What are You Thinking?

Psalm 73:1 “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart! But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling”.

Today I am sharing some thoughts and wisdom from an encouraging and timely devotional I read this morning. It was written by Tony Evans. Pieces and parts are my words intermingled among his.

There will be days when you find that you just don’t feel like worshiping God. Perhaps the temptation to compare yourself to someone else has caused you to feel down and even depressed. Driving home from work on Friday, you tell yourself you are glad the week is over because it has been a rough one. As you lament over how tired you feel, satan blindsides you with the thought that your coworkers do not really appreciate you.

By the time you open the front door of your home, your eyes have narrowed and your forehead has tightened. You decide your family doesn’t know or appreciate all you do for them either. You are frustrated and ready to give up. Still, you do not pray and ask God for His perspective. You just keep repeatedly thinking through the day and rehearsing your negative feelings and look for something, anything to numb you to your reality. Saturday morning you get up feeling haunted by the same emotions. You start to resent all the things you need to at home, too. The demands just keep piling up! By Sunday you force yourself to drive to church, but you certainly don’t feel like singing or praising God.

Asaph, the author of Psalm 73, would understand your plight. He allowed discouragement to grow in his life to the point where he was deeply disturbed. The key word in the last sentence is ‘allowed’.

Whenever we take our eyes off of God and His faithfulness, and begin to compare our lives with those around us, we either end up feeling defeated or prideful. God has created each one of us for a unique purpose, which includes worshiping Him.

Psalm 73 is a rambling account of what Asaph was feeling, but by the end, he realizes the truth and puts an end to his negativity. “As for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all (of) Your works” (v. 28).

Sometimes God seems so far away that you can’t talk to anyone else but Him—because nobody else will understand what in the world you are talking about. The closer you are to God, the less likely the enemy will have a shot at your emotions. Stay focused on what God has for you to do. You are His beloved child, and He has an amazing plan for your life. Will you praise Him for this?

Joshua 24:15  But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors (work*) served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods (the flesh*) of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

*Italics - I added

Deep Cleaning

Philippians 3:13–14 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

It appears we are not through with the jingle bell. Since the day I wrote about it, the bell has been on my desk in plain sight. Every time I tried to put it away, toss it in the trash, whatever…I just couldn’t do it. I’ve learned to ponder such things and asked the Lord to show me what I was missing in the revelation He wanted me to get. There is always a lesson to be learned, some are just more obvious than others.

Several years ago, I taped one of these bells to the Christmas gift of every grandchild. The question wasn’t why I had it but what it was doing in the junk drawer, why I hadn’t noticed it there and what God wanted me to get from it. Then it hit me…I said the other day that every home has a junk drawer, but it is possible for every person to have a ‘junk drawer’ in their mind and heart.

How many times has a ‘junky’ thought, memory or emotion popped up out of nowhere and you just couldn’t shake it off? I know that has happened to me. People tend to jump to conclusions and make assumptions. Sadly, far too many people assume the most negative motive from and attitude about others…then they store it away in their private junk drawer only to have it pop up again and again as if their assumptions were gospel to which they clung.

Although Christians are called to be like Christ, we continue to make mistakes. We fail. In fact, we'll never obtain complete sanctification until we stand before the Lord. But, God uses our imperfections to "grow us" in the faith. If we continue to stash away junk like a squirrel does with his nuts, we are adding to the junk drawer which only serves to impede our growing process.

Be encouraged by Paul's emphasis here on forgetting the past and straining forward to what lies ahead. Don't let yesterday's failures, pain or troubles derail you from the goal of your upward call. Press on for the prize until you meet the Lord Jesus at the finish line. Ask the Lord to set you free from the junk in your life, the junk in your mind and the junk that weighs on your heart! He will do His part; you must do yours. Clean out your junk drawer! 

P.S. Now I want the jingle bell on my desk as a reminder to keep myself free of all the junk.

Living Sacrifice

Romans 12:1–2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

We are all sinners separated from a holy God. But God loves us and had mercy on us. And despite our sin, He has forgiven us. The words “living sacrifice” in the reference scripture tends to remind us the Old Testament offerings were dead. If a sacrifice were alive, I think it would have a tendency to squirm off the altar. Maybe we tend to get a little squirmy on the altar, too.

In the same way, sometimes we give something to God, only to take it back later. Have you ever done that? I have. I have prayed about things and committed them to God. And then, only a short time later, I start worrying about them again.

The Bible tells us that we are to present our bodies to God—and that means everything, including our minds as well. It means that we need to fill our minds with God’s truth and not the twisted worldview of our culture. It means we need to think about godly things more.

My brother, Michael, is here on ministry business. Truth in Love World Ministries, from whence Truth in the Morning was spawned, is donating musical equipment to his music ministry, White Horse. I love visiting with Michael, he and I are the last of our family of origin and that bond is important to both of us. However, it is the common bond of our Lord God that is what makes our time together so wonderful. We can talk about our struggles, our ministry work, our extended families, everything and it is all covered by our mutual commitment to serving God as a living sacrifice. On paper, neither he nor I look impressive in a world view; we know this and neither of us care. Our conversations, regardless of topic, are filled with praise to God. It lifts me up to be around him. We encourage one another, giving God all the glory. The word ‘faith’ is spoken often.

If as ‘a living sacrifice’ we are to give God everything, including our minds, words and actions then being around others that share this mentality and lifestyle is vital. If you hang around people that speak coarsely, godly words won’t fill your conversations. We tend to emulate those around us too easily. For instance, we just passed St. Patrick’s Day, I have Irish roots. There were shows on TV about St Paddy’s day and every time I heard someone speaking with an Irish accent, the thoughts in my head sounded Irish! No joke, the thoughts in my head became Irish. I cannot watch Fiddler on the Roof without taking on the heavy accent of Tevye. Like it or not, we are swayed by those around us.

I am blessed to have many godly people in my world and I need them. Walking the narrow path of a committed Christian isn’t the most popular or common choice around. I have lost friends along the way because they chose another direction. Visiting with Michael has been a booster shot, a divine appointment. Reach out to all nations and tongues to those that need to know Jesus as His emissary but choose your inner circle of companions from those committed to be a living sacrifice. You speak the same spiritual language.

It's Friday

It is Friday morning and all is well with my soul. The Lord blessed me with sleep. For the last while, I have been sleeping longer than usual - sometimes eight hours! For me this is not the norm and I wake up astounded and grateful. I am also sleeping through the night without waking up so many times with hurting joints. An answered prayer. I have been fever free for 24 hours now and the sore throat is about 60% better than yesterday morning. I haven’t been waking with sinus headaches as usual either.

I write this from the sanctuary of my bedroom where my faithful and loyal companions, Nikos and Pan Dulce lie sleeping on my comfortable bed. I am sitting in my office chair that allows me to rock when I want to, and I do often as I sit thinking and pondering. It soothes me. Pictures of my children and grandchildren hang on the wall across from my bed so I can see them as I pray for them. They make me smile and feel all warm inside.

This little room is full of reminders of the life God lead me through. Walking sticks from Africa and a rain stick from Costa Rica lean in a corner representing some of where I traveled in His name. Maps on the wall represent places I hope to travel to in His service. There are examples of simple day to day life blessings in here, too. I am drinking a cup of hot coffee I made earlier in the coffeemaker I keep in here to help ease me into mornings. A basket of clean clothes to cover me, a bookshelf of books to entertain and educate me, a fan to cool me and comforters to warm me. All of this and I haven’t even left the room!  

I’m sharing all this with you because it is Friday, the day I think about all God has done in my life this week. I often encourage you to do so, too. This is not saying all is perfect and rosy in my world, far from it - but it is choosing to count the blessings rather than focusing on all that “isn’t”. I was speaking to one of my brothers yesterday and we were catching up, sharing things in our world. He is currently unemployed, as am I, and yet the bulk of our time was spent talking about the good things going on. In our discussion of job hunting, in which neither of us is having any luck, he jokingly said, “It looks like we will be eating beans and rice a little longer.” I told him it was a good thing we liked beans and rice! We laughed. It is all about choice, People, it is all about how you choose to view the things the Lord carried you through. You can focus on how bad the storm or how strong the hands that hold you. I encourage you to take a few moments today just sitting in one place and consider all the blessings that surrounds you. It’s easy, try it, you’ll like it!

Royal Priesthood

“Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9a, KJV)

We, as believers, are priests of The Most High. The Apostle Peter told us, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9a, KJV). The Apostle John wrote, “Jesus Christ…has made us His Kingdom and His priests who serve before God His Father” (Rev. 1:5-6, NLT). Serving as priests becomes part of our high calling when we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

We have inherited some, not all, of the priestly duties from the Levitical priesthood dating back to the time of Moses! While some practices, such as offering sacrifices, are not applicable today, we are still expected to intercede on behalf of the people and to direct others in worship to God. We also retain the important, though often overlooked, responsibility of imparting blessings upon God's people. Like other priestly duties, this is both a responsibility and a privilege. We can, and should, be speaking the blessing of God over others. It is our reasonable service to the Lord and it is our loving obligation to those around us.

God commanded the priests to bring His blessing upon the people to sanctify them. This world is corrupted by sin and sin leads to death. Despite that reality, the world's words and behaviors are competing to overtake and control our hearts. We are constantly engaged in spiritual warfare yet victory results from the Lord’s blessing. We read about the lure of the world in Romans 12:2, “Do not let yourselves be conformed to the standards of this world. Instead, keep letting yourselves be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you will know what God wants and will agree that what He wants is good, satisfying, and able to succeed”(CJB).

The “standards of this world” are self-focused. They promote thoughts and behaviors like hate, jealousy, lust, competitiveness, bigotry, condemnation, and so on. Consequently, words based on the world's standards are condemning, belittling, hurtful, and discouraging. The Apostle Paul distilled this life-or-death matter down to a choice. We can either conform to the world and its standards or we can conform to God and His standards. The New Testament authors confronted every conceivable sin at work within the Church. The ability, tendency, and temptation for those of us in the body of Christ to conform to the world's standards are beyond dispute. If we are honest with ourselves, we know this is true based on our own personal struggles, past or present.                  

In Matthew 12:34, Jesus said, “For the mouth speaks what overflows from the heart.” The hearts of those in the world (that is, those who do not know Jesus as their Savior) are trapped in sin without God’s Holy Spirit. Therefore curses come out of their mouths. When we allow their words to influence our minds and emotions (our “hearts”) then we allow ourselves to conform to their standards.

In Romans 12:2, Paul gave us the key to transformation – our minds must be renewed by the Word. The more we saturate ourselves with the Word of God, the more we know what God wants, and the more we agree that what He wants is good, satisfying, and able to succeed.

Jesus taught us God's kingdom standards in Matthew 22:37-40, “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’” (NIV). Here we discover that God's standards are selfless. They are based on preferring others to ourselves. We are to love God completely, with every fiber of our being, and we are to love others more than we love ourselves.

These are tall orders. They may seem reasonable as you read them right now. However, when you are having a “discussion” with your spouse or you have been cut off in traffic, or the boss gives your promotion to a coworker, or a relationship is ended without explanation…that’s when obeying these commandments can be challenging. In these moments, our ability to conform to the selfless standards of God’s kingdom may appear beyond reach. Therefore, we must approach them with transformed perspectives from minds that have been renewed by the Word of God.

May you find wisdom and, in doing so, find life and win approval from the Lord (Prov. 8:35, NLT).