How Do You Assess Your Day?

If we give in to the corrosive habit of whining, the very point for which we are made is lost.  The image of God is not latent;  in Christ it is front and center.  From every pore seeps Christ and His nature and as you live out the day God has given you, something miraculous happens; God in flesh is realized, or better, discovered.  You are where you are because God has placed you there with no other task than for Jesus Christ to live through you and flow out from you.  You can snap at  your husband or complain about your boss, gripe about your friend or grit your teeth over your salary but what you have really done is dam off the spill of grace from your response line.  What could have been a sparkling ray of light became a shadow and God was kept at bay by your refusal to be crucified with Christ right then.  The greatest saint is not the one drawing the biggest crowd, it is the one so hidden by Christ that all that is seen is God head to toe.  The artistry of Jesus is blighted the moment we cannot see God in our plight and that critical brushstroke is never reworked.  The Lord won't impose His will upon you for then all that will be manifested is the forgery, a charlatan's trickery.   It is you who must choose to believe the Lord has done good with you now and then and only then Christ will spring forth from you like the brightest dawn.  The most important work you have is to believe God is in each spot in your life and trust His judgment and care for you as you go about your business.  Satan is not your greatest foe; your unbelief is and that must be squeezed out of you daily as you look for God at every corner and turn and trust Him to make all things good that come your way.

...but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.  Isaiah 60:2-3 NIV

Life Upside Down

If there is one thing we are never quite ready to do, it is laying down our lives  for anyone we haven't got the utmost respect and affection.  Give that person a nasty side, a ridiculous bit of arrogance, a slanderous disdain for anyone or anything we like and all bets are off.  The deal is done and whatever Christ may have to say about the romance of love, we see right through it.  We are better than that.  We have the sophistication of our pride to barricade us from laying down our lives for such frivolous purposes.  Jesus told us to lay down our lives for our friends in the same way He did and that is where this spins on the dime.  He put His life on the ground of the cross for the snarling world that despised Him and that is the very point at which His children do so also.  We have mistaken nearly altogether what it means to lay down the life.  It is not dying for some cause ; it is letting ourselves go that the Holy Spirit might work Himself through us.  It is a surrender at the moment of discernment that God wants to do something through me just now: help a rude customer, defend a selfish co-worker, encourage a lazy friend, pick up an insolent child, give way to a pretentious prig.  We have no way of knowing what God is going to do with us as we lay down our lives but we can be certain of this.  He must do something He insists matters and do it right then.  An eternal array of circumstances and shifts are about to begin as we lay down our lives and to stop them all because we insist on our right to do as we wish is profound arrogance.  A serial killer can give up his life for a philandering prostitute; only one with the Spirit of God working through him or her will lay down  life at the moment of the Holy prompt, an unwelcome prompt perhaps but a certain prompt.   The opportunity to be the pipeline through which God's work in humanity flows is most astounding if you think about it.  You, dirty and contentious as you are with God are His chosen beloved partner in the transformation of a world all about you.

 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command.   John 15:13-14 NIV

Love Beyond Measure

Nothing diminishes us more than the desire to be someone else--to possess in ourselves a benefit someone else has.  At perfect points in our lives, the Lord gives us something...an insight, a strength, an ability, an accomplishment and it is as magically attached to us as our shadow.  Our problem is we do not trust the Lord enough to be full of love in how He distributes His gifts; specifically how He allots them with regard to ourselves.  If the Lord did not like you, then He would never have made you, never have let you in on His grace, never have called you friend.  Our God is perfectly truthful in all of His dealings; if not then He is a devil and should be despised.  He has told you that He loves you and that love is complete and without room for more so in it He audits what comes your way and does so to guarantee your total joy.  But when you snivel and complain and try to wiggle out from under the dominion of Christ, you make a mess of all you have.  Like a child who breaks his toy because he wants his brother's toy, you smash your own happiness in the discontent you hold in your hand.   The parable of the workers who were all paid the same wage but worked for different lengths of time is not a teaching on the seeming unequal treatment of the Father; it is rather a statement of how childish we all are with regard to the generosity of God.  Our work is in God's strength and His ability, our adherence to the scriptures is by His power and determination, our popularity and success  is through His good fortune.  We are God's in every way and the sway of our lives is His too so it is sheer lunacy to get bent out of shape over the wage He gives you...it is far more than He needs to give and it is perfect in its ultimate good.  What if those workers, instead of moaning about the coin handed them at the end of the day rejoiced instead that it was a coin and it had the blessing of God stamped upon it.  The coin could become a thousand coins in a moment as the Father determined and it could be kept at one because the one was more likely to bring happiness than ten or ten thousand.    Who would in their right mind want van Gogh's great talent at the cost of acquiring at the same time his misery or would beg incessantly for Hitler's power to attract a crowd and have along with it his filthy end.  And on the other hand, how many of us shoot for Stephen's lone convert as the end game to our work...Imagine the child complaining about the terrible drive down to L.A. just as his father pulls into the parking lot at Disneyland.   

But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you..." Matthew 20: 13a NIV

Personhood

An individual has no accountability to anyone.  He does as he pleases when he wants.  The person has merged with the personhood of God and lives within the personality of God.  There is no other way to know God than to live within Him; for His nature to come into your nature and transform yours.  Otherwise you merely know about God as rumors and individualized ideas.  We are more likely to fight for our individualization than give way to the transformation of Christ in us.  Sarah could never have gone with Abraham up the mountain to take her son Isaac onto the altar.  She had not yet shown any sign that God's will was becoming hers.  She was happy to receive His gift but not so prepared to take His nature.  We sigh at the prospect of being transformed by the Spirit of God not because we don't like the idea of it but because we dread the actuality of it.  In real life as you stand before the stove and while you pull out your notes to study or as you meet with your supervisor, the Spirit of God will rise up and make His will certain to you and it is then that you decide for your individuality or your personality.  There is no room for God in your individuality but all the space you need in your personality.  Knowing God comes the moment you bend your will into God's and give Him full sway over your circumstance at the moment.  Something will need to be placed on the altar...a desire, a grudge, a discontentment, an achievement, a visionary attainment...but it must be given up on the spot or you will stumble off on your own and gain nothing but the delusion of self-hood.  Hell is not the cadre of the like-minded; it is the stuffing together of individuals who can never be together at any level any longer.  Both Abraham and Isaac found at the same moment their union with God.  Just imagine the love that swept over them as they made their way back home together.  An individual, caught up in what he will and will not do can never know this wild and consumptive love; he is left only to talk about it. 
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  Philippians 3:8 NIV

The Hidden Life

One of the most elegant descriptions of how God wants his people to be is the little aside found in John telling us of the boy who gave his bread and fish to the disciples to do with as they wished.  Matthew, Mark and Luke don't even mention him; he was so forgotten to them yet John's Gospel proves his hidden act of faith was not lost on the Holy Spirit.  Where we stumble badly is the thought that the flash and bangles of Christianity is what God really likes.  We turn the page altogether and hardly give it a glance where Christ said to make no show of your giving or praying.  If this is so for the person, why would it not be also for the church?  We are to hide ourselves in Christ and let God lift us up at the proper time.  Nothing insults the Spirit more than the propagandist view of Christian living.  We are most bound up in our Lord and His life when in Christ we quietly wash the dishes and unobtrusively ignore the rough edge of a grumpy neighbor.   God has not called us to make something of ourselves; He has taken us under His wing so that everywhere we go, Jesus is noticed.  We have a task before us, to become so acquainted with Christ working all about us that we hardly notice what we are doing.

For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3:3 NIV

Personal or Individual

An individual has no accountability to anyone.  He does as he pleases when he wants.  The person has merged with the personhood of God and lives within the personality of God.  There is no other way to know God than to live within Him; for His nature to come into your nature and transform yours.  Otherwise you merely know about God as rumors and individualized ideas.  We are more likely to fight for our individualization than give way to the transformation of Christ in us.  Sarah could never have gone with Abraham up the mountain to take her son Isaac onto the altar.  She had not yet shown any sign that God's will was becoming hers.  She was happy to receive His gift but not so prepared to take His nature.  We sigh at the prospect of being transformed by the Spirit of God not because we don't like the idea of it but because we dread the actuality of it.  In real life as you stand before the stove and while you pull out your notes to study or as you meet with your supervisor, the Spirit of God will rise up and make His will certain to you and it is then that you decide for your individuality or your personality.  There is no room for God in your individuality but all the space you need in your personality.  Knowing God comes the moment you bend your will into God's and give Him full sway over your circumstance at the moment.  Something will need to be placed on the altar...a desire, a grudge, a discontentment, an achievement, a visionary attainment...but it must be given up on the spot or you will stumble off on your own and gain nothing but the delusion of self-hood.  Hell is not the cadre of the like-minded; it is the stuffing together of individuals who can never be together at any level any longer.  Both Abraham and Isaac found at the same moment their union with God.  Just imagine the love that swept over them as they made their way back home together.  An individual, caught up in what he will and will not do can never know this wild and consumptive love; he is left only to talk about it. 
I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.  Philippians 3:8 NIV

Blindsided by Grace

We shuffle back and forth between believing God, questioning His goodness and forgetting His existence.  There is something God wants to do with you but it requires your perfect acceptance of His love for you in a matter and the moment you try to fix things yourself without Him working through you, the work crumbles.  Christ cannot and will not fill you if you slight God's love by complaining about your circumstance or by questioning His goodness.  Job was blindsided by the miracle of grace being worked out in Him and the Lord could not finish His work until Job threw up His hands in faith and accepted his place as creature rather than creator.  Job's friends proved to be of no help to him in this as they kept distracting him from the real development.  They pushed the discussion outside the realm of actuality by questioning Job's morality and integrity when those parts of him were never the issue.  Grace doesn't contend at the point of one's personal goodness  but rather at the spot of the Lord Himself working His own character into you.  Christ did not suffer the cross so that you could make a go at getting yourself straight or gaining some flury of accomplished gilding but rather to completely reconfigure your personality into the dynamic of God worked thoroughly through you.  Like yeast in dough, Christ risen in your heart will recreate all the promise he planted in you at the beginning through the difficulties and trials and mundane tasks of your everyday activities.  Be careless about what you're making of yourself but obsessed by the hand of God everywhere around you.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV

I Know What I Am Doing

How often do we trick ourselves into thinking we've got it but those around us don't.  Far too soon in our Christian journey we come up against the oldest of Satan's tricks; the implication that we know what we are doing.  Eve convinced Adam that she knew what she was doing and Peter tried to convince Jesus too that he had the right idea when he lost his mind over three shelters.  It is a fallacy to believe that we can make it on our own just this one time because we have figured out other things so well.  What do we make of the Cross then?  Did Jesus endure it because we were only a few marks off in our thinking or because we were thoroughly wrecked by sin?  The notion that once we become Christian we somehow need Jesus a bit less if we play it sharp is an insult to the blood He poured out upon the ground of our lostness.  We need Christ at every moment of every day and the Holy Spirit must be heeded far more than ever now.    You do not need to read the Bible less as you move along because you have gotten familiar with it;  you need to read the Bible with greater fervor than ever because you should realize even more just how wicked you really are without the Word of God filling you head to toe.  Your point of comparison is not some poor soul next to you whom you barely know; it is the filth of the tar pit that stands within you waiting to suck you in at just one bumbling stumble over a cock-sure determination.  The love and mercy of Christ is not poured out for your independent strut but to galvanize your total  dependence upon God to take you through each day.
You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty. Psalm 18:27 NIV

Distancing Yourself From Sodom

Don't think it is so odd that Lot hesitated before leaving

Sodom.  It is the most human of all tendencies; to flinch at the moment God starts to move in a life.  He reveals a sin, directs a move, makes a determination and we pause in our acceptance of it.  The nature of man must be conquered in this spot; our wincing doubt.  Nothing gets done in us without faith in God.  We can believe a billion things about ourselves and others but until we have grown to trust God in the smallest part, we have gotten nowhere.  Abraham believed God which is why he never had a Sodom to abandon.  He waited for the Lord to guide him where to go and believed God would.  There is nothing complex about living in Christ.  Faith in Him is at the heart of the relationship...not personal holiness, not sacrificial giving, not even generous love and affection.  Everything else comes around as we take faith in God at the tiniest point and move forward from there.  Faith the size of a mustard seed moves mountains!  Imagine what might come of faith a bit larger than that?  Christ cannot be followed until He is trusted.

In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. Psalm 22:4 NIV

Pushing Forward

Why do we think we have developed a heightened level of spirituality when we give up on praying and stifle our love of Christ in a muffling "your will be done"?  Nothing so marks the carnal mind like the indifference to praying and "keeping on" praying.  It is passive aggressive bitterness that stops at the point of impassioned interceding for all the needs that come to our mind.  The great purpose of intercessory prayer is simple; to bring each and every one of those things that disturb us to the mind of Christ and there with the Holy Spirit working in our heart  learn to love God with the type of love Mary had not many minutes after she  wondered aloud why Jesus had waited too long to save Lazarus.  The pagan determination to pray for the dead is not so far off the mark as we think.  In Christ, who is the Alpha and Omega all at once, who is to say our praying cannot reach back before us and alter even what has happened in the past.  Where is the justification for giving up on everything that seems hopeless to us if God can pull the dead from the grave on the last day?  The praying of one believing Christian can change the course of events miraculously and in stunning fashion, not because she is worthy of it but because the love of God is poured out in the interceding and that love is a healing fire.  Nothing in the spiritual realm is quite so intoxicating as the determination to quit on a matter because it seems hopeless.  It is the morphine of Satan, this resolve to let go of the thing when the Holy Spirit is pressing us forward in prayer.  Who among us has not quit on a matter just as arrogantly as the mourners who laughed when Jesus informed them that the little girl was not dead but merely sleeping?  The opportunity to pray at any given moment for each part of a day is a privilege won for us at the Cross and we should not quit on it so carelessly.  

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24 NIV

Faith Claims

Be careful about declaring what God will do before He says it Himself.  The pretentious trend in Christian circles of deciding what God must do has wrecked the faith of too many childish believers.  The assumption that if God loves me he will do this or that is a psychological landmine.  God will do what He actually says He will do.  When He told Sarah in her old age that He would give her a child He did.  When He told Jehoshaphat that He would give Judah a resounding victory over the Moabites and Amonites, He did.  When He told Moses that He would give Israel freedom from Egyptian rule, He did.  He did not say He would give James a long life and He did not tell Peter He would keep him from a painful end.  What if James claimed a long life for himself and Peter knew his ministry would not close out on a cross?  Would they not have sounded like so many who post a claim and then assume the claim is vouched for by God with Him agreeing to the claim?  It is blasphemy to speak for God when He has said nothing about a matter.  Take your troubles and painful trials to the Lord and leave them with Him.  Faith is worked out in us not by assuming something will happen or won't but when we confidently trust the Lord to make everything in time work out for our good and for the good of those we love.  Habakkuk waited on the ramparts not because he demanded everything go well with Jerusalem but because He knew an eternal Kingdom was being established and he would be a part...the Lord had said this was so.  He never named the miracle and then like a puffed out child waited for it to happen.  His hope was in God alone, not in an outcome He demanded.  
But the just shall live by his faith...  Habakkuk 2:4 NIV

Wanting More

The difference between wanting and demanding is quite clear when you are dealing with your children but seems nebulous when it is found in your praying.  How can you be certain you have not run off the tracks as you make your way through your requests?  Hezekiah saw nothing wrong with begging God for added years when told he was about to die and Hannah is renowned for her spiritual fortitude in frantically crying out to God for a baby.  How can we know a desire is godly and not just a self-centered lust?  Hezekiah took his added fifteen years and fathered a son who became the most wicked of all the kings of Judah and Hannah took her boy Samuel and turned him back over to God to raise and mold into arguably the greatest of all priests not named Jesus.  We can pray for anything and feel quite justified in our praying.  After all, Christ Himself told us to ask and keep on asking.  God may grant our demands just as freely as our wants but as Israel regretted the longing she had for a king, we too may wish we never got what our fevered prayers demanded.  Our drive must always move in this one direction, that we become so close to God that our wants become His.  Then what we ask for in prayer will truly bless all it touches. Give the Holy Spirit space to reshape your wants into God given desires.

People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap...  1 Timothy 6:9 NIV

Self-Determinism In The Dock

Is there not a point at which we must stop making excuses for ignoring God and no longer blame the other person for our behavior?  When Sarah lashed out at her husband Abraham for merely doing what she told him to do, God took the matter out of her hands and put things squarely in Abraham's grip.  The son Ishmael was conceived because Sarah demanded it; then when he was there Sarah hated Abraham for the part he played in the boy's presence.  Why is it that God spoke directly to Abraham and bypassed Sarah altogether in the sacrifice of Isaac?  Why did Abraham not take Sarah with him on the terrible duty up the mountain?  Perhaps it is because Sarah lost her way in not accepting the part she played in the denial of the Lord's providential leadership with regard to the building of her family?  In the end it was Abraham that had to get the job done, who had to wield the knife and raise it in faith.  One might wonder which was the worst, bringing the boy or having to watch him leave.  Yet in the end, each of them, at the previous point of rebellion, had to believe God all the way out to where self-ambition faded into complete faith in God and His way.  Sarah had to trust in Abraham to hear from God clearly and Abraham had to trust what he heard from the Lord and not slide out from under it.  No more passing the buck, no more waffling when God spoke.  It is allegiance to God only that we all must eventually determine for ourselves.         Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering, I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me.  May the Lord judge between you and me."  Genesis 16: 5

Untested Gifts

Be careful of the gift that seems so timely and needed.  Hagar probably was given to Sarai during her sojourn in Egypt and that gift became a terrible snare for Sarai and Abram.  Hagar eventually was the out for each of them as they frantically searched for a way to make God's promise of a child come true.  Rather than trusting solidly in the Lord Himself, they took the gift of Pharaoh as the solution to the difficulty they faced.  Later Abram proved his growing awareness that not every gift should be accepted willy-nilly by rejecting the offer of wealth from the king of Sodom.  But in Egypt, with his mind clouded by the affluence surrounding him, Abram saw nothing wrong with gathering everything offered him there including the lovely maiden Hagar.  It can seem like such a minor issue, taking this, accepting that and yet there may never have been a more haunting image for Abram all his days than the moment he turned his back on Sarai (albeit at her demand) and fathered the son Ishmael with Hagar.  We must be suspicious of what we mark as a blessing and what we decide is a curse.  The wounds of God are sweeter and more lovely than the poisoned presents of Satan and it takes discernment to know what you have in your hand at any given moment. A job offer, an open door, an opportunity for change may not come from who you think.  Be careful about the gifts you accept and the difficulties you reject.     Do not be afraid, Abram.  I am your shield, your very great reward.  Genesis 15: 1 NIV

Discrimination

We have lost the service of the word discrimination because of the evil Satan has spawned from it.  The Christian is to discriminate and do so constantly.  The task of recognizing the difference between good and best is a flip of the coin for most.  But the Holy Spirit is our guardian against indiscriminate wandering and short-sighted living.  We can make the right decision every time if we would just pause long enough to let the Holy Spirit direct our way.  The impatience of our age has wrecked far too many of us.  The Lord has promised to guide our steps even in something so seemingly insignificant as what to prepare for dinner or the length of time we should give a conversation.   Determine today to heed the guidance the Lord wants to give you and let Him make the most of each of your opportunities and crucial split-second reactions to what seems in your unknowing trivial and inconsequential.  For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end. Psalm 48:14 NIV 

The Egyptian Temptation

When Abraham brought his little family down to Egypt along with all his slaves and employees, he did far more than put them all at risk, he cut at the tight cord of faith each of them had.  The last word the Lord gave Abraham before the famine was that the land where he was living was his land and the land of his progeny.  Nothing in the promise included a disclaimer about moving away if things got rough.  The test of faith is aimed at our spot of confidence, not our weak point.  The clear word of God became murky for Abraham when the shortage of food struck him personally.  And yet courage and trust were the defining character traits of Abraham up to this moment.  The confidence Abraham had in his strategic response to the famine made him a prime target for Satan and as soon as he crossed the line between faith in God and self-assurance, he found out just how wickedly cunning Satan can be.  The son Isaac was to be Abraham's, not Pharaoh's and if it weren't for the rough intervention of God, Abraham might have lost his wife to the King of Egypt along with the lineage leading to Christ.  Doubt is contagious and Isaac later made the same terrible error a hundred years later.   Beware of your own insight into the problem you face.  It could shatter many years of faith not just for you but also those who look to you for direction.  Go to the Holy Spirit in every instance and you will find yourself secure within the hand of God.     Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe. Genesis 12:10-11 NIV

The New Year Resolution...Biblical?

Try as you may, you will be hard-pressed to find a single man or woman of God in Scripture making New Year's Resolutions or goal setting.  They attempted the impossible but not as some long term plan.  Perhaps Solomon alone would be classified as a goal setter but this flowed more out of his love of the world order than any developed affinity for God.  Jesus had one goal in mind and it began before birth--go to the Cross and die there.  This is a far cry from the goals and resolutions we hear bandied about in Christian circles and meetings.  Ask a Christian worker or church attender what his or her goals may be and they will never sound like what Jesus settled upon as His clear direction.  If anything, the normal way of Christ was simple day-by-day dependence upon the Father to guide you in what He had where He was.  Jesus  stayed in a town until the Father directed Him away from it, healed those the Father brought Him and taught whoever He was given at the moment.  He didn't set goals for attendance at His Sermon on the Mount and made no resolution to quit drinking or cut down on His calories.  He remained so close to the Father that He just did as He was directed and trusted in the process of Life working within Him.  Nothing frustrates the will of God more than the determination of a Christian to accomplish his set goals without regard for the still small voice entering His world in real time.    Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34 NIV

Burning

It is sheer lunacy to think you are not inhibited by the spirit of this age.  You are stopped short at nearly every turn by some good or respectable option...a way that seems reasonable and even right.  But it is not what God has told you to do just then and so you drift off imperceptibly from the straight and narrow way.  And when you do, you lose the quiet voice...or at least you lose track of it.  God will not beat you back in place, He will let you drift until it becomes nearly unbearable, this loss of His still, sweet nearness.  It is not some dramatic falling off the wagon that will hurt you most, it is the terrible indifference to the burning flame of the consuming Holy Spirit.  The soul that is not being scorched and seared by God is slowly growing cold and weary.  Only the determined return to the last word from God will catch your heart aflame again in the passionate fires of your loving Lord.  Again, take hold of God in His Word and you will find yourself flowing once more with the Joy of your Salvation. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" Genesis 22:7 NIV

Normal Christianity

Is it not the easiest and most natural thing for a Christian walking in the freedom of the Holy Spirit to do what God says?  There is no real hindrance in this for the believer who trusts God.  He is absolutely without barriers for he can rise above every disappointment and difficulty, unencumbered by worry or fear.  The love of Christ is empowered by the conquering work of the Cross and it will not let the disciple be wrecked.  Too often we mistake a trial or a temptation or even a bruising wound of Satan for a death blow to our peace and joy.  The life we have in Christ is too big and too vibrant to be held back for long.  We are genetically enabled by the work of Christ when we are born again to rise above each Satanic attack.  Follow Jesus at any moment and trust Him then and you will find a heavenly flow coming upon you, an outpour of living water reviving you.  You have God in you and you are free to be happy and content.

A Willful Temple

There is a place at which we must decide who we really are and make a clean break from all the other possibilities.  If you are the Temple of God, then that must be decided in definitive actions.  The river must be crossed, the rope released, the battle entered.  As long as you see yourself as less than the Temple of God, you will live like it and no amount of posturing will obviate the damage caused.  The simplest and most uncultured of Christians who has determined with his will that He is the Temple of God will do more good and have longer lasting benefit to mankind than the greatest personalities of our age.  You may not be known here and now but the Temple of God is known in the corridors of heaven and your impact will reverberate throughout eternity if this is decided by you.  Settle the matter.  You are the Temple of God.  The Holy Spirit is in you and therefore there is nothing trivial or little about your place in the workings of God.  Each of your actions is critical and measured within the activity of the Lord who by His death resurrected your life and has recreated you into the liveliest and loveliest of treasures.    You realize don't you, that you are the temple of God...1 Corinthians 3: 16 MSG

The Patience of God

The Christian who walks with God has all the time in the world.  He has no need to be impatient with a single soul for he recognizes the pace at which God works in all people.  It is the clearest sign that we have lost our grip on eternity when we grumble and growl over some inconsiderate or immature soul who aggravates us.  As soon as we jump into the fray, either with our condescending self-righteous attitude or our caustic comments, we have veered out of our lane and run the risk of plowing into a tree planted there by Satan.  God is working just as patiently with that other person as He has with you and it does no good to get aggravated.  All you do is make yourself into something worse than Balaam arguing with his donkey.  Give the Lord time and he can transform the most obnoxious and lazy soul into a saint that would rival the Apostle Peter.  Pray with fervor for your enemy; let him have as much cover as you have gained from God and you will be surprised by who you see springing out of the weeds.  It could be your most crucial and happy ally in the faith.            Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34-35 NIV

Sensible

The sensible Christian is a bit of an oxymoron in the Kingdom of God.  You will not be of much use to Jesus Christ by taking things sensibly.  There is nothing sensible about being crucified with Christ, nothing sensible about leaving one's fishing boats and tax booths and following after a King who has no place to lay His head.  The sensible Christian cannot forgive his neighbor and will not give his last dime to God.  The sensible Christian has no time for the bleeding woman who touched the hem of Christ's garment or the quitter John Mark.  Jesus Christ did not accept the beams of Pontius Pilate because it was sensible; He did so because the Father wanted it done.  There is nothing so absurd as the Christian who says he won't while staring into the face of a Scripture that says he must.  Caution is fine if you never want to walk on water or dismantle Jericho.  No one who is sensible goes the extra mile or gives his cloak when only a friendly handshake will do.  The Kingdom of God is not made of sensible people but rather of those who are so feverishly loyal to Christ that they will stop at nothing to please Him.  ...but even if I am being poured out like a drink offering...I am glad... Philippians 2:17

The Unseen Line

At what point do we cross an unseen line when we no longer hold our things but they instead hold us?  Nothing confounds the Christian quite as much as the tight grip some desire or want maintains even as he sees himself free and on his own.  We sometimes mistake disappointment over not having with careless indifference to the thing.  Children play the game easily and we see through the charade.  "Oh, I didn't want do that anyway", they strut after the privilege is taken from them.  "I never did like her", is mumbled when the friend turns to someone else.  Yet are we so free of treasures on earth that we can happily disengage from them if the Lord breaks their grip?  Can we say farewell to the career if God were to call us to a mission field?  Are we really able to go wherever He leads even if it means leaving behind that home and car?  What is the price that is too steep to pay to follow Jesus?  Is it the respect you have gained or the comfort you enjoy?  How closely allied are you to the philosophy of the rich young ruler?  No dawn shines quite as brightly as the beginning of a day filled with the wonder of following Christ without thought for what it might cost you.

Noticed

The Kingdom of God is not about you or I getting a footing with God through some skill or talent we possess.  We are not here to make something of ourselves; not here to show ourselves off but to exalt Jesus Christ crucified.  This is no small task as it requires all of our effort.  Our soul is so bent by sin that we cannot naturally give Jesus Christ center stage and few ever really try to make a go of it.  But the disciple will; the one who has latched onto Christ and loves Him dearly will.  Take the resurrected Lord into your mind and let Him rule over your will.  You will know that Christ is not yet ruling over your abilities and talents if it matters that critics come after you or your friends or family hardly notice your "good works".  It is your opportunity to watch the Lord Jesus work His way through your disposition each time you see your effort go unnoticed and unrecognized.  Sometimes you choose this, sometimes it chooses you but either way, let out a quiet sigh and be thankful God has let you be a bit more hidden in Christ.  For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3: 3

Cornerstones and Cobblestones

The cross of Jesus Christ accomplished in one fell swoop the challenge of all mankind.  Without a cornerstone, a place from which to build perfect peace, we all flail about trying to make the best of a variety of bad situations.  Even the great optimists with a pot of gold at their disposal realize at some point how empty and vain it all is.  Yet at the moment Christ made it possible for recreation to take place with the act of crucifixion in a specific spot in history, the cornerstone for perfect peace was put in place.   You have as a born again Christian all you need to be done with anxiety, ongoing discouragement and despair.  The Holy Spirit will, as you keep your mind turning back into Christ and your behavior is steeped in the Word, give you a superstructure of peace within your whole personality.  Perfect peace is not a dreamy intellectualization, it is the way of the Christian whose life is stone by stone built upon the salvation of the Cross of Christ.

Tattoo Regret

The Lord's harshest criticism was reserved for those who would not believe Him and His warmest affirmation was for those who trusted Him at His word.  The promises of God secured within the Scripture are held there for you to accept and adjust your life.  The contrast between Zachariah the father of John the Baptist and Mary the mother of Jesus is stark.  Struck dumb by the angel Gabriel for his lack of faith, Zachariah had to carry with him for a time the tattoo of unbelief and it was not removed from him until his faithful wife Elizabeth gave birth to the child.  And even then he first had to declare the name of their son publicly as assigned by God before his voice returned.  You cannot say you have faith until you actually do the thing God has said to do.  Don't treasure your doubts like some sort of badge of honor.  They are the silliest and most ridiculous parts of Christians, the pious questions that mock God's faithful righteousness.  Put aside your doubts and do the thing God has assigned you and enjoy the favor of Jesus as He commends you for trusting Him in the matter.

The Twists of Life

The element of surprise is pronounced in even the most dreary life but it should never be frustrating or cause for despair in the Christian.  The Christian is the one person who has certainty that each facet of life is in the hands of God and always being guided for his or her good.  It is never otherwise...whether it be the car wreck or the identity theft or the throbbing in the shoulder.  If it is not true that all things are being worked by God for our good, then it is the great farce, this Christian life. Decide for yourself with unforgiving ferocity.  Jesus Christ loves you and is making every twist of your life beneficial to you, no, more than that, every part of your life is the gift of God to you and it is as lovely as the morning dawn.   Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession? (Song of Songs 6:10 NIV)

Imitation

Have you taken serious stock in your ability to be imitated?  It is the simplest thing in the world; to have someone watch you and then do the very thing you did.  It is happening carelessly in your daily routines.  Adam imitated Eve without giving it much thought.  You too are emulating the very ones who seem silly or irritating as well as the models of competence.   Keep your eye on the prize even as others watch you out of the corner of their eye all the while looking for the prize too.  If you can imitate Christ just this one time, it might make it easier for the person next to you to do the same thing.  Love is rich with observable declarations of your real intention.  Even if you spend your time imitating the love of others, eventually it will be yours and then someone near you will make it theirs.  Actual love starts with Christ and at some point ends with Him. too.  The imitation of Christ will eventually be worked out as an overlooked offence or a swallowed criticism that could be justified if it were not for the criticisms Christ has held back from you.  Love never fails...(1 Corinthians 13:8)

The Turning of the Head

The difficulties we encounter, the daily aggravations we face do not make us spiritual or not spiritual.  They awaken within us a nudging to turn from or toward God.  The Holy Spirit will not force your head one way or another.  You must decide to do the work, to actually face your will and live at the moment in God.  Nothing can take you away from simple contentment and peace in the Lord.  You are the one to decide if God is good enough to keep your peace intact or if you need to let some emotion or distraction hold sway over you.  Perfect peace is not an ephemeral concept: it is the way it is for the one who keeps his mind fixed on Christ and his actions decided by the direction God gives at any specific spot in time.  You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3 NIV)

What Really Is Before You

At some point you are going to be forced into the decision of your life, to fight against spiritual forces in high places or ignore them and go on as if they don't exist.  The Christian is never inept in this; unless of course he or she completely disregards Who lives within.  It is Christ in you that makes the difference in every temptation and trial you face.  You have the power to change the course of generations by giving Christ complete sway in your battle against the great enemy and all those spirits lined up before you intent to wreck and pillage your heart.  Be icy in your disregard of the insults and injustices you face but fiery hot in your hatred of Satan who is doing his best to make you a blind adversary at the moment you take your eyes off Jesus and gaze into the blinding darkness of some frustration or depressing hardship you have before you.

Prayer As It Comes

Our problem in praying is not that we don't know how to pray.  Even the atheist knows intuitively how to pray.  Our problem is we don't know what to do about our praying.  We misunderstand the interaction.  We never pray because we decided to pray, we do so because God wooed us into prayer.  The point of praying, even if it is for our daughter suffering from leukemia is to eventually hear from God Himself.  It is pointless just jabbering; we are there for God to interact with us at the most critical level.  Being born again is more profound than we guess.  It is transformation and that transformation includes being able to hear God.  Never stop praying because you didn't get what you wanted.  That is the place where you most need to pray; more than any object, you need God soaking every part of you and that will not happen with just a God list checked off and granted.   And as he was praying, heaven was opened... Luke 3:21 NIV

Knowing versus Knowing

We are as far as self goes at the center of the universe.  It is hard to get beyond the notion that everything revolves around me.  It isn't perhaps that we are so selfish...I want everything, but it is that we live within a certain head that is ours and we always grasp the sights from that head's perspective.  The Holy Spirit alone can take us outside that view where with God living within us, we can finally see what before was but a dimness.  The Lord Jesus Christ opens up to us a horizon that was always before lost...the life of God and all He sees living within us.  The vast world you do not know about yourself is visible to God and He will let you peek in and view it as you trust Him to guide your way.  But more importantly, as you listen, the Lord will "show" you others and your capacity to love will grow exponentially.  The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. 1 Corinthians 8:2-3

Walking in the Light

What does it mean that we are not our own, we were bought at a price except that we are not our own.  (1 Corinthians 6:19)  It is paganism at its core to struggle out of the grip of the Holy Spirit and venture off without a single thought what God who is truly God might want.  We are certainly free to say what we think and do as we wish but if we are in Christ we are not our own and that will become perfectly clear to us in the workings of God in our daily doings.  The things we ask of Him and the gifts we desire will lie neglected until we get this matter straight.  We are not our own.  To walk in the light requires we stay away from the dark places of independence and rely upon the Word to direct our steps.  Of course it isn't easy but it is the One Way that makes the love of Christ fill our hearts with lasting gladness.

The Crisis Point

The crisis point is not at the moment you find some part of your life out of control; it is when you must accept that every part of your life is actually beyond your control.  We try desperately to calibrate this and modulate that but it is in the end not ours to fix or determine.  The Lord does not intend to make you more differentiated from your environment...He is using it (that wild and unpredictable world where you have been placed) to add to the supernatural work of being born again.  The more we try to squirm out of our predicaments and fix our dilemmas, the more sustained the rough edges of our personality.  You cannot love unless God surgically removes the bumps of hate and jealousy, you cannot trust unless he sculpts away the scared ridges of doubt and self-confidence and you cannot hope unless he rubs off the fear and bitterness caked on your too fragile psyche.  You have been placed at your spot so that the Lord can perfect His work in you.  Rest your soul in God who loves you enough to keep you where you are.

You and Clyde

Evil is not the Bonnie and Clydes and Joseph Stalins of any age.  They are aberrations from the common stock.  Evil is the gaze shifted off of Christ and onto something else that seems just as noble and worthy.  It is the Christmas present that makes the want rise above the Will, the fresh start that really isn't a fresh start but just the same oblivious disregard for the Holy Spirit prompts, it is the safe way out when the open door of God stands before you.  Adam and Eve didn't move far from God, they just turned their head slightly and looked past Him to Satan.  Fix your eyes upon Christ and let the peripheries remain the peripheries.  You cannot go astray with your mind determined that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth and the life. 

The Dawn Is Upon You

At what point do you begin to question the sanity of chasing after Jesus, of wanting to please the Father, of listening for the Holy Spirit to guide you?  Is it after the disastrous decision you made, during the long wait for the hope you had being fulfilled or while you sing dispassionately of the God you once trusted.  Nothing speaks more of your faith than your determination to shake off the conundrums of misplaced affections.  The Lord who saved you will not allow any desire or longing replace Him as King of your hopes and dreams.  You were not called out of darkness to stay in the shadows.  The light of Christ will shine brightly within you but only as you give Him access to the dark places where lurk the aspirations you have for getting your way, your way.  The Lord must put a halt to your self-reliance before you can progress much further in the joy of your salvation.  Rejoice, the dawn is upon you!    The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn...Proverbs 4:18 NIV

Spiritual Leakage

When once we start to question our ability to do a thing or give up a thing, we should always ask if we have let a habit or a behavior sap our strength and diminish our spiritual vitality.  God will never give you a task or a challenge that He has not already empowered you in the matter.  You have all the ability you need and all the creativity necessary for the task.  But if you lack power or will, you need to first go back to the beginning point when you started leaking the Lord's oil and plug the leak.  Renounce the act, stop the habit, get rid of the subtle rebellion and climb back into the arms of Christ with determination to trust Him in the matters that have caused you to turn your back on His help....he should do it with the strength God provides...(1 Peter 4:11 NIV)

Good...

Jesus made a disconcerting comment as he talked with the famous “rich young ruler” of Luke 18.  When the young man approached the Lord, he addressed Jesus as “Good teacher”.  Now this was certainly a respectful form of address but Jesus was not so impressed.  His reply was biting.  "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good — except God alone. (Luke 18:19-20 NIV)  This is most informative if we can get past the seeming rudeness of the retort.  Jesus made it perfectly clear without any wiggle room that there is no one good…just God.  This is not self-deprecation: it is stating the clear fact.  Nothing good exists except what is in God, from God and with God.   The source of any good is God and without Him there is no good.  Good is not a relative term; good compared to not so good.  Good is determined by its source.  From God and it is good, outside of Him and it is not.  You and I are not the source of good and we do not decide if something is good or not.  Good is not an arbitrary assessment we make; good is determined by how anything at any moment relates to God.  Take the Lord out of a thought, out of an idea, out of a behavior and it is no longer good.  Regardless of how an event may turn, how a circumstance may look, it is good if your eyes are fixed upon God and your heart is determined to follow Him.  The command of Hebrews 12: 2 to fix our eyes upon Jesus is not a symbolic gesture, it is an act of the will to look to Christ for everything from how to think about something to how to act.  Take your eyes off the Lord and what can seem good, like Peter walking on water can become a disaster in a moment as he began to sink with his eyes on the waves.

Have You Been Tempted?

A temptation is never unreasonable.  It is always a sensible alternative to God's clear direction.  The temptation for Adam was not at the point of command, it was later when he had the new option of gaining insight into right and wrong.  You are not tempted by the wallowing pig or the disgusting vulture but rather by the smooth lined gazelle or the regal tiger.  Your temptation will be filled with light and color rather than the drab black and white and gray.  Don't underestimate the power of the temptation nor its crippling effect.  It is never just a matter of the bad decision; it is a poisoned option you face and once you have been struck by its power, you carry the effect within your body until you are raised perfectly by Christ on the last day.  Take a moment to pray the simple prayer God gave you..."and lead (me) not into temptation!"  Let the punctuation remain  there for a moment as you make the great step of faith for your day.

What Do I Do?

The problem with Christianity is not that it is too difficult to practice, it is that Christianity is too easy to believe.  Nothing is simpler than following a GPS turn for turn and the allowance of the Holy Spirit combined with the clarity of the Bible to direct each step is just as effortless. Where we stumble out of the gate is the frozen unwillingness to do what we are told.  "Turn right!"  We turn left.  "stop!" We go.  The grace of God is too astounding to believe, the fact that Christ really died for us is nearly unbearable.  How can that much love be poured into us?  We simply do not in the crunch of time accept it.  Otherwise, how can we explain the knee jerk response to bear outside the lanes of God's clear directions.  Don't complain any more about not knowing what the Lord wants you to do.  Simply do what you know He has said and let Him work out for you the instantaneous flow of your momentary actions.  The one who keeps His eyes fixed upon Christ is the will of God.

The Wandering Reality

The moment you begin to question the reality of your experience with God, question the presence of the Holy Spirit, return to your root.  The Cross of Jesus Christ happened at a specific moment in history among an actual crowd of people just as reliable as you.  No one ever questioned the crucifixion of Christ and the empty tomb was never doubted.  Return to the physical moment when Jesus Christ died for You and let that spot in time steel your resolve to follow Him anywhere.  The Cross is the power of your faith in God and it is your anchor that keeps the stormy day from swamping you.  Let the Cross of Jesus Christ be the source of your strength and hope.  Ponder it rather than your doubts.

The Defining of Pressing Forward

Have you thought much lately about the extreme agony of God as He stood at the brink of the Cross...taking within His body the terrible sinnings you have been working out moment by moment?  Nothing troubled the Lord in His daily dealings with us.  He was not maddened by the rejection nor was He discouraged by the flip-floppings of the crowd.  He pressed forward with the joy of doing everything within the Father until He came to the Garden and He stopped dead in His tracks and His anguish dripped out of Him.  He was not afraid.  He wasn't disheartened or depressed.  He swelled with sorrow as the sins of us came upon Him, as the agony of our precious independence scored a direct hit within.  Ponder the pain of Christ when you take that left turn off the road, when you screech to a halt as the Holy Spirit calls you forward.  Take the moment here to breathe in the air Jesus exhaled as He bore your sins within His body.  You are not the only sinner for which He died but you are the only one living at your spot and that sort of love cannot be taken lightly.

Real Freedom...Real Thanksgiving

Why is it that so many who turn away from Christ and the salvation He alone offers do so because they want to be free?  There is no freedom outside of the life hidden in Christ.  Don't we see it in the laboratory of daily activities?  The one who drifts away from God is not free of anger, not free of selfishness, not free of jealousy and craven desires!  He is not free of self deception and mistaken longings.  The one enveloped in the love of Christ loses her bitterness and prejudice and mad strivings and wounded ego and is no longer a prisoner of any desire or shattered want.  Jesus Christ and only Jesus Christ can and does take the entire person and make her free to love and free to be at peace.  The turn into Christ is always a turn out of bondage toward unpretentious freedom.

The Curses of Good People

When you lose your sense of comfort in any situation, it usually is because the Cross of Jesus has become too small to you.  Everything that could ever wreck you is crushed by the destruction of sin within the body of Jesus Christ.  Pious worry is still worry and contrary to the state of things for you.  There is a reason why the Lord commands us not to worry.  Worry is the expletive in the conversation, the unnecessary and ridiculous adjective that makes all thinking fuzzy and distorted.  Think a bit more about the terrible suffering of Jesus that you might live with Him forever and then if you can, get back to the absurdity of your worries.

Let Go, Let God?

Have you thought about what it would really be like if you let go and let God?  Would your mind collapse in a rubble of deserted dreams and desires?  Would you feel the need to pick up the pieces after you went with God for a while and saw where it left you?  Could you think clearly if you let your world be God's in every way?  God does not have any interest in working with you.  He only wants to live through you.  Welcome Him into your kingdom!  The Holy Spirit has never been your servant...our confusion is often tied to our hope that He is or might be.  Let Him teach you how to pray and you will gain access to the bounty found only in Christ...a bounty limited only by your resistance to the working of God in your every day life as His child and beloved home.

Nothing settles the Lordship question more firmly than hardship.  It is there that you see the thing most clearly: follow Christ or abandon Him.  Once you know where you stand, everything else falls into place.  Forgive or not.  Complain or not.  Believe or not.  Take the forbidden object or not.  As long as we waver between one or the other, hardship will work its way back into our soul and make the object clear again.  The heart of every situation that startles our sensibilities is the great decision.  Follow Christ or abandon Him.  We rarely settle this absolutely; more often we do so time and again.

The Moment...

The moment of surrender is not just before the big crisis or the courageous endeavor but it is at the breakfast table when your wife scorns your advice or at the school when your son barks at you for being late to come get him or in the evening when everyone walks away from the dinner table and leaves the dishes for you to clean and put away.  The moment of surrender is at the store when the line to check out is ten deep or as you take out the trash and discover your husband threw away your mail without checking with you first.  The moment of surrender is the point at which you decide you have been crucified with Christ and you no longer live but Christ lives in you and you let Him steal your self-righteous indignation and your justified frustration and replace it with real forgiveness and actual rejection of the grievance.  Christ died for those moments when you want to scream in despair but you don't because the Lord Himself has enough joy to see you through it.  Take care to not take care much and let Jesus live fully in you.

The Rise of Obedience

Salvation through Jesus brings us eternal life but the working out of that new life is practical and daily.  It is when we obey God and do what He says in those moments of clarity that more of us (body soul and spirit) becomes free of the chaos and sticky brokenness brought on by sin.  A little act of disobedience, one that seems trivial, can set a chain of events within and without us that can destroy much of the progress we have made toward heavenly joy and peace.  Disobedience is the great drug that intoxicates us and brings hidden destruction.  We grow in grace and freedom and joy as we simply by faith do what the Lord tells us to do.