It Takes Time

John 14:6 NIV

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

What Will You Do About The Truth?

Last month our church had a potluck and it was poorly attended.  In fact, there were fewer people in the worship service that day than I can remember.  A number of people put a significant amount of work into getting the potluck ready and the food was great.  Yet I wasn’t sure if we should have another one for a while.  I asked a couple if they thought we should wait a few months for the next church potluck or have one this month and they both smiled broadly and insisted that we have it this month.  I was caught off guard by their enthusiasm and then in a split moment of certainty, I knew that the Lord had spoken to me through them, that He wanted us to have a potluck so I went ahead and scheduled it.

I must admit though that I had a dilemma.  How was I to know that it really was God speaking to me and not just peer pressure?  It is not always God speaking to you when you want it to be and it isn’t easy knowing if you are right or wrong in it.  I did not have any Bible verse I could point to as evidence that this was coming from God.  Do you just rely on positive thinking and optimistic strategizing to guide you when you aren’t sure how to connect with the Lord on some matter that means a lot to you?  What is your go to method for hearing from God?  Most don’t care what God might be saying; they never give it much thought but what about you?  Have you come to the place where you want the Lord to show you the way?

Good people, God’s people have made horrible mistakes, when it comes to God.  We rightfully commend Peter for his tremendous faith taking God at His word and walking on the water.  When he and his fellow disciples were going across the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a great storm, they all saw Jesus coming toward them but at first none of them were really sure it was Him.  Timidly, Peter cried out to the Lord with a tremendous request.  "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."  "Come," he said.  Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.  (Matthew 14:28-29 NIV)  However, quickly Peter’s faith failed him and he started sinking into the billowing waves.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"   Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matthew 14:30-31 NIV) When Peter started out toward Jesus, He had complete confidence in God to take him along but it didn’t last and rather than walking in the might and protection of God, he went out in his own strength and insight.  He could see no way that he was going to survive the waves and down he went.

The same was true with Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Instead of maintaining her faith in Jesus and walking in Him, she trusted in her own wits and along with her children, came to the conclusion that Jesus had lost His mind.  What He was teaching and how He was behaving seemed irrational to her.  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." …Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. (Mark 3:20-21,31 NIV)  You can talk yourself into nearly anything if you rely just on you to figure out everything, including deciding that Jesus is crazy.  When Saul, who later became Paul was an unbeliever, he was convinced the Christian people were the worst sorts of souls and he set out on a quest to destroy them.  It seems so very reasonable, any conclusion you make when you are walking in yourself and deciding what you think is best.  The most rational and acceptable determinations are made by those who have no relationship with Christ.  They make sense and their arguments are levelheaded.  Mary, Saul and Peter all had their ducks in a row with their conclusions but just because the whole world agrees with you doesn’t mean it is so.

Jesus told His disciples not to talk about certain things until He was risen from the dead.  As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. (Mark 9:9 NIV)  There are many things you cannot understand nor can you grasp their importance until Christ is raised from the dead in you.  No matter how hard you look at a matter, regardless of how intensely you stare at a problem or an idea, you cannot get the gist of it until Jesus Christ has come alive in you.  Here is a Biblical example.  When Saul was just an ordinary person and had no sense of Christ in Him, he thought it was best to do whatever He could to stop the progression of the Christian message.  However, He met Christ and could no longer refute His Presence or authority as Lord.  Jesus became alive in Him and it completely changed the way He saw everything.  There is  a magical moment recorded in Acts 13 that completely altered the course of His life.  In the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.  While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."  So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.  The two of them, sent on their way by the Holy Spirit, went… (Acts 13:1-4 NIV)

Consider just how monumental this really was.  Saul, who had been instrumental in the horrific persecution of Christian people in the Middle East, who personally ordered the murder of Christians and their imprisonment was now being commissioned to begin the great missionary movement into the depths of the Roman Empire.  Not only that, Saul was accepting the call and going off on the enterprise...without coercion, without resistance on his part!  We treat this lightly because we are used to Paul being the greatest of all missionaries and the author of one fourth the New Testament.  This was new ground however; for the Church as well as for Saul. Never before had any Christian workers officially with the blessing of the Church been sent out beyond the narrow confines of the Jewish world and certainly not someone of Saul’s notoriety.  You must consider the risk being taken by everyone involved.  What if Saul turned on them?  What if he wasn’t spiritually strong enough to withstand the persecution they might face?  What if Saul’s Christianity had no staying power?  It was a most shocking enterprise!

Take a close look at how this decision to send Saul and Barnabas into the wild pagan world of Roman rule developed.  In this one church in Antioch, there were a group of believers who had some experience hearing from God and praying.  While they were in a time of worship, the Holy Spirit told them to make Saul and Barnabas missionaries.  Somehow, the Lord got this message across to each one of these Christian leaders and church members.  They knew it was God saying it and they were certain of what He said.  Also, Christ in some way prepared Saul and Barnabas for this dramatic change of course.  They were not like Moses or Gideon who were spiritually unprepared for the calling each received from God.  Saul and Barnabas were ready to go; up for the challenge.  God did that in them.  God prepared their hearts for this crucial mission.

God has important things to say to you.  He has tasks for you that matter for eternity.  He has a way of looking at things that He wants you to see.  The Lord has plans for you, challenges for you, certain ways of doing things that are critical for you and for others that you may not even know yet.  You can be oblivious to Christ and remain in a spiritual fog if you like or you can come up into the bright sunlight of God and His word.  You can know what only Christ can show you.  You can see what only the Lord can reveal.  It is possible for you to be just as alert and spiritually alive as those Antioch church members who all knew God wanted Saul and Barnabas to be the first missionaries to the world outside the Middle East.

You must read the Bible if you want to hear from God.  You can never be certain it is Jesus talking to you if the Bible isn’t a part of your thinking.  You don’t read the Bible to get something out of it but to be with Jesus.  If you don’t care what He is doing or how He thinks, then keep the Bible on your coffee table or stuck in your phone.  But if you want God to talk with you and be close to you, then you must read the Bible.  Do what God says whenever you know what He wants you to do.  The Lord will be as silent as a door knob if you disobey Him and ignore what He is telling you.  Pray.  Just sit with God and tell Him you love Him and be quiet…do this several times a day.  You don’t have to ask for anything.  If you have a sin to confess then confess it.  If you feel the desire to thank Him or tell Him you love Him, then do that.  Mostly just sit with Christ and let the Lord have room in your mind to work in it.  Become someone the Lord talks with and gives His thoughts and directions.  Be a disciple that the Lord can guide and lead.  Make the best use of your time here on earth by being one of the Lord’s trusted friends.  Be a disciple!

Bethel

Genesis 35: 1 NIV

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there...

Where Are You Going?

We recently went camping with my brother’s family and my sister and her daughter up near Yosemite.  While there, the key to our car broke apart.  The metal part came out of the plastic fob that holds the chip which activates and deactivates the alarm system.  I could make the key work by using pliers to turn the metal section of the key while holding the fob near the key but I ran the risk of snapping off the part of the key I was using to grip it.  We went to a hardware store to have a duplicate made but it didn’t work.  My brother used his phone to try and find out how to get a replacement key and contacted the Toyota dealer closest to our campground. He was told that a new key would cost nearly $400. That was a stunning price and so he kept trying to find someone who had could help us get another key.  The suggestion was made that we go to a locksmith and see if someone could replace it for us but we did not know where to go or who to ask.  Finally it was time to leave and I was able to use the pliers to turn the key and we made our way back to “civilization”.  It was a four hour trip and I did not stop on the way for fear I could not restart the car.  As I drove, I kept pondering the dilemma.  Should I just go to a Toyota dealer near our house and pay the $400 or try to find a locksmith and see what could be done.  Mary Jo, once we got phone service, went on line to try and find a locksmith near our home but did not get a call back from one and the other said he was not equipped to fix the key.  He did though suggest a locksmith in the town next to our city and when we called there we were told he thought he could fix it.  When we got to the shop, the locksmith was able to replace the car key for just $35.  As we made our way home, I thought just how foolish I would have been to have gone straight to the Toyota dealership rather than following my brother’s advice and try to locate a locksmith.

There is a great risk you take when it comes to your life with God.  You can without grasping what has happened, lose track of Him.  It is a subtle shift, one that barely registers in you but it happens and without warning you find yourself away from God and on your own.  You probably won’t realize it, which makes it difficult to undue.  We were at a campground with hundreds of campers there but only about ten of them came to a worship service offered on Sunday morning.  If the collection of campers at the campground fit the national average, somewhere around two hundred or more identified themselves as Christians but saw no need to attend the worship service they easily could have attended.  Of course there were probably a wide range of excuses many had for not participating but the majority most likely just did not see a need to obey the Bible and worship with God’s people on Sunday and they were oblivious to what effect that would have on them.  The Christian community is at a critical crossroad and you might be too.  How far will you go with your life in Christ?  Is it important enough to you to make it your top priority or will you like so many other American Christians drift away from God and be comfortable casually going along on your own?

The Bible has a fascinating case study that must be considered if we care about this life with God.  Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham, famously finagled out of his brother his birthright as the oldest son for a pot of soup and then tricked his father into giving to him the blessing intended for that same brother Esau.  Esau grew distraught over his change in fortune.   Esau said, "Isn't he rightly named Jacob? He has deceived me these two times: He took my birthright, and now he's taken my blessing!" Then he asked, "Haven't you reserved any blessing for me?"  Isaac answered Esau, "I have made him lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with grain and new wine. So what can I possibly do for you, my son?"  Esau said to his father, "Do you have only one blessing, my father? Bless me too, my father!" Then Esau wept aloud. (Genesis 27: 36-38 NIV)  Esau became so infuriated by how Jacob had stolen from him the blessing his father had for him that he plotted Jacob’s murder.  When Jacob caught wind of Esau’s fury, he fled for his life to the home of his mother’s brother, some four hundred miles away.  Over twenty years Jacob stayed there, marrying a pair of sisters and gained their maids as concubines.  Altogether Jacob had thirteen children, a daughter and twelve sons.  Finally, Jacob was so fed up with his conniving and scheming father-in-law Laban that he was willing to risk his life and face the wrath of his brother rather than spend one more day living under Laban’s “rule”.

                                                                                                              

Jacob’s return to his homeland was no mere whimsy.  The Lord directed him back home.  In a dream, God ordered him to leave Haran and go back to where he met the Lord the first time.  “I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar and where you made a vow to me. Now leave this land at once and go back to your native land.” (Genesis 31:13 NIV)  Jacob packed up his family and left but not without trepidation.  He was afraid of leaving his controlling father-in-law and Jacob was terrified his brother still wanted him dead.  Almost home, Jacob was told by his servants that just ahead of him Esau, his brother, was approaching with four hundred men.  In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.  He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape." (Genesis 32:7-8 NIV)  Panicked, Jacob prayed to God for help.  Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.   But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted. (Genesis 32: 11-12 NIV) 

How many of us have been in a similar situation, desperate for God’s help, we pray for Him to rescue us.  The Lord did save Jacob from his brother’s wrath.  In fact it went far better than he expected; Esau shockingly wanted to rebuild the brotherly bond he once shared with Jacob.  Rather than seeing God was in all this, Jacob turned down the opportunity to move close to Esau and his family and instead settled in Shechem.   The choice of where to set down roots seemed inconsequential to Jacob at the time.  He had “arrived safely” at Shechem Genesis 33: 18 tells us or as the Hebrew text reads, “in peace” or “shalom”.  In other words, Jacob felt pretty good about his move.  However Shechem was “hell” for his daughter and the devil’s playground for his sons.  Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, was raped there and two of her brothers in a fit of rage and lust, murdered all the men of the town and stole their livestock.  Crushed by the wickedness of Shechem and his own sons, Jacob found the Lord was still there with him.  Then God said to Jacob, "Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau." (Genesis 35:1 NIV)

Before Jacob set off from Haran and moved his family south into Canaan, the Lord made it clear to Jacob who He was.  “I am the God of Bethel…”, not Shechem.  It was never Shechem God chose for Jacob to take his family, it was Bethel!  However, Jacob was not paying attention to the Lord and it cost Jacob’s family dearly.  Shechem was Jacob’s Sodom, his Egypt.  The happiness he had that his brother no longer wanted to kill him was like a spiritual drug for it numbed his fervor for God.  The lack of attention to the Lord’s guidance had proved disastrous.  He took his eyes off the giver of peace and put it on the pleasure of peace.  God is patient with our distracted minds but just like checking your cell phone when driving can cost you your life or the lives of others, the failure to keep your eyes on God can be devastating.  Nothing excites Satan more than when God’s people are distracted by all the stuff they are doing and they don’t have time to think about what the Lord is saying to them.  Before you know it, you give in to a little temptation here and disobey a scripture there and life begins to spin out of control.  You become so disoriented by Satan’s subtle prodding that the God of strength and wisdom will be a distant memory. You will find yourself thinking just like any pagan would and the fruit of the Spirit God so eloquently described in Galatians 5: 22 disappears.

Consider just how wrecked Jacob’s family was spiritually.  As soon as he heard from the Lord that he needed to move to Bethel and build an altar there for worshipping God, Jacob knew that his family had big changes to make.  So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. (Genesis 35:2 NIV)  Notice how bad it was.  So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. (Genesis 35:4 NIV)  Satan had worked its way into the fabric of his family but Jacob had the courage and conviction to root Satan out and start over.  What a tremendous joy it is to be so full of God that He bursts out of you wherever you go!  With their hearts right, Jacob and his household practically sparkled with holiness and spiritual power.  Then they set out, and the terror of God fell upon the towns all around them so that no one pursued them. (Genesis 35:5 NIV)

Like a rat making a nest in your house, the impulses of Satan work their way into you and refuse to leave on their own.  We do this, we say that and don’t give a thought to whether it is of God or not as if it doesn’t matter but it matters greatly.  There is a Shechem for every one of us and if we take our mind off the Lord, we will find ourselves there and think everything is alright but it isn’t.  God’s power will have left us and we no longer have Him working with us.  We will say and do things that are more of the devil than they are of Christ and like Samson, we won’t realize we are making a mess of what we have been given.  But then, in our Lord’s patience and mercy, He will make Himself known to us and we will have to decide if we will go to Bethel or not.  When we get rid of our own foreign gods and do away with the stuff that we love more than Christ, we will find that the power of Jesus crucified and resurrected fills us and the fear of the Lord falls on those who come across us.  As you build your life with Christ and set your mind on Him at a moment by moment basis, you will have a way of knowing just what to do and when to do it that will be supernatural and unexplainable to human reasoning.  Make Bethel your home and stay away from Shechem.

Another Plan

Proverbs 14:12 NIV

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Do You Know What To Do?

Our youngest son recently played in his baseball league’s all-star game and he did well.  He drove in the tying run with a base hit to center and he was brought in to pitch the 7^th inning with the game tied and got the batter to ground out to second with the bases loaded to end the threat.  The bottom of that inning, our first batter grounded out and our second hitter came up with nobody on base.  He hit a drive deep into right field and got all the way around to third base for a triple.  Now the winning run was at third base with only one out and a left handed hitter up to bat.  He was in the ninth slot which meant he was the worst hitter in the line-up.  As I stood behind home plate watching the action, almost immediately a plan came to my mind.  I knew exactly what strategic move the manager should make to try to get the winning run home.  It was not my call though and so I waited to see what the batter would do.  Our team had been killed all year by the team we were playing so it was a monumental moment for them.  What would the manager do?  What was his plan for trying to score the winning run?  Was he thinking like me?

Perhaps you have had a tough time trying to figure out what to do.  It’s not easy sorting through all the options.  Maybe it’s more of a binary decision…this or that.  Here or there.  Yes or no.  The idea that God cares about what you do and has input into your decisions and decision-making is not universally accepted and outright rejected by many.  One of the primary arguments for abortion rights is the position that a woman has a right to do with her body as she wishes.  Without addressing the specious basis of that contention, we must consider the theological issue here.  Is God in the abortion equation?  Does He play a part in the decision-making of what to do?  Now that is a critical question to ask, and not just with regard to abortion but in every area of life!  Is there room for God to have a say in what you do?  It matters what you decide on this.  Either God guides you or He doesn’t and how you land on this can have huge ramifications for you and others.

The Bible certainly has a lot to say about this but let’s look at some particular case studies in Scripture that illustrate the ways others have dealt with this issue.  Rebekah is certainly not a well-known figure in the Bible but she plays an important part in the lineage of the nation of Israel as well as for Jesus Himself.  She seems to have been a young bride who married an older man in a quasi-arranged marriage.  After twenty years of going childless, finally she conceived and it was not a single child but twins in her womb.  She wasn’t sure why she felt so much turmoil in her womb so she went to the Lord to see what was happening in her.  The Lord said to her, "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger." (Genesis 25:23 NIV)  That of course was surprising news but before we move off this, let us take a closer look at Rebekah’s response to the prophecy.  We don’t know how Rebekah heard what God said to her or why she knew God said it.  Perhaps there was an audible voice or maybe like many of us, somehow the Lord got this message to her in an inaudible but knowable way.  Regardless, the point to be made is that the Lord declared to her the future of her still unborn twins and Rebekah knew it was really God who put it in her brain.

Over the course of the next forty years, Rebekah grew more attached to her younger son Jacob than her older boy Esau.  This happens.  It isn’t shocking to us that parents develop favorites among their kids.  Of course it is sad and in this case it led to great turmoil and pain for the entire family.  Rather than trusting God to do what He said He would do and make the younger stronger than the older in due time, Rebekah decided to rush the process along in her own way.  Believing perhaps she was acting for God, she got her son Jacob to trick her husband Isaac to give the blessing he planned on giving to the older son Esau to Jacob.  Rebekah took advantage of her husband Isaac’s blindness by having Jacob dress up in his brother’s clothes and lie that he was Esau.  Then Rebekah took the best clothes of Esau her older son, which she had in the house, and put them on her younger son Jacob.  She also covered his hands and the smooth part of his neck with the goatskins. Then she handed to her son Jacob the tasty food and the bread she had made.  He went to his father and said, "My father."  "Yes, my son," he answered. "Who is it?"  Jacob said to his father, "I am Esau your firstborn. I have done as you told me. Please sit up and eat some of my game so that you may give me your blessing."  (Genesis 27:15-19 NIV)

Rebekah heard the voice of God.  He spoke to her about both the present and the future and she knew it really was God saying it all after she did give birth to twins like God said she would.  But then something happened that takes place a million times across generations.  Rebekah went off on her own without God.  Perhaps you have done this too.  God spoke to you about something.  It was undeniably Him.  You were certain of it.  But then time passed and you stopped waiting for Christ to lead you.  You trusted your own wits.  You believed in your intuition, your understanding of things.  And then, without you even really knowing it, you were on your own…without God…without Him showing you the way.  It happened with Mary the mother of Jesus.  She knew God told her that Jesus was the Messiah, God in flesh.  It was a great miracle, His conception.  Mary bravely bore the child and raised Him to believe He was the Messiah.  But then something went wrong in Mary.  She watched Jesus as He moved among the crowds, heard what He was saying to them and grew concerned about Him.  The work of Jesus wasn’t going as she thought it would and Jesus wasn’t saying the kinds of things Mary expected.  Mary thought something wasn’t quite right with Jesus; that maybe He was losing His mind and so she decided to take matters into her own hands.  Without consulting God or even knowing what the Father wanted of her, Mary gathered her other sons and brought them to where Jesus was sitting with His disciples, teaching a small crowd in a home.  Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind." … Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.  (Mark 3:20-21, 31)

What happened with Mary happens over and over in the hearts of people who genuinely love Jesus and want Him to be in charge.  Something doesn’t seem right.  Plans aren’t going as expected.  It is tougher than you thought it would be.  The career isn’t taking off.  Family isn’t what you had hoped.  You aren’t what you envisioned.  It is hard and God is not fixing things.  Or, it could be too easy for you.  You’ve got everything together and you unconsciously don’t need God anymore.  He is just not on the list of things that matter most to you.  We don’t see this in ourselves, the impatience, the eroding faith in God, the nonchalance about His will and direction but it happens.  We slowly stop going to Christ for guidance.  We start figuring things out ourselves and without warning we are on our own, the master of our ship.  What comes of this growing independence, this “self-actualization”?  We are on our own!  We are like all others who have no God to guide them, no Spirit to help them along.

There is something heartwarming about the Israelites as they stood at the edge of the Red Sea with the terrifying Egyptian army and all their chariots and weaponry barreling down upon them.  Logic insisted they surrender.  As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.  They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?  Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"  (Exodus 14:10-12 NIV)  We mustn’t forget what a frightening sight the parted Red Sea must have been as an escape route the LORD had chosen for them.  It could not have been inviting to see hundreds of feet of water piled up on each side of the path but they took it because the Israelites believed, even if it was just a bit of faith, that God knew the way for them.

Within you, if you have been born again, the Spirit of God lives and He is ready to guide you.  He can show you the right way to go at each moment if you are willing to let Him be in charge.  If though you turn your back to Him or ignore Him or reject Him, the Spirit will be silent and let you go along on your own.  He will give you the opportunity to see just what it is like without God putting your life together.  Rebekah found out  how great her plan was when a few days later she watched her beloved son Jacob walk out the door, never in her lifetime to return.  We need Christ to lead us, to show us the way.  It is the greatest of gifts to have the Lord of the Universe living inside us, ready to open doors for us, give us wisdom that is supernatural and make things work out that couldn’t without Him. 

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!

Desert Life

Isaiah 41:14 NIV

Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

What Can God Make of You?

When I first became a part of the ministries of Warm Springs Church, I wasn’t the full-time pastor.  My friend Keith Williams was the pastor but he asked me to be co-pastor with him.  So in addition to leading the youth ministries, I also shared in the preaching.  Our income came from my wife who had a good job working in management for a major corporation.  Financially we were fine.  We were living in a mobile home which we liked and our first son had just arrived and Mary Jo and I were ecstatic about having him.  People in the church liked me and were appreciative of the youth ministry we had.  We were experimenting with contemporary music in the service and that seemed to be going well.  I had a great friendship with Pastor Keith and we worked well together…we were on the same page and had a common vision for the church.  And yet something wasn’t right with me.  I was dry and lacked joy.  Although I felt like what I was doing was important, I did not have a great amount of enthusiasm for my work.  Something was missing and I could not figure out what it was. 

Have you ever felt spiritually dry?  You were doing all the right things but there was no passion to any of it, no fire, no bounce to your step.  Perhaps you are there now.  You can’t put a finger on what is missing but you know something is.  Others may not know that there is anything wrong with you but you know there is.  It might be your growing lack of motivation to get up early and read your Bible, to pray, to dedicate yourself to following God’s guidance.  You might be wondering about the whole matter of doing God things.  Is it important for you to think about God, talk about Him, hear from Him?  No one wakes up one morning and decides to be spiritually dry.  It isn’t a goal of most people to give up on having passionate faith; it just happens kind of like catching the flu or getting into an accident in a parking lot.  Plenty of people in churches are not as enthusiastic about their faith as they once were.  They may want to be passionate about God and living a Christian life but they just aren’t and they don’t have a lot of motivation to see this turn around.  You might be like that now.  You aren’t alone though!

One of the highly underrated passages in the Bible is found in the Old Testament in Isaiah 41.  Starting in verse 14, it describes the psychological and spiritual condition of many.  Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.  "See, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth.  You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.  You will winnow them, the wind will pick them up, and a gale will blow them away.  But you will rejoice in the Lord and glory in the Holy One of Israel.  "The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst.  But I the Lord will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them.   I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys.  I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.  (Isaiah 41:14-18 NIV)

Not many would tolerate being called a worm.  Not even citizens of a tiny country like Luxemburg would take kindly being called a worm of a nation.  We are after all people.  We create.  We build bridges.  We write poetry.  We develop computer programs.  We fix dinner.  We have opinions about things.  We are intelligent.  Strong.  Thoughtful.  Here is the ironic part of this way the Lord addresses His people.  Does a worm know it’s a worm?  Do they think of themselves as lowly, as insignificant, weak-minded?  Probably not!  If you called a worm a worm, the worm most likely would just nod at you and see nothing significant about your name for him. Worms don’t take it as an insult to be seen as worms.  Likewise, does a desert know it is a desert?  Does it realize how dry it is or how lifeless?  The desert would probably point out a rattlesnake as a way of defending how full of life it is.  “See, a buzzard flying overhead and an iguana over there!”  “Dry?  What do you mean dry?  Just the other day there was a drop of dew on this rock.  Five months ago we had a full out thunderstorm.  What do you mean it is dry?  No vegetation?  How can you say that?  Look on the horizon.  There is a cactus.  Over there to the right is another one.”

One of the effects of sin is that it ruins our capacity to see ourselves as we actually are.  Sometimes we lose sight of our strengths and fail to recognize our abilities.  Like Moses complaining to God that he could not do what the Lord was asking of him, there are those who are unable to grasp just how capable they are.  Far more often though sin has the opposite effect.  It blinds us to our true shortcomings.   We see ourselves as more adequate than we are, more intelligent, more logical and less susceptible to making mistakes than we actually are.  Just consider how quickly sin impacted the earliest people.  Adam and Eve put on fig leaves to cover their nakedness.  Who were they trying to avoid?  God!  Did they not realize that fig leaves could keep God from seeing what they were hiding?  In the very next generation Cain killed his brother Abel and thought it was reasonable what he did.  A few generations later, Lamech killed a man because the fellow wounded him and thought such revenge was rational.  The Bible tells us that the oldest living human being died in the year of the flood, most likely because he choose to not ride it out in the ark his grandson built. 

Recently I heard a musical artist discuss how hard she worked on her Grammy winning album and in the interview she boastedof its popularity.  I did not know a single song this person had done and so I thought I would listen to some of her music.  It was terrible.  Musically the songs were awful and the lyrics were horrible.  They were perverse and filled with cursing.  I wondered if she realizes how bad her music is and how ridiculous her songs are.  Will she be proud to have her grandkids listen to her songs when she is sixty?  She admittedly is an extreme example of how sin ruins our ability to see ourselves rightly but we all face this same predicament.  We can’t really make sense of ourselves because sin keeps us from having access to enough information to have an informed opinion.

Let us consider one example of this in the Bible.  When Peter the disciple was told by Jesus that he was going to deny knowing Christ, Peter vehemently rejected the notion   Peter declared, "Even if all fall away, I will not."  "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "today — yes, tonight — before the rooster crows twice you yourself will disown me three times."  But Peter insisted emphatically, "Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you." And all the others said the same.  (Mark 14:29-31 NIV)  We all know just how wrong Peter was and for that matter all of the other disciples too.  Peter did just as Jesus said he would and Peter was so shocked by his cowardice that he wept bitterly over it.  Peter was not being a blustery fool when he insisted he would courageously stand by Christ.  He just did not know himself because sin had done its work in him too.  He was like us all, unable to see everything in himself and what he did know he had a warped view of it.

In our Bible passage, you are told that you are a desert.  You are spiritually dry and lifeless.  You are poor and needy and do not know how to get the water that can quench your thirst.  You are a worm that is helpless and inadequate.  Not just you…me too…every one of us in fact.  We might think we are great lions and mighty eagles.   You could insist you are a fertile valley that is producing a great harvest of the sweetest fruits but you would be wrong.  God is not blinded by sin like you are.  He sees you as you are…helpless, dry and barren.  That is not a slam against you; not the cutting assertions of an insensitive critic.  It is just how you are…how I am.

Take a moment to consider what God promises to do for you.  He says He can make the parched ground in you become springs.  He is able to help you.  He can take away those mountains that are in your way.  He will not leave you to fend for yourself.  He will see you through the difficulties you face.  He will be there with you and make you into a sort of Garden of Eden, a person whose spirit is thriving rather than barely getting by on fumes.  What our Lord is promising you is something you cannot gain from friends, from family or success.  It can come only from Him.  But how do you access this “living water” that bubbles up inside you?  Jesus said this of gaining His living water.  “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." (John 7:38 NIV)  It is not a matter of doing but of believing.  As you believe Christ is with you, that He is helping you, that He is comforting you, you will find His help in all sorts of places without any logical explanation.  Encouragement will arise in you.  Guidance will come to you.  Support will be available for you.  No one can explain how Christ does it, making water bubble up in you when you are dry but He does.  Is it a miracle when God provides you a friend that you need, when He gives you some way out of your financial difficulties, when He sees you through your confusion?  Perhaps we would call it a miracle…or maybe we would just say that God loves you and has a lot of different ways to be there for you!

The Moment of Discovery

John 20:8 NIV

 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed.

What Did You Just See?

When I was young, maybe five years old, I heard on our porch a loud stomping and a male voice calling out, “Ho, Ho, Ho!”  I was in shock.  It was night time and Christmas Eve and the thought that Santa Claus was actually tramping around on our porch was astounding to me.  Was it possible that Santa Claus was out there?  Had he come to my home?  What did this mean?  I stood there dumbfounded in front of the door trying to decide if I would go outside and see if it was him.  I must have looked over at my mom to see what she thought.  Was it safe to go out on the porch?  What should I do?  Finally I opened the door and there before me was a brand new tricycle.  I was astonished.  So it was true!  Santa Claus did exist and he left me the grandest of all presents.  How could I ever have doubted Santa Claus?  Of course I later discovered that it was my dad who made all the noise, left the tricycle on the porch and slipped in the house through the back door but in my childhood, seeing was believing for me!

There is a moment when you stand in the gap between belief and disbelief, when you are not certain of what you just saw or heard.  It could be good news like that you were “lucky caller number ten” or that your cancer is gone.  It could be something dreadfully horrible like that a close friend just died in a car accident or that you have been let go from your job of twenty years.  You cannot anticipate such moments.  They come like a bolt of lightning and shatter whatever comfortable plans you had for the day or the week or your life.  You have seen pictures of people who stand in dumbfounded shock with their eyes blinking wildly as they try to process what just happened.  Maybe you have been like that.  Your boyfriend just asked you to marry him.  Your dad just handed you the keys to a new car.  Your mother just told you she was divorcing your father.  Most of your days are pretty normal but then all of a sudden it isn’t normal.  It is shocking.

The account of Jacob found in the Bible is just that sort of matter.  He was fleeing for his life.  Jacob had just tricked his dad into giving him the blessing intended for his twin brother and now that older brother was plotting his murder back at home.  Exhausted from his panicked flight, Jacob found a boulder and put his head down on it as if it were a cushy pillow and fell asleep.  Jacob could not have predicted what happened that night.

Like all of us each and every night, Jacob had a dream.  Most of our dreams we never remember when we get up out of bed.  Some keep us thinking for a while.  Most are completely forgettable.  Jacob had a dream that made its way into the Bible.  He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.  There above it stood the Lord, and he said: "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying.  Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." (Genesis 28:12-15 NIV)

Jacob was so convinced that he had just met God in His sleep that he created a monument to honor the Lord and named the place where he was, “House of God”. Jacob even made a vow at the spot to give God a tenth of all he gained if the Lord took care of him and brought him back to his father’s house.  Most of us never give much thought to our dreams and rarely do even the most ardent of Christians think their dreams are sent to them by God.  Dreams are just too chaotic, too bizarre to take seriously.  Yet Jacob believed his dream was a God moment; that the Lord met with Him that night, the actual and real Lord.

If you had the exact same dream, would you have taken it seriously?  Would you have worshiped the Lord as soon as you climbed out of bed?  Would you have been convinced God had spoken directly to you?  Don’t misrepresent what happened with Jacob.  It was in the end just a dream.  It was no less a dream than you might have had, seeing yourself standing in front of a group without any pants or meeting in some restaurant with a long gone relative or having a raccoon talk to you on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.  It was a dream but Jacob knew it was not just something that sprang up from his own unconscious; it was from beyond him, it was God coming to him within his heart.

It is hard to believe that God is really real and that He speaks to people like you and me.  Great intellects like Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan insist God does not exist.  You have friends and neighbors that pay no attention to God.  People you respect ignore Him.  The popular movies do not mention Him or include God in the plot lines.  Even “deep and meaningful” song lyrics have no place for God in them.  The anticipation of God making His way into the normal day you have is nearly dead.  Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we have lost our way and don’t know how we can get back to our place of real life with God.

What do you make of this casually mentioned moment in the Apostle Paul’s normal life?  He was on one of his missionary trips and needed to know where he and his companions should go after they left the region of Galatia, just north of Paul’s hometown.  The book of Acts has an interesting comment on this.   Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. (Acts 16:6 NIV)  How did Paul know the Holy Spirit did not want him and his partners in the province of Asia?  We aren’t told!  It is not clear how God got this across to them.  It could have been through a dream or a prophet or a sign of some sort or just an impression they had that God was directing them.  What we do know though is that Paul and the others all were prepared for God to guide them and ready to believe He was.  This is no small matter, believing that God can and does direct your steps.  It is in fact for many an insurmountable barrier.  They do not accept this to be so and live without any thought given to what God wants them to do.

Imagine what it would be like if you took seriously Jesus’ statement in John 15: 5.  "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (NIV)  The “if” of this proclamation indicates that you may or may not remain in Him.  That is completely up to you.  No one including God will force you to remain connected to Christ.  You can cut yourself off from Him like an angry daughter who refuses to talk with her parents.  A famous porn star who has been in the news recently has for twenty years refused to have anything to do with either of her parents.  You can do that, ignoring Christ and making no effort at being connected to Him.  But the consequence of that is that you can do nothing.  You don’t matter, what you do, how you think, what you accomplish does not matter.  You go nowhere, do nothing, make nothing of your life.  That is an option that you can take and many are completely satisfied doing this.  They are thoroughly disconnected from Christ and happy living that way.

To be connected to Christ, you must pay attention to Him.  Look for Him to guide you.  Ask Him to direct you.  Listen for Him to speak to you.  There are a thousand different ways Christ can show you something and make your life matter.  Who can know what it will be next?  Was Moses expecting a burning bush?  Did David expect the high priest of Israel to come to his house?  Could Elijah have anticipated the small still voice?  Was Nathaniel prepared for someone from Nazareth to be the Messiah?  God does not announce His presence with trumpets and does not shake you out of your sleep to get you to notice Him.  He will come to you at any moment with any sort of way of getting through to you that He chooses.  One thing though is clear.  If you do not keep your mind on Christ and set your heart on being directed by Him, nothing you do will matter.  That is certain.

Don’t be embarrassed that you haven’t been paying attention to Christ.  Admit it.  Start over.  Pray and ask the Lord to guide you, to show you what to do next.  Perhaps you are lost and don’t know how to find your way.  Turn to Christ and ask Him what to do.  He will guide you.  Somehow, you will know what to do and it will be the Lord who will make it clear.  Just like the sparrow knows somehow where to look for food, Christ will direct you too.  You must trust Him though to guide you perfectly and as you follow Him, everything you do will matter, whether it is how you make your bed or the way you respond at a board meeting or what you say to your kids at home.  With Christ in you directing your life, you are no ordinary mortal; you have all the glory of God living through you!