A Daily Call

   I find it interesting how God brings a message. This is one that has blessed me and drawn me closer to the Lord.

   In the last two weeks I have listened in on two different Bible studies on the Book of Jonah. Both studies came from completely different angles. One illustrated the run-away prophet; the other, the servant who was displeased with how God didn't deal with the situation the way the man thought it should come out.

   All around Jonah was a stinker (and not just when he came out of the belly of the fish). But I think the most important aspect of this book in the Bible is the willingness of God to faithfully call his chosen prophet to pursue His will.
   God calls us to obedience, but even when we run away, fall away, or push Him away his Holy Spirit is always there to call us to his will.

^{Luke 11:28} He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

How Great Thou Art

  John 1 In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

 ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

   These verses in the Bible are some of the most foundational in true Christian faith. They speak directly to the Deity of Jesus but even more so as to the "largeness" of God. When in discussion with people it seems that grasping the idea of one God who is also three is too much to wrap our human minds around.

   I, myself, have struggled with this but recently I have been meditating deeply on this "largeness" that is God.

   The Bible tells us that God created everything; that in the beginning there was only God and that it gave him pleasure to form the cosmos and all that is in it. This means that he created time, space, and every atom, molecule, and organism that has its being within that creation.

   God surrounds this creation; He is larger then His creation, larger then time, larger then space, and yet at the same time he is within his creation. It was God who spoke light, who parts seas and rivers, walks on water, hung on the cross, and who indwells the believer. My human mind still struggles with this expansiveness, but yet find such a great comfort in that the largeness of His love surrounds me even with all my flaws and failings.

   My prayer is that as He continues to reveal His Majesty we can open our eyes to see and our ears to hear and know "How great Thou art". 

Your Kingdom Come

Luke 11:1-4 Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.”

² So He said to them, “When you pray, say:

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
³ Give us day by day our daily bread.
⁴ And forgive us our sins,
For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And do not lead us into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”  

   When His disciples asked Jesus how to pray He gave them what we now commonly call the Lords Prayer. This is a wonderful example of the Trinity in action. Powered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus , the Son speaks to the Father. So when he says "Your Kingdom come." He is  not only telling us  to request, seek, work for, His Kingdom, He is also speaking it into existence.
  We, by turning our lives over to God, become citizens in His magnificent Kingdom.
  He is the King of kings.

The Cult of Darkness. or How to Defeat the Enemy While on your Knees

   I stopped by some friends house tonight on my way home. They were comparing the mentality behind the the attack on the Sikh Temple in Wisconsin to the way there neighbors treat them. The term they were using was "It's like there is a cult of darkness in the world". I was drawn to tell them about my recent study in The book of Romans where Paul is addressing the oppression that the believers in that city, and pretty much the world of the first century were being confronted by was a "cult of darkness". And yes it continues to this day
   Romans 1...
²⁸ Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. ²⁹ They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; ³¹ they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.

   The thing is; the point of much of Paul's words in "Romans" is that we are all a part of that "cult of darkness" if we are without Jesus, THE Christ. He is the only way to peace in our souls and subsequently in the world. So many fight against this because we are taught by our culture to be self reliant; that our intelligence is our salvation; that we are "the captain of our own ship". The "My way or the highway" mentality will lead a person to hell.
   It is not until we relinquish our lives; our person, to God that we can be free of the "cult of darkness".

   Romans 8...
⁹ You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh (read: "cult of darkness") but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. ¹¹ And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.

Paul continues with this encouragement


³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son,but gave Him up for us all—how will He not also, along with Him, graciously give us all things? ³³ Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

   So as concerning the "cult of darkness", would not a life given over to Jesus; The Lord; the Savior of the world; the Righteous One; the Lamb of God, be the the way to stand toe to toe with the wickedness in the world; the "cult of darkness". But more importantly would not a life given over to Christ show the world and lead it to the most beautiful Way.

Motivation

   

   When I read this quote by our old buddy Albert it made me pause and look at what my motivations are for following the life path I have chosen.
   Sinners are a "sorry lot".
   Yes the fear of separation from God, or the hope of spending eternity in His presence are valid motivations to be "good".
   Should not our motivation for that goodness be our deep and consuming love for God?


   "Love your neighbor". "Love your enemy". "Love yourself". We can get our heads wrapped around these, But "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and soul"...
   Do you feel motivated?
   Praise the Name of the Lord.
   That's a start.

   

Growing In The True Vine

John 15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.


    Here along Flathead Lake in Northwest Montana we have our famous orchards and vineyards. When the cherry trees are in bloom it is a truly spectacular site, But I have always been drawn to the site of the vineyards with their symmetrical rows and the vines trained along their frames and supports.
   I would love to have a small vineyard someday because the growing of vines strikes me as an exercise in loving patience. Many expert growers go to the pains to count every bud so as to know where exactly to prune.
   The main reasons for pruning is to control the crop size, the quality of the grapes and to keep the growth of the vines attractive and manageable. But primarily it is the quantity and quality of the fruit the Gardener is after. And while pruning helps with fruitfulness it is the strength and stability of the individual branches connection to the main vine that is the source of the fruitfulness.

   In the Hampton Court Gardens in England there is a single vine, planted in 1768, that has grown to 120 feet long. The crop is usually harvested in September. It takes the gardener nearly three weeks to harvest all the grapes. The crop averages 500 to 700 bunches of grapes that weigh 507 to 705 lb. The largest recorded crops of grapes from the Vine were 1,800 bunches in 1798 and 2,245 bunches in 1807. What I find significant is that the main vine is 12 feet around the base. These are obviously healthy branches attached to a magnificent vine.
   When Jesus spoke of being the "true vine" I have been envisioning a vine as mighty as this "Old Vine" in England. The branches are truly abiding in that great life source.
   But what about the pruning? In our lives it is God who cleans away that what is not going to produce fruit, but the pruning sometimes can be painful. Sometimes he removes an aspect of our lives that we are so attached to that it causes such profound pain it is difficult see the hand of God in it.
   I am going through a season in my life where I am confronted with a situation that is producing fear and depression. But I am trusting the hand of God on my life. He is a patient and loving Gardener. He is nurturing me; preparing me for a fruitful harvest. As for now I grow. 

Behold!

Engraved On His Hands

By: Charles Spurgeon



“Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16


No doubt a part of the wonder which is concentrated in the word “behold” is excited by the unbelieving lamentation of the preceding sentence. Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my God has forgotten me.”


How amazed the divine mind seems to be at this wicked unbelief! What can be more astounding than the unfounded doubts and fears of God’s favored people? The Lord’s loving word of rebuke should make us blush, and he cries, “How can I have forgotten you, when I have engraved you on the palms of my hands? How can you doubt my constant remembrance, when the memorial is set upon my very flesh?”


O unbelief, how strange a marvel you are! We do not know which more to wonder at: the faithfulness of God or the unbelief of his people.


God keeps his promise a thousand times, and yet the next trial makes us doubt him. He never fails, he is never a dry well, he is never as a setting sun, a passing meteor, or a melting vapor—and yet we are as continually vexed with anxieties, bothered with suspicions, and disturbed with fears, as if our God were the mirage of the desert.


“Behold,” is a word intended to excite admiration. Here, indeed, we have a theme for marveling. Heaven and earth may well be astonished that rebels should obtain so great a nearness to the heart of infinite love as to be written on the palms of his hands.


“I have engraved you.” It does not say “your name.” The name is there, but that is not all: “I have engraved you.” See the fulness of this! I have engraved your person, your image, your case, your circumstances, your sins, your temptations, your weaknesses, your wants, your works. I have engraved you, everything about you, all that concerns you. I have put you altogether there.


Will you ever say again that your God has forsaken you when he has engraved you on his own palms?

Fire from Heaven

   One of the things that strikes me about the stories in the Old Testament is how God responds with fire from heaven. There are times it is a demonstration of His justice (Sodom etc) but there are those events at an alter where He demonstrates His pleasure, His acceptance of the sacrifice by sending fire from heaven and consuming the sacrifice. 1Kings 18 where He shows He is the living God in Elijah's challenge to the priests of Baal and Asherah; with Davids repentance in 1 Chronicles 21:26; or at the dedication of temple that Solomon built, recorded in 2 Chronicles 5-7 (see 2 Chronicles 7:1).
   Amazing stories, but how do they relate to us?
   Let's jump ahead in time to the Book of Acts, chapter 2:1. Here we see 120 followers of Jesus in the upper room, (We don't have the full list but in Acts 1:13 we find that the core of Jesus' followers are there)  when what sounds like a loud and violent wind "then what looked like flames or tongues of fire" fell on them and they experienced glossolalia (speaking in tongues).
   It must have been an amazing moment; the sound, intense and thunderous; the sight of flames both fearful and wondrous. Then the voices. I envision a heavenly cacophony, almost like a music, full of joy and praise lifting toward God.
   But let us focus on the tongues of fire. Here it is fifty days after Jesus death and resurrection. Jesus has become the sacrifice for the sins of all mankind; The Lamb of God without spot or blemish. And it is now through the sacrifice of Jesus that God sees the believers, and we can assume that at this time there were only 120 believers in the whole world, and pours from heaven fire of approval upon them all. But it is not a fire that burns up what is on the alter because we are now a living sacrifice Romans 12:1. What an amazing demonstration of the gospel. Jesus, the sacrifice, once and for all, is now fulfilling his promise that He would be with us and in us.
   And now we hear the voices speaking out in joy and praise.
   Our God is great and mighty! Our God reigns with love and majesty! Holy is the name of our God!

God is up to something!

  There is this wonderful and liberating paradox we run across in the Christian life. First we are to take responsibility for our actions, and we have free will to do so. We can not palm off the blame on the devil as Flip Wilson use to say, "The Devil made me do it". We are decision makers and can choose the path we take. On the other hand we are to be surrendered to God. Our lives are to be totally laid before Him.
   Our lives are to be projected onto the greater backdrop of the Lordship of Jesus. To call Jesus Lord is to state your relinquishing of control to Him.
   When we invite the Holy Spirit to fill us we are no longer calling the shots. Even our self control becomes a product of His work (Galatians 5:22-23) We don't get to be in union with God's Spirit so we can choose the road we will travel. The action of the Holy Spirit is referred to as "like a wind" in the New Testament (John 3, Acts 2); this is not a wind that you can give orders to, you can not command this wind, it "goes where it wills". If you are going to partner with the Holy Spirit you must surrender and align yourself with God's agenda, and I assure you He is up to something.
   We can close ourselves off and go through the motions of being a Christian, impress people, feel good about ourselves, but until we surrender to God we can never be totally a partner with the work of the Holy Spirit; God in you.
   But God's plan is send us out into the world to testify to His great works and love. We can not do this without Him at the wheel. We need to surrender that wheel to him; As you surrender to His Lordship, then the Holy Spirit of God can work through us.

Homecoming

   We bring the Word of God to the world because of what we have seen God do in our own lives; we follow the commands of Jesus to be a witness to the world and makers of disciples. But what is our motivation? What is our true intent?
   First and foremost we should be motivated by our love for God "John 14:21
Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”, but what about those we call "the lost", how much do we love them? Are we motivated by the immense and extravagant love that God has for them or are we just trying to fill a pew, or like some evangelist gunslinger, put another notch in our bible for leading someone in "the sinners prayer"?
   I find it interesting that in the descriptions in the bible of when believers gathered there are no alter calls mentioned, no sinners prayer, no evangelism. What is depicted is a community of people getting together to share life, and love, and all the other blessings of God. And when evangelism is portrayed it is out in the streets and homes; wherever life happens, and people are. The community that meets for meals and prayers and teachings also meets in the world.
   When the Church is functioning as God intended, its' power and potential is unlimited. When we break out of the "box" of our beautiful buildings and comfortable pews then we can be examples of the miraculous life God desires for us. We need to become a Church that is "working right". We are the Body of Christ; we are His hands and feet, His voice and eyes, and yes, His love and compassion. We can comfort the grieving and heal the broken. We can build bridges for the one who is seeking and offer truth to the confused. We reach out to the lost, the lonely, the un-loved.
      A friend of mine once stated "I don't understand why people spend so much of their time in bars". I replied "For the same reason we go to church, for fellowship".
     The church is a family, and the world is waiting to be welcomed home.




“When love, acceptance and forgiveness prevail, the church becomes what Jesus was in the world: a center of love, designed for the healing of broken people, and a force for God… One of the greatest services a church can offer a community is to provide a place for people to be brought to wholeness – to be healed physically, spiritually and emotionally… People are fragmented. They are torn. Life doesn’t work for them because they are without Jesus... They need a place to be healed.” (Jerry Cook).

Faith

   Faith is living as if what can not be seen or touched exists - Faith is the relinquishing of control; we give up sensory affirmation of what is true and real; we begin walking in the Kingdom of God.
   Faith is releasing our will to truly accept and receive God's creation. We can no longer configure the world as we would like it, but release to God in a merging of visible and invisible. By faith we embrace life as God's gift and open ourselves not only to God himself but to what He's doing.