Dulles Family Life Church

In Luke 2, the story is told of Jesus as a young boy traveling to Jerusalem with his parents for the Passover festival.  With the conclusion of the festival, they began the journey home.  After going some distance, they discovered Jesus wasn’t with them, but had stayed behind.  They returned to Jerusalem and spent 3 days searching for Him.  Finally, they found Him in the Temple, talking with some of the spritual leaders of the people.  Seeking to reprimand Him for causing them such worry, and making them search everywhere, He answered, “But why did you need to search?  You should have known that I would be in My Father’s house.”
    There was a time I read and understood His words a lot differently than I do now, though I think I’m still learning just what He meant.  Telling them that they should have known He’d be found in His Father’s house meant to me, that they should have known to find Him involved in ministry, in the Kingdom work.  In carrying out the business of “church.”  People should know that my life was about “doing” things for Him, being “busy” for Christ.  After all these years, I’m starting to see it’s something much different, and much more than that.
    In his book, “The Heavenly Man,” Brother Yun of the Chinese house church movement, talks of a time in his life when “ministry” had become central to his life.  Indeed, it was his life.  He writes, “I didn’t want to rest in God alone.  I wanted to rest in the work of God.  I worked without real peace in Him.  I loved doing things for Him and it became my source of security and joy.  God wanted to remove this idol from my life.”  I know that for too much of my life, this has been true for me.  Maybe it is for you as well.  Maybe not as concerns ministry, but as concerns your job, marriage, children, or just the overall enjoyment of “the good life” here.  If someone were to come “looking” for you, they might find you in a church building, but would they truly find you in the Father’s house?
    You see, I have come to see His house as something far more than a building, or the ministry that is done there, or even outside of there.  I have come to see, and am continuing to come to see, that the Father’s house is much more than a building, ministry, or any of the things named above, all of which can become our idols.  No, for me, the Father’s house is more and more becoming the Father’s heart.  This is the place I want to be found.  This is where I want to be when anyone comes looking for me.  I want to be found here in the midst of all I might be “doing.”  I don’t want to worship, or get my identity and security from what I am doing. but from what I am, and am becoming.  That can only happen by dwelling in the heart fo the Father, and we can only do that by staying in the Father.  I want people to know that’s where I can be found, but even more, it’s where I want Him to know I can be found.
    We can, and too often do, all the things mentioned above, especially ministry, and yet be found very far from the Father’s heart, which must be not only our house, but our home. I still find myself in that trap at times, but hopefully, it’s hold grows weaker by the day.  Are you trapped there now?  Trapped in the “doing?”  His heart, our home, calls us to first “be,” than all we do, will be done in the power and life that can only be found in the Father’s heart.

Tags: Uncategorized by oshell
No Comments »

I was recently given a few writings by a man previously unknown to me  named Austin Sparks.  Sparks, an Englishman, died in 1972, but the power of his words, and above all, the Father’s words through him, remain as vibrant as when first written.  One of the writings, titled “God’s Call to the Life Above,” particularly spoke to me, and I wanted to pass on to you some things that impacted me.
    He wrote, “….the people of Israel were not to be governed by the plains and valleys, but to be a people of the mountains.  They might have to spend time, perhaps much time, down below but their normal life was continually interrupted by the command to go up.  Their life, their real life, was up in the high places.”  As I read that, I was convicted by how much of my life has not been lived out in the high places with Him.  I’m convicted of how much time I have spent in the miry clay, with my eyes fixed firmly on that clay, and how little looking up, my eyes on Him alone.  Psalm 123 reads, “I life my eyes to You O God enthroned in heaven.”  As Sparks says, we do walk through the valleys, but always, our eyes and our hearts are to be drawn unto Him.  We are to be looking to the God Who is enthroned on high, but sadly, we look instead at our circumstances, needs, lacks, or more correctly, what we think we lack, and inch ever closer to despair.  This is not to be our real life, and it’s not to be our normal life, but for so many, it is.
    Certainly, our enemy satan plays a role, for he opposes you and I at every turn.  As Sparks writes, “Down…down….that is the drive and direction of the evil one, who plans to get us down and keep us down in the place where he has the strength.  Our refuge is not to fight on that low ground, but to flee to heights, to escape to the Lord in the secret place of the most High.”  He’s right of course, but yet, how often have I, have you, fought on in that low ground, not only in our own strength, but where the enemy’s strength is the greatest?  We’re called to flee to His Presence, but instead we fight on in our flesh, all the while growing weaker, and all the while living, being, defeated.
    So, why do we do this?  Why do we stay trapped, defeated, and despairing in these lowlands, when all the while He calls us to Himself, to His strength, and to His victory?  Why do we keep fighting on the low ground, living out a life of mediocrity at best, and outright defeat at worst?  What comes to me are some words I have written down in my notes, the author of which is unknown to me.  They say simply, “We need to be broken and rebroken.  Surrendered and resurrendered.”  It is that pattern, and only that pattern that will enable us to flee to His high places, and live there with Him.  The weapons we’re so used to using on the low ground, our pride, knowledge, strength, and ability, has no place with Him, and no power against the devil, yet, I have so often sought to fight through with these weapons.  Valiantly perhaps, but in futility always.  It’s my dependence on these weapons that keep me from seeing the One who is enthroned on high and calls me up to Him.  Maybe you’ve been using these same weapons, and with the same results?
    Sparks closed his piece with these words, and I’ll use them to close here as well.  He said, “Spiritually we are a mountain people.  Let us now seek grace day by day, so that we may repudiate all earth-boundedness and refuse to dwell in the valley.  We may often have to pass through it, but we must never settle down there, for we belong to the heights in Christ.”  That grace will be found, day by day, as we look and journey unto the high places of God.

Tags: Uncategorized by oshell
No Comments »

Suffering.  This is a state and a concept most of us want to think or deal with as little as possible.  Here in the west, I think we put a great deal of our prayer energy into how we can avoid it altogether, or, if it should come upon us, get past it as quickly as possible.  In our prosperity focused, blessing centered, self absorbed culture, suffering has little place.  We see it as something historical, something that the church in it’s infancy walked through, or even something that our brethren living under oppressive and hostile governments may be experiencing, but for us, it just doesn’t fit into our idea of what the abundant life is all about.
     I don’t mean to say that we never do.  You may well be experiencing it right now, emotionally, even spiritually.  I just mean that if we should enter into such a time, our response is to cry out to God to either immediately lead us out, or quickly remove or change the circumstances of it.  We want it to be over.  Now.  If it should come about in our lives, we feel it has to be some sort of mistake.  It could never be part of His purpose for us.  Now, please, don’t misread what I’m saying here.  If you’re in the midst of great life pain, I am not saying the Lord has “done it” to you.  What I am saying is that He is sovereign in it, and can, and will, use it for our good, and His glory, even if it is the worst that has ever happened to you, even if you’re in the midst of the worst day of your life.
    I am reading a book, one that I’ve mentioned in previous HT’s, that is convicting me deeply about the safety centered, comfort loving, pain free life I want Him to give me.  It convicts me as well as to how little I know of true suffering for Christ.  It is the book, “The Heavenly Man,” about the life and ministry of Brother Yun, one of the leaders of the explosively growing house church movement in China, and what he experienced, suffered, at the hands of a totally hostile communist government over the course of nearly 20 years, nearly half of which were spent in prison, or on the run from authorities bent on stopping him, even killing him.
    He details, very explicitly, the many unspeakable tortures and abuses he suffered while being held.  He details as well, the many miraculous things done by the Father in the course of it all, including his eventual escape from prison, and from China as well.  However, it is something he wrote about his prison pain that I want to share with you today, and which speaks to me, and I hope to you.  He said it in response to so many westerners who expressed deep sympathy to him, and told him that they prayed that he, and his fellow persecuted brethren, would be delivered from all suffering and persecution.  He said, “I didn’t suffer in prison.  No!  I was with Jesus and experienced His very real Presence, joy and peace, every day.  It’s not the person in prison for the sake of the gospel who suffers.  The person who suffers is he who never experiences God’s intimate Presence.”
   This is not to say Yun never had his times of weakness or doubt, he did, but in each and all of them, the power and life of Christ would come to him, and renew and refresh him, such as the time the Holy Spirit came and spoke the reality of I Peter 5:12 to him.  “….to assure you that the grace of God is with you no matter what happens,“ and 2:24, that in all things he would “turn to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your soul(s).”  This would lead Yun to write that, “When we arrive at the end of our own strength, it is not defeat, but the start of tapping into God’s boundless resources.”
   Many years ago, I read a book titled “Don’t Waste Your Sorrows,” which detailed how the Lord can reveal himself so beautifully in the midst of them.  I fear I have “wasted” many of my sorrows in my eagerness for them to end, to be over, or avoided altogether.  Maybe you have too.  Maybe you are now.  No, we’re not to invite or look for needless suffering, but should He allow it, there is, in it, a glorious opportunity to know Him in ways we never thought possible.  There are not only boundless resources awaiting us in the midst of it all, but a boundless God who will carry us through it all.  In the midst of the pain, your pain, run to Him, the One the Word calls “the Man of sorrows,” as He carries you through, and upward, through them all.

Tags: Uncategorized by oshell
No Comments »

Fear, worry, and anxiety are topics that Jesus spoke often and directly to in His Word.  He still speaks to them today.  “Don’t be afraid.  Don’t be anxious.  Don’t be worried and troubled.”  He said these things again and again to His disciples and listeners.  They didn’t seem to truly hear Him until after Pentecost.  It was then that Peter, who knew something about fear, was able to write in the 3rd chapter of Ist Peter, to a church facing intense persecution, these words in verse 15.  “So don’t be afraid and don’t worry.  Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life.” 
    Despite all His exhortations to not fear, to not be troubled, to not be anixous over anything, we, at least in the western Church, seem to be afraid, anxious, and troubled about most everything.  How much time, sleep, energy, and focus, have you and I invested in concentrating on the circumstances, potential threats, or consequences of what might happen to us, our families, ministries, or jobs? 
    One can go into most any Christian bookstore and find books that list all the scriptural promises of God, or books that outline prayers we can pray that are based upon these promises.  There are also books written by anointed authors that detail how we may overcome fear and worry.  Yet, despite all this, we continue to live in a culture of fear, and it appears to be growing, and affects all of us.  We seem to be in captivity to the question “What will happen if?”  I have spent a lot of time there.  Maybe you have as well.  Maybe you’re there now.
    Why, with all these “tools” available to us, do so many of His people remain in bondage to the very things Christ commands us to be free from?  Why does so much of our life continue to be “lost” to these things that are definitely springing from the darkness?  I think the answer lies in living out what Peter encouraged the believers to do in his letter.  He told them that instead of living in fear and anxiety, they were to worship Christ as Lord of your life.”  This is not the worship that most of us know, which is of the Sunday morning variety, where we sing a few hymns or choruses, hear an uplifting message, and then go take on the world, and mostly in our own strength.  Peter is speaking of lifestyle worship, where literally, our thoughts, our very being, are centered on Him.  Not Him, and a mulititude of other “things,” but on Him alone.  He is always present in our conscious thinking, and where He is constantly present, there can be no place for fear, worry, and anxiety.  Yet, it’s obvious that most of us are not living this way, not living out lifestyle worship.  Why?  Could it be that we are far more like the church, like Peter was, before Pentecost, living without the power and presence of the Holy Spirit?  Could that be why we continue to live in captivity to that which Christ has overcome, and commands us to be free from?
    In the 22nd verse of chapter 3, Peter writes, “Now Christ has gone to heaven.  He is seated in the place of honor next to God, and all the angels and authorities and powers are bowing before Him.“  This is the reality, but is it our reality?  His returning to heaven released at Pentecost, the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit upon His church.  With that came the ability of the church to live above all the authorities and powers that seek to destroy them.  They could seek, and they continue to seek, but they could not succeed because He had, has, defeated them, and they had to bow before Him.  They’re still bowing before Him.  It is worship, true, day in and day out worship, in the power of His Holy Spirit, that makes what is a reality, our reality.  Such worship can only happen in the power of the Holy Spirit.  Is it happening for you and I?  We can continue to purchase the books, go to the conferences, hear the speakers, listen to the music, but until our own Pentecost takes place, the spirits of fear worry and anxiety will continue to hold us.  The early church, weary of living in fear and powerlessness, obeyed Christ and sought His promised Comforter….until He came.  The Comforter has come, but has He come for you and I?

Blessings,
Pastor O

Tags: Uncategorized by oshell
No Comments »