Category Archives: Discipleship

Body Life, Transformation, Becoming like Jesus

I Just Need To Say . . .

08 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by in Discipleship, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

As my desktop computer flickered to life this morning, I sat at my desk feeling a complete lack of inspiration or direction to address any certain doctrine, topic or theme. Some days are like that; it is frequently our traditional and religious upbringing and training that spurs us, that drives us always to produce, to create something, to make full use of the moments and hours and to waste not even the idle seconds that form minutes and, in turn, days and weeks and years.

And this morning, I needed to say or to do . . . nothing.

Indeed, nowhere in God’s word is there a demand or requirement that we, the children of God should be driven, always busy praying, preparing, preaching, studying, delivering, In fact, God’s perfect word encourages us, “Come to Me . . . I will give you rest.” “There remains,” the Bible teaches, “a rest for the people of God.” God, Himself gave us an example when He rested after six days of creation miracles.

The greatest form of rest is not physical, but spiritual. Looking to Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of our faith we find that all of the work of redemption, all the effort producing salvation has been accomplished and there remains nothing for us to do or to contribute in order to become recipients of so great a salvation.

The Cross of Jesus Christ, upon which the Son of God anguished and died comprised the full work and effort that would bring us, you and me to a place of divine rest wherein we might dwell in His eternal peace and present comfort and in the sure knowledge of His redemptive work.

This penchant that many of us experience for the exertion and exercise of the soul and even of the physical body in the form of works does not find its genesis in God, but in our misunderstanding and failure to embrace the Gift that has come to us through God’s holy Son. When Jesus uttered those three words, “It is finished,” He brought together all of history past, all of the present and all of history future.

As we understand, Jesus did not speak English and therefore did not literally declare, “It is finished,” but rather He used Greek words to convey the English, “It is finished.”

The word He used is “tetelestai” which means to bring to a close, to complete, to fulfill. But it is the Greek tense Jesus used that is so powerful and revelatory: He speaks on the cross in the Perfect tense, something that is extremely rare in the New Testament and which possesses no English equivalent. The Perfect tense combines the Present tense and the Aorist tense. This may be too much information for some to consider, but it is important and liberating for us to understand. The Aorist tense indicates that something has happened at a specific point in time; a moment. There was a moment, the moment in time that Jesus announced, “It is finished.” The Present tense is linear, meaning something that continues on into the future and has ongoing implications.

The combination of these two tenses in the perfect tense as used in John 19:30 is of overwhelming significance to the Christian. When Jesus says “It is finished” (or completed) what he is actually saying is “It is finished and will continue to be finished”.

When we recognize that, regarding the eternal salvation provided by Christ through the cross of His execution, such salvation reaches backwards in time to the beginning of our lives, it affects our immediate “now” and it moves forward in time, continuing to be finished. Once we have come to the recognition of Jesus’ actual words and intent, the lack of effort, works, deeds, demonstrations, keeping spiritual score fades into oblivion.

We can rightly state, “I was saved, I am saved and I will be saved,” not by past, immediate or future effort, but by simple faith, by trusting in the Word of our Savior.

When this morning I experienced no need to exert myself, to extend myself towards heaven in order to be found pleasing to God, I was closer to the heart and character of God than I might have been in straining forward, seeking somehow by my efforts to please God.

Trust more, try less. Believe, rest, fall into His loving arms. Find and know the place of “tetelestai” and be encouraged, “It is finished.” It is finished and It will be finished.

Came a Gentle Whisper . . .

14 Friday Jul 2017

Posted by in Discipleship, Ekklesia

≈ Leave a comment

Among the means by which our God and Father communicates through us, there exists both the declarative and the contemplative word of the Lord. The Old Covenant prophet Elijah knew it by experience; the “still, small voice” is seldom spectacular and rarely is it the thrilling, supercharged, goose-pimple producing “thus saith the Lord” revelation men so frequently clamor for. On the other hand, the thundering, awe-inspiring, earth-shattering sound may be, but seldom is the true Voice that is above every other voice.

It is not volume, but value that reveals the difference between the counterfeit and the authentic. The brand name ‘Rolex’ doesn’t make the watch genuine, it’s the materials and workmanship inside that validates genuineness.

Indeed, Elijah had perhaps more New Covenant comprehension than did any of his contemporaries. He was no stranger to raising the dead. He called down fire from heaven and entered paradise alive in a whirlwind without tasting death. He was superintendent of the school of the prophets and knew intimately and personally the voice of his God.

And God said to this man, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper’ (1 Kings 19:11,12).

The first instructive words are these, “the LORD was not in…” Oft-times, perhaps more frequently than we want to admit, God is “not in…” our carefully structured plans and programs, our schemes and our suppositions and our limited understandings of the things of God. God may be fully engaged in our worship songs or He may be nowhere in sight when these same songs become more show than worship, more narcissistic expression than humble adoration of the King of all glory.

It is right to want Him, to want to hear His voice, to see His hand extended, to experience Him in full display of divine mercy, grace and goodness, but it is wrong to insist that He move by our schedule; that He descend when we declare, that He comes when we command. He is no wish-fulfilling genie in iridescent garments with whom we have to do. There is a bigger reason, a grander purpose that He has for our lives than we can possibly hope to comprehend in our limited imaginations and narrow thoughts.

The human psyche seeks irrepressibly to rise… above. It is both a natural and an evil desire. It was observed by the pre-incarnate Word who “saw Satan as lightening fall from heaven” after the same declared, “I will…!” Five times he declared. Five times he insisted. Five times he made known to the heavens his insistence that glory should surround him to the want of the King of glory. (See Luke 10 and Isaiah 14).

Unless we should think too highly of our spiritual estate, scripture reveals that it was Lucifer, the son of the Morning, the beatific being who reflected God’s luminescence more magnificently than any other angel who would fall to the lowest and meanest estate and spiritual condition. Lucifer: powerful, intelligent, beautiful, proud, intimately near God’s Person and throne. Yet tragically, perhaps inevitability, he fell.

Hear his ancient declaration, “I will…” “I Will!” Hear it through the centuries and with the expanse of history from the beginning until now: “I WILL!”

So we must exercise great caution and humility when the desire rises from within to shout our will; to invade heaven with our demands. We want to declare and watch our demands take shape and form. We insist that our decree is His decree. But if caution is not exercised, we will appear as the children of Israel testified of the divine origin of their creation when they certified that a golden calf fairly materialized from the flames of man-made fire.

Our every motivation and desire must always be not what we demand, but what He desires. Rather than insisting that our decree become His decree, we ought always to determine that His decree should become our decree.

Scripture gives us divine order: “Delight yourself also in the LORD; and he shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). The key here is found in the words, “in the Lord.” Note that it is not “in our understanding, in our desire, in our wish,” but it is “in the Lord” that He gives us the desires of (our) hearts. “Delight in the Lord” brings “the desires of your heart.” This is so because when we truly find our “delight” in Him, His desires become ours. We then find ourselves praying, claiming and declaring in His will and not in ours. Remember the words, “…not my will, but Thine be done” (Luke 22:42).

In our desiring and our declaring, we must consider that above, beyond; of chief priority to the redeemed heart is the desire and yearning of the perfect and matchless God of all creation, our heavenly Father. What does He, what do You desire, my sovereign Lord and my all-consuming King, my gracious Savior and my Lord?

Before we hazard to declare, before we utter what we presume to be God-generated pronouncement, may we hear Him; may we hear the singular Voice of whom it is made revealed, “in these last days has spoken to us by His Son.”

Oh, it is true that ‘wherever two or three of us shall gather in His name, there He is in the midst of us.’ Indeed, our very humble bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. It is Christ in us, the hope of glory. Scripture abounds to indicate and to qualify that when Christ is “in us” we are accompanied and indwelt by the fullness of the triune God.

Yet He chooses often silence over sound and gentle breeze over hurricane wind to speak to us in the depths both created and plumbed by the same Creator and Sustainer who is our God.

Listen. This is my plea. Hear Him. Hear Him clearly. Before rising in the midst of the assembly of the saints of God to declare, first discern. Loud and rumbling thunder may shake hearth and home, but booming sound does not guarantee life-giving rain. There are many “clouds without water, carried to and fro of the winds” (Jude 1:12).

“A great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.”

As comes a gentle whisper, may we provide a listening ear.

 

Save

The Limp of Life

06 Tuesday Dec 2016

Posted by in Discipleship, Encouragement, Pastoral

≈ 2 Comments

In October, 2012 I suffered a devastating fall from a tall ladder onto unforgiving concrete. Despite the best efforts of good surgeons, I live each day with unwanted limitation, imperfection, disability and discomfort.

jacobwrestles300714_02

The falls of life, either literally or figuratively bring limitation to us all. The critical thing is to understand the purpose of collapse and crushing and to know how to respond to them.

On almost a daily basis I find myself wishing that having sustained various injuries and following prayer and surgery, I could be ‘over it.’ But I’m not.

Adding to the mechanical limits caused by the replacement of bone with steel and the “after market” installation of screws and pins is the ongoing experience of a congenital heart disease called Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy or ‘HCM’ as it is typically abbreviated.

Jacob ‘wrestled’ with the Lord and noticeably, conspicuously limped for the remainder of his days. A limp is an indicator of limitation, of frustration, of imperfection and finally, of surrender.

Two years prior to the ladder incident, I underwent a complex surgical procedure to alleviate a condition that should already have killed me. At the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, my heart was removed and detached from my body to enable Dr. Hartzel Schaff to carve out an enlarged muscle that was preventing the heart from doing its job of pumping blood into and out of the organ.

Following my surgery, Dr. Schaff informed me, “I removed the muscle that has blocked blood-flow, but you still have the disease.” I didn’t fully appreciate the gravity and full meaning of those words then, and only with time have I begun to understand and to accept my ‘new normal’ as opposed to my “old normal.”

Through the cross of Jesus, God has removed the influence (our sin nature) that blocked the flow of life, but until we are made fully and divinely perfect, we still have the disease (of being human and error prone)

I often, with or without exercise become almost completely breathless. If that sounds romantic, it’s not. It’s downright frustrating; sometimes scary; always unwelcome when my lungs are screaming for air and my pulmonary system refuses to respond as it was designed.

It’s very much like the feeling of having run a 100 meter dash. You know the feeling: Your body bends at the waist; your hands jut out to grasp your knees. Your chest heaves with the activity of refilling lungs with life-giving air. You’re dizzy, and the atmosphere  begins to blur and to fade. That’s the way I often feel; but without the running. And it’s frustrating. It’s restrictive. It’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s actually scary. And it’s an imperfect way to live.

But that’s my life. It’s yours, too: Imperfect. Partial. Limited. Flawed.

Maybe your limitation and frustration isn’t caused by a heart disease that you contracted by being born with flawed DNA. Maybe your limitation and frustration is caused by something else. Maybe your limitation is your fault. Maybe it’s not. As we eventually all discover, and as Alexander Pope observed: “To err is human.”

The apostle Paul was human and imperfect even as he strove for divine perfection. He called his limiter, his frustration a ‘thorn.’[1] He testified, speaking of perfection (resurrection), “Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature …”[2]

And he isn’t the only Good Guy of scripture to have experienced imperfection. Moses lived the bulk of his days anticipating his entrance into a land that flowed with milk and honey. He never got there. He saw, but he did not possess his heart’s desire.[3]

Jacob, of Old Testament fame wrestled – a graphic and apt but somehow unsuitable sounding word to the religious-minded crowd who want squeaky clean, unsoiled, and so largely untested biblical heroes. Jacob ‘wrestled’ with the Lord; a messy, sweaty business and noticeably, conspicuously limped for the remainder of his days. A limp is an indicator of limitation, of frustration, of imperfection.[4

What’s your limp look like? What’s your limitation? Your frustration? We all have one. Or two. Or more. Where did your limp come from? How did it come to be?

David, Samson, Peter, James, and on and on the list goes until it includes you and me and everybody we know – none of us gets through this life without challenge, difficulty, failure. None of us is perfect. None of us can claim that we are without imperfection, limitation; without the limp of life.

Paul’s resume’ doesn’t stop with “Not that I have reached the goal (of resurrection from the dead – consider this not physical death, but dying to himself, to his “old” nature and dying to the world that he might be raised in newness of life), but he writes to the Philippian church, “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.”[5]

The power of the resurrection cannot be known without our first becoming conformed to death.

We will never know perfection until we have tasted imperfection. We cannot experience full ability until we are intimately familiar with inability.

In Old and New Testament terms, we can’t know the value of Grace until we understand the weight and the price of the Law.[6]

We were all, every one of us born “in sin.” We entered this world with a fully functioning “sin nature.” In our original, seemingly innocent condition, as sweet, little infants, we each arrived with a proclivity for iniquity.

The purpose of our imperfection is to both reveal to us and to lead us to “that which is perfect.” And “perfection” has a name; it’s a person, and his name is Jesus. Paul’s explanatory continues: “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it (perfection), but one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made.”

My imperfection then is engineered by God’s own hand to produce, eventually, perfection. My limitation is designed to encourage and to enable me to press forward. John Wesley explains it as being “stretched out over the things that are before – Pursuing with the whole bent and vigour of my soul, perfect holiness and eternal glory. In Christ Jesus – The author and finisher of every good thing.”[7]

Wesley is careful not to ascribe the effort, the struggle, the process of perfection as the result of our own, valiant and persistent effort. His final, victorious declaration reveals that it is “Christ Jesus (in us) – The author and finisher of every good thing.”

Simply put, we cannot, by any measure of effort or valiant struggle or dogged determination be made perfect. “It is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”[8] “We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”[9]

No wonder the words of the Apostle ring loud and clearly through the ages until we find them resounding in our own hearts, “the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.”[10]

Perfection is achievable, attainable, reachable, only as we give way so that He can have his way in our lives, through our imperfections, in spite of our inadequacies, despite our limping, wobbling weakened conditions. So long as it is “Christ in you,” there is more than hope for your tomorrow; there is promise, divine promise, from the God who will never leave you, or forsake you and who cannot, in any sense, fail. [11]

The Hebrew writer discloses concerning those faithful saints of history, all these died, and “none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.[12]

And until then? Until the day of perfection? Until then, we see in part, we know in part,[13] we live in partial fulfillment of the promise that surely, one day will be achieved and we shall be presented, without defect or flaw, before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy —“[14]

[1] 2 Corinthians 2:7-10

[2] Philippians 3:12

[3] Deuteronomy 34:1-

[4] Genesis 32:22-32

[5] IBID

[6] Galatians 3:24

[7] Wesley’s Explanatory Notes

[8] Philippians 2:13

[9] 2 Corinthians 4:7

[10] Galatians 2:20

[11] Colossians 1:20

[12] Hebrews 11:39,40

[13] 1 Corinthians 13:9

[14]  Jude 24,25

Abandoned To Be Found

17 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in Discipleship, Encouragement, Pastoral

≈ 3 Comments

What images do these words conjure for you?

Abandoned

         Deserted

                      Discarded

                              Forsaken

                                      Alone

Whatever impressions emerge or pictures are drawn in your mind as you consider these words, it is likely that you have also experienced the feelings, the emotions, yes, the hurt and pain of abandonment or rejection.

Perhaps it was a parent – a mother or a father who abandoned you. Maybe it was a spouse or a child or a brother or a sister who rejected you. Those you believed were your friends, fellow “believers” in Jesus coldly and inexplicably forsook you and you found yourself suddenly and silently alone in your aloneness, shivering in the icy chill of your isolation, waiting in stunned silence for some sense, some understanding of what had happened, some reconciliation between what you thought you knew and believed and what you so painfully experienced.

Rejection and abandonment can come in a thousand costumes and speak with myriad voices. The effect, the result produced is always the same:

Rejection brings injury to the soul and anguish to the mind. Abandonment makes the heart grow weak, but more; desertion destroys self-worth. We learn early in life to discard what we do not need; what we do not want; what is not essential or profitable or useful or even acceptable.

Garbage is disposed of; trash is discarded. We keep only that to which we attach value.

An abandoned soul feels valueless, worthless, insignificant, useless.

A forsaken heart is more than empty and crushed and bruised and injured; it is a playground for devils, a gymnasium for demons.

From the soil of rejection flourish the sour fruits of bitterness, resentment and, dark, brewing rage. Implacable, stone-hearted and pitiless wrath proceed from hearts that have known the frigid winds of torment spawned by the uncaring, the unfeeling and the unaware.

From such renunciation Americans have become familiar with the name “Columbine” and “Red Lake High” in northern Minnesota and other, more recent scenes of torment and terror.

Most rejected and broken hearted people never pick up a gun or seek to lash out at others. There is no need and no desire. The slow, grinding suicide begun by the deadly injection of aloneness and friendlessness is as deadly as any bullet that ever roared in tortured anguish.

We cannot control if and when or by whom we will feel the lethal claws of abandonment.

What we can do, what we wield control over is our response to rejection. Options exist for the heart that was crushed. Brokenness may come, but annihilation is not inevitable. No soul that was crushed was ever beyond repair.

And there is Someone who knows…..feels….. empathizes…..understands….. cares, who is “touched by” our pains and who also possesses the power to heal even the most trampled upon and crushed heart. It was foretold of Him;

“I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice…He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.”

Who is this shining Knight; this Rescuer of offended hearts? Who is this Champion of the soul Who comes to right those who were wronged and to heal those who’s destruction seemed certain?

He came forth of misinterpreted illegitimacy and was raised in humble anonymity; He came forth from obscurity and moved about in lonely exile. He left His home country and renounced his nobility, He was self-effacing and pointedly unassuming. He sought nothing for Himself and was content by Himself.

He was “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

It is He Who “will bring forth justice for truth,” and God will hold His hand; “He will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.”

And to the One Who promised, “I will hold Your hand” hear the anguished cry from the central cross on that Crucifixion Day of all Days when Innocence was fixed to the Tree of Final Death: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

“Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him….” because He saw your face and knew your brokenness and He anticipated through forsaking Him, your wholeness.

This Man above men, “made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the    likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” So that He might see you, find you, know you, touch you, heal you, a bruised reed, tender, delicate, nearly too far gone to be repaired, but repairable in the Hands of a Master Physician.

And when we – you and I – accept and receive healing and restoration and the comfort of friendship with Him, we then carry within ourselves the knowledge, the ability and the sympathy to carry Him to another abandoned, rejected, forgotten heart, “that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

So, we reach to the “least of these.” We find ourselves among “orphans and widows.” We observe pure religion and undefiled before God because we become what He has always been; a Father to the fatherless; a Lover of the unlovely; a Friend to the friendless. A visitor of prisoners and a provider of a cloak, a meal, a home…a heart that knows, that feels, that sees, that understands.

Our Abandonment was essential for anothers Recovery

We were deserted so that we might learn to Salvage

                     Discarded so we could Recapture

                              Forsaken that we might Comprehend

                                         Alone that we might find the true Companion

What images are conjured in your heart? What scenes play before your mindscreen? Someone has been abandoned, deserted, discarded, forsaken. And who will notice? Who will go? Who will touch them in their brokenness and in their loneliness and who will bring them to the Forsaken One who alone has the antidote for this poison of the soul?

The Heart of the Matter: What God Wants…

17 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in Discipleship, Encouragement

≈ Leave a comment

It is beyond me, past my feeble ability to comprehend that the God of the Universe, the Creator of all that Exists, Lord of heaven and earth “wants” for anything.

David, King of Israel by a resume’ forged in the hills among sheep and pasture and lions and bears declared “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. . .” The verse has been rightly interpreted, “I shall have no lack.”

The word, “want” is “lack.” My mind grasps, struggles, and concedes as I try to comprehend that the God Who owns far more than the cattle on a thousand hills could possible lack anything.

But He does.

He wants; He needs for His creation to love Him,

and loving Him, to know Him,

and knowing Him, to commune with Him

and in communion with Him, to serve Him, to co-labor with Him.

God needs for man – for you and for me – to serve Him not because we fear hell and somehow by serving God our escape from hell is purchased. Our Creator needs for us to serve Him not because someone with religious power and authority demands that we serve Him. God desires that we follow Him and know Him because we are nothing without Him and because we desperately need Him even when we do not know that we need Him.

God is not Law, or Commandment or Duty or Obligation: God is Love.

He is Giver, Father, Lover of His creation; of all His creation, and the manifestation of God is the Son, Jesus. It was He Who gave us the revelation: “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” 
He chose those words carefully. He did not say “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Ruler of the earth or the Judge of all flesh or the Creator of all life,” but you have seen – “Father.”

In Jesus we look into the very heart of God and find there an unfathomable depth of compassion and love and mercy.

In Jesus we see God’s desire to come close to mankind. In Him we learn that God longs to make His home in our hearts so that He can draw near to the center of our brokenness and be close to our wounds and our fears and myriad struggles in our lives.

In Jesus we make the inconceivable discovery that God is willing to pay an exorbitant price to create intimacy with our fallen, muddied, life-torn souls. The terrible price of the Cross and its agony; a darkness and judgment and curse we can never comprehend was paid so that we might return to our Maker and in returning, find that He had moved to us before we had ever moved to Him.

We have a God with a heart. More than Righteous Judge, more than all-powerful Creator, more than all the adjectives and superlatives and descriptions both revealed and given, our God has a heart!

 We must know that truth; we must immerse ourselves in that reality, we must understand because when trials come, when pain presses us into near-insanity, when a baby dies for no rational purpose, when the cancer grows, when friends forsake us, we see the pain but we don’t see God and we don’t realize the miracle that is in process.

In the noise and in the confusion we don’t sense the restoration. It’s then and it is there we must understand the heart of God. The heart of our Father, God. 

When the pressure of life is applied, we must know that what Jesus did for a woman with an issue of blood; what He did for a lame man and a blind man, and a young, dead girl, He does for people today.

He restores us to a place of acceptance and blessing in the family. He renews our hope and gives us a future. He guarantees a time to come when death will be no more; a time and a place when crying and suffering and every pain will be forever erased.

We look into God’s heart and find there love and life and restoration. We discover passion and possibility. And only when we see God’s heart can we begin to understand what He meant when He revealed that David had a heart after His own heart.

The Key to finding the heart of God is to find the things God cares about and to find ourselves caring about those things. 

Jesus was asked by taunting Scribes “what is the first commandment?” The learned men who asked were not surprised when He answered, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.” These Scribes knew very well the proper response, but none could have imagined His next words, “And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

The Lord of life put in context in four, brief sentences the heart and the crux of all the Law and in the same moment, revealed for all who would hear, and for all who would see, the very heart of His Father God. And it is “love.” “. . . Love the Lord your God with all your heart. . .”

The heart first; not the soul or the mind or strength, but the heart. The issue, the heart of the matter, is the heart.

It was said of David “he will do all My will,” because he was “a man after God’s own heart,” God’s broken heart. 

He, Jesus is our peace, Who has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances so as to create in Himself one new man from the two; thus making peace and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. Oh, what an incredible, incomparable heart.

This incredible heart. This incomparable heart. The heart of God is pressed into us, “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Hearts of stone are impregnable, impenetrable, they are resistant to wounding by sword or spear or speech. Hearts of stone neither embrace nor notice when injury or despair or loneliness are present. Hearts of flesh are vulnerable, easily pierced, frequently wounded, repeatedly healed.

What heaven desires, what God is asking is for the divine-human exchange to take place, “Old hearts for new,” broken hearts for His broken heart. Hearts of stone replaced with hearts of flesh so that the world that surrounds us, the people who pass by our homes and who fill our streets and who buy their groceries alongside and all about us will know the heart of God through the pulse of our lives, because we, like David, King of Israel have hearts, have fleshy, vulnerable, loving “hearts after God’s own heart.”

The Compass, The Anchor and the Stormy Seas of Life

17 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by in Apostolic, Discipleship

≈ 3 Comments

We have arrived at an hour in the Church when there is much confusion, many questions and a multitude of heretofore unheard   and unexpressed doctrines and spiritual practices being promulgated by so-called “revivalists,” “apostles” and “prophets.” I have italicized these titles, because I am convinced that a fair number who claim such designations are not what or who they claim to be. This in no way is intended to denigrate the legitimate among us, but rather to differentiate between the true and the false.

Without doubt, no generation since the crucifixion of Jesus Christ has been faced with more questionable and previously unheard of teachings than the current generation of believers. This is a time when mature believers who have been grounded in the incorruptible Word of God must stand up and let their voices be heard. In the balance are potentially millions of souls who are naive, gullible or ignorant of the devices being employed to destroy their faith in the Sovereign God.

Sadly and dangerously, we also have come to an hour when anyone who questions currently claimed revelation or “present truth,” regardless of how spurious it might appear, is held in absolute contempt and disregard and is relegated to the ranks of the hyper-heresy hunters, doubters-of-everything good, and the Pharisaical accusers of the brethren or even as outright enemies of the Cross.

Because of the immediate and violent attacks any honest enquirer might be confronted with, many have been effectively silenced because of the scorn and retribution meted out by those who embrace extreme and extremely questionable doctrines.

The writer of this article has no reputation to protect and no empire to preserve, and thus welcomes any and all attacks from those who oppose honest questions from simple believers in Jesus.

I am only one voice, but I am a voice. I will not be intimidated by those who choose to indict my faith and insult my intelligence by hurling their own accusations. So long as God gives me breath, I will speak the truth as it is revealed in His holy, pure and incorruptible Word.

In this article, I have been kind I think, generous and even positive in my assessments of what I have witnessed by those involved in various Charismatic and Pentecostal movements, renewals and outpourings. I have not attacked and will not accuse any person; I refuse to condemn any individual. My observations are about doctrine and practice, and not personal criticism. I remain supportive, as a Brother in Christ to those with whom I disagree. This is about positions and practices and not personalities.

I have not accused any man or woman of being demonically controlled or of being adherents of New Age teachings. I have maintained the position that the Lord of Hosts would eventually reveal either the truth or the error of events in and around various revival movements. I believe that ultimately, a righteous and holy God will deal justly with those who would lead even one of His own elect astray. I continue to refrain from personal attack, even though those affected by this article may feel otherwise.

Finally, this writer is no enemy of renewal and revival; on the contrary, I have been both a student of revival and a participant of a powerful move of the Holy Spirit which began in my own life and church in 1995 and continued unabated until 2003. The effects of that move of the Spirit remain with me today. There are those who will make the claim that since “the voices of the former move of God will always condemn the current revival” I am obviously guilty of the same. I sincerely hope that is not the case.

Whenever I learn of moves of God here or revival there, my initial sense is always of support and not opposition. I caution anyone against attacking any revival before the fruit of that revival may be seen, and some fruit takes longer to appear than other fruit.

After spending many years (now 45) among Pentecostal and Charismatic fellowships, and after having seen the genuine, the precious move of the Spirit of God, the lives transformed, healed and set free, I also have witnessed abuses, excesses, gross error and rampant disregard for the solid Rock of God’s word. I am compelled to speak for the sake of the innocent and the hungry and for the future of revival in a world so desperately in need of a genuine visitation from heaven.

Gregory J. Austin, Th.D.

Approaching a trans-oceanic vessel from water level, an ocean-going ship appears monstrously huge. Its hull was laid with the effort of men and machines and with much sweat and muscle and exertion. Gazing at such a massive craft, one would likely not notice or pay attention to something as mundane and minuscule as a compass, or even an anchor. Yet without these two devices, any journey would be suicidal, for one provides direction while the other assures security. It is the compass that ensures the seaman of his course and of his eventual destination. It is the anchor which grips the sea floor and holds the vessel in place when wind and waves would shatter the ship on rocky shores.

If I have perceived anything regarding some current expressions of “revival” as manifested in various places around the world, neither instrument is prominent, and without both a compass and an anchor, an eventual collision between the ship of this revival and the jagged rocks of reality is inevitable.

The compass and the anchor of which I speak is the singular instrument of the Bible, the divinely written, inerrant, perfect, complete and holy Word of God: A book possessed by virtually every modern believer in Jesus Christ, but one which either is untouched by or largely unfamiliar to far too many Christians.

Biblical Knowledge has been Trumped by Spiritual Experience.

We live in an era of general biblical ignorance, where the value and emphasis of experiential Christianity trumps the old, “boring”disciplines of learning and applying the scriptures to one’s life. The Bible itself warns, when people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is happy (Proverbs 29:18 NLT). We want this verse to refer to divine guidance as experiential revelation, but the context of the verse leaves no room for misunderstanding, “. . . whoever obeys the law is happy.” The “Law” refers to The Book, The Word of God. Jesus explained that “you shall know the truth (His Word), and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). If freedom is what we as childrem of God desire, God’s word will take us there.

Experience Finds its Source in the Word of God, not the Reverse

Many have quoted the well used line, “A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.” That is a patently false, misleading and dangerous statement: If someone has an experience that flies full in the face of the revealed word of God, are we to accept that experience over and above the clear teaching of Scripture? If however a person reports an experience which is upheld by the Word of God, the very reliability of God’s word trumps any other experience, because all spiritual experience must flow from the word of God, and not the other way around.

Merely because someone physically shakes is not an indication that the Holy Spirit is the primary causa of that physical experience. Falling to the floor or being “slain in the Spirit” in itself offers no certain evidence that God is involved in the falling. Speaking with other tongues, or glossolalia, while impressive to the ear is not in itself necessarily expressive of the Spirit’s activity.

Physical responses, often called “manifestations” may be the result of the activity of the Holy Spirit, but they are not certain indicators of God’s presence. I’ve watched Satanists shake and Hindus fall to the floor in trance-like states. I am not persuaded that God is present just because someone shouts unintelligible syllables into a microphone. I’ve heard men shout “hula, hula, hula,” “boola, boola, boola,” and “yoi, yoi, yoi,” among other unintelligible phrases. I’ve never felt particularly spiritually encouraged or especially blessed in the hearing of these utterances. I am, however impressed when the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame walk.

Indeed if the Spirit’s work in an individual is to place him into a state of ecstasy wherein he can merely mumble incoherently, please tell me how that person will effectively be a witness for Jesus in the marketplace of men. Will a non-believer suddenly cast off his unbelief and embrace Christ if I chant, “hula, boola, moola” to him?

Heart and Character, Not Trances and Dances

The acid test of all spiritual encounters is this: What happens to the character of the person experiencing that manifestation? If I have been genuinely touched by God, should I not expect to be benefited in my heart and in my character? As has been said, “When a man is truly born again, even his dog ought to know it.” Any person touched by heaven will reflect something of heaven to those around him or her. That’s Bible: You can trust your life – your eternal life on that Book, and only on that Book.

I realize in making such a statement that there are believers, followers of Jesus who do not hold to a time-worn and time-tested reliance upon the Word of God as the singular infallible, divinely inspired, inexhaustible rule of faith and conduct. I recognize that in some Christian circles today, such language is considered out of date, pathetically cerebral, without anointing or unction, but, dear reader, those very terms – anointing and unction came to us not by a revival-spawned revelation but by anointed men of God, moved upon by the Holy Spirit.

The biblical phrase “inspired by God” in 2 Timothy 3:16 is translated from a single Greek word qeopneustos. The first word is qeos. It is the word for God. The second word is pnew which means “to breathe” or “to blow” and is also the verbal form of the Greek word pneuma, meaning “spirit.”

The resulting understanding from Second Timothy is that “all Scripture is God-breathed.” The very breath and Spirit of God is infused into the words of Scripture. This is why we refer to the Bible as the Word of God. If reliance upon the Word of God, the very God-breathed words of God is somehow unspiritual or out of date, what then may we rest our souls upon and in what may we place our trust for our eternal future?

In support of the veracity and genuineness of what many Charismatics and Pentecostals call renewal or revival, various devices outside the Bible have been utilized which, under scrutiny fail to bear the weight of authenticity. Following is a non-inclusive listing of the most objectionable teachings and or practices I have witnessed by the proponents some of these movements and the extreme prophetic, “mystical” movement.

1. Use of Well-Known Personalities to legitimize and justify an experience, renewal or revival. The appearance of and endorsement by known apostles within the Charismatic church is not an assurance of biblical accuracy or of ministry appropriateness.

It was no less a recognizable name than the Apostle Paul who declared, “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

I care not one whit if Smith Wigglesworth or John Wesley themselves are trooped across the stage in support of any so-called move of God; if their testimony is not consistent with the eternal word of God, their presence means absolutely nothing to me beyond the astonishment of seeing the dead raised to life.

With reference to well-known and beloved ministry personalities, I will doggedly hold to Paul’s counsel in Galatians 1:8, cited above. I may love and honor such persons, but they are not equal with or superior to the Holy Scriptures, the Word of God.

It is biblically and spiritually appropriate that we recognize and honor any man or woman whom God has used mightily, we are never encouraged by Scripture to place our trust or our hope in any human vessel. The world has never seen any faultless, complete or sinless figure outside of the Person of Jesus Christ Himself. To place final trust in any man or group of men is to invite spiritual disaster. God’s Word and not God’s creation must be our ultimate and final authority. This is especially and critically true with regard to those who claim prophetic gifting, calling and office. Vast numbers of hungry believers have been devastated because of foolish, presumptuous and even down-right silly so-called prophetic direction.

2. Relating with Contemporary Society by adopting the language and the behavior of the culture outside of Christ. Simulating the use of illegal drugs, and using the language of the illegal drug culture is not a legitimate way of reaching the “lost.”No exceptions and no apologies. Terminologies such as “Godka,” “Toking the Ghost,” “Jehovajauna” and “Holy Ghost Bartender,” among many others do great dishonor to the character and nature of a holy God. To reduce the Holy Creator of the Universe to a joint of marijuana or a bottle of alcohol is a crime I am convinced no true, sensitive follower of Jesus could ever allow him or herself to commit.

“Toking the baby Jesus” as was demonstrated in one online video is blasphemous. Strong language, I know, but the images I have viewed of such behavior also are strongly objectionable and trivialize the Holiness and the Purity of our God and of His Holy Spirit.

Further, consider one specific meeting where the leader advocated and demonstrated the procedure for locating and injecting a vein with heroin. The “leader” then mumbled, “that’ll hit you in about half an hour.” Imagine someone in that meeting who had recently (even not recently) been delivered from mainlining heroin or from any other illicit drug: How will that person respond to such a suggestion?

3. Use of New Age or Misinterpreted Terminologies and Practices will never be conducive to a true, Spirit-engendered practical theology and faith. I have listened to one “revivalist” use terminologies such as coming into the state of the “ecstasy” of God wherein he describes the spiritual states of “Mystical Union,” “Absorption Ecstasy” and “Concentration Ecstasy” as conditions that thirsty Christians should seek to experience. These terms are mentioned in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) where, on page 996 under the heading of “Prophet” (dealing specifically and exclusively with the question of how “holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” in 2 Peter 1:21) and hails to the unio mystica discussed by J. Lindblom in the aforementioned text.

From the ISBE, I quote regarding the unio mystica, or mystical union, “The ecstasy of the true prophets did not usually display itself in peculiar behavior, for their ecstasy was basically a private experience of the conscious reality of God’s presence. The prophets’ profound spiritual experiences should not, therefore, be confused with mystical experience, nor with the frenzied and irrational behavior of heathen prophets.” Please note that final sentence: “The prophets’ profound spiritual experiences should not . . . be confused with mystical experience, nor with the frenzied and irrational behavior of heathen prophets. “Hula, boola schmoola?”

4. Uncorroborated Testimonies of Healings and Raisings from the Dead. Nothing will kill the reputation of revival quicker and more decisively than making claims of miracle healings and raisings from the dead which cannot be substantiated by outside medical sources. Expecting believers and non-believers alike to simply “swallow” these claims without evidence is not only arrogant, but stupid. If a person were raised from the dead at a hospital, do you actually believe that no nurse, no physician, no friend or family member at that hospital would be aware of such a miracle, and be willing to talk about it?

Over the years, secular journalists who have heard reports of conspicuous miracles – the dead being raised, cancers dying, diseases disappearing, have sought to receive from the related ministries medical corroboration of such phenomena. Time after time, generalized testimonies and incomplete information, coupled with evangelistic gobbldy-gook has not only substituted for simple, direct medical evidence, but has also given the Church a black eye in the view of the unbelieving public. Verifiable testimonies and medical documents go a long way in substantiating claims made and establishing the veracity of any claimed move of God. Yet the media packet held no proof beyond names, locations and contact information which had been blacked out.

If God – not a contemporary evangelist or the Apostle Paul or Greg Austin – if God is raising the dead, we should expect to see evidence of these miracles. We should be able to see these people on camera, listen to interviews with them, and hear the astonished physicians’ statements of the veracity of these claims. These would surely honor God, but refusing to provide anything specific beyond claims that “we have X number of people raised from the dead and counting,” is both dishonest and dishonoring to God.

5. The Centrality of Angels and Apostles to the neglect of the true centrality of the Person of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does not desire to be noticed, but He always points our hearts to Jesus. The Holy Spirit has come to us to guide us into all truth: Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” The Holy Spirit magnifies Jesus. Never do we find the Holy Spirit exalting angels. Indeed, Paul asks the Corinthian church rhetorically, “do you not know that we will judge angels?” (1 Cor. 6:3).

Much emphasis today has been placed upon the title or office of Apostle. I have watched with some concern at what I believe is an unhealthy and unholy veneration of those called “Apostles.” As I read through the New Testament, I see the apostles as servants; men and women with hearts of humility and grace, who desired that the work of God and the Kingdom of God should be advanced far more than their own work and their own were benefited or that their own names should be known or remembered. The Bible speaks of apostles as “foundational” gifts to the church. These are they who establish and maintain the flow of spiritual ministry based upon the revealed word of God. Nowhere in scripture is there any indication that apostles should be worshiped, or their words taken as the inspired word of God. Apostles champion God’s word; they do not seek veneration from any man.

During His temptation, Jesus told the devil, “’You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve'” (Lk 4:8). To a Samaritan woman who desired to understand true worship, Jesus said, “worship the Father” in John 4.

When a messenger from heaven appeared to John in Revelation 19, John says, “. . . I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, “See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

When certain Greek seekers came to Philip, their request was straightforward: They said, “Sir, we would see Jesus.” The point in all these scriptures is that there is only One Who is worthy of our worship and our adoration. I thank God for those true apostles who quietly and decisively carry out their calling and their office, but a true apostle would be the first to warn us “don’t worship me.”

In all that I have said, I am not suggesting that no miracles have taken place in any revival or renewal atmosphere. I have listened to more than one testimony from individuals I personally know who have testified to receiving healing or miracles as they sought God during such meetings. But here is the key: They were seeking God. A principal upon which we may rely is this: God will not deny Himself, and if an honest seeker reaches out to God in faith, regardless of what personality may be present on a platform, God will honor such faith. One of the greatest dangers to any leader is to believe that when miracles are taking place in his meetings, he is somehow responsible for those healings.

The Word of God is the only reliable compass for negotiating the spiritual realms of life. The Word of God is the singular anchor that will hold us when the storms of life arise.

Any reliance upon any other device for direction, doctrine or practice than God’s inspired and immutable word; any use of so-called revelation that takes one beyond the boundaries of the revealed word will lead surely and ultimately to disaster.

Forgive my repetition, but it bears reiterating: “though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8).

There is no legitimate “progressive revelation” that will carry us beyond the parameters of “the faith which was once for all delivered.”

Jude writes (Jude 3) “Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.” Please observe, “the faith which was once for all delivered . . .” “Once for all.” There is no progressive revelation that will carry us beyond the parameters of “the faith which was once for all delivered.” The principles of the Word of God have been established for all time and eternity. The thrice repeated declaration of Jesus should settle our hearts on this matter: “heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall never pass away” (Mt. 24:35; Mk 13:31; Lk. 21:33).

God’s word is all inclusive; that is, whatever man needs to know or may know about the secrets of the Kingdom of God or the world to come has already been provided within the covers of our Bibles. If we waver on this crucial issue, we lose the whole structure upon which our faith is built.

May we grow in our understanding of the increasing depths of God’s word? Absolutely! Is God’s word so deep and so rich with spiritual truth and meaning that we may not, in a dozen lifetimes understand all its secrets? Without doubt. But once again, all the truth which may be known concerning faith and Christian practice is contained within God’s word.

There exist mysteries which finite man cannot know. There are unknown realms man cannot approach because we are creatures of time and space and not of eternity – yet. It was John, the Apostle who declared, “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 Jn 3:2).

Please notice, “it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.” There are unknowns, ambiguities, secrets unrevealed, undisclosed until the Day of Christ.

The natural instinct of man is a desire to teneo ultra, “know beyond.” When the serpent approached Eve in the Garden, her vulnerability was the thirst to “know beyond” what God had revealed. The entry point for the venom of sin was the desire to teneo ultra, to “know beyond.” The serpent played upon her desire for knowledge beyond what God had provided. While every tree God had placed in the garden was available to her and to Adam, one tree was forbidden of God to be touched. But the curiosity, the desire to “know beyond” what God had revealed drew Eve inexorably into sin like the mesmerized Ulysses of Homer’s Odyssey is drawn to the seductive song of the Sirens, who lured men to their death on the rocks around their island. Interestingly, Homer depicts the Sirens song promising “wisdom and knowledge of past and future.” And so Eve attempted to satisfy her desire for “wisdom and knowledge,” and in the process committed an act that would require the sacrificial death of God’s own Son to remedy.

New Age practitioners, cultists of every ilk, and myriad false religionists and magicians play upon the same, instinctual need to “know beyond” in order to ply their trades and fill their coffers. When a Syracuse, New York banker named David Hannum (not P.T. Barnum) proclaimed, “There’s a sucker born every minute,” he was merely affirming the truth that man wants to know and is willing to commit intellectual suicide or pay exorbitant material and perhaps eternal, spiritual fees in order to know even what cannot be known.

Many claims have been made by various revivalists of visitations to the “third heaven.” Support for those claims comes from Paul’s statements in Second Corinthians 12 of his own (singular, so far as we can read) translation into the third heaven. He writes, “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago–whether in the body I do not know, or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows–such a one was caught up to the third heaven.”

Follow Paul’s discourse regarding that incident in Second Corinthians, chapter twelve. Does he speak of revelations that surpass contemporary knowledge of the things of God? Does he reveal deep revelations of angelic encounters or of prophetic knowledge beyond what other apostles were aware of? Paul’s own words are notably absent of any such claims. In fact, he divulges no deep secrets to his readers. He speaks of “inexpressible words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” He makes no claims of super-revelation, he is decidedly not lifted up in pride and arrogance. He is silent about what he saw and heard while in Paradise, but instead tells us that he is careful not to boast of the experience, and even goes on to describe his personal caution.

He says, “I refrain, lest anyone should think of me above what he sees me to be or hears from me. And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.”

A Final Proverb

In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus and his men have landed on the island of the Lotus-Eaters, and Odysseus sends out a scouting party of three men who ate the lotus with the natives. This caused them to fall asleep and cease to be concerned about going home, with only a desire to eat the lotus.

Odysseus went after the scouting party, and dragged them back to the ship against their will. He set sail, with the drugged soldiers tied to the rudder benches to prevent them from swimming back to the island. Unrealized by the stupefied sailors, Odysseus not only is saving their lives, but he is returning them to the true desires of their hearts; to their homes.

After a life of pursuing truth and the knowledge of God’s Son, the Apostle Paul bursts forth with the heart-cry, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Philippians 3:10).

There are, I fear, those who only desire to “eat the lotus” and not to know the Jesus Whom Paul pursued and was willing to lose everything in order to find.

My heart cries out for these “scouting parties” who have fallen prey to the “lotus” of false spiritual experience and subjective revelation. I want to reveal the truth of God’s word, and with Odysseus, drag them back to the ship of faith in order to save their eternal lives.

The false, temporal substitute of the Lotus – of temporary psychological, emotional, physical manifestation and experience crumbles and falls to the earth in pieces when confronted with the superiority and supremacy of a solid and true faith and experience in the Christ of God’s Word and in the Word of God’s Christ.

I am thankful to God for the Compass of His Word and the Anchor that holds us in the swelling tide. “On Christ, the Solid Rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

Several years ago in Derry, Northern Ireland, I was conversing with Clive Price, a free-lance journalist from England, (Now a resident of Northern Ireland). We were discussing the very topics I have written about here. Speaking about certain extreme practices and unsupportable claims I said, “Clive, I believe God is calling the church to clean up its act, and if we won’t clean up our act, the world will do it for us, and the world won’t be benevolent when it starts cleaning.”

The Universal Quest for Relevance, Part II

01 Wednesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Discipleship

≈ 2 Comments

It May Be the Devil, or it May Be the Lord

There are words that society uses to indicate weakness, defeat, setback and a host of negative terms and conditions. From our earliest conscious moments we are taught the concepts of winning and losing. Submission, surrender, yielding, obedience to another, these are taught as negative responses to life and so we tend to develop a certain stubborn resistance to anyone or anything claiming superiority or dominance over us. In the late 1960’s, rebellion, resistance, rejecting the social order of a previous generation characterized a rising tide of “anti” attitudes and developing life-styles among young people in Western culture. The enemy of a growing, defiant segment of society became a vague image known as “the establishment.” Paul Anka echoed the attitude of self-centeredness and self-fulfillment when he wrote the song that Frank Sinatra would make famous called “My Way.” Anka and Sinatra and Presley and all those who sang the song with great conviction and with deep emotion were wrong. Consider these words of the final verse of the song,

For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels; And not the words of one who kneels. The record shows I took the blows – And did it my way!

Yes, it was my way.

Holy Scripture indicates a day and an hour in the which “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Anka’s “My Way” asks, “…what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught.” No, what a man has, what anyone has that will stand the test of eternity is full and complete submission, total surrender to the Lordship of Jesus. Submission, surrender, yielding, obedience to Christ; those words and the attitudes we were taught to abhor as children are the very words and attitudes that will enable us to gain eternal life. The Bible record is replete with stories of people who rejected the rule of God over their lives and suffered eternal grief as the result. One man, Saul of Tarsus sought to live a perfect and God honoring life without surrendering his heart and soul to Jesus. His quest for self-righteousness brought him into the dirt of a pathway where he found himself blinded and terrified at the voice of the One who would he later would confess with great gladness was his Master. Saul, turned Paul at his conversion would wear the label “bond-servant” with great affection and joy. Paul learned the glory of surrender and the honor of subordination and wrote throughout the New Testament to underscore the absolute necessity of a life-submission that would bring to mankind a freedom broader and deeper than any human association could provide. Continuing with the disclosure that song lyrics can provide, think about those written by Bob Dylan in his song, “Gotta Serve Somebody.”

You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side You may be working in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair You may be somebody’s mistress, may be somebody’s heir.

You’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody, Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

And since it is true, we will serve somebody, whether that “somebody” is a person, a thing, an addiction or an attitude, we all, regardless of every effort to the contrary will find ourselves serving “somebody.” And we cannot serve more than one master. Jesus said in attempting to serve both God and earthly treasure and affluence we will love the one and hate the other. Here is how He said it: “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Notice that Jesus did not say that money is evil or that we ought to live as paupers but that serving money and its apparent power is the antithesis to serving God (because the apparent power of money becomes a substitute for total reliance on God for our lives and our livelihoods). In spite of all the philosophical dancing and rationalizing and justifying that so many of us have become adept at performing, we all, willingly or unwillingly, consciously or unwittingly will serve “somebody.” And there is room only for one master in our lives. And the choices of master distill to these: It’s God or mammon, God or money; we will bow either to the supremacy of God or the muscle of money. Oh yes, we can serve the masters of alcohol or drugs or relationships or sports or a plethora of false and man-made gods, but these all are condensed to that term Jesus used: “Mammon,” “money” and the perceived power that money can purchase. Billy Graham once opined that he had never seen a U-Haul trailer attached to a funeral coach. When we leave this world and this life, our money and all its supposed power ceases to be a factor in either our destination or our eternal condition. Money leaves the playing board upon death. God continues to be God. And serving God is not an onerous thing, because “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, (physical, temporal satisfactions) but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. When God is our Master, we have peace and joy. When He is in control of our lives, we are not tossed about by the storms and the tempests of life. When we have submitted to Him, He is our Protector, our Provider, our Peace and the place of rest and comfort for our souls. When God is in charge, I can be assured that though I may not know the way forward, and though the future may be a cloudy and imprecise thing I know that I can face any future, and overcome any obstacle because,

I know Whom I have believed, And am persuaded that He is able To keep that which I’ve committed Unto Him against that day.

To believe on Him is to submit to Him, to entrust our eternal souls to His care and to His wisdom and to His way. To submit to Him is to confess that He, Jesus is Lord of our lives. To make Him Lord and Master is to find ourselves and in finding ourselves, to know peace and joy and comfort and the fulfillment of the desires of our hearts. As Mr. Dylan sang, “You’re gonna have to serve somebody,” and I hope that it’s the Lord.

Quote

The Universal Quest for Relevance

30 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Discipleship

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

I do not know if ever I have met a man or a woman who did not at some place and for some purpose desire to be relevant; to be of some value to someone. Even the several disheveled, aimless and mentally detached men and women I have met in more than six decades of life have at some time and in some place and manner wanted to know that their lives meant something to someone.”

Simply stated, all of us enter this world with the embryo of desire for relevancy

What is it that makes a man truly a man or a woman, essentially a woman? Biology indicates gender, but gender does not inevitably denote “maleness” or “femaleness.” These qualities are much more than physical attributes or timbre of voice.

When we speak of “manhood” and “womanhood” we nearly always have more in mind than physical appearance. Masculinity and femininity do not derive from the blue or pink colors or from our attraction to toy trucks or Barbie dolls or a wardrobe of blue jeans or dresses. The qualities of maturity appear as a person develops, as he or she grows, matures, changes, and learns.

The Strong Submit; The Weak Resist

A key to becoming a mature, fully developed man or woman lies in the seeming contradiction of submission. A mistaken philosophy of life teaches that a man or a woman should never submit to any external force; that maturity and strength are manifested in resistance to submission. Those who would forge their own unique destinies, those who would move through life giving no quarter to anyone and requesting none by any are held up by society as the strong men or women of a culture.

Up is Down and Down is Up

Jesus Christ brought to earth a Kingdom not of this world. He said, “ . . . he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

The greatest of men ever to appear on earth’s ageless stage appeared as a servant of all. The inescapable reality of human maturity and purpose is found in this:

“Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.” Jesus not only said it, but He did it; He modeled His teaching by laying down His life in the most painful and horrific manner our minds might imagine. He who was and remains the greatest among us served us, making Himself “of no reputation,” humbling Himself.

He, the King of all kings, the Lord of all lords and the very maker of the universe humbled Himself, laid down His rights, His position, His crown, His life and suffered humiliation, mockery, horrendous physical abuse and watched His very life flow from overburdened veins and from pierced flesh until all that remained were the words, “It is finished.” Jesus, the Master of all that exists, submitted to death, became its Prisoner, was held in death’s spiteful grip – God Himself submitted so that we could reign; Heaven’s great Architect drew the very blueprint of our redemption through the strongest act of history – through submission, obedience and full surrender He became Master of all.

There is something intrinsic within the heart of man that struggles with the idea that someone or something may hold mastery over us.

Jesus appeared among us as a servant of all, while at the same time teaching us that in order to find true freedom, true liberty of the soul He must be Master over us. In His mastery and in our submission to His rule He promised that His yoke, His burden would be easy to receive and would be light to carry. His Mastery is not burdensome, yet the stubborn heart and the unsubmitted soul resist surrender at virtually all cost.

If only we might have eyes to see and ears to hear: Jesus is the Master Who enables man to master the base things, the fruitless, the profitless things; those things that would ensnare and quite literally master us. The subtle yet undeniable truth is this: Only in submitting to The Master do we find true freedom from the bondage of the profitless and the peace of true mastery of life’s deceptions and snares.

Relevancy is Found in Relinquishing our Rights

We must learn the hidden truths that stand in stark relief against a desolate and gloomy landscape of mediocrity: It is in surrender that we find victory; in losing, we win. It is when we concede defeat that we discover conquest. In giving up our rights we find new privilege; in yielding we learn to bend but not to break. In dying we find new life.

A Child of the King

No position is so powerful and no place is so secure as recognizing that one is the child of the most benevolent and authoritative King of all that exists, both in this world and in worlds to come. There exists no higher position or greater station than to know that one is a child of the King; and not a king such as has been represented among fickle and capricious men. The King of which I speak is the Faithful God and the Lord of glory. He is the “Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” He is “the bright and morning star” and “He is fairer than ten thousand.” “He is fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into His lips: therefore God has blessed Him forever.”

To surrender to one so majestic, to submit to one so pure, so holy and so just, so loving, so kind, so humble and so great is more than wisdom; surrender to Him is life itself.

A man more brilliant than the catalog of scholars and thinkers of earth’s ages identified himself as “bondservant.” The Apostle Paul defined his very relationship with Jesus as one of servant and Master.

In the ultimate search of the human heart for relevance in this life, the starting point, the genesis must be submission, surrender, yieldedness to the Master, the One who laid down His rights, His position, His power and His life so that you and I might live and move and have our being as bondservants, and as true examples of men and women made free by our willing captivity to the King who truly makes us free.

One Thing, In A World Filled With Options

25 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by in Discipleship

≈ 1 Comment

Our modern and sophisticated world is filled with an almost unlimited number of choices: Choices of where we will live, what we will do, what we will eat and wear and what kind and color of car will deliver us to a variety of shops that offer every color, texture, convenience and feature imaginable. We live, simply put, in a world of options. OneThing The ability to multi-task has never been so valuable in our world of instant communication through assorted means – the telephone has become almost extinct as a communication aid as Twitter and Facebook and social networking and microblogging and video sharing and podcasting and electronic tablets and cell phones make it possible for us to stay in touch, conduct our business, check on family, visit with friends and fill our grocery cart, all at the same time. There was a time when these were limited, often nonexistent, and some of us pine for that simpler, more unobtrusive time. Dr. Alan Weiss has entitled his most recent book, “Complexity Can Paralyze Us.” Weiss writes, “We are lost in a world of choice.” Indeed, we are often overwhelmed to the point of the loss of our natural mental judgment (“common sense”) by the choices presented to us. We agonize over which grocery store to visit and once there, we wrestle with which brand to purchase with what ingredients and regular size, family size or super size for what price. Take me into Baskin-Robbins for ice cream and I freeze like the 31 flavors offered there. We finally get a break and determine to dine at a quiet restaurant and relax a bit until we are confronted with a dizzying array of menu options – and in our stressed out condition, can’t decide which entrée to order. Some enjoy the smorgasbord; they love variety of choice and endless options. When it comes to eternal matters they embrace an “all roads lead to heaven” approach. What does it matter, they insinuate, if we follow Buddha or Lord Krishna, or Jehovah or Allah. After all, the only thing that truly counts is sincerity, isn’t it? I mean, if I am sincere in my belief, if I truly believe in whatever god or deity or way or system of religious creed does it matter what that belief is, so long as I am honest and sincere? Simple logic would demand that it does matter, even as it matters if one intends to travel in a northerly direction but drives due south: Whatever destination one has in mind will never be found no matter how sincere one believes that driving south will lead him north. Some cry, “foul!” We want a God who gives us more options, more choices. It’s not fair, we contend that He makes the way so narrow and the options so restricted. Can’t we have a choice of who we will worship? Of which tree will provide our sustenance? Those choices didn’t work out well for our first parents: They surely won’t work better for us. In this chaotic and frenetic world of options, choices and preferences, when it comes to the state and the future of our eternal souls, options are severely limited, and for that I am abundantly glad. The Holy Scriptures declare that “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” than the name of Jesus. Those same Scriptures instruct us, “Jesus said . . . I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” “There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus.” The Apostle Paul made it forever clear and settled when he wrote to the church at Ephesus,

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.

There we have it: No options, no choices, no multiplicity of preference: If we want to see God the Father, if we want to spend eternity in heaven, if we want to be sure and convinced of our election and our position with Him forever, He has made it simple and plain: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved.” I may not understand all the depths and the mysterious nuances of theology; I may not speak or read or write in the original languages of the Bible, but I can understand simple things, and the simplest of things was made known and available to us in Jesus Christ, “believe” and we are “saved.” One of the greatest theologians to have grace our planet, Dr. Karl Barth was asked during a 1962 tour of the United States, what had been the most momentous theological discovery of his long life. His answer was ‘Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'” Plumbing the depths of available options and offerings, Dr. Barth (rightly) concluded it’s as simple as this: “Jesus Christ, who loves me and who is God’s only begotten Son is the only way to obtain eternal life.” Believe, and be saved. It’s just that simple. I may not have made the perfect choice in the clothing I wear or the car I drive or the computer I use or the phone that connects me to the friends I’ve chosen, but this I can be assured of: When we talk about faith and the future and where we will go when we leave this earth and this life, there is One Thing that is certain: Only one thing will admit us into heaven: Belief on the name and in the veracity of the claim of one man: The Man, Jesus Christ. I’m glad when it comes to eternal life, the options are limited, the choices are minimized and standing before us, with nail-scarred and open hands is One Man: And that Man, the Lord Jesus Christ bids us open the door of our heart and let Him enter in.

The Hiding Place

23 Thursday Oct 2014

Posted by in Discipleship

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

What do you do when the dark shadow of impending doom obscures your world, when darkness steals the light and threatens to undo all that you have built, acquired, cultivated?

I grew up in tornado country, where radio and TV stations broadcast frequent watches and warnings. We developed a good sense of atmospheric awareness when tornadic conditions were developing and with that awareness we also developed a “ho hum” attitude towards these twisting destroyers. We believed that we were impervious to the black funnel clouds that ripped through other communities, other cities in other states. We were sure of it: no tornado would ever threaten or visit our home.

Something horrible had happened in the night, and I had no way of knowing what scenes would greet me on my arrival home.

But once, after concluding a business meeting in Houston I was driving north on Interstate 35 when I picked up a radio station signal from my hometown. The news was bad: A tornado had thrashed through my city in the night hours. Specific information was unavailable. I only knew that destruction had come in spite of my certainty of our invulnerability. There was nothing I could do except drive and pray.

I prayed for my family and my neighbors. This calamity happened years before the advent of the cell phone and so I stopped at every gas station I saw looking for the then ubiquitous phone booth. I dialed the numbers only to learn that telephone lines were down, preventing me from knowing about casualties or damage. Something horrible had happened in the night, and I had no way of knowing what scenes would greet me on my arrival home.

As it turned out we were blessed as a city and as a family. Although there was much property damage the fierce winds caused few injuries.

Planet earth is reeling as 2014 draws towards its conclusion. Catastrophic and terrible events jostle for attention as the media attempts to quantify and qualify accelerating and intensifying tragic incidences. We are bombarded 24 hours a day with tragedy and calamity, with dread and with portents of doom.

Words that never existed in our vocabulary are now spoken by the least informed among us: “Ebola,” “ISIS,” “Al Qaeda,” “Al Shabab” have become household names. Fears of economic catastrophe, wild, unpredictable and devastating weather events jockey for our attention and threaten to upset our lives and our livelihoods. For believers in Jesus, persecution grows each day from a hazy, distant recognition of possibility to real, potential intimidation.

Satan’s goal . . . destabilize, disrupt, demoralize

Jesus’ prediction of a time when men’s hearts would fail them “from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth” seems to have arrived amidst our generation. Then, He said, “the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Satan’s goal, if he cannot overwhelm the people of God is to destabilize, to disrupt and to demoralize Christ’s followers until they either fold in fear or scatter in confusion.

Two thousand years ago, when the cross had been shorn of its burden of death and when Jesus’ body had been removed and relocated to its apparent resting place, the disciples of Jesus seemed to be followers no more. History records that these disappeared from public view. Hiding away during those hours between the lordship of death and the Lord of resurrection, “men’s hearts” failed them from fear and the expectation of those things which were coming on the earth.”

During the three days between crucifixion and resurrection, “the powers of the heavens” were indeed “shaken.”

The strongest of the disciples hid “for fear of the Jews.” The disciples were “afar off,” putting distance between themselves and the One who hung on the cross. They had been with Him, had been seen with Him, what if they were next to die as He had died?

Hiding-Place

Scripture records “He appeared to them.” “He stood in their midst.” “Although the doors were locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them: Peace be with you.”

Have you locked your doors to the infiltrations of the world? Have you hidden away “for fear” of the enemies of God? Do portents of evil debilitate and drain away your strength? If so, be prepared for Jesus to “appear” to you, to stand in your midst in spite of locked doors and amplified fears and to speak to you the words of life, “Peace be with you.”

It was He, the Prince of Peace who said, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

His word to us on this day in 2014 is the same as it was to His followers two thousand years ago: “… in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Heaven’s message to God’s children resonates in the midst of an atmosphere of growing dread: “Have patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations, and endure.” “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble” and He will give we who are troubled rest when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels.”

And if you can receive it, Jesus is revealed today, in this moment, as your eyes read these words and as your spirit awakens to His presence. And as He appears, peace flows out, surrounding and comforting and encouraging you to rest in the arms of the Prince of Peace.

This world will be shaken to its very foundation. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, but those who have established their lives and their futures on the Rock of Jesus Himself shall never be shaken and shall never fall. The One who upholds all things by the word of His power, Himself guarantees it.