Captivity

Philippians 4:8 NIV

 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.

What Is On Your Mind?

A number of years ago before I was married I went on a white water rafting trip with some friends.  The most memorable part of the trip was a turn in the river that we reached with the water rushing beneath us in a torrent.  We were fast approaching a giant boulder on the left and our raft leader urged us to paddle as hard as we could to try and get the boat to turn to the right of it. We were all just normal people, some a bit more athletic than others but none of us were professional paddlers.  We whacked at the water with our paddles but clearly we didn’t give it our best because rather than missing the boulder we ran straight up it; three fourths of our raft out of the water resting upon the side of the giant granite rock.  As soon as we hit the boulder with a crash, the fellow on the front of the raft was popped out of it by the force of the impact and went flying ten feet up in the air, over the boulder and into the pool of water beside it.  Our eyes were as big as plates as we watched him shoot up in the air out of the raft.  Fortunately he did not hit any rocks, his life jacket kept him afloat and as soon as we worked the rubber raft off the boulder, we collected him from the icy water and continued careening down the river.  The raft leader never criticized us for not paddling hard enough to avoid the great boulder; we all knew we had avoided a great tragedy when our fellow rafter missed the rocks in his flight but we learned our lesson.  From that point onward, when our leader ordered us to paddle hard, we gave it all we had.

Looking back, it was not our bodies that failed us, it was our thinking.  We all decided individually that we were putting our best effort into paddling when we weren’t.  The thought each of us had was “I don’t need to work any harder than I am.  Of course I was wrong in how I thought and so was the person paddling next to me….all of us were wrong but nonetheless our thoughts controlled our actions.  It has always been that way for every person who has ever lived.  What you think decides what you do.  In each situation you face you might have a multitude of thoughts, some contradicting others but eventually a thought wins the moment and you do something or don’t do it.  You decide you need a new top and so you buy it.  You think you have been treated badly and you get upset.  The thought comes to you that your hair is too long and so if that thought persists, you get your hair cut.  We are both the masters and prisoners of our thoughts.  Our thoughts take us along like the rush of a mighty river and deposit us wherever they choose…unless of course we use our paddles and push against the force of the current.

A few years ago I read of a songwriter who composed and did the lead vocals on a fairly popular Christian song.  Its theme was healing and it was autobiographical.  The fellow had experienced a miraculous healing from cancer.  He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer but through prayer was cancer free.  As a result he wrote his song about believing in miracles.  There was only one problem.  He had faked his illness and fooled even his wife into thinking he had cancer.  For months he gave his testimony at concerts in vast arenas and his song climbed the charts.  It all came crashing down however when his hoax was uncovered.  Even now though, the song is sung in churches and by popular Christian groups.  Why did this nice Christian man pretend he had cancer?  We cannot say for certain but we do know that the decision to do so was the result of thoughts running through him that he did not reject or disable.

Throughout the Bible we find examples of good people who did things that seem absurd or in contradiction to who they appear to be.  Yet all we do, like them, whether good or bad, is the result of thoughts we create or accept.  Why would someone like David commit adultery with the wife of one of his bravest soldiers?  He did not stop the thoughts he had that he needed to have Bathsheba regardless of what was right or wrong.  Those thoughts grew in size and strength until his conscience was swamped by them.  Why did Ananias and Sapphira decide to pretend to the people of the church that they were giving to God all the proceeds of the sale of their property when they weren’t?  Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property.  With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land?  Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." (Acts 5:1-4 NIV) It was Ananias’s thoughts that poisoned his actions and corrupted his life with God.

We see this with Miriam who despite the respect and prestige she enjoyed as a part of her brother Moses’s inner circle of leadership, she did not think he deserved to have as much honor as he garnered among the people.  He had after all married a Cushite wife and the thought of how atrocious this was perverted Miriam’s heart so much that she tried to unseat Moses as leader of God’s people.  It is so strange, this bitterness she harbored, and yet we see the same phenomenon in every strata of life.  Families are ruined because of bitter thoughts, careers are wrecked because of poisoned ruminations and the world is filled with chaos as a result  of resentful thinking that goes unchecked.   Consider the terrible depression of Saul, the first king of Israel.  He could have no peace because he would not stop thinking that David was trying to take his throne from him and that the people would welcome David as Saul’s replacement.  When the men were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out from all the towns of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs and with tambourines and lutes.  As they danced, they sang, "Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands."  Saul was very angry; this refrain galled him. "They have credited David with tens of thousands," he thought, "but me with only thousands. What more can he get but the kingdom?"  And from that time on Saul kept a jealous eye on David. (1 Samuel 18:6-9 NIV)

Ponder the painful circumstance of Naomi’s unhappiness.  She lost her husband and both her sons and the misery that brought her became unshakable.  When she returned to her hometown of Bethlehem, Naomi told her friends that they should no longer refer to her by her given name.   "Don't call me Naomi," she told them. "Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. (Ruth 1:20 NIV)  Yet at the root of Naomi’s melancholy were her thoughts that insisted she had no happiness in her cup and God was her enemy.  We all have felt some level of this kind of misery at one time or another if we have lived a little and suffered great trials but it is the thoughts we let have life in us that keep us unhappy and prolong our depression.  The Bible insists that we are responsible for our thoughts and it is not the circumstances we face that determine our internal state but rather the way we handle our thoughts.

Regardless of what is happening, whether good or bad, difficult or easy, we are capable of managing our thoughts so that we are never miserable or bitter or overcome by rage.  God insists that with Him a part of our thinking, we can change our thoughts so that we are more peaceful and joyful.  Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things. (Philippians 4:8 NIV)  You decide if you will do this.  It is not up to anyone else to help you here.  Circumstances do not decide this.  In your heart, you choose the content of your thoughts.  Lovely things or miserable things, pure thoughts or lustful thoughts, noble concerns or corrupt ideas; all of this is up to you as to what you will roll over in your mind.  We all know this is so but we most of the time ignore it, choosing to accept the fairy tale that it is what happens to us that determine our thoughts. 

Never forget that your thoughts don’t form in a vacuum.  There are two spiritual forces at work in your mind.  At all times they are jostling for dominance in the formation of your thoughts.  They never sleep, never take a break.  Either the Satanic kingdom is influencing your thinking most or Christ and the Kingdom of God.  Don’t blame either though because you decide who of the two you let roam about in your mental home.  You control the doors and you decide who takes charge.  You choose either to have God thoughts or Satan thoughts.  Although it is the Apostle Paul offering the challenge through the Holy Spirit, it can be either Satan or Jesus making this declaration.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me — put it into practice.  (Philippians 4:9 NIV)  If it is Christ you decide to follow and His Word you have generating your thoughts, then a miracle will occur.  As you close your mind to Satan and put into practice what the Lord has told you in Scripture, God will join you in your thinking and be a part of your inner world.  And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4: 9 NIV)

Your thinking is often rooted in habit.  If you regularly think about your frustrations, disappointments, mistreatments and lusts, that sort of thinking will be ingrained in you and it will be hard to remove.  But if you frequently give your mind a break from evil and think about God and what you have read in Scripture and ways that you can bless and help others, your thoughts will grow increasingly peaceful and happy and contented.  Here is a habit you could develop that will help you.  Each hour turn your thoughts over to Christ with a simple little prayer.  “Lord Jesus, help me see things as you do.”  “Lord God of all peace, cleanse my thoughts of all dirty and bitter content.”  “Father, guide my thinking so that it is righteous and holy.”  Follow the prescription of the Bible and take your thoughts captive, not letting them rule over you but ruling them with the power the Holy Spirit has given you to be in charge of what you think.

Purpose

Ruth 1:18 NIV

 When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.

Do You Have A Plan For Making Lives Better?

When I first became pastor of our church, a group of us went down to Southern California to attend a conference led by Rick Warren.  He was a popular speaker whose book, The Purpose Driven Church was widely acclaimed and becoming a framework for how thousands of congregations were being developed.  I knew that not everyone among us would agree with what Warren was advocating but I hoped that we all would get something of value out of the seminars.  It was a good time of bonding for us as we each processed what was shared and how we might put into practice what we learned.  We came back and had every intention of trying to have a “purpose driven church” like what Warren described but it did not go quite like we hoped and although we did reshape the direction of our church, it never approached anything we saw at Saddleback.  One thing I noticed though was that in trying so hard to make a difference with our church, I in some aspects lost my way.  I put much more thought and effort into the mechanics of the church rather than into my place within the church.  I forgot a foundational premise of the life of a congregation.

Because you are busy, perhaps really busy, the last thing you need is one more assignment, one additional duty.  It is ironic that the more devices we gain that make our lives easier and more manageable, the less time we seem to have to be human.  The cell phone has as we all know become a substitute for real life and real people.  If you are like most, you spend more time fussing about the lives of those you never will meet than caring about the ones you actually have with you.  Social media is frequently not much more social than two robots passing data between each other.  In it all, we have too often lost the desire or maybe more likely, the skill set needed to have closeness with those actually in our physical space.  It is of course much easier to converse with friends who cannot see your warts and deficiencies but only have an icon representing you in front of them.  Yet are we losing our humanness by not talking with actual people that we can physically touch?  If we don’t give someone time to grow with us and develop real closeness, are we missing something critical to being Christian?

Moses has for years intrigued me.  Perhaps he might interest you also.  He is full of contradictions and complicated personality traits.  Perhaps what makes him so fascinating is that we know so much about him and yet there is a tremendous amount of mystery to him.  What effect did it have on Moses surviving the Egyptian massacre of fellow Hebrew infants?  How did he reconcile his own life of luxury and privilege with the poverty his parents and siblings suffered?  What led him to believe that he was meant to lead the Israelites out of slavery and then why did he give up on the idea until he was eighty?  What sort of psychological damage did he suffer when his fellow Israelites rejected him after he stood up to the Egyptian who was beating the Israelite slave?  Did Moses’ disjointed upbringing damage his ability to be a husband and father?  How did Moses’ early life experiences impact his leadership style?  What sort of person was Moses really?  The Bible tells us that he was the humblest man on earth but how did that look?

For all the trouble Moses seemed to have with people, whether it was his brother and sister, the leaders of the Israelites or the contentious and bitter relationship he had with Pharaoh, Moses maintained for forty years a close friendship with his successor who took over leadership of the Israelites once Moses died.  Before Moses began mentoring Joshua, we know absolutely nothing about him.  He was forty years younger than Moses and from the tribe of Ephraim but for some reason at a young age he became Moses’ assistant.  Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses' aide since youth… (Numbers 11:28 NIV)  It is kind of humorous to hear the Scripture tell us that Joshua had served along with Moses since youth as he probably did not meet Moses until he was nearly forty.  Of course we are talking about two men who lived to be one hundred and ten and one hundred and twenty respectively so perhaps when you live that long, at forty you are still a kid. 

He was constantly at Moses’ side.  He went up onto Mount Sinai both times with him and was there when the Lord gave Moses the Ten Commandments and the Law.  Then Moses set out with Joshua his aide, and Moses went up on the mountain of God. (Exodus 24:13 NIV) Joshua camped in the Tabernacle with Moses and served as its guardian while Moses went out among the people passing along the instructions that had come from the Lord.  The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent. (Exodus 33:11 NIV)  Joshua was hand-picked by Moses to lead the Israelites into their first battle. The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim.  Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men and go out to fight the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill with the staff of God in my hands." (Exodus 17:8-9 NIV)  It was in fact Moses who changed this young assistant’s name from Hoshea to Joshua much like Jesus did with Peter.  Joshua means, “the Lord saves” and it is the Hebrew form of the Greek name “Jesus”.  Joshua was with Moses during his magnificent triumphs and his heart-wrenching trials.  When it was time to pass along the mantle of leadership it was, as the Lord put it, his “assistant” who the Lord chose to guide Israel into its conquest of the Promised Land.  But your assistant, Joshua son of Nun, will enter it. Encourage him, because he will lead Israel to inherit it. (Deuteronomy 1:38 NIV) 

When it was time for Moses to hand over the reins of leadership, there was a supernatural component to it.  Moses not only established a lasting friendship with Joshua and gave him the opportunity to be there with him during the most important times of his later life, he also gave Joshua the important aspect of what made him such a great man.  The Scripture tells us that when Joshua took over as leader of Israel, he was ready for the job.  Now Joshua son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him. So the Israelites listened to him and did what the Lord had commanded Moses. (Deuteronomy 34:9 NIV)  Why was that?  It is because Moses “laid his hands on him.”  He passed along to him the Spirit of God.  This is not some training strategy or discipleship technique.  It is a supernatural work of God accomplished through the physicality of being human.  God ordered Moses to make Joshua the inheritor of the life he had with God so that he could accomplish his mission in life.  But commission Joshua, and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land that you will see." (Deuteronomy 3:28 NIV)

We see these same kinds of relationships throughout the Bible, perhaps not with the detail as the teaming of Moses and Joshua described in Exodus to Joshua but they all have the same components.  God’s people are seen in Scripture building relationships with others so that they might pass along to them the life they have in God: Naomi with Ruth, Elijah with Elisha, Samuel with David, Paul with Timothy.  Why not add your name to the list.  You have been given a mandate by God to pass along to others what you have in Christ.  It is not an optional plan; it is the command of God.  Therefore go and make disciples of all nations… (Matthew 28:19 NIV)  This is not some high level spiritual directive given to super Christians.  It is your call from Christ to build up someone else and help that person reach his or her potential as a child of God.  One person in this world needs you to be a mentor, a conduit through whom the Lord pours His spirit.  You too must touch someone like Samuel did and Moses did and Naomi did.  No more of this long distance Facebook spirituality only.  It is time you let God use you to be His body so that someone else can be touched by Him.  Who is that person?  God already has someone in mind.  Keep your eyes open and watch for who He points out to you!

Will

John 6:21 NIV

Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

What Are You Willing To Do?

When I was in college I attended a mini conference on prayer.  The speaker was not particularly charismatic and he didn’t fascinate us with his stories.  In fact his method of presentation was much like a lecture and all of us had little booklets that we used for note taking.  The auditorium was filled with college students though, all wanting to know more about praying.  At the conclusion of the seminars, we were challenged by the speaker to make a commitment to an hour of praying a day.  That was of course a stupendous challenge!  He laid out for us a methodology for praying through an hour using a wheel diagram.  As I looked at the parts of the wheel, I could not find any one of the sections that I could in good faith say needed to be eliminated to try to whittle down the time from an hour to something more manageable for me.  It was of course ludicrous for me to take an hour of my time each day to pray given my college workload.  Yet something happened to me that evening that changed the dynamic of my evaluation of the challenge.  Christ met with me and I could not deny His presence.  It was Him, not the speaker who called for me to rewrite my priorities and begin praying an hour each day.  Billy Graham could not have convinced me to make such a profound and grave commitment.  Only our Lord Himself could “talk me into it” and He did but not with His finely conceived arguments, rather He came up to my will and addressed it there.

We each have a Will and it is not some separate part of our personality; not a segment of who we are like we see with the spirit and the body and even to some degree with the soul.  It is you in totality deciding what you will do, the ruling force over your actions.  You cannot give your will to someone else any more than your body belongs to another person.  You may let people tell you what to do and you might use your body for the purposes of others but it always is your body, your spirit is always your spirit.  No one else can borrow it or live in it.  It belongs to you.  The question is never whose will is it; it is what you, your will has decided.  Your will is you choosing how to act at any given moment.  The will is a most precious and critical gift you possess and many fail to realize how valuable their will is.

Solomon, the ancient king of Israel is a classic example of how the Will can be corrupted by the lack of a clear devotion to anything.  Just as his reign began, Solomon had a momentous encounter with the Lord in which God famously asked him what he wanted as a gift.  Solomon acknowledged how difficult it would be to rightly govern the people of the kingdom and so he called for the Lord to “…give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong.  For who is able to govern this great people of yours?" (1 Kings 3:9 NIV )  This request was an act of Solomon’s will and it certainly was not in keeping with how most people would respond if given the options God provided.  God graciously granted Solomon’s request and made him the wisest person on earth.  Later Solomon, in keeping with the mandate his father gave him, built the Temple to the Lord and it was lavishly constructed.  Again God met with him, this time following the dedication of the Temple to the worship of YHWH.  "As for you, if you walk before me as David your father did, and do all I command, and observe my decrees and laws, I will establish your royal throne, as I covenanted with David your father when I said, 'You shall never fail to have a man to rule over Israel.'  But if you turn away and forsake the decrees and commands I have given you and go off to serve other gods and worship them, then I will uproot Israel from my land, which I have given them, and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name.” (2 Chronicles 7:17-20 NIV)

The Lord laid out for Solomon clearly the terms of a covenant with him.  God would establish Solomon’s rule as a lasting dynasty if Solomon kept the Commandments and lived with faithful commitment to the Lord as his only God.  However, if he didn’t, the Lord would eventually wreck Israel and destroy the Temple that was built.  This was of course simple enough and Solomon certainly understood the ramifications of the Lord’s agreement with him.  Yet Solomon never settled this matter fully in his heart.  His Will wavered between loyalty to God and rebellion against Him.  Solomon, in opposition to the clear commands the Lord gave his kings, made himself extravagantly rich, married thousands of women, married women who were not Jewish and most egregiously of all, he joined with his wives in their worship of idols which we all know is in actuality much more than bowing before a dumb rock or statue, it is in fact a pledging of loyalty to demons and the Satanic realm.

Solomon’s Will made decisions and led to specific actions.  His Will built a Temple to God.  His Will also built altars to demons.  By his Will he wrote the Proverbs which have inspired billions in their life with God.  His Will drove him to greed, selfishness and lust.  By the determination of his will, Solomon destroyed his relationship with God and joined forces with Satan in the corruption of his kingdom.  Solomon decided to do all this not because he was forced but because His will was not thoroughly loyal to God.  In the end, Solomon died a miserable, bitter and angry man who gave up the joy God had for him because his Will stubbornly refused to be joined with the God who met him at the Temple.

To show the contrast between Solomon’s Will and the Will of others in the Bible, let me point out the surprising actions of a man who had been possessed by demons.  When Jesus met him, this fellow was wild and violent and uncontrollable, not even chains could hold him.  The Lord drove the demons out of him and in his right mind, he had a simple wish.  The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying,  "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. (Luke 8:38-39 NIV)  Rather than argue with Christ over this “rejection” or angrily pout that he was turned away, the man’s will determined a new course of action.  He told everyone he could what Jesus had done with him.  It did not matter to him what others thought of his message, the man who had been healed by Jesus turned his will toward what Christ wanted and we can only imagine what happiness it brought him.

The same could be said of Mary who had a jar full of expensive perfume, worth a year’s wages and generously poured it on Jesus’ feet and used her own hair to clean them.  When questioned about the action, Jesus retorted, "Leave her alone," Jesus replied. "[It was intended] that she should save this perfume for the day of my burial.  You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." (John 12:7-8 NIV)  The point we have to make here is that it was the Will of Mary that decided how she would act at this gathering.  With Jesus present, she decided to be extravagant in her love for Him.  She didn’t have to use up all the perfume or any of it on Jesus’ feet.  But her will, the ruling force over her actions decided to do it.

We see this in Paul also.  Raging against Christianity and using his authority as a Jewish leader to have Christians imprisoned and executed, Paul literally met Jesus on the road as he was traveling with companions and the force of that interaction with Christ changed the way Paul saw things.  He immediately joined the Christian Church and became its most important missionary and teacher.  He was not brainwashed or talked into giving up his life of murder and hatred.  Paul’s Will decided, once he met Jesus, to act differently.  It is the same for each of us.  None of us become Christian because we are convinced we had been wrong.  No argument seizes your will or overthrows it and forces it to capitulate to Christ.  Only when Jesus breaks through in the supernatural way He does and enters your inner world, goes where your Will is and meets you, then are your free to be Christian.  He must meet you, He must come to you and then and only then can your Will truly change its course and you become Christian.

It is wrong for us to think our goal as a church, as Christian people is to talk others into following Christ.  It is not.  Our goal is for each of us to introduce others to Jesus.  He must meet them if any good is to come of their lives.  We cannot force anyone to change.  It is your Will that must decide to do something differently and follow Jesus whole­-heartedly.  The same is true of me and of each person around the world.  You decide in your Will if you will love others, be kind and generous, forgive and worship Christ devotedly.  Your Will is the great power that holds you back from the peace of God that passes all understanding and it is the force that opens the door so that the life of Christ can fill you with all the joy a soul could ever want.