Spirituality—an Infused Presence

Genesis 2:7 NIV

…the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

What Is In You?

What makes you unique?  For me it is my last name.  In high school kids made fun of it.  Often when asked my last name, I have to spell it because receptionists reflexively start writing it as Walker rather than Walkup.  Just recently I was substitute teaching at a high school and kids in two different classes made fun of it.  My son did an internet search of our last name and it turns out a descendant of ours with our last name was a member of Scottish royalty and named his castle after our name.  My wife’s first name, Mary Jo is unique in Northern California.  Combine it with Walkup and it seems inconceivable that anyone else has the same name.  Well it turns out there is another Mary Jo Walkup in the Bay Area and when we first moved here, we started getting her mail and the library confused the two of them.  Yet you cannot hide behind someone else.  You are different from every other person that has ever existed and nothing you do can keep this from being true.  You may have plastic surgery to make you look like Barbie or feign a British accent so that you sound more charming but in the end you are who you are and no one else and that cannot be changed.  You are made by God with a unique soul that no one else can ever possess.

When God put together his first human being, it was such an ignoble work.  He scraped together some dirt and formed him out of the common stuff of the earth.  It was like a child scooping up clumps of mud and patting the mess together into a shape of his own imagining.  No fanfare or shouts of acclimation greeted the new creation.  But the Lord wasn’t finished yet.  At the end of it, He did something that is difficult to assess.  The Lord breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and from that point forward he and each one who came from his line became a “living soul”.

The Hebrew term translated “being” in the NIV and “soul: in the KJV is “nephesh”.  It describes you as you, distinctly different from every other person that has ever been or will be.  Without the breath of God, Adam was just a body, an organic collection of matter.  Once though God breathed into him, Adam came alive; became “him”.  A parallel term found in the Greek Bible is “psuche”, from which is derived the English word “psyche”.    The idea of both words in their Biblical context is that they describe you as the combination of body and spirit.  Take out the spirit and the psuche or nephesh ends.  You have a body stranded without life.  James the brother of Jesus references this body without spirit condition and uses it to compare it to faith without works.  As the body without the God,spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:26 NIV)  The Apostle Paul hints at the time when a separation will take place between him and his body.  Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.  We live by faith, not by sight.  We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8 NIV)

The book of Proverbs speaks of the souls (nephesh) of animals and says that the righteous man cares for the animal soul.  A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal… (Proverbs 12:10 NIV)  It is literally, “A righteous one knowing the soul of his animals.  The word translated animals is a term used for any creature other than humans and comes from a root that means “tongue tied” or without language.  It is all those beasts that God did not breathe into and make living souls.  The Bible differentiates between the spirit the animals possess and the sort of spirit people have.  Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" (Ecclesiastes 3:21 NIV)  The question raised has to do with the ultimate destination of the human spirit vs. the animal spirit but the point is that they are different; animal spirit and human spirit.  What separates one from the other?  All we have and it is an important difference is that the Bible says that God breathed into the first human being and by doing so gave people something He did not give animals…something called a “living soul”.

What are we to make of this breath God put into Adam?  The only other time we see in the Bible God pushing out His breath into someone, it is when Christ during His resurrection breathed upon the disciples the Holy Spirit.  And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22 NIV)  There are three considerations here.  The first is that this is something from God that the animals don’t possess.  Second it is spirit; something beyond physical.  Third it is of God, it comes out of Him.  In our modern age we think of anything “spiritual” as not really real.  Like a metaphor, something spiritual stands for a way of seeing, a way of viewing an aspect of life.  If it is spiritual, then that is code for this is deeply personal, it flows out of me and how I live my life.  Yet the Bible insists that the things of the Spirit are super real, are eternal real rather than temporary real.  God and Spirit are not just real, they are the basis behind all reality.  They make reality actual, not just digital imagery or something coming out of a machine.  The fact that God’s breath is in you and sustains you is why you are not just a thought; you are by God’s action, “really real”.

What is exceptional about God breathing into the first human being and the result of the breath being passed along across every generation and through every person that has been conceived is that something of God is in each of us.  The Biblical term for this is that we are made in “God’s image”.  What a marvelous miracle that is!  All of us have “Godness”; it is in a sense, in our DNA.  No matter how bad we might be, how corrupted by Satan and debased by our behaviors, God is still a part of who we are, the life behind our being.  When Jacob, after a twenty year absence finally met up with his brother Esau and found him full of forgiveness and no longer holding against Jacob his grudge, Jacob said of him, “For to see your face is like seeing the face of God”. (Genesis 33:10 NIV) Perhaps there is more truth to that statement than Jacob knew at the time.

What is possible for someone who has God a part of him or her?  Love and forgive with supernatural strength come to mind.  Author Philip Yancey in his book Rumors of Another World  reminds you and me of the great power those who have Christ in them possess.  When the transition of power took place in South Africa as the apartheid government based on racial injustice was replaced by a demographic coalition of blacks and whites led by the recently released Nelson Mandela, there were many atrocities of the past racist leaders that needed to be addressed.  The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Bishop Desmond Tutu brought white policeman and army officers in to face their accusers over crimes they had committed while in power.  The rules were these: if when voluntarily facing his accusers, the officer confessed his crime and fully acknowledged his guilt, he could not be tried and punished for the crime.  One police officer told of a time when he and his fellow policeman shot an eighteen year old and burned his body to ashes to destroy the evidence.  Later the same officer returned to that house and seized the boy’s father.  While his wife was forced to watch, the police tied her husband to a wood pile, poured gasoline all over his body and set him on fire.

After hearing the police officer describe his crimes, the widow, who was also the mother, was given the opportunity to speak.  “What do you want from Mr. van de Broek?” the judge asked her.  She replied that she wanted him to go to the place where they burned her husband’s body, gather the dust and make it possible for her to give her husband a decent burial.  The police officer hung his head in shame and agreed to do so.  But then the widow added, “Mr. van de Broek took all my family away from me, and I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him.  And I would like Mr. van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him too.  I would like to embrace him so he can know my forgiveness is real.”  As she left the witness stand to go to the police officer, the widow had to stop because overwhelmed, the officer had fainted. (p. 223-224)

What can you do with God a part of you, what is possible with Him living through you?  Adam had a chance to find out just what sort of goodness could flow from him into the world all about him.  Now that we live in the age of sin and death, it is certainly more difficult to believe that we possess the love and kindness of God but we do.  The promise is still valid today.  I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:13 NIV)  Today you can love like God.  Today you can forgive like Jesus.  Today you can be kind like Jesus.  Today you can get rid of your temper, be done with your addictions, leave behind your lusts and be patient in any and every circumstance just like Jesus.  With Christ a part of us, it is possible!

A Strange Revelation

John 4: 26 NIV

 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he.”

Are You Ready For A Change?

There is in each of us a strong desire to be right.  We want to be the one with the correct answer…to know how it really is when others are just guessing.  Yet how can we be right when we don’t have an answer, when we just have questions?  When I went away to college, I did not know what I was doing.  I had no idea what to expect, what I would gain from going to college, what sort of career I would have when I finished.  If someone asked me, “What do you plan on doing after you graduate”, I had no idea.  I did not go to a small college to get something out of it or to accomplish something; I went because I knew God was sending me there.  Because I had never before stepped foot on the campus or even been to the state where it was located, I had nothing on which to base my opinion of how it would go or even should go.  I had no answers to give to those who wondered what I thought the future held for me.  You might say that I was “clueless”.  Now that I am an old man and have lots of experience to inform my thinking, I still don’t know what to expect nor do I know why I am here.  I am just as “clueless” as I was back then.  All I have to offer anyone about the state of my affairs is that God makes the plans for my life just as He did when I went away to college.

Perhaps you are wondering what God is doing with you.  You may even question His wisdom, the benefit of letting Him be in charge.  It could be that you do not even really believe that He has anything much to do with you and how things go in your life.  Many think of God as an absent father, a dad who is never there for them.  That might be you.  Or you may have put your trust in Him to take care of your big issues but the small ones might be bothering you.  What should you do about dinner?  How can you get your kids to finish their homework?  What should you do about your retirement funds? Can your career get upgraded?  Is there hope for a happy marriage?  Perhaps those sorts of issues you feel like you must solve on your own if anything is to be done.

When Jesus famously chatted with the Samaritan woman looking for water at the village well where Jesus sat and rested; a fascinating conversation ensued.  This lady who had been married and divorced five times and was living with someone new was not exactly a prime candidate for deep theological discussions.  Yet the things that were said there were some of the most important teachings on God and worship found anywhere in the Gospels.  The Jews, Jesus said, had an edge on the Samaritans when it came to worship and living with God. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. (John 4:22-23 NIV)

An important choice of words is used by Jesus that the NIV version captures.  The Samaritans worship “what” they don’t know rather than “who”.  The Jews worship also “what” they know rather than “who” they know.  Worship for both groups was impersonal and not interactive.  It had nothing to do with the actual person God.  It was like a young man falling in love with the idea of a particular woman rather than a woman herself.  We sometimes criticize those who spend lots of time playing on line games with others because they are not hanging out with actual people.  Yet the truth is that they are talking with and listening to real people.  The Jews and Samaritans had quit trying to worship God Himself and had given themselves over to the forms of worship instead.  There no longer was an interaction between two personalities; it was just thousands of ones acting within themselves hoping that God or “luck” would be in their favor if they performed all the right rituals.  It was worship grounded in superstition rather than relationship.  Jesus came to change that.

Jesus insists that that by coming, He established a link between God and all people.  By Spirit you connect with God.  As real as the wind that blows and the breath that passes through the lungs, the Spirit creates the pathway through which you build your life with God.  How many people give up on God because they are not familiar with the way He connects with people!  It seems surreal, even not real like a fairy tale or a Nordic myth when someone who has never met God by Spirit hears of it.  The Samaritan woman expresses this same skeptical hope when she returns to town and tells the villagers, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?" (John 4: 29 NIV)  The Greek text which was the original language used to transcribe this conversation makes it clear that the woman saw little likelihood that it would be so, that the man she met at the well actually was the long awaited Messiah but she hoped He was.  Many, even today hope God exists and that He cares about them, maybe even loves them, but they don’t really think it could be so.  Like this unnamed woman, the promise of a loving and healing and almighty God who can raise them from the dead seems too good to be true yet they want it to be more than a fable.

Now what happened next is one of the great miracles recorded in the Bible.  It may not seem like much to many who read of it but it really was astounding what took place.  They came out of the town and made their way toward him….Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”  So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.  And because of his words many more became believers.  (John 4: 30, 39-41 NIV) How could a woman, who had been divorced five times, who was living with a man not her husband, who did not go to the well to get water at the time when the other women went and socialized, have pulled a crowd together from her own home town and led them out to meet with Jesus, a hated Jew?

If you just give a little thought to human personality and how people are, it was unreasonable for this crowd of villagers to make their way out to Jesus just at the inspiration of their immoral neighbor.  Why would any of them have interest in a despised Jew?  Yet they did.  The text in the Greek tells us that the people left the town but then kept coming and coming to Jesus in a continual coming.  Some force, some supernatural force pulled them out of their huts and away from their fields and over to where a man they should have hated greeted them.  The woman was in such a hurry to tell her neighbors about Jesus that she completely forgot her water jar and the water she came to get.  She rushed off in a flurry of amazement and wonder.  It is not unusual for someone to make us lose track of time and space being around that person.  A celebrity, someone with great creativity or wit or beauty can do it to us.  Yet the Bible tells us that there was nothing about Jesus that made Him attractive…just the force of his life with the Father.  And that force came to bear on the woman looking for water and the people of the town who came to see Him at her invitation.

There is a strangely wonderful shift in the text that must be noted.  This woman, who was a Samaritan woman and a many times married woman and even an immoral woman was relabeled as the account concluded.   Jesus told the disciples that the fields which He probably pointed to nearby were ready to be harvested.   Do you not say, 'Four months more and then the harvest'? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.  Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.  (John 4:35-36 NIV) He was not talking about corn or wheat or barley though.  He was speaking of the need for all the people around Him to have eternal life.  “Look at them”, He was saying.  “They all need a Savior.  You are the ones I want to welcome them into Salvation.”  Yet it is none of the disciples who are used by God to pull the crowd there in the Samaritan village to eternal life.  It was the most unexpected of all people to be the means by which this little town became a pocket of salvation, a well of eternal life.  Pay careful attention to verse 39.  Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, "He told me everything I ever did." (John 4:39 NIV)

We call her the “Samaritan woman”.  Some label her the “sinful woman”.  Many speak of her as the “woman at the well”.  But here as the account comes toward a conclusion, she is literally termed “the witnessing woman”.  That is a strange revelation.  Someone so off base, so spiritually disoriented, so dysfunctional was named by God, “the witnessing woman”.  How can this have been so?  What force or motivation turned her life around so dramatically that she became someone completely new, someone unknown before meeting Jesus?  It is not a force nor a motivation but rather a person.  When God as Spirit becomes a part of you and works His way through you, a transformation occurs which changes who you are and what you do.  The woman did not understand really who Jesus was and she could not explain what to make of Him but she did know that everyone in her town needed to come find out for themselves and so with God working in her, she gave the rallying cry to go to the well and meet Jesus.  Once God got a hold of her and He worked in her Spirit to spirit, she became someone new to God.  She was the “witnessing woman”.

Are you ready for God’s Spirit to transform you?  What do you think He might make of you?  Is there a name God could give you that would be surprising?  The witnessing woman did not make something of herself or try to rehabilitate her lifestyle.  She simply spent time with Jesus and the Spirit of God worked within her to take what was thoroughly broken and dysfunctional and remake her into someone you might say was a superstar in God’s Kingdom.  She had no great message to offer.  She certainly was not straight theologically.  Her reputation in town was not fixed.  What she did have which made all the difference in the world was time spent with Jesus!  In those brief moments alone with Him, the Spirit of God began to rework her mind so that she got to make something of the life she had been given.  I wonder what the witnessing woman would say now, if you asked her, “Was it worth it spending time with Jesus?”  What could be the benefit to you if you gave Jesus some time alone with Him?  What might happen to you?

Connected

Acts 1: 8

 …and you will be witnesses of me…

Are You Independent or Connected?

One of the early stages of childhood is independence.  As a child develops, she gradually acquires her sense of self, that she is separate from others.  She wants her way, asserts her will and uses biting, hitting and tantrums to get her demands met. Parents often want to throw up their hands in frustration at this stage of child rearing.  Most of us successfully navigate through this phase of life and if we don’t, we develop sophisticated ways to tantrum and bite that make us seem “adultish”.  Nearly everyone at some point begins to reconnect with the human race, finding that complete independence is not a great way to live.  We learn to get along, work as teammates, accept the fact that someone who disagrees with us is not our enemy and perhaps someone worth building a close relationship.  Marriage is one of the great laboratories for developing a balance between independence and unity.  It doesn’t always go well.  Sometimes it is tough accepting the realization that not everyone likes chili with tomato sauce and there might be at least one in the world who thinks Sabrina is a great movie.  The first argument Mary Jo and I had was when I laughed at her pronunciation of the constellation Orion.  What an eye opener for me to discover that someone thought you pronounced it O’ ree on.  At some point we begin to accept the fact that not everyone thinks like us and they are still good to be with anyway.

Perhaps the most important philosophical question of all time is, “What part does God play in my life?”  It pivots on the point of independence.  Either you are completely isolated from God or “godness” or on the other end of the continuum your life is thoroughly bound up to God and His sovereignty.  Perhaps you fall somewhere in between those two sides of the spectrum.  You are somewhat connected to God and somewhat disconnected too.  Most people say they believe in a god but there is a growing disconnect between belief and the sense of self.  Once the journey toward independence is started and you think of yourself as yourself and not others, the shift back to seeing yourself connected and not just yourself is impossible for many.  It seems like intellectual suicide to believe that God is a part of you too and that you are not independent but with Him in a supernatural bond.

The Bible presents a unique perspective on human personality and what sort of people we could be.  Nearly every other religion in the world is built upon the premise that you are independent of God and not a part of him or her or them.  There is a god or gods in those religions but they are separate and different and operate outside of people.  There is a clear boundary between the god or gods and the individual human being.  Yet here is what the Bible says is the case when you become Christian.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20 NIV)  This is in a sense the destruction of the self and the creation of a new self.  It is the joining of you and God.  The Bible says that this is a mystery, something that does not make sense to those who don’t know how magnificent God is.  To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27 NIV)

The field of psychology, when God is not seen in how things are has no explanation for what we find here.  There is the possibility of a completely new personality in the place of the old.  You and Christ become someone that was never before in existence.  It is like the combining of oxygen and hydrogen and the result is water, something totally different from just oxygen and just hydrogen.  You are a new substance when Christ becomes a part of you.  It is like a seed that is buried but emerges as something different.  The different you, when Christ literally joins Himself with you, is a connected personality, never again independent but in union with God.

As long as we want to live separate from God He will let us.  If we don’t need Him, the Lord will not stop us from going our own way.  The moment though we realize we are sinners and we need a Savior to give us a new life, Christ comes with His forgiveness and His mercy and makes us someone completely new, what the Bible calls born again.  In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."  "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!"  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.  You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'  The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit." (John 3:3-8 NIV)

What our Lord is describing is a transformation by the Spirit of God that no magician, psychologist or psychiatrist can recreate.  It is the work of God as He enters into the human personality and makes that person new.  We see the physical manifestation of this work described in John 20 when Jesus gathered His Apostles together after He was crucified and returned to life.  Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you."   And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit.”  (John 20:21-22 NIV)  Perhaps though the Apostles did not think anything really happened that day.  It was so silent and seamless; the Holy Spirit becoming a part of them that the Lord put on display for them and the world what it actually is to have the Spirit of God become part of you.  When the day of Pentecost came, they (the Apostles) were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. (Acts 2:1-6 NIV)

What we see coming into clarity is the great miracle of the ages.  The mind of God, joined with the minds of His people.  How did they all know this really happened?  They were able to think beyond their natural capacity, with the ability God possessed.  Languages the Apostles never had learned they could speak with the mind of the Holy Spirit part of them.  Something so mystical, so wonderful as God being a part of you must make a difference in how you live.  Yet, it is so common that God’s people live as if there was nothing as supernatural about them as the Spirit of God joined to them that the question is raised in the Bible, Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NIV)

Do you know and really know that God has become a part of you?  Do you live like it?  Are you in fellowship with God or mostly ignoring Him, disconnected, acting as if you are independent?  Paul reported that one of his close friends who had the Spirit of God a part of Him turned his back on that great miracle and started living as if God wasn’t there in Him.  Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. (2 Timothy 4:9-10 NIV)  It is so easy for you to do, to grow indifferent to God joined to you.  You begin to lose the power of Christ in you as your mind disconnects from Him.  Your ability to love, to forgive, to pray with supernatural power, to encourage and to live at peace and free of worry diminishes rapidly as you disengage from the Spirit of Christ who is a part of you.  What a waste of life to act as if you do not have God in you, as if you are independent of Him!

Connect with the Holy Spirit.  In faith pray through Him.  Talk with Him.  Believe He will work through you as you go about the day.  Meditate upon Jesus Christ crucified.  His death on the Cross is the power of God to be a part of you.  That is the entry point to connection with God.  Think about the details of His lashing, His humiliation, His last breath.  Pause and then receive all the goodness and joy of having Him a part of you.  Take time through the next hour and see the living Christ joined with you in each thought of yours.  Connect with God.

The Importance of Your Praying

Genesis 20:7 NIV

 Now return the man's wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not return her, you may be sure that you and all yours will die."

What is the Big Deal about Prayer?

I have a shirt that across the front has in bold, bright letters, “Pray”.  I enjoy the reaction it stirs.  I usually wear it when I am going to be around a lot of different people.  It would be fun to have a web cam record the response of those who notice it for the first time.  A typical reaction is for a person to glance at the letters, then pause a moment as if trying to grasp the meaning of the word found on my shirt.  Almost always, the woman or man quickly looks away without meeting my eyes.  It is as if I stop being a real person to many, just a walking billboard.  Some smile and tell me they like the shirt, most try to pretend they didn’t see it or me.  I did not realize prayer was controversial, or something that made people uncomfortable.  Perhaps it is now; maybe prayer is no longer recognized as a critical part of being human; not thought to be important to making life better.

It seems odd that there has to be a rationale given for prayer but perhaps one must be given.    Does it really matter if you pray or not?  Is anyone affected by the shortness of your praying or your lack of prayer?  The problem is that you almost never get any feedback on how you pray.  If you diet or don’t, you see how you are doing.  When you send a check to a charity, you get a note back thanking you for the support and perhaps even a report of how much help you provide.  If you save for your retirement, eventually you find out what your disciplined living did for you.  Fail to keep oil in your car and at some point you will find out how important oil is to your car engine.  It is not like that with prayer.  How do you ever find out what your praying did or didn’t do for yourself or others?  You never get a report card.  No one knows how effective your praying is and you probably don’t know either.  Unless you are someone like George Muller who kept rigorous records of his praying and how his prayer requests fared, you probably haven’t a clue about your prayer success rate.  The default setting for most people is that they just don’t pray much for themselves or others because they don’t know why they should.  Is there a reason why you should pray often?  Let us look at this question carefully because it may really matter how much you pray.

The Bible has an intriguing account of prayer that must be considered.  The book of Job is most famous for its report of the terrible suffering of Job and how he tried to understand why God let him face such horror.  Yet it could be argued that the most important point made in the book is not even the narrative of Job and his trials but rather what we are told at the end.  Job had three friends who came to him ostensibly to comfort him but ended up berating Job for imaginary wrongs he had committed.  The friends decided that Job had to have been a terrible sinner for God to make him suffer so much.  More than half the book is a dialogue between Job and his friends; the later accusing Job of secret sins and the former denying the charges and asserting his holiness.  Famously Job pleads for someone to intervene for him, someone to defend him to God.  He insists, “…God has wronged me and drawn his net around me. “ (Job 19:6 NIV)

The final chapters of Job are given over to the Lord’s response to Job’s accusations.  God never explains His actions; He merely makes it clear that He is sovereign Lord over all and that no one rises above Him in authority and power.  God challenges Job to bring his charges directly to Him.  The Lord said to Job:  "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?  Let him who accuses God answer him!"  (Job 40:1-2 NIV)  Job’s response is quick and decided.  Then Job answered the Lord:  "I am unworthy — how can I reply to you?  I put my hand over my mouth.  I spoke once, but I have no answer — twice, but I will say no more."  (Job 40:3-5 NIV)  Then we come upon perhaps the most compelling aspect of the entire book…at least as far as we discover the value God gives His people and the part they play in the course of history.

At the conclusion of the book of Job, the Lord turns to Job’s friends and addresses their critique of Job.  After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.  So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.  (Job 42:7-8 NIV)  What an astonishing revelation!  God will wait for someone to pray before He acts.  In this case it is Job.  Consider the implication.  After God’s monologue in which He declares His supreme authority over the universe, He warns Job’s friends that if they do not want to face the consequences of making false accusations against Job, they must depend upon Job to pray for God’s mercy.  Why did God have Job pray for his friends?  Clearly it was because the friends needed Job to pray for them.

This is a stupendous revelation!  God waited for Job to pray before He decided the fate of Job’s three friends.  It is as if you did not want to act until one of your friends gave her opinion.  Or it is more like your father not punishing your brother until you said whether he should or not.  Prayer has a real effect with God and changes the course of human events.  Remember what Jesus said about His people?  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:15 NIV)  One characteristic of friendship is that friends influence each other.  They start to think alike as the bond between them strengthens.  Friendship is never a one-way street.  Friendship is by definition the linking of people so that they impact each other through love and loyalty.  If prayer is the way we bond with God, then it seems reasonable that in our prayers, there is a back and forth impact that takes place between us.  As your friend, God cares about what matters to you and He is affected by the way you think and how you feel about things.  We think of God as some isolated independent being who does everything on His own but He isn’t.  Our Lord is your friend and your Father and He loves you as your friend and your Father.   That is why prayer is so important.  God is, in some way that cannot be explained, influenced by you.

Consider the implications of Ephesians 6:18.  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. (NIV)  Jude 20 has a similar admonition.  But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. (NIV)  This verse, when considered in its original Greek setting is almost identical to Ephesians 6:18 because it literally directs us to “in the Holy Spirit continually be praying ones”.  To pray “in” the Holy Spirit is like a fish living “in” the ocean or a bird living “in” the atmosphere.  The “in” of being in the Holy Spirit is an “in” of complete immersion, of total envelopment.  The bird absorbs the atmosphere as well as moves within it.  If you pray in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is all about you in your praying.  He is “in” what you pray, the guide to your praying, He is why you pray and the reason you have trust in God as you pray.  When you “pray in the Holy Spirit”, it means that the Holy Spirit is a part of every aspect of your praying.

But how does God our friend want us to pray?  He wants us to pray about anything the Holy Spirit brings to mind but especially He wants us to pray for every single Christian who comes to mind.  Why should we pray so much?  It is because God cares about our opinion of things: He wants to hear what we have to say about others.  In fact He cares so much that He waits for us to pray before He acts.  Job had the same task we have, to bring his concerns about people to God and ask for Him to help them.  How can we know what to pray about for others?  When we are in the Holy Spirit, immersed in Him, thinking with Him and through Him, we will get it right.  Our prayers will match what God wants to do for them.

Without the Holy Spirit directing our thinking as we pray, it is a hit or miss proposition.  Praying becomes irrational and filled with chaos.  The Spirit straightens out our praying, makes it coherent.  We know what we ought to pray and how we should pray because the Holy Spirit makes sense of it for us.  We have the foundation for confident praying in Romans 8, perhaps the most important chapter in the entire Bible.  In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.  (Romans 8:26-27 NIV)

Let this sink in a moment.  On our own we have no idea how to pray.  In our sin weakened state we are incompetent at prayer.  But with the Holy Spirit working within us, we have no limits in prayer, there is no ceiling.  Just think about what you could do for others if you become locked in on the Holy Spirit and were in total sync with God.  You could bring real peace and joy to the world…to those your love.  Imagine the good you could do if you took prayer seriously; if you made it your top priority!  It would not be a stretch to state that the book of James provides us with the greatest encouragement to pray found anywhere in literature.  Consider its implication.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.  Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years.  Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.  (James 5:16-18 NIV)  Elijah was a person just like you with all your faults and weaknesses, with all kinds of idiosyncrasies and quirks just like you.  Yet he could pray and a drought came to pass because of his praying and then after three and a half years the drought ended because of his praying.  That could be you, praying just like Elijah.  You may argue that you aren’t righteous though.  The truth is that because of Christ in you, your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of Elijah and all the other greats of the Old Testament.  But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (1 John 1:7 NIV)  And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ — to the glory and praise of God.  (Philippians 1:9-11 NIV)  It is not a righteousness issue for you when it comes to praying.  It is a willingness issue.  Are you willing to stay close enough to the Holy Spirit that you can make a supernatural difference in your circle of influence when you pray?  Do you through the most powerful tool you have, prayer, want to make the lives of others better.  You can.  You just have to decide if you are willing to put in the effort to pray.

Changing the Environment

Matthew 5:14-16 NIV

"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

How Are You Impacting Your World?

The other day I was in a second grade classroom surrounded by children who were asking me questions and wanting help.  Suddenly a little boy next to me asked, “Why do you smell so good?”  I ignored him and kept talking with other children and he asked me again, “Mr. Walkup, why do you smell so good?”  I was so flummoxed by his question that I could give no response to the boy and was a bit dumbfounded for a few moments.  How come he noticed me?  What made him say that I smelled good?  How was I supposed to respond?  Of course you should never be surprised by what little children say whether it is good or bad.  They speak their mind and they are super sensitive to what is going on about them.  Their environment matters profoundly to them and although many of us have grown desensitized, it does to too us also.

Have you given much thought to what impact you make on others?  Not just close family members and friends but but anyone who comes in contact with you?  What part do you play in creating an environment for others?  You can ignore this question and many do.  Unless you are attracted to someone or in trouble or wanting to get something from someone, you may not think about the impact you make on those around you.  Other than pop psychologists who make lots of money teaching people how to influence others, rarely is much thought given to our impact on those about us.  There is however reason to ponder this question and take it seriously.  How do you impact the environment of others?

You have seen this phenomenon.  A strong personality alters the climate of a room and changes the culture of a workplace.  One child can completely change a classroom and one person influences how a worship service goes.  Yet you don’t have to be charismatic or loud or funny or pushy to be felt and impactful.  All you need is Christ living in you to change the world.

The Lord used interesting metaphors to talk about your influence.  "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.  Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16 NIV)  The light of the world, a city on a hill; that is what He says you are.  Of course for most, that is a preposterous statement.  Who is like that?  Maybe Beyoncé or Tom Cruise or Stephen Curry!  Do you feel like when you enter a room all eyes are on you, everyone turns to hear what you have to say?  Yet you have to take seriously Jesus’ statements like this because He gives the actual situation rather than what mere appearances seem to indicate.

Now I realize we are talking about the Apostle Peter, the majestic disciple who stood above all the rest until Paul came along but it is pertinent what is discovered in Acts 5: 12 and following.  The apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers used to meet together in Solomon's Colonnade.  No one else dared join them, even though they were highly regarded by the people.  Nevertheless, more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.  As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter's shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. (Acts 5: 12-15 NIV) Even the shadow of Peter impacted crowds.  He did not have to say anything or do anything to have a dramatic effect on others.  What if this was the case with you?  Can you imagine your shadow being such a powerful influence?

Remember that Jesus declares that you are a city upon a hill, that you are the light of the world.  This is not just speaking of some great church leader or someone long gone.  He is speaking of you, that you are influential, that you change the way others see things, that when you are present, people are impacted by you being there in profound ways.  What if your shadow was just as influential as Peter’s?  What if your presence was dramatically life altering?  Could you imagine being such a person?

Paul said something that I cannot easily shake and it should make you pause   But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.  For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? (2 Corinthians 2:14-16 NIV)   Everywhere you go, the knowledge of Christ permeates those who come in contact with you.  This is not a natural work but supernatural and it takes faith to believe it is so.  You bring Christ to your conversations, to your meetings, to each place that you go.  Now this fragrance of Christ may be faint or it could be strong but it is there nonetheless and you bring it with you. 

Surely we understand at least in theory, if not in practice, that how we live our lives impacts everyone else.  A smile we share, a pat on the back, a warm handshake, something encouraging or complimentary that we say changes the climate of a room.  If we rant or rage, if we criticize, make a sarcastic comment, gossip, lie, pout, we alter the room too.  The power of our personality affects others and we certainly know that is so.  We may not live with that in mind but are aware of it.  If Christ is in you, then His presence, which is supernatural affects everyone who comes in contact with you and there is a ripple effect; one person impacted changes even slightly the next person and so on and how far the effect travels we cannot measure.  If your personality changes the lives of those about you, imagine just how powerfully the personality of the Lord of the Universe living in you impacts those who come in contact with the Christ in you.

We don’t have time to describe the impact demons have in our world today.  The Apostle Paul warned that even those who profess to be Christians would be driven from God by demons and accept the view of life they promote.   The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. (1 Timothy 4:1 NIV)  We know what sorts of brokenness the Gospels tell us demons caused and how Jesus drove demons away from people and they were healed.  How much depression, anxiety, anger, bitterness, and physical suffering is brought on by demons even now?  Is it possible that where you work, at the schools and among your friends, demons are wrecking lives and making people miserable?  Of course it is and if Christ could bring joy and peace to people in His time before He was crucified, what great good might He do today through you?  It is not preposterous to think that Christ in you can heal depression, calm anger, take away anxiety and even make the sick well!  Of course He can!

Our Lord said that to be used by the Father like He was, you must have faith in the Father too.  You must believe that Christ will powerfully work through you if you are available to God to do with as He wishes.  What might Christ do through you?  We cannot say but why would He not use you to bring peace and joy to those He has in your life?  I think that if you want Christ to change the world through your life, it starts with prayer.  James the brother of Jesus said, “And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.  Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” (James 5:15-16 NIV)  Pray for every person you can.  Make sure no sin is strangling your life with Christ and be available to the Father.  You too can release from demonic bondage those Christ has entrusted to your care!

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.