Dulles Family Life Church

     I came across some words spoken by the Rev. Billy Graham to a young woman whose life was in total devastation, at least in part, by her own wrong choices.  I don’t know all of what Dr. Graham said to her, but I do know of this one thing.  He told her, “Sometimes, we have to take the long way home.”
    The long way home.  That’s a journey that many have undertaken.  I had to.  I remember a time in the mid 70’s, as a student living a directionless, drug saturated life, filled with shallow relationships, I walked past a small coffeehouse on campus where the local “Jesusfreaks” as we called them, met.  My heart was empty, and as I passed, I remember looking in the doorway, and a young girl, eyes shining with life, joyfully invited me to join them.  I shook my head, backed away, and continued on my way……into 5 more long years of meaningless living.  I was taking the long way home.
     The bible is filled with examples of those who’ve done the same.  In the book of Ruth, Elimelech, his wife Naomi, and their two sons left the land of Judah and moved to Moab in an effort to escape a famine that was upon them.  They were never to have done that, and in the time there, Elimelech and his two sons died, leaving Naomi and the son’s wives, one of which was Ruth, alone.  Soon after, Naomi and Ruth began the journey home to Judah.  Ruth 1:7 reads, “….and they took the road that would lead them back to Judah.”  Naomi too, had taken the long way home.
     Sometimes the long way home can be not so much a result of our own wrong, even sinful choices, but the result of of the delay of the realization of a God given dream.  Joseph received a dream from God concerning the destiny He had planned for him.  Joseph didn’t realize that coming into possession of that dream would involve long years of first slavery, and then prison, all the while being apart from those he loved most.  He was taking the long way home to the fulfillment of that dream.  Pastor and writer Jentzen Franklin says, “Sometimes our word doesn’t match our world.  When He takes us into His dream for us, He purifies us along the way, so we can be trusted with the dream.”  Joseph, a prideful, somewhat arrogant young man, wasn’t ready to realize the great dream he’d been given.  He had to take the long way home to its realization, to the place where he could be trusted with it.  The same would be said of David, a shepherd before a soldier, a vagabond before a king.  It would be said of Peter, John, Paul, and all the disciples.  Might it be said of you and I as well? 
     You may be taking the long way home today, and whether you find yourself in Moab, as did Naomi, a result of your own wrong choices and decsions, or in circumstances where your world in no way resembles His word, know this.  He will get you home.  I turned my back on Him and continued on my own wrong road.  He took hold of me 5 years later, and like Naomi and Ruth, set me on a road that would lead me back to “Judah,” my true homeland.  If, like Joseph, David, and all those Fathers and Mothers in the faith who’ve gone before us, the circumstances and conditions of your world are conflicting with the word of His promise, stay the course.  There’s only one road home to the fulfillment of His promises.  It may be a long one, but if we’ll keep to it, we’ll enter in.  Put your feet on the road that will lead you back to Judah, to not only the fulfillment of His purpose for you, but to Him.  It may the long way, but it’s the way.  The road that leads home to Him.

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     Last week in our worship services, a young man, rarely given to speaking up, but in whom the Lord has been at work, shared his heart on something happening in his workplace.  He said the main conversations were centered on the controversial “economic stimulus package.”  He said that everyone seemed to be concerned with just what it was going to do to benefit them.  Basically, “What’s in it for me?”  He said the thought that came to him, and which he shared with us, is that we, the church, are to be the “stimulus package,” for a society that seems overwhelmed with fear and anxiety, yet remains firmly embedded in self absorbtion.  The church, and not the government is to be the “stimulant” to what is far more than a downward spiraling economy, but a downward spiraling culture.  The question is, can we be this, or, are we, the church, trapped in that same downward spiraling, selfcentered mindset as well?
     Consecration, dedication, surrender, these are words much used in the church, but how often are they really lived out?  Paul directs us in Romans 12:1 to, “Present your bodies a living, holy sacrifice, acceptable to God.”  I think many, maybe most of us, believe we’ve done this.  After all, didn’t we go to an altar, in a time of prayer, or some special place with Him and tell Him just that?  We told Him we were His, and we meant it….didn’t we….or….did we?
     I came across an illustration from an unknown preacher that speaks to our thinking on giving everything to Him.  “We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking a $1000 bill and laying it on the table—’Here’s my life Lord.  I’m giving it all’  But the reality for most of us is that He sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $1000 for quarters.  we go through life putting out 25 cents here, and 50 cents there.  Listen to the neighbor kid’s troubles instead of saying ‘Get lost.’  Go to a committee meeting.  Give up a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home……Usually, giving up our life to Christ isn’t glorious.  It’s done in all those little acts of love.  25 cents at a time.”
     Most of us are so willing to give our lives if we see them as being worth $1000.  We will give our all to those things which may bring attention, or favor, or good feelings…to us.  Spending our lives a penny, nickel, or dime at a time, well that doesn’t seem to be the best use of our abilities.  What’s the fruit of that?  What’s in it for us?  So we miss our chance, our opportunity to be a “stimulus” to be a display of His glory to a culture that is in such desperate need of it….because we see being spent in such a way is a waste of our time and our value.
     If, as you read this, you are among those who would say you have given your all to Him, just how is your all being spent?  There are many people who greatly enjoy having $100 bills in their wallets.  It seems to make them feel good and prosperous.  They would never seek  to carry about 10 rolls of quarters, yet this is what He calls you and I to do, in order to be spent.  The only thing in it for us, is to be spent in such ways as to bring Him glory, and bring stimulus to our workplace, neighborhood, home and family, that will carry over into eternity.  What’s the carryover from your life spending?  Again, how’s your life being spent?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Heart Thoughts by oshell
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     I recently read an account of something that took place in the 1970’s, but had forgotten about, though at the time it was widely covered by all the major news networks.  On March 10, 1974, a 52 year old Japanese soldier named Hiroo Onoda, who’d first been sent to the Philippine island of Lubang in 1944 to organize a guerilla defense in the waning days of WW II.
When the war ended less than a year later, Onoda refused to give up, and carried on an active resistance for the next 30 years.  He would not surrender until his former commander arrived and issued a personal order that he give up.  Upon doing so, and realizing the war truly was over, he wrote in his autobiography, “I felt like a fool…What had I been doing all these years?….For the first time I really understood….This was the end.”
     Writer and speaker Nancy Leigh DeMoss, commenting on his story wrote, “By the time he was 52 years old, he scarcely knew any other way to live.  Resisting, running, and hiding had become the norm–the way of life with which he was most familiar and comfortable.  For Onoda, surrender meant nothing else than a radically altered lifestyle.”  A radically altered lifestyle.  The question has to be asked.  How radically altered is yours and my lifestyle from the lifestyle culture we are surrounded by?  More, how radically altered is our lifestyle from that which we lived before we professed to have come to know Him?  Before we were, whatever we might choose to label it, saved, born again, converted, or became a believer?
     How like Onoda are you and I?  How much of our lives are spent running and hiding from God?  How much of the “norm” has that become for us?  Oh, we may be found in church each week, paying our tithe, going to classes, conferences, workshops, and retreats, but we can hide in those places just as well as Onoda did in the jungles of the Philippines.  Sometimes I think they may be the best hiding places, or at least in our minds, because we feel He will not really be searching for us there.  Keith Green once sang of the church being asleep in the light.  If we can sleep there, we can also hide there, and we do.
     Lt. Onoda was barely past his 20th birthday when he began his war.  At 52, the best part of his life had been wasted fighting a battle he’d already lost.  Are you doing the same?  Discouragement, depression, lonliness, these are the fruit of the ongoing “guerilla” warfare we wage against Him.  He is the Sovereign Lord, and our resistance to that does not change its reality.  He does not call you and I to a conditional surrender, where we retain our rights as well as our “weapons.”  It is unconditional, and it is total.  No more hiding, no more running, no more resistance.  We hand ourselves, all of ourselves over to Him.  It is simply a choice of a life lived out in the jungle, or a life lived out in His Kingdom.  Which will we have?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     I recently read an account of the revival that took place in the Hebrides Islands, off the coast of Scotland, in the 1950’s.  A small group of believers were particularly burdened for the young people of the island, and had been meeting 3 nights a week for nearly 2 years to pray for them, and all the people of the islands.  One night, a young deacon stood up and read Psalm 24:3-5, “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?  He who has clean hands and a pure heart….He shall receive blessing from the Lord.”  The young man then said to those gathered around him, “Brethren it seems to me to be just so much ‘humbug’ to be waiting and praying as we are, if we ourselves are not rightly related to God.”  These prayer warriors, in a brokenness they’d not known before, sought Him with a new found humity.  A few weeks later, the Holy Spirit came upon the islands, shaking them, and their people to their very foundation.  They would never be the same.
     I read that and wondered if such a revelation as came to that young Scotsman needs to come to me, and perhaps you as well?  How often have I, we, prayed for rebellious children to have their spirit of rebellion broken, yet we ourselves possess that same rebellious attitude?  How often have pastors and leaders in a fellowship, prayed for certain “stiffnecked” people to “get right,” to be softened before Him, yet we ourselves are every bit as stiffnecked, every bit as hard?  How often have we prayed for others to have more love in their hearts for those around them, when we ourselves lack that very love?  How often have we, the church, cried out for revival, for God to send overwhelming grace, when we have been so resistant to being “overwhelmed” by that grace in our individual lives?  How like that young Scottish deacon are you and I?  Nancy Leigh DeMoss says, “The greatest hindrance to revival is not others unwillingness to humble themselves–it is our need to humble ourselves and confess our desperate need for His mercy.”
     When we come together with other believers, other pastors, other leaders, what are we more prone to do, complain, or confess, accuse, or admit, justify, or repent?  These are hard questions I know, but I have been pastoring a long time now, so much of it spent praying for a move of His Spirit, for revival, for my world to be shaken as were the Hebrides Islands.  You may have too, yet, has it happened?  Could we dare to ask the question that the yound deacon asked?  Could we be seeking for Him to do in others,what has not been done in us?  Could we dare to ask Him that question?  Have we been trying to go up the hill of the Lord with hands unclean and hearts not pure?
     Many of us may well have quoted, even in prayer, 2 Chronicles 7:14, “(If) My people, called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, the I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin, and heal their land,” but in doing so, how often have we thought in our hearts that the people mentioned here were others and not ourselves?  He is calling us to ascend His hill, but so far, it doesn’t seem we’ve been able to.  We all want to got there, but seemingly on our terms, and not His.  We can only come broken.  The way up the hill…..is down.

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     Over my years of pastoring, one of the hardest situations I have to deal with is trying to help people who desperately need help, yet will neither ask for or receive it.  The attitude seems to be one of feeling that to do so is “begging,” and their words, whether spoken or unspoken are, “I will not beg!”  In human terms I can understand this.  We all have a sense of dignity…we all have our pride.  We will not grovel.
     You may well be familiar with, or at least heard the scripture from Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  Most of us probably think we know what the meaning of “poor” is, and more, most of us likely don’t consider ourselves as such.  Maybe we, you and I, need to take a second look.
    Nancy Leigh DeMoss in her book, “Brokenness-Surrender-Holiness,” says the Greek word used here for “poor” means “beggar.”  Beggar.  Now there’s a word that will get a response out of us.  We all have a mind picture of just what a beggar is, and while we may have compassion upon those we have seen who’ve been reduced to it, we don’t see ourselves that way.  We won’t see ourselves that way, but if that is so, according to the scripture, we won’t see Him either.  Because we don’t, we’ll not only miss His fullness, but the fullness of all He has for us.  As DeMoss puts it, “What is Jesus saying?  Blessed are the beggars-those who recognize they are spiritually destitute and bankrupt.  They know they have no chance at survival apart from God’s intervening mercy and grace.  Because of their need to reach out to Him.  Because they reach out to Him, He responds by lavishing them with the riches of His kingdom and reviving their hearts.”  As DeMoss goes on to say, “In God’s economy, the way up is down.”
     Many are saying that the American culture has become one of entitlement, where it is our right to have all we need or want.  How deeply has this sense of entitlement permeated the American church as well?  We love to read and hear sermons about how to be whole and prosperous, blessed and full.  How to have a great marriage, great kids, dream job, and on and on.  Books like DeMoss’ are not the featured items in bookstores.  People in the congregation are not clamoring to hear messages about being crucified with Christ, about surrender, about a life that is a Crosswalk.  So, when life, which somehow never seems to deliver on the first set of desires hits us with devastation, we will not grovel, we will not beg.  We’ve no idea that the way up is down.  We don’t know that the way to the life of true riches is through the grave.
     The other common Greek word used for poor in the Bible means, “Someone who lives just below the poverty line.  Someone who is always having to scrimp and scrape just to survive, someone who makes it, but barely.”  I think this is the state that far too many live in today.  Living below the spiritual, emotional, even physical poverty line.  Scrimping and scraping…just getting by….barely.  All the while, Christ stands before them, us, inviting, calling us into His life of riches, but to get there, we need to be willing to cease all our scrimping and scraping, all our self reliance, and admit our total and complete need for Him.  We need to yield to the truth that the only way up is down.  Can you?  Will you?  Can you admit to being a beggar before Him?  Our fleshly pride hates the very thought, and will flee from it.  Yet this is the only way to the riches to be had in Him.  In Isaiah 57:15 the Father says, “I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a humble and contrite heart.”  This is where you and I are to live, in the court of the King of the universe, but the only way in is through Christ, coming as a beggar.  Will you come?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     I had absolutely no intention of writing a “Heart Thoughts” today, but after having a particularly special time of prayer with Him, I came up to my office with the idea of playing my guitar a bit, and having an extended time of worship with Him.  Before doing that, thoughts of gospel singer Russ Taff came to my mind.  Just last evening I had seen a part of one of Bill Gaither’s “Homecoming” videos on the Gospel Music Channel, where Taff was sharing a bit about where the Lord had brought him from in his life.  Being curious by nature, I wanted to know more, and a few moments ago I watched a Taff interview with Gaither himself on You Tube.  I was moved by what Taff shared, and felt strongly led to share it with you.
     Taff, though a successful singer for nearly 30 years, had apparently struggled with a number of inner demons.  One of the things he said in the interview was that he came to a place of wondering if what he sang about was even real.  Maybe you’ve been to that place as well.  Maybe you’re there now.  Taff said there were a number of times he truly didn’t believe he could go on, but always, the Lord would send someone, a messenger of hope, and he would continue to journey, but it was a journey filled with dark despair.  Everything changed with a life altering encounter with Jesus one night.  Taff said, “Somehow, He got in there (his heart and mind) and did what therapists and anti-depressants couldn’t do, and made me whole.  The great big hole that had paralyzed me for years….He filled with Himself.” 
     Taff’s words of victory took me back to a time in my own life when as a new believer, young and coming out of a life of deep darkness, I felt so alone, trapped, and forgotten.  I remember listening to a Christian radio station and someone was telling a kind of story about how Christ works.  He used an illustration of a man who was trapped in the darkest of dungeons, far from light and hope.  He spoke of a Jesus who took on a rescue mission for that man, came to his cell, broke the power of the lock, bars and chains, took him by the hand, and gently but powerfully, led him out to the light, to freedom.  I didn’t know it at the time, but the speaker was obviously basing his story on Acts 12, and the Lord’s rescue of Peter from prison.  All I knew at the time was that He knew where I was emotionally and spiritually, and that He would come, had come, to lead me to freedom.  It is something He has done for me again and again.  He did it for Russ Taff, and He will do if for you.
     I don’t why I write this today, other than the sense that someone needs to hear and know this.  Ephesians 4:8 says, “He ascended on high and made captivity itself, captive.”  Whatever holds you, whatever captivity you may be in, physical, emotional, or spiritual, He has taken it captive.  He will come, breaking its locks and chains.  He will lead you, as He did Peter, Russ Taff, even myself, to light, to freedom.  He is coming.  He has come.  Let Him do what no on, and nothing else can do.  Lead you to wholeness, to freedom, to life.

Blessings,
Pastor O

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