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.

Praying or Fantasizing

Mark 11:24 NIV

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

How Confident Are About Praying?

A number of years ago we went to Disneyland and our daughter was only three.  She loved to dress up in princess outfits and she had a number that she brought for our trip there.  One day she could dress as Cinderella, another as Snow White and the next she was prepared to be Belle.  In fact she could change in the middle of the day and be a different princess at lunch and dinner.  Her face would light up when she spotted Arial or Belle or Pocahontas mingling in the crowd.  We had to wait for Rachel to stand in line and greet each of the princesses she came across. There was even a lunch meet and greet that Rachel attended.  Rachel was mesmerized by the parades when the princesses all came together in one place and she stared at them all wide-eyed.  Reality and fantasy came together in a mystical union.  That is until reality rose up and trampled fantasy one cloudy afternoon when Rachel spotted one of the Disneyland princesses standing out behind a building smoking a cigarette.  She was stunned and she never forgot the disappointment she felt at the unexpected sight.

Many have given up on Christianity because they believe it is like the Disney princesses; it is all a dress up that in the end is a sham.  Perhaps you have struggled with believing the Bible.  There is much about it that is interesting and helpful but some of the stories in it appear to be too good to be true.  The promises about prayer in particular hang you up as it does not seem like God holds up His end of the bargain.  You pray but the outcome is not what you had hoped.  Or worse, your praying seems to have been a waste of time and left you discouraged and feeling snookered by empty promises of God’s help.

Two case studies found in the Bible shed a bit of light on our discussion.  When Lazarus, a good friend of Jesus, became deathly ill, his sisters sent word to Jesus, "Lord, the one you love is sick." (John 11: 3 NIV)  When Jesus did not do anything about Lazarus’s condition and he died, both sisters were dumbfounded by His lack of help.  When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died." (John 11:32 NIV)  How closely this mirrors the experience of many who have prayed and been disappointed by the results!

Prior to the birth of Christ, an elderly widow lived at the Temple and spent her days praying.  There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. (Luke 2:36-37 NIV)  We have no idea what sorts of matters were on her prayer list but we must say she had to wait an awfully long time before meeting the Messiah.  Not only that, should we just ignore the fact that this woman of prayer lost her husband after only seven years of marriage?  How much disappointment with prayer was locked up within the heart of this elderly widow for all those years!

Our problem, when it comes to praying, is not just the seeming slowness or even lack of responses to prayer.  We face a much more daunting task when it comes to believing in God.  We lack a physical connection to Him that can make trusting in Him more reasonable and sustainable.  We can’t see Him, hear Him or touch Him and that is not normal when it comes to relationships.  It can be argued that we don’t, hear, see or touch those we meet online and yet believe they are who they say they are but experience with fraud makes many such “encounters” impossible to trust completely.  When it comes to God, we don’t even have a picture profile to consider!  Yet, is it insane to believe in a God we cannot see, touch or hear?

Author Philip Yancey suggests we should consider the case of the woman who has been blind since birth who has never seen light and cannot see it.  How would you prove the existence of light to her?  You could present her with products of light such as heat or plant life but that does not prove light to her.  Light is real and not at all imaginary but to the one who has no sensitivity to it, light is just hearsay, only taken on trust.  If everyone in the world is blind from birth, men, women and children, light as described in books is to the entire crowd “religious” or “unscientific”.  It might be considered “mythological” and yet it is as real as the birds chirping in the trees.  The doubt in the minds of those who cannot see that light exists would not mitigate the reality of light.

We certainly lack the Spiritual sense needed to scientifically “prove” the presence of demons and angels, God and Satan but that is what we must accept when we speak of God and prayer.  Jesus did not try to pretend something else was the case.  God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24 NIV)  Rarely does God make Himself available to our physical senses.  Yet He has done so and many of the blind in our world just won’t believe the accounts given of His presence being seen, heard, touched or smelled. There is something else we must consider when it comes to knowing about the existence of God and believing in prayer.

The American Journal of Psychiatry reported a study of Harvard students who had experienced a “religious conversion.  They discovered that these students showed a dramatic change in their lifestyles.  Their use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes went down spectacularly.  What is more, they did much better academically than they did before their conversion and were less likely to suffer from depression and despair when compared to the rest of the student body.  What does it mean when an internal transformation which is attributed to God results in an externally proven outcome?  Religious Americans are proven to be more likely to give money to someone homeless, spend time with someone depressed, return excess change to a clerk, help someone find a job and donate blood.  At what point do those who do not have the sensory equipment to see or touch God begin to consider the facts regarding the accomplishments of the God they cannot see?

Faith is the operating system of our relationship with God and that is not going to change!  We live by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV)  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6: 29 NIV) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)  This is the way God works with us.  We must have faith in Him that He exists if we are to have a relationship with Him that transforms our lives.  It will not be altered; this plan of God.  No amount of complaining that God does not let us see, hear or touch Him will change His mind.  The Lord will do in us and through us what our faith in Him permits.  It has been shown that with God operating in people’s lives, crime, drug use, violence and gang activities go down.  What proof do you need to recognize that you pray to a God who changes people’s lives and literally is a part of what they do?

When you pray, the Lord will transform your character, create in you a hatred of your own sin and generate a growing desire to be close to Him.  He will guide you so that you will be able to make sense of what to do.  He will work in others and change them too.  God will alter your circumstances so that in the end all you face and encounter will turn out for your good.  To pray, you must have faith to pray.  To communicate with God who is real, you must believe that He is real.  You will never be certain that God exists or that He is part of your praying until you actually decide to believe He exists and then pray.  Once that transaction takes place, the Lord will move Heaven and Earth to keep you close to Him supernaturally and coherently.  You may not yet believe God loves you fully but that will come as you trust Him enough to pray.  Faith opens your mind to pray; miracles always follow faith…they don’t come before it.  A miracle is nothing more complex than this.  It is the discovery that God is in actuality a part of your life and giving you the very best He has to offer in response to your praying.  So pray.  Pray often.  Pray with your mind on God and your heart open to whatever He gives you.

Heart in Action

1 Chronicles 29:18 NIV

O Lord, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep this desire in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you.

How Important Is Loyalty?

I realize that I am now kind of an old-timer and loyalty means a lot to me.  I am loyal to vanilla ice cream.  I am loyal to McDoubles.  I am loyal to Northern California beaches despite how cold they are and loyal to our local jazz station. I am loyal to khaki pants and button down collars and hair gel. I am loyal to my friends and loyal to the denomination I joined years ago.  I am even loyal to our cat even though she wants nothing to do with me except when she is hungry.  I saw this recently in the news and perhaps you also noticed it.  The dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-un ordered the execution of one of the country’s vice premiers for slouching during Jong-un’s speech because it was to the North Korean ruler a sign that the vice premier was not thoroughly loyal to him.  If it were asked what single human quality is most valued in North Korea probably “loyalty” would be at the top of the list above creativity, ingenuity, compassion or integrity.  How important is loyalty to you?  How important is loyalty to God?

What if God demanded of you the same sort of loyalty Kim Jong-un demands of the people in North Korea?  If you were to quantify your loyalty to God on a scale of 1-10, what value would you give it in terms of your interest in the Bible, your keeping of the ten commandments, church service attendance, your financial support of God’s Kingdom, the value you place on your moral purity or how often you bring up God and the Gospel in your normal conversations?  Loyalty is of course practical and not some abstract idea and if we have read much in the Bible, we would see that God cares very much about loyalty but rather than using the term “loyalty” He speaks more precisely of “love”.  Jesus said that the most important of all the commandments of God is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37 NIV)

How do you do that?  If you were honest, if that was the test of your loyalty, would you have to be blown up if you lived in North Korea because you would fail?  The problem you face when it comes to loving God is your heart!  You can’t count on it.  Jeremiah the prophet, speaking for God spells out your dilemma.  The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it? (Jeremiah 17:9 NIV)  How can you love anyone with all your heart if you can’t trust your heart to love and you have no idea what all is in it?  Because you have so little insight into your own heart, you can be fooled into thinking you are better than you are.  All a man's ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs the heart. (Proverbs 21:2 NIV)  Because you don’t know what is in your heart, you cannot be certain of what you will do or how you’ll react to situations you face.  You can convince yourself that you are good but only God knows all that is in your heart.  Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (Psalm 139:23 NIV)

Two examples illustrate this.  Genesis 4 in the beginning of the Bible provides us a fascinating case study that reveals how complicated the human heart is.  When Cain killed his brother Abel there was no clear explanation for his action.  All we know is that when God approved of the offering Abel brought but was not complimentary of Cain’s, Cain became angry and it showed on his face.  Cain invited his brother to meet him out in the field and there Cain killed Abel.  Could jealousy alone have provoked such anger?  Was there something else that pushed Cain over the edge?  What was stirring in Cain’s heart that drove him to murder?  Who can explain this senseless rage?  All Cain had to do if he really wanted to please God was straighten out whatever was wrong with the sacrifice he offered.  Something else within his heart inflamed him with anger so intense he killed Abel.

Another example that is difficult to explain is Solomon’s transition into paganism.  He was the son of the one God called “a man after my own heart”. (Acts 13: 22 NIV)  Solomon orchestrated the building of the great Temple of the Lord and famously met with Solomon by way of a dream and promised the young king wisdom beyond anyone’s on earth as well as riches and honor which is exactly what he had.  When Solomon dedicated the Temple to God, a great cloud filled it and the priests could not do their work because “the glory of the Lord filled his temple.” (1 Kings 8:11 NIV)  Fire even came down and consumed the sacrifice Solomon offered on the altar.  God a second time appeared to Solomon at night and warned the king in gave terms not to turn away from worshiping Him and going after the false gods of the pagans but that is precisely what he did.  As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. (1 Kings 11:4 NIV)  What could lead to such a dramatic shift in loyalties?  How could Solomon walk away from such dramatic appointments with God and become a spiritual traitor?  It was Solomon’s heart that was the problem.

James the brother of Jesus asked an important question but also gives the answer.  What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? (James 4: 1 NIV)  The Apostle Paul in Romans 8 provides a dynamic explanation of what is really going on within.  Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.  The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. (Romans 8:5-8 NIV)

There are three terms in this passage that must be explained.  The first is “mind”.  This is essentially what other parts of the Bible call “heart”.  It is who we are for eternity whether we have the body or don’t.  The second term is “sinful nature”.  This is the operating system of our lives outside of Christ.  The sinful nature is the controlling force of our life if God is not in charge.  The third term is more a phrase—“the mind controlled by the Spirit”.  This is the condition of our heart when God is working actively within it.  Our heart, filled with the clutter of a billion memories, the damage caused by countless sins, the good and bad of all our relationships and everything we think and decide about God and the world about us, is operating either without God or with Him and we decide what it will be at any given moment.  What the King James Bible calls the “carnal man” is life under the operation of a heart in chaos.  There is no order to the heart without God; it is a baffling and convoluted wreck that can be kind one moment and cruel the next, corrupt and selfish and generous and moralistic all at the same time.  Anything can spring out of the heart controlled by the sinful nature because it is wild and corrupt.

However when the Spirit of God begins to take charge of the heart, order is established.  The Bible calls this “life and peace”.  It is the condition of the heart when from the heart comes honesty and you can count on it, kindness and it is consistent, generosity and purity and goodness become normal and expected.  The memories that once caused so much pain and bitterness lose their power to wreck the heart when Christ is at work in it.  Life and peace is not a goal we set for ourselves but it is the end game when the Spirit of Christ is given full sway over the heart.

An account from the Bible that often goes unnoticed will illustrate the difference between the two operating systems of the heart.  In Acts 11 is the recounting of the Apostle Peter’s defense of his strange decision to go into the house of a Gentile family and share the Gospel with them.  From the time he came out of his mother’s womb Peter had been taught to avoid at all costs non-Jewish people.  Do not eat with them, do not marry them, do not touch them and do not enter their homes ever.  In fact, Peter’s conscience was organized around the complete disdain of non-Jews.  Then one day while napping, Peter had essentially the same vision three times.  In his own words Peter describes them.   I saw something like a large sheet being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to where I was. I looked into it and saw four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, reptiles, and birds of the air.  Then I heard a voice telling me, 'Get up, Peter. Kill and eat.'   "I replied, 'Surely not, Lord! Nothing impure or unclean has ever entered my mouth.'  "The voice spoke from heaven a second time, 'Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.' (Acts 11:5-9 NIV)

Almost immediately after these visions three messengers arrived inviting Peter to come and explain Christianity to a Roman centurion and his family.  Everything in Peter’s heart went against this.  He had been taught to despise non-Jews and certainly had from experience plenty of reasons for staying away from Roman soldiers.  His heart certainly would have been against going with the men to the centurion’s home but his heart had within it more than the sinful nature operating.  The Spirit told me to have no hesitation about going with them. (Acts 11:12 NIV)  So Peter went.  Can we see a clearer example than this of how the presence of God in the human heart can completely alter the way a person operates?  Memories, bad experiences, poor teaching and sinful habits do not control us when we have the Spirit of God putting our hearts into order.  Yet like Peter, you must never argue with or ignore the Spirit of God within you when He directs you.  We will be amazed by what God does within our hearts when we let the Spirit make decisions for us.  Every time we give the Spirit control in a matter, when we are loyal to Him in us, we become more like God and less like what we would be if our hearts remained broken by sin and all the evil found in this world.

The Fullness of You Hearing God

Isaiah 28:23 NIV

Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say.

Why Don’t You Hear From God?

Perhaps you have had an experience like me.  I was in Russia and had gone into a

department store.  I was just exploring because I wasn’t sure what they had and I was always on the hunt for inexpensive souvenirs to bring home.  Causally I went down one aisle after another mindlessly glancing about.  I noticed there were about six store employees and I was only one of two customers in the store.  Suddenly it dawned on me that every single employee was watching what I was doing.  They were not just watching me, they were staring at me and some were following me as I left one aisle and went to another.  I began to smile inside myself.  Did they really think I was going to shoplift?  I said something to one of the clerks. joking about my intentions, but she only stared at me like I was an American spy trying to infiltrate their secret weapon system.  I did not understand Russian and the clerks did not know any English.  A great barrier stood between us of culture and language.  How could I get through to them that I was not going to take any of their toys or kitchen supplies…that I would pay for what I wanted?  I was baffled.

What if we have a similar relationship with God?  What if there are many times through the day when God is talking to us but we either aren’t paying attention or unable to grasp what He has said?  Would our lives improve if we did hear from God; did comprehend what He was communicating to us?  Is there a possibility that there is a vast number of ways God is trying to get through to us but we are missing it?  Some of us have had the experience of trying to understand what someone speaking another language was saying and being flummoxed in our efforts.  Hand signals and motioning just hasn’t worked.  Could that be happening between us and God?

I had a recent experience that caught my attention.  I went to a local church facility that is known for opening its doors for people to pray during the day and evening Tuesday-Friday.  Most of the time in the sanctuary they have live streaming worship from a sister congregation in Kansas City that has prayer and worship taking place 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  Other times they have someone in their own sanctuary playing the keyboards and singing.  Every once in a while a person from their congregation reads Scripture out loud for a full hour.  What the Bible passages will be aren’t posted in advance and it varies from reader to reader what will be read without a particular order it seems.  I never know what will be happening when I arrive because I don’t know the schedule.  I came a little early before the building was opened and read my regularly scheduled Bible reading for the day.  I was in the Proverbs and read chapters 19-20 before entering the sanctuary.  When I got in I saw that someone was reading the Bible and I soon realized he was reading from Proverbs.  Not only that, he was in Proverbs 21, the very next chapter after what I had just finished reading in the car.  How could that be?  How could such a coincidence have occurred?  As I sat and listened and prayed, I wondered if God was trying to communicate with me, and if so, what was He saying.

In Isaiah 28, God makes it clear that He intends for us to hear what He has to say.  Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. (NIV)  Through the prophet Isaiah, God makes this promise to us, The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. (Isaiah 58:11 NIV)  Perhaps the boldest statement in Scripture of our Lord’s determination to speak to us and show us the way as we go about our business is also found in the book of Isaiah.  Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21 NIV)  But how is this possible?  What is the way God does this?  The Holy Spirit, who our Lord puts in us, somehow gets through to us, if we are available to Him, what He wants us to hear.  But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.  (John 16:13 NIV)  If we want to hear God speak to us, He will through the Holy Spirit.

There is evidence in God’s word that we can shut down communication between ourselves and God.  King Saul is a classic example of this.  After Saul on two occasions openly disobeyed God, the Lord stopped communicating with him.  Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him. (1 Samuel 16:14 NIV)  For a time this did not bother Saul as he found ways of coping without God guiding him but when a monstrous Philistine army came to attack him and his army, the craving for God to lead him reached a crescendo.  When Saul saw the Philistine army, he was afraid; terror filled his heart.  He inquired of the Lord, but the Lord did not answer him by dreams or Urim or prophets. (1 Samuel 28:5-6 NIV)  Although he himself had forced all witches and mediums to go into hiding because of his pogrom against them, Saul in his desperation, tried to find a witch to raise the prophet Samuel from the dead hoping that God might speak through Samuel.  Saul then said to his attendants, "Find me a woman who is a medium, so I may go and inquire of her." (1 Samuel 28:7 NIV)  Saul is not alone in his desperation to hear what God might say to him.  But sadly, there can be reasons for why we miss out on God speaking to us.

The most obvious is disobedience.  If you don’t do what the Lord tells you to do, God may wait for you to change your mind.  There cannot be two masters in one life.  Either the Lord is or we are.  If we are, then God will give us room to find out what that is like.  In Saul’s case, the Lord let Satan attack him so that he could feel just how weak and defenseless he was without God.  A warning from God’s word must be taken seriously.  "But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me.  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.” (Psalm 81:11-12 NIV)  If we want to take control of our lives, then God will let us but He will back away and and give us the opportunity to see what it is like living without Him.  We may not even know God has done this for a while because it can be comfortable without having the Lord directing us.  But then a crisis hits and like Saul we look for God to guide us.  It is then that His silence can be terrible.

Another hindrance to hearing from God is having a cluttered mind.  If we are thinking about everything but God, how can we be ready when He enters our thoughts?  We can’t because we are distracted.  Like the virgins who did not bring oil to the wedding feast and were kicked out of the building, we must not be lackadaisical about the opportunity to hear from God.  Paul talks about the cluttered mind in his letter to the Corinthians.  Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly — mere infants in Christ.  I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready.  You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? (1 Corinthians 3:1-4 NIV) God’s Spirit speaks to us so quietly that only those whose minds are on God can hear.  Any bit of sinful thinking, any sort of greed or hatred or lust or doubt can quench His voice in us.  Paul the Apostle says that if we want to know God’s will for us, we must not ever conform to the ways of the world; whether it is in regard to entertainment, habitual behaviors, use of our money or how we react to the people God brings us.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.  (Romans 12:2 NIV)

There is one more hindrance to hearing God speak and that is the age old problem of a lack of faith.  In Hebrews we discover, And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews 11:6 NIV)  God will speak to us in the Bible in general ways if we do not have much faith in Him and the truth is that even this form of communication will sound like gibberish to those without faith in Christ.  But, if we want to understand what God is saying to us as we drive, when at work as we are with our children or while shopping, we must have faith He will guide us and direct us.  There is no work around when it comes to faith.  Either we believe God is talking to us in a still whisper or we don’t and if we don’t think we can hear from Him, we won’t hear from Him.

So how can we begin to hear from God as we go through our days?  We must practice gratitude.  Do not let a moment pass when you are not thankful for what you have and how God is working in your life.  Do whatever God tells you to do.  Act in faith.  Believe it was the Lord who directed you and trust Him to correct you if you were wrong.  Scripture is your protection.  God will never oppose the Bible with what He tells you.  Keep your mind on God at all times.  Make Ephesians 6: 18 the standard of how you live each day.  And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.  (Ephesians 6:18 NIV)  God will not bother talking with you if you are distracted.  If you are thinking about God and you are on the edge of your seat anticipating His guidance, you will find our Lord will reward your faith by leading you through whatever difficulty, perplexing situation or relationship issue you face.  Keep your mind on God and He will come near to you with His strength, peace and guidance.

Beyond the Intellect

Without faith in God, you will not make "heads or tails" of God or much of anything found in the Bible.   First we believe; then we understand.    Before our faith in Him becomes operational, we may be perfectly content with our opinions of both God and Scripture.    However as we begin to believe in Christ, our ideas get sorted through and most of them we sheepishly discard.  Nothing is more useless than waiting for God to show Himself to us before we will believe.   Faith unlocks the universe of God.  By faith, we see Him in our trip to the store.  We see Him during our illness.  We see Him at work and while we study.  Without faith, we have blinders but the moment we begin our believing, the Lord sneaks into view.  Moses' parents saw God as their son was lifted out of the basket by the Egyptian princess.  Abraham saw God as he began his journey away from Ur.  Paul saw God following His baptism.  If God tells us that faith in Him is required to access knowledge of Him, why would we take faith so lightly in our daily operations?  In Jesus' hometown, He showed only a bit of Himself and most did not even see that because their faith was impoverished.   And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith. (Matthew 13:58 NIV)   Too many in the Christian community have a wait and see attitude toward God when they ought to be crying out to Him like the apostles, "Increase our faith!" (Luke 17: 5 NIV)  Until our faith begins to leap out of our chests, we ought to have little to say about God, miracles or the Bible.   We are as ignorant in our understanding of them as little children trying to explain quantum mechanics if we lack faith.  Our intellect must align with developing faith if we are to know anything of substance in the realm where God lives and has His being.  Someone somewhere who claims theological authority decided this is not the age of miracles but it was not God who made that determination. There are only two camps...one comprised of those who live by faith and one for those who live by sight.  The faith camp keeps catching glimpses of God but the sight camp is as blind as a bat and oblivious to the supernatural handiwork of God.   What have you seen lately?  Have you been living by faith?

We live by faith, not by sight.  (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV)

The Worthiness of Jesus...Heart

Psalm 73: 26 NIV

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

What Is In Your Heart?

This past week our family on the 4^th of July went to the fireworks program put on by the city of Milpitas.  It was not a huge extravaganza but it was fun and a great way to end the holiday.  There is a football field that is used for seating that is first-come, first-served.  I got there early to get a spot for my family but was disappointed to discover that because we did not get our tickets in advance, I would have to wait in line for an hour to get our passes.  My knee had been bothering me a lot and so standing in line was not an ideal way for me to spend the afternoon.  Finally I was able to get my ticket and pick out a spot for our mat and then I began the long wait for my family to arrive.  Because I didn’t have a cell phone and there were lots of people crowding onto the field, I had to be vigilant for my family’s arrival.  Rather than relax and read a book, I was constantly scanning about to see if I could spot them.  Family after family arrived with their coolers, their cold drinks and their dinners.  Kids played with their parents, adults talked together and laughed and told stories and I sat by myself waiting…waiting…waiting.  Finally, two and a half hours later, my family arrived and because I hadn’t eaten much lunch, no breakfast and had been sitting out for so long in the warm sun, I was both famished and thirsty.  But when they arrived, all that was brought for me were chips!  Chips?  Others had barbecue, sandwiches and boxed dinners from restaurants and I was handed some chips.  Not only was I disappointed that I had to sit by myself for so long, I was bent out of shape by the lack of good food and drinks.  Now we would generally speak of my anger and frustration as cause related.  I was tired, perhaps feeling lonely and definitely thirsty and hungry.  The Bible however would describe it as a heart issue.

Have you ever gotten angry or depressed over something that others might call “no big deal”?  Perhaps you lost your cool over someone cutting you off on the road or a friend’s or co-worker’s insult.  Maybe you were so frustrated by your wife or your husband that you would not talk to him or her all evening.  Have you ever hurt someone’s feelings because she reminds you of someone that treated you badly in the past?  Do you let yourself get depressed when things don’t go as you planned?  Have you fallen for someone that didn’t really like you because you were lonely and desperate to be loved?  Do emotions ever spring up within you that don’t seem justified?  Are you surprised by how badly you react to circumstances that later don’t seem so bad?

There is much about us that we can’t give a rational explanation.  It makes for good TV to make some people out to be like robots but none of us are.  We are complicated and the root of nearly all of our senseless reactions is found in what the Bible calls “the heart”.  Our modern view of the heart is different than how the Bible uses the term “heart”.  Just a few passages from the Psalms will illustrate this.  No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth. (Psalm 58:2 NIV) If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; (Psalm 66:18 NIV) Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12 NIV) My heart is not proud, O Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. (Psalm 131:1 NIV) Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. (Psalm 139:23 NIV)

When the Bible talks about the heart, it is referring to what we commonly speak of as the mind.  But it really is more than just the mind, the heart as the Bible uses the term, is the very core of our personality, who we are and what we shall be forever as people. Within our heart we process our experiences, decide what we will do or not do, settle on our relationship with God and take in from God His attributes and spiritual gifts.  Joy comes to the heart as does sorrow and wisdom.  The heart is bigger than our minds can comprehend and within the heart is far more than we realize.  The body may die but the heart continues to live for it is who we are eternally.

The Bible speaks of the heart of Jesus a few times.  Christ says of Himself, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” (Matthew 11:29 NIV)  This revelation of Jesus that He is gentle and humble in heart should make us pause and consider exactly the ramifications for us.  The God who created the universe is gentle and humble in heart.  He does not lord over us His power and although this world is tough and often full of pain, He is gentle.  We must always take this into account when we think of God and what we face.  His heart is gentle.  His heart is humble.  We also need to acknowledge that the heart of Jesus is compassionate.  In the small town of Nain as Jesus was walking and teaching, he noticed a funeral procession.  A widow’s only son had died and a large crowd was mourning with her.  Gazing at the poor widow, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry." (Luke 7:13 NIV)  Jesus then walked over to the casket and raised the son from the dead and restored him to his mom.  Later on, during the week that Jesus was betrayed, He admitted that His heart was in turmoil over what He faced at the end of the week.  "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say?  'Father, save me from this hour'?  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify your name!" (John 12:27 NIV)

There is one more characteristic of Jesus’ heart that is critical to note. His heart is without sin.  There is not a hint of corruption to it, cruelty, bitterness, worry, or hatred for people.  He is called in the Bible a high priest who understands all the pain and sorrow we face and realizes in His heart how difficult it is to do what is right.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin. (Hebrews 4:15-16 NIV)  In contrast, our hearts are thoroughly warped and distorted by sin and they generate all sorts of shocking behaviors.  Jesus, who understood human psychology better than anyone ever, has asserted, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” (Matthew 15:19 NIV) We like to insist that we would never do certain bad things others do and have done yet in this vast ocean of human personality called the heart is all that is needed for murder, slander, sexual immorality and theft to immerge.  There is a depth of evil in our hearts we cannot calculate but God knows exactly what is there.  As the prophet Jeremiah, speaking for the Lord put it, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV)The misperception of many is that the heart is basically good but that is not the case.  Our Lord says it is tremendously wicked and warped and there is a monumental amount of evil each heart, yours and mine, can produce.

Although we are clear on how Jesus forgave our sins by dying on the Cross, the overlooked aspect of what Jesus Christ accomplished at the Cross is His work to recreate us so that we can live happily without sin.  Perhaps the most profound couple of statements ever made on the psychology of the human condition brought about through the death of Christ on the Cross are found in Romans 5.  Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.  And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:1-5 NIV)

Peace with God is not possible given the condition of our hearts.  We are irrational and uncontrollable with the heart each of us has.  Hatred and worry and lust and selfishness are always possible with us.  But something rarely ever discussed occurred when Jesus Christ died for us and in faith we gained God’s grace.  Part of that grace, perhaps the biggest part of that grace is not just that our sins are forgiven but that God has made it possible for us to have good and holy hearts.  How can that happen given what Christ has said about our hearts?  The miracle of the Cross also includes the amazing decision to pour into our hearts God’s own love.  The Holy Spirit does this and it changes the entire composition of our hearts.  They now have God’s love working out of them the corruption of Sin and making them good…good at the level of God’s goodness.  Another English translation says that God has “shed abroad” His love into our hearts which essentially means He floods our hearts with His own love, washing them of all the filth of collected Sin and hurt.  The Holy Spirit makes our hearts able to empower righteous and moral and loving actions that could not happen with God’s love not there.

Your heart though will be at war and you will never be at peace with God as part of it unless you give up your right to govern yourself.  The most miserable people in the world are those whose hearts are a battle ground between Sin and the love of God.    As soon as you let Christ take charge of your life, your heart will be at peace.  Jesus put it this way, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.” (John 14:1 NIV)  A simple practice can make the peace of God a reality for you.  When lust pops up, say to the Lord, “I trust you with this lust.”  When anger boils within, say, “Lord, I trust you with this anger.”  When it is jealousy, “Lord I trust you with this jealousy.”  You are feeling sorry for yourself, “Lord I trust you with my disappointment.”  You feel bitter about mistreatment, “Lord, I trust you with my hurt feelings.”  The happiest and most contented people in the world can be Christians if we let our Lord have control of our hearts by trusting Him with our lives.

Download of Righteousness

The Gospel is the very best God has to offer us.  It is the fulfillment of all His thinking and rises monumentally above every invention of mankind and is beyond the complexity of the most impressive of His own creations.  The Gospel is the culmination of love; love taken to the furthest dimension.  God's thought entered physicality when He placed in Jesus Christ the totality of the sins of the world and gave man the right to execute Him.  Pay careful attention to 2 Corinthians 5:21.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (NIV)  For our sake, Jesus Christ became sin.  He was all the sin of all the world when He was crucified.  For what reason?  It was so that all the righteousness of God might be our righteousness.  Actually, it is more that all the righteousness of God might be us.  This is odd to consider.  We always think of our righteousness as doing the trick when it comes to God or at least hoping it does.  We make our choices and do what is good...most of the time...sometimes...at times.  Yet God has made a trade with us in Christ.  He took our sin and gives us His righteousness.    There is nothing like this in all of religion...only real God could come up with such a plan.  It is grace to the nth degree.  The Christian life is not a matter of trying to get things right.  It is developing the habit of letting the rightness of God come out of us.  Every skill set you see in the Sermon on the Mount is possible because we are the rightness of God in flesh.  This body, which has been so many times an instrument of rebellion against God is noble for this very reason.  The rightness of God is part of it and like a sponge that is squeezed; His rightness comes out of this body when we let the Holy Spirit bring the mind of Christ into full focus as we think.  Thinking in God is simple.  We just have to train our wild pony of a mind to do it by making the Scriptures our framework for how we process everything we encounter.

As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."       Romans 10:11 NIV

Conversion of the Mind

Matthew 7:1 NIV

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged.

Are You Opinionated?

It is one of the most natural of all human behaviors, judging others.  We may not let people in on what we are thinking but we are constantly critiquing and evaluating.  We make determinations regarding the lectures of our professors, the performance of our servers at restaurants, the job done by our hair stylists and the conversational skills of those we meet at parties.  We judge the effort given by our co-workers, the intelligence of our doctors, the creativity of our friends on Facebook and the friendliness of the clerks at supermarkets.  We give everyone we meet a quick evaluation…how well they have dressed, how they smell and how they look.  Often we pride ourselves on how accurately we assess others…their honesty, skill levels and worthiness of our time and friendship.  Fans who have never played above fourth grade baseball somehow know more about baseball than major league managers and millions watching football on TV believe they would not have thrown the “stupid” interception or made the bad pass the point guard made because they are smarter than the players they are watching.

A part of being human is the capacity to judge the skill and effort of others as well as ourselves.  Adam, even before he sinned, was given the task of naming all the animals based on his evaluation of them.  We see in the Bible a number of examples of judging, evaluating and assessing the motives and decision making of friends and co-workers.  King Saul famously decided that young David, his general, was a risk to Saul’s throne and that David’s popularity among the people of Israel might go to David’s head.  Saul came to the conclusion that David was greedy for power and could not be trusted so he tried to kill him.  Was Saul right in his determination?  Did Saul see something in David that warranted his concern?  Perhaps there was a smirk on David’s face when the women of Jerusalem sang about his exploits in front of King Saul.  Maybe David was not as respectful in the way he addressed Saul as Saul thought he should have been.  Whatever evidence Saul had though for judging David disloyal and a traitor, the King later realized it was not sufficient to warrant his mistrust.  He later admitted to David, "You are more righteous than I," he said. "You have treated me well, but I have treated you badly.”(1 Samuel 24:17 NIV)

One of the problems with judging others is that we may be dead wrong in our evaluations and a friendship or alliance that could have been wonderful and beneficial might be lost.  Family relationships can be destroyed by our judging.  Absalom, one of David’s sons became enraged when his half-brother Amnon raped his full-sister Tamar.  Their father David didn’t do anything about the crime though despite being king and having the power to punish Amnon any way he wished.  After three years, Absalom gained his vengeance on Amnon and had him murdered.  This did not settle the account fully though in Absalom’s mind.  He decided that David was wrong in this for not taking up the cause of his sister and thus not competent enough to be king, that he was an unfair and unjust ruler.  He began to gather evidence that David was not just in his other dealings.  Absalom interviewed men and their families as they entered Jerusalem on visits and asked them what they thought about the justice in the land with David as king.  “Did he treat everyone fairly?”  “Did David play favorites, only advancing the careers of those from Judah but disregarding the needs of those from other parts of Israel?

For four years Absalom criticized his father’s fairness as king.  He would get up early and stand by the side of the road leading to the city gate. Whenever anyone came with a complaint to be placed before the king for a decision, Absalom would call out to him, "What town are you from?" He would answer, "Your servant is from one of the tribes of Israel."  Then Absalom would say to him, "Look, your claims are valid and proper, but there is no representative of the king to hear you." And Absalom would add, "If only I were appointed judge in the land! Then everyone who has a complaint or case could come to me and I would see that he gets justice." Also, whenever anyone approached him to bow down before him, Absalom would reach out his hand, take hold of him and kiss him.  Absalom behaved in this way toward all the Israelites who came to the king asking for justice, and so he stole the hearts of the men of Israel. (2 Samuel 15:2-6 NIV)  With Absalom, the judgmental attitude toward his father festered into hatred that careened out of control.  Not every critical thought morphs into disgust and loathing. Some just fade to ambivalence and disinterest.  However, never does a critical and judgmental thought disappear from the mind.  It always leaves its mark; always damages in some way our personality.

Two of the Disciples, James and John, responded with rage to the lack of interest in Jesus and His ministry shown by the leaders of a Samaritan village and they made a rather troubling request of Him.  When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?"  But Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they went to another village.  (Luke 9:54-56 NIV)  This was an extreme reaction to a mundane occurrence.  It is not like these people were ripping into Jesus or wanting to stone Him to death.  They just weren’t interested in hearing Him because He was going to Jerusalem.  Was this the only collection of people who had some sort of reason for turning aside from Christ?  Of course not!  But James and John for some reason believed they were far worse than all the other critics and skeptics of Jesus.  Our Lord rebuked them for their judgmental response to the Samaritans.  We can be certain that there was a much bigger concern of James and John than that these poor villagers didn’t want Jesus lecturing them about religion.  Perhaps racism was at the root of their criticism…perhaps it was their nationalism rearing its head in them…they were not happy that the Samaritans had a bad opinion of Jerusalem.  Whatever the case nearly every time we become judgmental, there is something behind our criticism that fuels it.  Something that runs much deeper than our sense of fashion, political beliefs or loyalty to God!

Jesus’ command during His Sermon on the Mount is unequivocal.  We must not judge others!  "Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” (Matthew 7: 1 NIV)  Luke quotes Jesus almost exactly the same way.  "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.” (Luke 6:37 NIV) This is an astounding demand of God.  We all are so good at judging others.  Not only that, our criticism is always warranted or so we think.  Yet it seems that our Lord does not care how smart we believe we are or how wise we decide our evaluations, we are not to judge others critically.  Of course this is not saying judgments are never to be made.  Those in places of authority are directed by God to make judgments when the law is broken.  Murder, vandalism, theft; God puts it in the hands of those in authority to judge crimes and determine guilt or innocence.  God has established Law as a protection for us from the evil in people’s hearts.  Jesus is not dealing with authority judgement in these passages.  He is commanding against personal judgment.

Let us be clear about this.  There is never a time when a Christian, who is not in a position of authority under the law or as a part of his or her occupation, is given permission to judge the character, motives or actions of another person, whether that person is Christian or non-Christian, in this life.  To do so puts us in direct opposition to God and His mercy.  If you or I judge someone, the Lord will judge us and we would be hard-pressed to find an instance where God’s judgment was pleasant.  Yet our Lord has made us judging people, with critical minds and discerning hearts.  Why is it that, if we are not to use those skills unless we are circuit judges, we have the instantaneous judging mechanism up and running all the time?

Our mind is wired this way by God that we might be skillful at prayer, quickly seeing what we need to bring to God and able to join with the Lord in what He shows us.  If you see an area of weakness in someone or a moral flaw, you take that to God as soon as you become aware of it.  Your professor is giving a boring lecture, pray for God to help her.  A friend has been gossiping about you, bring it to the Lord for Him to fix.  Your parent prepared something for dinner that is not very good, pray for God to help your parent do better.  A hotel clerk is snappy with you and it is irritating, rather than snap back at her or talk about her rude behavior with your wife or co-worker, bring her to the Lord for healing.  One of your relatives clearly doesn’t like you and treats you disrespectfully and you want to “tell her off.”  You cannot.  You must talk only with God about her and ask the Lord to change her ways.  The person of any use to God is the one who prays.  God’s way for us to help people is by letting Christ work through us and He will never do so if we judge them or criticize them.  Have we ever helped anyone with our criticism?  We probably have often hurt them with our criticism, but helped them…most likely not!   We can be certain we have never hurt anyone with our prayers, but we have most assuredly helped every one of those we have prayed for God to come alongside and build into perfection!  Greatness in our Lord’s Kingdom is never determined by our ability to see the faults in others but by our faithfulness to pray for each person God brings our way.

Mind Re-oriented

Philippians 3:15 NIV

 All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

Are You Aware Of Everything Going On Around You?

There is nothing quite as disconcerting as discovering something has been going on without you being aware of it.  We now have webcams that can keep tabs on our homes, our pets and cities that we have never visited.  The spy in the sky is now visiting our neighborhood and looking into our backyard.  It hasn’t always been that way and even now we can be caught off guard by what we didn’t know had been happening around us.  I used to read to my children just before bedtime and often I did it while lying down on the floor with the kids on each side of me.  I read everything from the Chronicles of Narnia to the Little House on the Prairie series.  When our two oldest boys were little, I started reading to them the Lord of the Rings.  Many times I found myself dozing off as I read; slurring the words and one or both boys would immediately start shaking me to get me to read further before falling asleep.  More than once I did fall asleep in the middle of a sentence and my kids knew I was then a lost cause.  I remember waking up perhaps at around one in the morning and finding that my wife and the boys were all up and about, playing, talking, making cookies.  I was stunned; why were they still awake?  Why hadn’t they gone to bed?  What else had they done while I was asleep?  For all I knew, they could have shaved my head, taken all the money out of my wallet, gone joy riding in the car and had a drunken party in the house while I was out cold.  I had no idea what I missed while asleep and no one ever really told me either.

Perhaps you too have felt like you were left out of it, not aware of everything that was happening.  Maybe at work others seem to know more than you about what the company plans are.  Perhaps your friends seem to have the “inside scoop” and you are oblivious to it.  You might feel like you are the only one who doesn’t get the joke at the company picnic or the only one in America who has no idea why Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton are as popular as they are, why your teacher suddenly blew up at the class or why your mom treated you and your brother so differently.  In our information age, there is much we do not know and have no way of finding it out.  The internet is a blank page when it comes to some matters you care very much about and no amount of research may help you understand why your parents got a divorce or what led to your son dropping out of college.

There is within our era of information overload, a serious degree of information poverty that must be considered.  The Bible hints at this and it would be important for us to consider the possibility that there is a vast array of knowledge we could access that we are not even aware exists.  We should be disturbed by an account in the Bible that alerts us to how little we really do know about what is going on about us.  The ancient prophet Elisha faced a grave crisis or so it seemed.  A foreign ruler wanted Elisha dead and sent his army out to find him and kill him.  Elisha was staying in a village that was unable to defend themselves, let alone Elisha.  Elisha’s servant panicked when he saw the soldiers descending upon the town.  Elisha’s reaction was surprisingly calm and relaxed.  He reassured his servant that all would be well despite appearances.  "Don't be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them." And Elisha prayed, "O Lord, open his eyes so he may see." Then the Lord opened the servant's eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:16-17 NIV)

We have here clear evidence that there is a significant amount of information we aren’t aware exists and never access.  Some would call this the supernatural aspect of our universe.  But it was not supernatural for Elisha or his servant.  It simply was not “seeable” before this but once their eyes were “opened”, they could see all the chariots of fire and hills full of horses and it was clear as day to them.  Afterward, if they had been asked how they could be certain of what they said they saw, they would not have an answer to give that would sound logical or even acceptable to most people.  That doesn’t mean that what they saw wasn’t really there on the hills; the inability to explain why they could see what they did doesn’t mean they hadn’t seen it.

Consider the situation here closely.  There was a great army of soldiers who had no idea that the hillsides around them were covered by horses and chariots of fire and there was an entire village that did not see any of this either.  Only two people in this huge crowd could see what was very certainly there.  This same sort of occurrence is described by the prophet Isaiah in the sixth chapter of his book.  He was in the Temple and Isaiah became aware of the Lord present there sitting upon the throne and seraphs with six wings flying about glorifying the Lord so loudly that the doorposts and thresholds shook and the room was filled with smoke.  Now it is highly unlikely that Isaiah was the only person in the Temple at the time but it may have been so.  If he was the only one present, it is strange then God’s question.  Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" (Isaiah 6:8 NIV)  It seems that this is not a personal call directed only at Isaiah to go but rather a general call to anyone who is listening.  If that is the case, then who else was to hear this?  The Seraphs?  It doesn’t seem likely.  Was there someone else present who was to hear this too?  Perhaps it was all a dream…it just happened in Isaiah’s mind.  But again, the call for someone to go was not just for Isaiah it seems.

Is it possible that there were hundreds, maybe even millions to whom this call to go was directed but no one else was available to God; everybody within “earshot” was too busy with their own thoughts and concerns to receive God’s call?  Their natures were not adapted to comprehending anything so rich and pure as the call of God.  There is something largely overlooked which Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3.  Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.  Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. (John 3:5-6 NIV)

We must sit here at the foot of this great statement of Jesus and let its implications sink into us.  It is often misunderstood at a very great point.  Many think the kingdom of God is heaven, that to get into heaven one must be born again.  This of course is true but it is only part of what this implies.  The kingdom of God is all that God inhabits and it is His Kingdom where He rules as supreme over all.  That Kingdom can only be entered by the one who has been transformed by the Spirit into someone completely new.  The Kingdom of God is all externals for the one not transformed.  It is books and lectures and church buildings and music styles and talent and rules and entertainment and possessions and personal improvement and issues and did I say rules?  But entrance into the Kingdom of God through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit is all about God…His presence, His direction, His love, His power, His mercy, His goodness and His life.  Christ is the Gate, He is the Way, He is the Life…the Kingdom of God is Him in every place.

Why are we so out of touch?  Why are we so oblivious to God all about us?  Perhaps it is because there has been so little God worked in us that we are unaware of Him.  We face a problem…a problem person…a problem with our bodies…a problem with our family or friends…a problem with work or school…and we go at it within the confines of only this kingdom, the kingdom of mankind and that is all we have…none of what is Kingdom of God decides for us how we think about a matter and how we approach it.  Until you enter into the Kingdom of God you cannot see anything or hear anything with certainty beyond the kingdom of mankind.  But when the Cross of Christ has formed Christ in you and the Holy Spirit begins leading you deeper into the Kingdom of God, you shall begin to hear the voice of God guiding you in matters and the power of God will begin to work through you and accomplishments that are impossible outside the Kingdom of God will be done by you because you are not the you that existed before the Cross of Christ formed Christ in you.  You are now Christ and you and that is the personality that exists.  It is a new personality that can see God, hear God and be empowered by God and that personality as it goes further into the Kingdom of God becomes more and more alive to God.

The temptation of Satan presented to Adam and Eve ran along two lines and for us it is the same fundamental temptation.  Satan inserted into the mind of Adam and Eve two thoughts.  God is not good enough and God is not competent enough.  If we accept either of these two thoughts, our mind will be shut out of the Kingdom of God, we will become deaf and blind to all that is opening up to us in the Kingdom of God.  Only the Kingdom of Mankind will be accessible to us because to approach God you must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrew 11:6 NIV)  Remember when the disciples wondered why they could not cast out the demon who was causing a boy to have seizures and Jesus replied, "Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." (Matthew 17:19-20 NIV)  It is as easy as breathing to stay with simple-minded determination in the realm of the kingdom of mankind and not go any further than that.  If you do, you have access to all there is in the kingdom of man but nothing more.  Faith in Christ however opens your mind to the Kingdom of God where the wisdom and power of God seep into your mind like living water nurturing the lovely plant which is your life. 

Do an experiment this week.  Make yourself completely open for God to guide you and empower your work.  In faith ask Him to guide you, ask Him to talk to you.  Only by faith in Christ will your mind be prepared ground for God’s seed to be planted there and if God has built His life in you, there will develop even this week a growing awareness of Him thinking in you and His thoughts will become clearer and clearer.  Power will be given you to see what only God can show you and bit by bit the Kingdom of God will become visible to you.  But you must start to make your mind open for Jesus Christ to work within your mind and that takes discipline and determination to not fall for Satan’s lie that God is not good enough and not competent enough to guide you!   Breathe out this prayer to the Lord. “Enable me Lord Jesus to do Kingdom of God things in a Kingdom of Mankind world.  Fill my mind O Lord with You!”