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Heart Thoughts 7/28/10

Power.  It’s a word that has meaning for everyone, and particularly so for those who are His.  We see it’s demonstration all through His Word, whether directly through the actions of the Father in creation, as He led His people out of Egypt, and throughout the lives of the Old Testament prophets.  We see it in the life and miracles of Christ, where He made the crippled walk, gave sight to the blind, and raised the dead.  We observe it in the life of the early church and through the lives of the apostles, Paul, Peter, and John.  The Bible connects such power with the right hand of God, it being the symbol of this kind of power, and a truly wondrous power it is.  We who follow Him long to see such displays of power, and pray much for Him to move in it.  This is not wrong, yet the great Reformer, Martin Luther spoke of another kind of power, one that is much less exciting, and I think, much less sought.  He called it “lefthanded power.”
    Luther called this lefthanded power, “The quiet demonstration of power in people to stir up an appetite for God in another, no matter what was happening in the life of the one who possessed it.”  I think this is the kind of power John was speaking of in I John 1, where he writes, “This One Who was life from God was shown to us, and we have seen Him, and now we testify and announce to you that He is the One Who is eternal life.”
   John goes on to invite his readers into fellowship not only with himself and his fellow believers, but with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as well.  The invitation comes not only in words, but in the power of a resurrected life, that dwelt in the presence of and with all three.  For me, I think perhaps the clearest demonstration of this is found in Acts 7, when Stephen, after preaching to his Jewish listeners, is stoned to death.  In the midst of their hatred and anger, verse 55 reads, “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily upward into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God’s right hand,”  His listeners killed him for his message, yet among them was a young man named Saul of Taursus, and there can be no doubt that what he saw in the life and death of Stephen had much to do with preparing his heart to encounter Christ on the Damascus road.  Saul, who became Paul, did not see a mightly deliverance for Stephen, nor was Stephen raised up after he’d been killed.  Yet, what he did see stirred his heart, and through the “lefthanded power” of Stephen’s life, God’s grace pierced his hard heart, and I believe it was there, that the Damascus road journey truly began.  A journey that one day would take him into the third heaven, where he would see wonders no man had ever seen.
   We, you and I, may long for a great demonstration of God’s power today, and maybe He’ll bring us just that, but I think, more and more, I’m longing to walk in the kind of lefthanded power Luther spoke of.  Power that is able to impact the stoniest heart, awaken it to the beauty of Christ, and draw it to Him.  A power that, even in the midst of all the stones of hell being hurled at it, is able to gaze upward, and see the glory of God.  A life that quietly, but steadily, draws someone else to Him. 

Blessings,
Pastor O

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Heart Thoughts 7/22/10

When you read the book of Exodus, one of the things that truly stands out is the difference between how Moses knew God, and how the people “knew” Him.  I think the clearest example of that is found in Exodus 21:20, where the people, terrified of the Lord’s appearance among them with thunder, lightening, and darkness.  Moses tried to tell them to have no fear, that the Lord was displaying His awesome power to them, but they would not listen.  They tell him in verse 19, “You tell us what God says, and we will listen.  But don’t let God speak directly to us.  If He does, we will die.”  Then, in verse 20, it reads, “As the people stood in the distance, Moses entered into the deep darkness, where God was.”
    To our very human, and fleshly way of seeing things, it doesn’t make sense that the Lord should appear to us in the midst of darkness.  After all, He’s the God of light.  He should always be making things clear to us, and in ways that we can understand.  All that He does should make sense to us, and there should be little, if any, mystery involved.  Yet, His Word tells us that the Lord Himself is a mystery, one that He invites us to enter into, and discover in ever greater ways.  Yet, in our day to living, if He should approach through life events that look like what the Israelites were seeing here, our reaction is very much like theirs.  We don’t want to enter into the darkness.  We’re afraid it will kill us.  If there is mystery here, we want someone else, our pastor, our more ”spiritual” friends, to tell us what’s happening.  We look for a “word” from Him, something prophetic.  We certainly don’t want to enter any darkness, and we really have a difficult time believing He would be there.  So, when the blows of life come about, sickness, divorce, grievous happenings with our children, job losses, costly financial setbacks, death, in effect, darkness, we draw away, not near.
    Yet, it is in the midst of these things that we will find Him.  Chinese Christian Brother Yun wrote while int he midst of some of His deepest sufferings for Christ, that the Lord spoke from the Psalms into his darkness, “In the hidden place, your Father shall protect you.”  In a place where there seemed to be no light at all, He discovered His presence in a way he’d never known.  Larry Crabb, in his book, “66 Love Letters,” writes, “Suffering without explanation creates the opportunity for faith in Him, the kind of faith that sees His heart……..It’s the road of trusting Him in darkness so dark that all reason for trust is obscured.”  He then quotes Soren Kierkegaard, “As long as their are many springs from which to draw water, anxiety about possible water failure does not arise.”
   The great tragedy in the lives of those who followed Him in Exodus was that in all those years, they never came to really know Him.  They expected from Him a life that He’d never promised.  When their lives and experiences failed to match their expectations, they became angry, disillusioned, defeated, and they drew away, grew away, from Him.  Moses, whom the Bible tells us the Father ”Spoke to face to face,” had come to know Him is such deep, intimate ways, that he didn’t fear to any enter into the deep darkness.  He knew who he’d find there.  The very God he’d known in the light, except that in the darkness, He came to know Him even more deeply, and trust Him more completely.

   Jesus, speaking with the woman at the well, told her that the water she drew there would never satisfy her deepest thirst, but that the water He offered, was the water of life, and would satisfy her deepest thirst.  There are many earthly places from which to get water, but they will never satisfy, and they will certainly fail, and dry up.  We need, as Kierkegaard says, partake of the only source of water, a water that so often is found only in the deep darkness.  Maybe you’re finding yourself there today.  Confronted through loss or need, with a deep darkness you greatly fear.  Jesus, as He so often did in His Word, calls you, and me, to fear not, to enter into it.  It’s where He is, where the Spirit is, where the Father is.
It’s there we’ll meet with Him, them, and discover them in ways we never knew possible.  In the midst of life’s unknown, He is a mystery He invites us to know, as He speaks with us, face to face…..in the darkness.

Blessings,

Pastor O  

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Heart Thoughts 7/14/10

In Luke 14, Jesus tells the story of the man who had prepared a great feast, and had sent out many invitations, yet all who had been invited, found, for one reason or another, an excuse, to not come to it.  Now, I think many of us may be familiar with the story, and even think we understand it’s full meaning, but I’m not so sure that’s true.
       If you see this as a parable describing the invitation the Father gives through Christ to enter into His salvation and Kingdom, you’d be right, but I think, only partly so.  I think that so many of us see the “feast” He invites us to as a life that is filled with blessing.  God’s good things in this life.  Certainly, eternity enters into it as well, but I think, because our minds and thinking tend to be so anchored in the here and now, that we’re missing the greatest beauty of the invitation.  I’ve come to more and more connect this invitation to the prayer of Jesus in John 17.
      In His prayer, Jesus prays so many beautiful things, but the central theme is one of you and I entering into the joy of the relationship that is realized between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  He prays in verse 21, “My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as You and I are One, Father, that just as You are in Me, and I am in You, so they will be in us, and the world will believe You sent Me.”  We’ve always tended to understand this as Jesus’ prayer for unity in His church, and that is part of it, but even more, I think He is praying that you and I will fully enter into the unity, wholeness, completeness, that can only be found in what author Larry Crabb calls, “the dance of the Trinity,” the richness and joy of the relationship that the Father, Son, and Spirit have with each other.  This is something much more than a “good life.”  It is entering into their life, partaking of it, reveling in the joy of it.  It’s not a feast of the blessings of this world.  It’s the ultimate of blessing of themselves.  It’s the fullness of Their lives in our life, now.

     So, with this kind of invitation before us, why is it that we continue to make excuses to avoid attending?  If we think our “best life now” entails a life of unending good things, where life works well, and that God’s working things for our good, means that ultimately, everything will go the way we want it to, we’re bound for some deep disappointments, just as we will if we think the feast has more to do with satisfying our flesh than it does our spirit.  It could be that many of us felt this was what attending the feast would yield, and made some tenative steps to attend, but when they found it to be something else, left in disappointment, and even anger.  For others, it may simply be that the attraction of a life lived out in His fullness, holds a lot less allure than having a life that goes well, and according to our plans and wishes.  And where WE and not HE, is in control.
    Don’t misunderstand, the feast He invites us to does hold many, so many, good things here in this lfie for us, but it’s not an invitation to a pain free, trouble free life.  For all of us, there will be more than enough this side of heaven.  What the acceptance of His invitation gives us is the fullness, joy, peace, and abundance of His life now, in the midst of all that could be, might be going wrong right now.  We may be in pain, but in the midst of it, we are held in His embrace as we dance the dance of the Trinity that Crabb speaks of.
    One last thing.  Entrance to the feast is free, yet not without cost.  Yes, He paid the price, but the only doorway into the feast goes via the cross, and His blood.  If we’re to enter into the fullness of the feast, we too must go to the cross, willingly pick it up, and covered by His blood, enter into the true joy of the Lord.  His invitation has arrived.  It carries your name, and mine.  It is not an invitation to attend church, 
give money, go to a prayer group, or talk about Jesus.  It is an invitation to be an answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17.  Will you?  He’s waiting for your, my, answer.
 
Blessings,
Pastor O
   

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Heart Thoughts 7/7/10

I love the way the New Living Translation renders I Peter 2:16.  ‘You are not slaves; you are free.  But your freedom is not an excuse to do evil.  You are free to live as God’s slaves.”  Now, I don’t think our flesh particularly likes that concept, and if that’s the case with any of us, we’re going to miss the beauty of what Peter is saying here.  However, if we’ll meditate on just what it means “to be free to live as God’s slaves,” and what such a life might look like, we’ll enter into a level of living we didn’t know possible.
    First off, this verse sounds like a total contradiction.  Free to live as slaves.  How could any slave be free.  In the worldly context, they can’t.  They serve at the whim of their master, and those whims more often than not will lead to much pain for the slave.  This is true whether the master be flesh and blood, or something much less tangible, be it a desire that controls us, fear that crushes us, anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness that chains us, and a seeeming unending array of other “things.”  We may be free to pursue or indulge these things, but always, they hold us captive in a prison cell that grows darker by the day.  It’s the way of all earth masters rooted in spiritual darkness.  We are free to pursue them, but in doing so, our freedom is lost in our captivity to them.  Not so with the Father.  The world offers freedom that leads to total enslavement.  The Father offers, in Christ, slavery that leads to total freedom, and total life.  How can this be?
   Could you dare to allow that statement, “You are free to live as God’s slaves” simmer in your mind, heart, and spirit?  Would you, would I, allow the Holy Spirit to open all three to the wonder of what that really means?  The New American Standard uses the word “bondslaves.”  This means the person has sold themselves over to ownership of their Master.  This is what happened when the Father purchased us from the hold of the devil with the blood of Christ.  We’ve left the tyranny of the master of darkness and death for the freedom of the Master of light and life.  Yet, so many seem to remain trapped in their old slavery, their graveclothes, when something so much more awaits them. 
   We are now living in a culture of fear, anxiety, anger, and hatred, and so many who are His seem to be caught up in it.  It’s the spirit of the day, yet it is not to be the spirit of those who are His.  If we are free to live as His slaves, then we are free to live as slaves to hope, to peace, to joy, to eternal life.  An eternal life that doesn’t start when we die, but right now, when we begin to truly live in Him.  We embrace His Mastery over us, the dark dungeons we’ve been trapped in, now flame with His light, and we can rise and follow Him out of them.  Our slavery to Him, makes us free of all in this world that is not Him.  We are free, finally, to live.
   With this wonderful news and life before us, why do so many of us miss it?  I think a great part of it is that so many think that coming to Him is a matter of making a number of minor life adjustments.  We’re willing to make outward, cosmetic changes, but inside, we cling to what really matters to us.  We expect the major adjustments to be made by Him to us.  Yet, He doesn’t call us to these “minor adjustments,” but to a total death to self.  It’s the only pathway to freedom and life.

   Years ago, Bob Dylan sang “Gotta Serve Somebody.”  Who’s your “somebody?”  Is it a master rooted in the world and the flesh, or is it the Master of Life?  Are you living a “freedom” that leads you daily into a deeper bondage, or are you finding you really are free as you live not only under the loving hand of the Father, but in His heart and life as well?  Which pathway are you walking?

Blessisngs,
Pastor O
   

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Heart Thoughts 7/2/10

Last evening I was part of a prayer group led by my good brother, Bob Yarbrough.  One of the scriptures he shared on was from Revelations 2, where the Lord speaks to the church at Ephesus.

He lists all the good things they are doing for the cause of Christ, how they had endured persecution, stood against evil, and so on.  Still, the Lord said He had a complaint against them, saying, “You don’t love Me, or each other as you did at first.  Look how far you have fallen from your first love.”  Christ’s words spoke into my heart, and caused me to reflect on my own journey with Him, and how much of that walk had looked just like the believers in Ephesus.
    I thought back on my first year studying for the ministry at Bible College.  Still young in the Lord, everything was a new adventure with Him.  I remembered how I would spend hours just pouring through His Word.  I had purchased a cheap Bible, and in that year, literally wore the cover off it.  I still have that Bible, and it’s margins are filled with insights and thoughts that came from His Spirit as I read it.  I remembered too how during my work day, I would go about my job just talking with Him through the day, about everything.  My life was filled with challenges of every type, but somehow, those challenges never seemed to rob me of the joy of being with Him.  Like Martha, I had many responsibilities to attend to, but like Mary, I was able to sit at His feet and just be with Him.
   Then, in my second year, my life began to change.  I got married, bringing all kinds of new “responsibilites” into my life.  I now had to balance a full time job, full time school, and a full time marriage, with a full time relationship with Him.  I still spent time in His Word, still prayed, but somehow, even though I wanted to remain at His feet, so many ”other things” were clamoring for my attention, and it wasn’t going to get any easier.  I was about to enter into full time ministry for Him.  Key words, “for Him.”
   If we’re not vigilant, something tragic can happen when we enter into service for Him.  We can, if not lose Him, certainly lose the beauty of our walk with Him.  It happened to me.  I now had a “ministry” and I had been taught that I had to give that ministry my best.  The pull of the Martha lifestyle got stronger.  Finding ways to minister to the people, preach messages that reached them where they were at, and of course, come upon some way to grow the church.  These were taking all my energy.  I lived and breathed “church,” and since it was all for Him, I never really saw myself as drifting ever farther from His Presence.  How could I be doing that?  I was doing it for Him wasn’t I?  All for Jesus.  Or, was I?
   In truth, I’d exchanged the beauty of a pressure free life lived out in and with Him, for the pressure cooker of performance and achievement.  I was doing all the right things, but for so many of the wrong reasons, and bit by bit, my life in Him was drying up.  The joy of living for Him that I had known in that first year at the college seemed so long ago.  I didn’t love Him, or others as I once had, and for sure, I had no realization of how far I’d fallen from my first love.  Maybe the same has been true of you?  Maybe it’s true of you right now.
   I won’t tell you that this pattern of living was broken right away.  It went on for many years, until, finally, He caused me to see just how far the fall had been, and how little joy there was in the journey.  I was still doing the right things, but I’d forgotten what the experience of sitting at His feet really was.  Maybe you have too.
   You don’t have to be a pastor for this to happen to you.  Jobs, families, finances, schedules, busyness, can all join together to draw us away from our first love.  Second things become first things, and in that, the joy of knowing Him, sitting at His feet, slips away, yet because we’re still doing the right things, going to church, tithing, being a part of a Bible study, looking after the spiritual welfare of our family, we didn’t notice it, or ignored all the signs that it had happened.  Yet, in His faithfulness, He’s going to find a way to voice His complaint to you.  Maybe He’s done it already.  Maybe He’s doing it now.
   Something I’ve begun to pray is that if there is anyplace in my life where I’m showing signs of once again leaving my first love, that He would show me, confront me, and in His love and grace, draw me back, and teach me anew how I may delight in Him alone.  Maybe this would be a good prayer practice for each of us.  The seductive power of second things, good things, is intense, but if we yield to it, we’ll lose the wonder of having the best thing.  Jesus said in Luke 10 that Mary had discovered it.  Have you and I?  Might we need to discover it anew?
 
Blessings,
Pastor O
 

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