As we survey the landscape of the church, we will not lack for scenes of brokenness.  Broken lives, marriages, familes and relationships.  What is going on is not peace but turmoil.  The church, which is meant to be the center of His peace, is so often, to our great shame, the scene of this turmoil.  How many churches have been destroyed by warring factions?  How many divisions and splits have taken place over differences that began in a small way, and were fanned into a raging tempest?  How many people have been lost to the Kingdom because of the pain inflicted upon them while “in church?”  How many ministries must be destroyed, families torn apart, fellowships broken, all to the glee of the enemy, the one we should be fighting, but instead are caught up battling with each other?
     However much we may talk of forgiveness, we seem to practice very little of it.  Being offended seems to be a “ministry” in itself to many in the church.  Fry says that, “If satan can offend us, he can keep us from giving or receiving mercy.”  His plan seems to be enjoying great success in far too many fellowships.  How are you contributing to that?  How am I? 
    The church is to be a gathering place of love, but it is always risky to love.  We are very human, and very imperfect, and we’re comprised of many people at different stages of their journey with Him.  Misunderstanding, conflict, and hurt, sometimes deep hurt, are going to happen.  What are we going to do with that hurt?  His Word says, “Love covers a multitude of sins.”
Only His love can forgive such hurt.  Only His love can heal it.  Fry says, “We can only love the lost to the measure we love the Body.”  The observation of first century unbelievers towards the church was the degree of love present in the fellowship.  Is that their observation today, as we leave a fellowship on a whim, joining ourselves with another, and calling it church growth, until the next conflict comes along, the next hurt feeling.
     A good pastor friend and I were talking about forgiveness recently.  He said the Lord had shown him something in his prayers about forgiveness.  It was from Acts 7, where Stephen was stoned to death for his faith in Christ.  In verse 60, with his last breath, Stephen says, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”  My friend said that perhaps too often he’d been willing to forgive, but held onto the scripture that tells us, Vengance is Mine says the Lord.”  Somehow, we seem to relish the thought of that.  I know I have.  You have too.  He thought we came to true forgiveness when we can stand with Stephen, and in the midst of the deepest offense, ask the Lord not to mark that act against the person who so deeply wounds us.  I knew he was right.  You do too.
     Where are your deepest wounds, and who are those responsible for them?  Can you come to the place of Stephen?  Can you release the person(s) from the penalty?  This is more than just your forgiving them.  Can you desire, with all your heart, that He forgive them as well?  God’s plan is always to restore us to wholeness.  This can’t happen while we’re on the run, and one doesn’t have to leave their marriage, friendship, or fellowship to continue to be on the run from such wholeness.  John Dawson says, “Breathe out forgiveness repeatedly, until you feel the grace of God welling up in your soul.”  So, are you ready, willing, to “breathe?”

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
No Comments »