Dulles Family Life Church

     Heroes.  Our culture is especially drawn to them.  One of the top rated TV shows has that very name.  Most of the blockbusters out of Hollywood feature a superhero of some sort or another.  Everyone loves a hero, as well as the fame and notoriety that goes with it.  They’re found in the Bible as well.  Hebrews 11 is called by many a chapter detailing the “Heroes of the faith.”  Abel, Noah, Abraham, Jacob and Moses, all these names are familiar to most followers of the Lord.  Truly, they were heroes of the faith.  Yet, Hebrews 11 does not speak only of them, the names we know.  The chapter speaks of countless more who are known simply as the “others.”  We’re given no names, just told that these were faithful to Him, trusted Him, even to their death.  Verse 36 says that, “They placed their hope in the resurrection to a better life.”  Verses 14-16 say they were “looking for a country they can call their own….a better place.  A heavenly homeland.” 
     Yes, we’re drawn to heroes.  We place them on pedestals.  Yet, I think the greatest heroes are those never heard of, those who are found in the ranks of those unnamed “others” the writer of Hebrews speaks of.  Many of us long to be a hero to someone, but I think we also covet the notoriety that goes with it.  These others lived out their lives as heroes only to the One they followed and trusted.  Their Father and their God.  We are all longing for a better country, but I think we too often fall into the trap of thinking that country can be fully found here.  God’s heroes know the truth.  Verse 39 says, “All these people…..received God’s approval because of their faith, yet none of them received ALL that God had promised.”  I think in this verse we find what makes for being one of His heroes.
     The true heroes of God are those nameless others who find themselves in difficult marriages, difficult parenting situations, difficult ministries, difficult, even seemingly impossible life situations.  Believing and trusting God for breakthrough in the midst of the trial, the valley, the dark place, but not seeing the breakthrough itself as the final destination, and not placing their faith in whether it happens, but in the God they have decided to trust with their very lives.  Through it all, they keep their eyes firmly fixed on Him, the One of Whom Moses said in Psalm 90, “Lord You have been our home,” and in the midst of whatever happens in life, He continues to be.  He is.  They know that the better life, the best life, will never be found here.  He never promised it would be.  Such heroes have hope in Him now, but their ultimate hope lies in the country they look for, the country that is truly home.  Such people are rarely seen as heroes by those who watch them.  11:38 says, “The world was not worthy of them,” but they are heroes to Him.  Heroes for Him.  They’ll be unknown to almost everyone, but intimately known by Him.  I want to be such a hero.  How about you?
     There is no doubt that you are either now, or will be, walking through a place, a relationship, a ministry, where you desperately need and are crying for a breakthrough.  Don’t cease praying and trusting, but remember that the final desitnation is not the breakthrough, for our lives will require many of them.  We are headed for, meant for, a better country.  A country of heroes.  A place filled with “unknowns ” in this country, but whose names are known and celebrated by the population of heaven.  The heroes of the faith.  I want to found among them.  Do you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     Throughout the word of God, and particularly in the New Testament, we are invited to come into the Presence of the Father, and unto and into the love of Jesus.  Hebrews tells us that we’re to come “boldly before the throne of grace.”  Jesus invited all who are “weary and heavy laden,” to “Come unto Me.”  The very last chapter and verses of Revelation are an invitation from Him, as 22:17 reads, “The Spirit and the Bride say ‘Come.”  Let each one who hears Them say ‘Come,’…….Let the thirsty ones come…Let them come and drink the water of life without charge.”  I am so thankful for the invitation, and the blessings given in it, but I have been thinking of late of not only how I come, but why.
     Along with the invitations are promises.  Beautiful promises.  Promises of rest, deliverance, strength, protection, security, of being heard, and answered.  Wonderful things, glorious things.  Are they my most desired things?  Are they yours?  I ask that because I have been greatly challenged by something I read not long ago by Larry Crabb concerning why and how we come to Him.  It was a simple suggestion, but in the seeking and enjoyment of all the anticipated blessings, so often, to my shame, overlooked.  He wrote, “Come to Him because you want Him.”  Not the rest, the peace, the strength, the deliverance, the healing, the provision, the answer.  Wanting such things is not wrong in itself, but wanting them more than Him is.  It is more than wrong beloved.  It’s sin, though our flesh never wants to see it that way.
     In II Kings 19, King Hezekiah of Judah received a letter from the king of Assyria promising Judah’s destruction.  He took the letter to the Temple and “spread it out before the Lord.”  God moved in mighty response and defeated the Assyrians.  For years in my prayers, I have done something of the same thing, coming before Him with desires, needs, and so on, written down, and I would “spread them out before Him.”  Now, this is not wrong, but I have been convicted of how slowly and subtly, the “lists” and all the things on them, seemed to have taken precedence over Him.  I was not coming to Him first and foremost because I wanted Him, though this was not how I saw it, but because I wanted the blessing of His answer.  Oftentimes He gave just that, but everytime, I was missing what I most needed, and what my parched soul most desired, though I was blind to it.  Him.  Just Him.  “These things,” had crept into my heart and taken the place that is not only rightly His, but can only be His.  As I write this, I wonder how true this also may be for you?  When you respond to His invitation to come, to what, and for what are you coming?  If you’re honest enough to deal with that question, are you honest enough to repent of it, and by His grace, once again, perhaps for the first time even, come to Him for Him?
     When you come to Him in prayer today, whenever and however often that may be, for what will you first come?  The blessings to be received from His hand, or the love and giving of Himself He longs to bestow from His heart.  He invited you to come.  I expect you will.  Now, why will you?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     I’ve been seeing John 3:16 a bit different lately, and I don’t mean a sign held behind home plate at the World Series, or on a banner in the end zone at the Super Bowl.  I wonder if such displays have made it’s awesome words just another pop culture buzz phrase?……”For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”  I think what’s moved my heart in such a way is verse 17, which says, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it.”  I have always loved these words for they tell me He has come, has been sent, and He has, but He has done something else, and still does.  He has invaded.  The coming of Christ to this world was the invasion of heaven upon earth.  The invasion of light into darkness.  The invasion of life into death.  It’s an invasion meant to liberate, to break the chains of captivity, of sin, into which each of us is born.  2000 years ago, the invasion was launched.  It has taken place, and continues to take place.  Has it taken place in you….in me?
     The teaching of His Word is clear.  In the fall of humankind, through Adam and Eve, and the entrance of sin into our nature, authority over the earth passed from humans to satan.  He now rules and we are born into a captivity from which we can never escape by our own means.  As were the Israelites of the Old Testament, “we are prisoners in our own land.”  Nothing on earth can save us, but Someone from heaven can, does.  So, In Christ, the invasion was launched.  Heaven invaded earth, but today, how much of heaven is really in us?
     In Europe during WW II, through the terrible reign of the Nazi occupiers, there were 3 groups of people.  Those who actively resisted.  They were few.  Those who co-operated, termed “collaborators.”  They were not many either, and those who were just “there.”  They didn’t embrace the Nazi’s, and while they may have had sympathy for the resistance, they didn’t actively support them.  They were prisoners in their own land.  I think in many ways, this is a picture of a large segment of the church today.  The Nazi rule was broken within a year of the allied invasion of Europe in 1944.  A far greater liberation took place with the coming of Christ.  The power of hell was broken with the invasion of heaven yet somehow, so many, though they profess to have received Him as liberator, continue to be prisoners in their own land.  Darkness, death and hell continue to enslave.  Heaven’s invasion has come, but it has not come to these, who are neither resistance fighters or collaborator’s.  They simply are just “there.”  They’ve received the Liberator, but life under Him doesn’t seem markedly different than life under the tyrant.  Little of heaven has gotten into them.  Why?  The answer isn’t difficult, but it’s not one we care to hear.  Though the tyrant “without’s” power has been broken, the tyrant within still reigns.  Self.  The invasion will always be incomplete until that tyrant falls.  Has he fallen yet in you?
     Larry Crabb in “Real Church,” asks this question.  “….Imagine if heaven got into people, if the literal life of God changed people in radically unselfish, nondefensive, unthreatened, sacrificially loving followers of Jesus…..Think of the explosive power of people whose way of living, whose style of relating, and whose love for God and others made secular folks feel either exposed and hostile, or curious and drawn.”  Nothing makes one yearn for freedom like seeing someone truly free.  Not trouble free, not flaw freee, but free in the midst of all their limitations, all of the world’s difficulties and fallen state.  These are people whose hearts, minds, emotions and being, have been fully invaded by heaven.  They are more than resisters, in fact, Paul calls them in Romans, “more than conquerors.”  The invasion has come.  As Paul writes, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”  Has the invasion really taken place in us?  Has victory swallowed death in our lives?  The tyrant without has fallen, but as to the tyrant within………?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     Many years ago a pastor who has been a mentor to me for a long time now, commented, “People seem to get about half saved these days.”  It was not a statement that came from the heart of a frustrated, angry and bitter old man, but from the heart of a pastor who all of his life had sought to lead his people into the fullness of real life in Christ.  Some years after that, another pastor friend of mine, also speaking with an aching heart, shared with me one day that, “People seem to mark an invisible line as to just how far they’ll go with the Lord, and beyond that line they’ll simply not go.”  Their comments came to mind as I read something in Larry Crabb’s new book, “Real Church-Does It Exist?  Can I Find It?”  He writes, “We’re not reaching deep enough.  We’re not penetrating the denial that keeps our worst sins and most terrifying fears out of sight.  And worse, I’m not at all sure we have a clear vision of what God wants to do in our lives….Are we lighting useless or strange fire (Leviticus 10) in our churches today?  Any worship not centered in what God most wants to do in the depths of our humanity is useless fire foreign to God’s purposes.”
     I don’t remember who wrote it, but I recall reading a few years back this author’s words, which were, as I recall them, “I don’t desire to be renewed, because that seems to me to just be stirring up something that is already within me.  What I desire is a revolution, that will change everything within me.”  I think many of us will be happy to allow God to renew us from time to time, stirring up our emotions, even our spirit.  Charge us up, and give us a new vitality….just don’t make any radical changes.  It’s no wonder that the “renewal” seems short in duration, and within days we’ve slipped back into all of our old patterns.  No, I don’t think we need any more surface renewals, but a revolution that reaches to the deepest parts of our souls and humanity, bringing real, lasting change.
     Let me return to Crabb’s comment about “strange fire” being offered in many churches.  It may well offend us, particularly if we see ourselves as offering real help to real lives.  Make no mistake, I believe that the life offered in Christ has great effect in the lives we live right now, but is that the ultimate goal?  Is having a better life now really what His primary purpose for us is?  Does such a message truly reach into the depths of who we are, to the root of those “worst sins,” and hidden, “terrifying fears” Crabb speaks of?  Is so, why do addictions, lust, unforgiveness, pornography, and so many other captivities remain so deeply lodged in the lives of our, His, people?  Why is God not doing what He so obviously longs to do in us?  Is the lack in Him, or could it be….in the message we are bringing?
     Isaiah 30:10-11 says, “They tell the prophets, ‘Shut up!  We don’t want any more of your reports.’  They say, ‘Don’t tell us the truth.  Tell us nice things.  Tell us lies.  Forget all this gloom.  Stop confronting us with Holy One of Israel.’  “  Crabb’s take on this passage is, “In other words, tell us what we can do to make our lives better, -better families, better friendships, better emotional and physical health, better jobs, better leisure time, better church services, better homes, better golf swings.  Just make our lives better.  That’s what we want from our churches.”  Our desire so often seems to be for a good God who is always doing (for US) good things.  Such a God approaches lightly, doesn’t get in the way of our life desires, and in in fact, brings them about.  Didn’t He say He’d give us the desires of our hearts?  We think this is His way, but His Word seems to paint a much different picture.  He’s a God of confrontation, and I believe He is confronting each of us, and all of us in these very days.  How will we respond to the confrontation?  As Judah did in the days of Isaiah, with rejection, and continued hardened, selfcentered lives, or as Paul did on the Damascus road, with a total life transformation?  I believe a confrontation with Him is coming, is already here.  How will we respond to it, with rejection, or in transformation…from the inside out?  There’ll be no middle ground.

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     There’s a great, but somewhat obscure story told in 2 Chronicles.  It occurs in chapters 22 and 23.  Athalia, mother of King Ahaziah, has taken control of the kingdom upon the death of her son.  More, she then put to death all of the royal family as a means of consolidating her power.  All that is but Ahaziah’s infant son, Joash, saved by Ahaziah’s sister, and Jehoiada the priest.
     Seven years went by, until Jehoiada and other supporters believed the time had come to overthrow Athalia and give Joash his rightful place on the throne.  They decided to do this at the Temple of the Lord.  The Levite priests were given the task of surrounding and protecting the young king.  Jehoiada instructed them in 23:7, “You Levites, form a bodyguard for the king, and keep you weapons in hand.  Any unauthorized person who enters the Temple must be killed.  Stay right beside the king at all times.“  Athalia was overthrown and killed, and Joash took the throne that was rightfully his.  I’m not sharing a history lesson, but a life lesson we may need now more than ever.
     In you life and mine are many things that seek to usurp the place of King Jesus in our hearts.  Some of them are obviously evil, temptations that seek to entice us away from Him into what is clearly sin.  Others are far more subtle, and come disquised as “good things.”  I believe the latter are the most dangerous, particularly in this day and time.  They are also things which tend to start out as desires, even good desires, but can soon become demands, even obsessions.  Having them comes to be the driving force of our lives.  Laying hold of the blessing, the healing, the deliverance, the breakthrough, becomes the overwhelming focus of our being.  All else, including the place of Christ in our hearts, becomes secondary.  We have, knowingly or not, put “Athalia” on the throne of our lives.  Unauthorized “things” have taken root in our hearts and Jesus has been usurped.
     The solution is as radical today as it was then.  Our hearts need a “bodyguard.”  One that will not only fill it, but surround it.  “That Bodyguard is available in the Person of the Holy Spirit, for He, and only He, will keep us near the King, and it is only by staying near the King that we’ll be able to recognize those things that have no place as rulers in our lives, no matter how wonderful they may seem at first glance, and we’ll be able to discern them, and destroy them when they begin their “approach” on us.
     Recognizing these things that entice us into open disobedience and sin is not really difficult.  We have to be vigilant with them, but they are more easily discovered.  It’s far more difficult to know those good things, those “blessings,” as being equally dangerous.  I have realized in my own life that when I begin to become frustrated, angry, or looking to cast blame for some lack or unmet need or desire, especially those that I know to be “good,” it is then that the desire for those good things have taken the place of Christ in my heart.  They, even the purest and most worthy, must be killed, died out to, if they have come to take the place that only He can hold in my heart and life.
     What has been, is right now, approaching your heart?  Is it something that seeks to take the place that only He can occupy?  Is it something good, yet tries to take the place of He who is best?  Do you realize that is is unauthorized, no matter how lovely it looks, and, most importantly, are you willing to kill it, by dying to it, so that He, and only He, the One and only One who has the right to the throne of your heart, remains there?  We must stay near the King at all times.  Where are you standing right now?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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     My current favorite writer, Larry Crabb, speaking of an experience where the Holy Spirit had spoken deeply into his heart, said He spoke, “…..to a heart more aware of God’s absence than His presence.”  That statement truly struck me.  In my heart, in yours as well, are many longings.  Which ones are prevailing?  Beth Moore says that the Father looks for what is prevailing in our lives.  As He looks upon your life and mine, what does He see prevailing, from what the Bible tells us is the center of our lives, our hearts?
     The apostle Paul said that the driving passion of his life was, “To know Christ.”  He said that all else, ALL ELSE, was nothing but rubbish in comparison.  He meant the best this life had to offer, including the best and richest blessings the Father could give.  This statement of Paul’s takes on even deeper meaning when one learns just what comprised the average garbage dump of Paul’s day.  Yet, Paul said that the best this life could give, even it’s richest blessings, were garbage in comparison to having and knowing Christ.  Ann Graham Lotz, writing of a particularly painful and heartbreaking time in her life, said that she didn’t want sympathy, or even a miracle in response to what was happening to and around her, but exclaimed, “Just give me Jesus!”  I wonder, in my time of deep trial, in yours, could, would, you and I say the same?  Are we saying it now?
     Our tendency in every trial is to try and find out what we must “do.”  What must we do to make our marriage work, to get our kids straightened out, to get on top financially, to make our ministry grow.  We want answers, we want a formula, we want deliverance.  That’s what we’re looking for in the midst of it all.  We want our best life “now.”  We approach everything from the perspective of present time, but the Father sees everything from the perspective of eternity.  Everything we walk through is meant to draw us closer to Him, to make us more like Christ, to develop in us a life meant to be lived out in eternity.  For you and I, hardship is to be avoided, and if we do enter into it, we turn to Him for direction in how to get out.  We may be willing to do anything He commands in order to escape, but getting out, not getting near, is the force that drives us.  “Just give me Jesus,” is not the cry of our heart.
     Crabb, in his book, “The Pressure’s Off,” says, “Unbelievers do not see Christ as the greatest treasure.  Neither do most believers.  We live as blind people, chasing after the light we can see-the satisfaction that blessings bring-and not valuing the light we cannot see-the glory of Christ.”  Do you and I have the courage to allow Him to search our hearts to see where we’re really living, just what it is we really treasure, where are hearts truly are?  It’s only when His light is able to truly penetrate our darkness, our blindness, that our hearts can truly be aware that He is more absent within them than present.
     What is really the longing of your heart?  That your life will “work?”  That things will go well, you and your family will prosper, your marriage and kids will be great, and all because you did it “right.”  If so, and if that’s not happening, and at some point for all of us, it won’t be happening, than it must be because you’re not doing it right, and if so, either you, or God, or both, are failing.  The end of that will be despair and defeat.  The other option is to join with Lotz in crying out, “Just give me Jesus!”  Everything else is…well, you already know what Paul said.  Our lives so often don’t work, yet if we will seek Him out, He will work in our inner lives a transformation that will give us the true victory over a world that seldom works for us, because He is continually working in us.  As the Spirit speaks to you today, what are you more aware of as concerns your heart?  His presence, or…His absence?

Blessings,
Pastor O

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