Twice His

Jeremiah 31:3 "I have loved you with an everlasting love."

Inspired by and taken in part from an article written by Ron Hutchcraft; it is a subject matter too good not to pass on.

There are people who have felt like they've been unwanted most of their life. And in this often cruel world we live in, people really do make you feel like you don't belong, that you're never good enough, that they don't particularly care if you're there or not. Honestly, if we put our sense of worth in the hands of other humans, they are almost surely going to drop it, crush it or stomp on it. On purpose or unknowingly; either way, it feels crummy.

Then along comes Someone who says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love." That's our word today from the Word of God in Jeremiah 31:3; someone who never lies; someone who always delivers. There really is Someone who has always wanted you so much that He's pursued you at great cost. All the way to a rugged old cross where He gave His life so He wouldn't lose you.

Actually, the problem isn't that God doesn't want us. It's that we don't want Him. Oh, we're okay with a God who runs the universe as long as we can run our own universe. We want God as a belief, a religious pacifier, a cozy blanket when it's cold, and a spiritual ace to play when we die, but not when it comes to God actually running our lives.

So we've cut ourselves off from the One who loves us more than anyone. All our God-ignoring sins have set us up for an eternity without Him, because sin separates us from a sinless God.

But Jesus was God who came looking for us. In His words, he came to "seek and save what was lost" (Luke 19:10). He suffered for our sinning so we would never have to; so we could be with Him for all eternity. That's how very wanted we are by the most important person in the galaxies.

There's a story of a little boy who built a toy sailboat with his daddy. His father let little Scotty glue it and sand it and paint it and name it. He called it "Arthur," for some reason. And Scotty couldn't wait to get his masterpiece in the lake nearby. But on "Arthur's" maiden voyage, a storm came up and quickly blew the sailboat way beyond the little boy's ability to get it. Scotty ran to his daddy heartbroken. His father just said, "I'll just buy you another one." Scotty was adamant. He said, "I want my boat back."

Later, in an amazing discovery at a little store downtown, Scotty saw his boat in the window! He ran into the store and asked the man if he could have it. "Sure," the owner said. "Twenty bucks." That probably sounded like a million dollars to a little boy, but he went back home and went to his neighbors, asked for any job he could get paid for, and one day he walked into that store proudly and he plunked down his hard-earned 20 bucks.

He ran all the way home with that sailboat wrapped tightly in his arms. His father was home, so Scotty jumped into his lap with one arm around Daddy and one arm around "Arthur." And he gushed out what his heart couldn't contain: "Daddy, I love this boat so much, because now it's twice mine; once because I made it and once because I paid for it!"

That's how Jesus feels about us. He loves us so much because we're twice His; once because He made us, and once because He paid for us with His life. And today He stands with open arms waiting to welcome us into His love, into a forever relationship with Him.

Jesus, no one's ever loved me like You do. I am Yours!

Search Me, O God!

Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

This morning it felt as if everything I read was written just for me! God is so good and faithful to lead us to what we need to see and hear. For the last few days I have been asking God to look into my heart and check my motives on some decisions I have made. One of my biggest concerns is that I do not deceive myself on the motive front. I know the Lord was leading me in a new direction and felt at peace about His marching orders. My concern was my execution of those orders. You know how I tend to over analyze!  Balancing out earthly logic and spiritual motivation seemed a daunting task.

Last night, I felt God saying I was on the right track in motive but had let the earthly logic dictate and delay and distract me. Focus on the spiritual motivation and leading had almost gotten lost in the shuffle. I was relying on my earthly wisdom, trying so hard to do the “right thing the right way.” The words in blue are only a small portion of where He led me this morning.  

In a time of personal reflection, the prophet Jeremiah wrote, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Left on my own, there isn’t much I can’t rationalize. Even sin can be seen as something deserved. Whoever believes his heart is not deceitful is deceived. That’s why today’s passage should be our daily prayer.

When I understand that I am not the best judge of my motives, it’s time to bow before the God who is all the way through my heart. Let’s ask Him to do some serious searching.

Father, I ask you to shine your search light on my heart. Make the sin show up in a clear and disgusting way. Make known my heart. Show me where I am missing the mark. Make known my anxious thoughts so I can turn from worry to trust. Show me where I am offensive to you and others. Please don’t let me live my life doing things that offend others by my personality or actions or words and not even know the damage I’m causing. Please don’t let me live in an offensive way to you and never seek your forgiveness. Father, help me to follow hard after you as you lead me home. In Christ’s Name. Amen.

In this case, my sin was relying on earthly wisdom and ways while His direction was sitting on the back burner simmering. Obedience delayed is disobedience. This is where the spiritual rubber meets the road, People. Stepping out in faith is not like jumping off a cliff into a dark abyss. It may feel like it but it’s not. Knowledge of Jesus and His character and His faithfulness to His Word is our assurance we are not falling into a vast black hole. Father, help me to follow hard after you as you lead me home. In Christ’s Name, Amen!

Building Blocks

I do not believe in an ABC, 123, or Step by Step guide to being saved. There, that is out of the way; that being said, I do believe we build a strong foundation of faith one golden nugget of truth and scriptural wisdom at a time as we learn and grow in Christ. I do not think we can ‘love’ that which we do not know. To know Christ we must seek His face, know His character, read truth revealing scripture, allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in understanding and trust that which we cannot see. Tall order, but one filled with goodness and peace we cannot imagine without walking it out in faith.   

Dr. Charles Stanley leads a large congregation and I have watched his tv ministry on Sundays before going to church for years. There is something about his soft-spoken Southern way of getting to the point...I like that. I ran across some of his writing the other day when I was researching more on ‘rebellion’ (Yes, we are going to cover that again soon! Hehehe) I found the following interesting and decided to share the wealth. Don’t just skim over this, but read it with attention. I think you will see an outline for solid Christian living/thinking and much wisdom: When Dr. Stanley was a young man, one week spent with his grandfather charted the course for more than 50 years of preaching God's Word. During those few days, he learned the first of 30 foundational truths that guide his life and ministry to this day.

 
1. Our intimacy with God – His highest priority for our lives – determines the impact of our lives.
2. Obey God and leave all the consequences to Him.
3. God’s Word is an immovable anchor in times of storm.
4. The awareness of God’s presence energizes us for our work.
5. God does not require us to understand His will; just obey it, even if it seems unreasonable.
6. You reap what you sow, more than you sow, and later than you sow.
7. The dark moments of our life will last only so long as is necessary for God to accomplish His purpose in us.
8. Fight all your battles on your knees and you win every time.
9. Trusting God means looking beyond what we can see to what God sees.
10. If necessary, God will move heaven and earth to show us His will.
11. God assumes full responsibility for our needs when we obey Him.
12. Peace with God is the fruit of oneness with God.
13. Listening to God is essential to walking with God.
14. God acts on behalf of those who wait for Him.
15. Brokenness is God’s requirement for maximum usefulness.
16. Whatever you acquire outside of God’s will eventually turns to ashes.
17. We stand tallest and strongest on our knees.
18. As children of a sovereign God, we are never victims of our circumstances.
19. Anything you hold too tightly, you will lose.
20. Disappointments are inevitable, discouragement is a choice.
21. Obedience always brings blessing.
22. To walk in the Spirit is to obey the initial promptings of the Spirit.
23. You can never out-give God.
24. To live the Christian life is to allow Jesus to live His life in and through us.
25. God blesses us so that we might bless others.
26. Adversity is a bridge to a deeper relationship with God.
27. Prayer is life’s greatest time saver.
28. No Christian has ever been called to “go it alone” in his or her walk of faith.
29. We learn more in our valley experiences than on our mountaintops.
30. An eager anticipation of the Lord’s return keeps us living productively.

Walk the Talk

Philippians 2:8-11: He humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated Him to the place of highest honor and gave Him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

James 3:2: Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.

In my reading today I was struck a couple of times by simple phrases. Not only did they come alive on the page but pinched me with conviction!

James teaches us that if we can bridle our tongue and not offend in word, then we are perfect in the sight of God. Even as small as the tongue is, it is still hard to tame. The reason being it vents what is hidden in our hearts. So we must begin with the heart if we want our tongues to remain silent. Have you considered how the heart is also revealed in our thoughts, our self-talk (I can be brutal to myself in my head), and our running mental commentaries on others as well? Just because no one else might hear those comments doesn’t mean they do not reveal the pollution of our hearts.

The verses in our text for today teach us that Jesus was more than just obedient; He humbled Himself through submission. Many people will obey spiritual authority as long as they agree with it, but the moment they don’t agree with authority, they rebel. This is why Christians can’t tame the tongue. We sometimes refuse to obey when the suffering of our flesh man is involved. Yet Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to the death of the cross. The Word declared that He “became” obedient. It was a process that He was willing to undergo that prepared Him for the suffering. It is that process of being “willing to be made willing” to suffer that we all must submit to if we want to be perfect before the Lord.

1 John 2:5-6: But those who obey God’s word truly show how completely they love Him. That is how we know we are living in Him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did.

The Lord doesn’t require us to walk the streets of Jerusalem to be like Christ, but He does require us to walk “the way” that Jesus walked, and Jesus walked humbly before the Father. He did not please the religious rulers, nor was He humble to them. All the Father asks of us as His children is that we place our faith in Christ and walk in humility before Him while we live in a fallen world.

Lord, help us to become “willing to be made willing” to submit to Your authority, to have our hearts cleansed from all pollution, bitterness, and rebellion so we might walk the way of Christ, in obedience and humility. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Standing for Truth

Isaiah 59:15 Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. The LORD looked and was displeased that there was no justice.

I write a blog called Truth in the Morning and the ministry God gave me to do is called Truth in Love World Ministries. He named them; I didn’t, so you can see how the subject of truth is non-negotiable for me. I ran across an article by A.W. Tozer that resounded in my spirit and today I am sharing it. There is a lot of ‘black and white’ in my bottom-line world and it is often not appreciated by others. Once I stepped into the pure light of Christ out of the gray fog in which I lived in the world, there was not a lot of room for gray anymore. It could not stand up to the pure light of His righteousness. Here is what Tozer had to say.

In our culture today there seem to be only two absolutes: (1) that there are no absolutes except that there are no absolutes; and (2) everything must be tolerated since there is no absolute truth. Painful and uncomfortable as it is, we must stand up for truth.

We have developed in recent times a peace-loving, soft-spoken, tame and harmless brand of Christian of whom the world has no fear and for whom it has little respect. We are careful, for instance, never to speak in public against any of the false cults lest we be thought intolerant. We fear to talk against the destructive sins of modern civilization for fear someone will brand us as bigoted and narrow. Little by little we have been forced off the hard earth into a religious cloud-land where we are permitted to wing our harmless way around, like swallows at sundown, saying nothing that might stir the ire of the sons of this world. That Neo-Christianity, which seems for the time to be the most popular (and is certainly the most aggressive), is very careful not to oppose sin. It wins its crowds by amusing them and its converts by hiding from them the full implications of the Christian message. It carries on its projects after the ballyhoo methods of American business. Well might we paraphrase Wordsworth and cry, "Elijah, thou shouldst be living at this hour; America has need of thee." We stand in desperate need of a few men like Elijah who will dare to face up to the brazen sinners who dictate our every way of life. Sin in the full proportions of a revolution or a plague has all but destroyed our civilization while church people have played like children in the marketplace. What has happened to the spirit of the American Christian? Has our gold become dim? Have we lost the spirit of discernment till we can no longer recognize our captors? How much longer will we hide in caves while Ahab and Jezebel continue to pollute the temple and ravage the land? Surely we should give this some serious thought and prayer before it is too late--if indeed it is not too late already.

In an age where we worry more about being politically correct and fear being labeled ‘intolerant’, I am concerned we have strayed to the left of truth and taken our eyes off the pure white light of God’s Word. Light and darkness cannot coexist. There is either one or the other.

I John 1:5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

Father, give me courage and boldness to lovingly and graciously stand for You in my sphere of influence. May I be Your ambassador.