Sunday Quote: Who Opened the Door?

"The problem with open doors is the emphasis is erroneously placed on the door rather than on God.  Some people enter open doors under the mistaken assumption that God only allows good opportunities to come their way.  Therefore, any good opportunity that comes along must be from God.  Looking for open doors can appear easier than developing a relationship with God.  Various opportunities, including questionable business opportunities and marriage proposals, can be treated as open doors.  As you might imagine, this can often lead to disastrous results...Simply entering an open door without checking to see if God opened it can bring catastrophic consequences." ~ Henry and Richard Blackaby, Hearing God's Voice,  pp. 144-45

Guard Your Heart

If we are going to remain healthy we have to take care of our hearts.  A person’s heart, according to the Bible, is the seat of his emotions and his thoughts.  In western culture we have usually equated our hearts with just our emotions, but to the original readers of the Bible they understood the heart to be person’s true self.  It is what motivates you to act when no one else is watching. That is why it is so important for our hearts to be healthy.  Consider what Erwin McManus wrote: “When your heart is sick, it can spread everywhere.  Like a cancer, despair in the human soul can cause all kinds of malfunctions” (Uprising; p. 133).

Having a sick heart makes life more difficult and can ruin our lives.  To have a sick heart means that we will be depressed, anger, confused, and fearful.  Rather than living a life of hope our life will be full of despair.  A sick heart will keep us from experiencing the life God wants us to enjoy.

Proverbs 4:23 reads: Guard your heart above all else,for it determines the course of your life (NLT).  Solomon tells us that the condition of hearts is very important, so important we have to guard them.  This is what we fail to do.  I believe we are good at making sure were are studying the Bible, worshiping, have fellowship with other Christians, and even serving in some capacity.  Our hearts become sick not because of a lack of good, but because of the presence of bad.

In other words our hearts become sick because we do not guard our hearts like we should.  We allow too much of the bad into our lives.  Whether this is in the form of images we allow into our minds through the various types of visual media, continuing habitual sin, or spending time with people who drag us down.  When we don’t work at guarding our hearts they get damaged or they get sick.

So how do we guard our hearts? 

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you (Philippians 4:6-9; NLT).

We guard our hearts by faith.  The most basic way we demonstrate our faith in God is through prayer.  Prayer is trusting God to work our worries and problems out for good.  Sometimes all we need is to acknowledge our problems so we can get a proper perspective on things.  Other times we need God’s supernatural intervention.  Pray helps guard our hearts.

We guard our hearts by thinking good thoughts.  When we put garbage into our hearts our hearts will be consumed by garbage.  We have to be vigilant with what we are fueling our thoughts with.  We can’t concentrate on the things of God if our minds and hearts filled with junk.  Take note of what you are putting in and make changes.


The heart is important, essential, to our health.  We need to work hard to guard our hearts from damage and sickness. When our hearts our healthy then our lives, no matter what the circumstances are, will always have hope.

Morality and Pleasure

 Originally Posted October 2, 2005

“This is the great lost truth of the Christian faith, that correction of Judaism made by Jesus and passed on to us: the goal of morality is not morality—it is ecstasy. You are intended for pleasure!” ~ John Eldredge; The Journey of Desire

One of the great lies the human race has believed from the very beginning is that the very best pleasure is found outside of the God-given bounds of life.  This is why so many people believe the "good life" is found in doing their own thing and living for the moment. The party mentality isn’t just something new invented by students on college campuses, but has gone back thousands of years.  It is easy to see that many people have given their lives away to the party in an attempt to feel good.

For many people morality seems to stand in the way of pleasure. Morality tells us not to get drunk or get high. Morality tells us that sex should be between a man and a woman, and then only within the bounds of marriage. Morality says to be a servant to other people through giving your time and/or money to help someone in need. When we look through the eyes of the world morality looks pretty dull compared to the party. So we wonder; "How can pleasure come through doing the right thing?"

Ravi Zacharias talks about this issue in his book Cries of the Heart; “For true pleasure the price is paid before it is enjoyed. For false pleasure the price is paid after it is enjoyed” (Cries of the Heart; p. 142). There is no doubt that illicit sex and pornography bring pleasure to people, if they didn’t people wouldn’t participate in them. The high of drugs, which include alcohol, provides people a moment of pleasure, which is one reason why people continue to use them even when they face negative consequences. Ask yourself; "Are these the types of pleasures God created us to enjoy?"

God created us to experience pleasures which add joy to our lives, not pleasures which enslave us. Here is what I want you to remember: The worldly pleasures so many people chase after end up costing them in the long run. The cost is seen in disease, broken relationships, crime, and an empty life which they desperately want to change. To ignore morality and to embrace pleasure may seem fun in the short term, but it is going to cost in the long run.

To pay the cost of morality, to practice self-control, and to obey the commands of Jesus bring happiness and joy, the greatest forms of pleasure. Ultimately pleasure isn’t about the feelings produced by a high or an orgasm, but about the love one has for others and the knowledge that his/her life has been productive. Carnal pleasures tear down the trust and love needed to produce loving relationships and lasting achievements. In God's economy relationships are the key to experiencing the pleasure God intended for us to experience in life.

When we look at the bigger picture of eternity, the life lived in pursuit of worldly pleasures will cost the pursuer the ultimate price of being separated from the true source of Love and Joy: God.  The person who seeks after God's Kingdom will experience the ultimate form of pleasure: an eternal relationship with his Heavenly Father.

Make no mistake about it, God wants us to experience pleasure! The question is are you going to sell out to the fleeting pleasures of the party, or are you going to pay the price of morality to experience pleasure the way it was meant to be experienced? That is the choice God has given you to make.

Out of Routine

Around Christmas time I wrote a pondering that dealt with the fact when I am with family my routine gets pushed to the side. While in many ways this isn't a bad thing because we are together, it does seem to affect my time with God.

Currently I am at the Preaching and Teaching Convention on the campus of Ozark Christian College in Joplin, MO and I feel very similar. I have been able to hear three great sermons, sing praises to God, attend a useful workshop on writing, and spend time with friends, but my devotional and prayer time has been all thrown off, and in a sense I feel disconnected from God. This reminds me how vital it is for us to be intentional about spending time in Scripture and prayer, even when we are in the midst of corporate worship, because we need that personal time with God.

I am so grateful to have this time to hear God's Word
preached, but if I hope to grow I have to take what I have heard and meditate on it and evaluate it and implement it into my life, and that is another reason why personal time is so vital to our lives. We need that time alone with our thoughts to process what we have heard.

My encouragement today, just as it was a couple of months ago, is to be intentional about getting alone with God for a few minutes, no matter what your situation is, because in our time alone we can give our total attention to God. It is in those moments that we gain the greatest clarity for our lives, and that is why our personal time with God is so essential to our lives.

Sent from my iPod

Sunday Quote: The More We Trust

“Just do whatever Jesus calls you to do the moment it is clear to you. Do not procrastinate; do not hesitate, do not deviate from whatever course of action He calls you to. But I want to warn you, the closer you walk with Christ, the greater the faith required. The more you trust Him, the more you’ll risk on His behalf. The more you love Him, the more you will love others. If you genuinely embrace His sacrifice, you will joyfully embrace a sacrificial life. Your expectations of Jesus will change as your intimacy with Him deepens.” ~ Erwin McManus , The Barbarian Way, p. 53

Finding Hope in Grace

Originally Posted Monday March 14, 2005

{1 Peter 1:1-6; NLT}
This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.

I am writing to God's chosen people who are living as foreigners in the lands of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, the province of Asia, and Bithynia. God the Father chose you long ago, and the Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed Jesus Christ and are cleansed by his blood.

May you have more and more of God's special favor and wonderful peace.

All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And God, in his mighty power, will protect you until you receive this salvation, because you are trusting him. It will be revealed on the last day for all to see. So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while. 

We all know life is tough. Even with the luxury that we live in here in the United States life is difficult. We have loved ones who are sick and dying, we are experiencing the pain of broken relationships, and we have carry the guilt of actions which cannot be undone. We may enjoy many different comforts, but that doesn't mean we are immune from the trials and tribulations of the world in which we live.

Peter opens his first letter with a reminder of hope that Christians have. With so much uncertainty and pain hope gives us a reason to live. I find three reasons for hope in the first six verses of 1 Peter.

1. The Grace of God: God the Father chose you long ago, and the Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed Jesus Christ and are cleansed by his blood. (v. 2)

One of the things which jumps out at me from this verse is the work of the entire Trinity. The Father has chosen us, the Spirit makes us holy, and we are cleansed by the Son's blood. Each person of the Trinity was involved in the gift of grace we have received.

The reason we can have hope is because God has shown us His grace. We can know this gift is a reality because of the existence of the Church. The Church is the group of people God has chosen to be saved. Since we can see the positive impact God has made in the lives of Christians we can have assurance that He is working in our lives as well. We can be confident about God's grace because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit guides us into a greater knowledge and love of God, so our personal growth becomes evidence for God's grace. We can be confident about grace because Jesus' death and resurrection. The historical truth of Jesus and His resurrection provides us with evidence which helps us to trust in God's grace.

2. The Resurrection of Jesus: All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. (v. 3)

In Christianity we make a big deal out of the sacrifice of Jesus. Rightly so, it is Jesus' blood that deals with our sin, it is His death that is the substitute for our death, and it is Jesus' death that provides that takes on the penalty of our sin. The reality is that it is Jesus' resurrection that provides us with a reason to find hope in His death. It is resurrection which reveals to us that Jesus is who He said He was. It is the resurrection which shows us that life can be taken back from death. The resurrection of Jesus gives us hope that Satan, sin, and death will all one day come to an end.

3. The Promise of Heaven: For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. And God, in his mighty power, will protect you until you receive this salvation, because you are trusting him. It will be revealed on the last day for all to see. So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while. (vv. 4-6)

Not only can we be certain that death is not the end, God has also promised us an inheritance beyond our imagination. This inheritance is more than what we can hope for and more than we can possibly imagine. In the person of Jesus Christ we have learned that God keeps His promises, and that means that if God promises us an inheritance we can expect an inheritance. What God promises He does.

This world is difficult and is filled with pain, fear, and all sorts of other trouble. Living in this fallen world can leave us to wonder what the meaning of life really is. One of the gifts of following Jesus is being able to live a life of hope. This hope is discovered through God's grace, through the resurrection of Jesus, and through the promise of heaven. When we focus our attention on these great realities we will experience the hope which makes life worth living.

God Cares About Our Lives

Each of us has worries. Some have worries about health problems and medical tests. Others have worries about relationship issues. Still others have worries about money and bills. Worries are universal, we all experience them.

The apostle Peter wrote; So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in his good time he will honor you. Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you (1 Peter 5:6-7; NLT).

One of the amazing truths we discover in this passage is that God cares about us! The implication of that reality is that all of our worries and cares matter to Him. He cares about those silly fears we have about talking in front of a group of people, being in the dark, or of thunderstorms.

The big worries also matter to God. He cares about the fact that we worry about the salvation of our friends and family, that we are unable to find work, or that our parents' are sick.  Everything that causes us to worry or that we care about, God also cares about. How do we know that? Peter tells that  God “cares about what happens to you.”

The evidence of God's love for us is seen in the blessings He so generously gives.  This is why I think it is important to take a few minutes on a regular basis and write a list of the ways God has blessed your life.

The life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus is more evidence that God cares for us.  He is the one who took the initiative to save us when He had every right to allow us experience the pain of our rejection of Him.

The knowledge of God's love for us should motivate us to pray. Knowing God cares about the smallest detail of our lives should help us understand that there is a great importance in taking time to pray about the circumstances in our lives, the wounds in our hearts, and the problems of our loved ones.

Because we have a limited perspective on life means we will not always agree with how God works in our lives or answers our prayers, but I am certain that as we live a life of faith we will be able to look back on our lives and see God's handiwork.  When all is said and done we will realize that God led us by the best road.

I think this passage provides us with a great picture of God. We matter to God, and He cares about what happens in our lives. May this truth motivate us to come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it (Hebrews 4:16; NLT).

Difficulty Brings Life

The best teachers we had in school, at least the one we learned the most from, were the teachers who expected the most out of us. While we were in school we may not have liked them, but as we look back on our eduction we realize these teachers were the teachers who actually got us to learn something.  I am indebted to teachers like Mr. Vige, my high school history teacher, and Mr. McCoy, one of the professors I had at Nebraska Christian College.  They expected a lot out of their students and that required that we work if we were going to get a good grade in their class.  While their classes were tough, they were also the classes that I helped me the most.

Following Jesus is not the easiest way to live life.  At times it is hard and difficult,  which can lead us to question if it is really worth the effort.  Part of the reason for this is because Jesus’ way of unconditional love and complete truth go against they way of the world.  The easiest way to live would be to allow our lives to be pushed along by the currents of the world, but following Jesus requires us to be intentional in the way we live life. 

Young people in High School and College face the unwelcome problems of teasing and rejection when they commit to following Jesus.  Adults face the realization that the Way of Jesus doesn’t shield us from the evil in this world.  It is difficult to remain faithful when our dreams are shattering around us.  “After all,” we reason, “the people in the world experience these problems too, so what good is there in following Jesus?” 

In Seizing Your Divine Moment Erwin McManus points out; “We should not be surprised that a lifelong journey with God might bring us suffering and hardship.  If the Cross teaches us anything, it teaches us that sometimes God comes through after we’ve be killed!” (pg. 65)  This is not a big selling point for Christianity is it?  For every Daniel who is saved from the lions there are thousands of faithful people who are eaten.  For every David who experiences victory over Goliath there are millions who are defeated their giant opponent.  To be a Christian is not to embrace a life of ease and success, but rather it is to embrace a life that is filled with hardship and failure.

So what is the point of being a Christian?  Peter wrote:

So be truly glad!  There is wonderful joy ahead, even through it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while.

These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure.  It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold.  So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world. (1 Peter 1:6-7; NLT)

There is a purpose behind the difficulty of the Christian life.  Just as a good teacher knows that hard work will produce the type of person who will benefit society, God knows that difficulty in life will produce the type of person who will fully trust Him.  Trials and temptations provide us with the opportunity to lay aside those things which bring us comfort and security and so we can learn to put our trust in God alone.

Being a Christian isn’t easy.  There will be times when we will want to give up and do our own thing, but if we persevere we will discover that God is not only worth trust but He is worth loving as well.  The reason we follow Jesus isn’t because He promised to make our lives easy, but because He promised to give us life and make all things new.  In the end we will know that all the pain was worth it as we experience life the way God meant for it to be lived.

The Experience Factor

“Knowing God does not come through a program or a method. It is a relationship with a Person. It is an intimate love relationship with God.” ~ Henry Blackaby; Experiencing God 



Our relationship with God is not based on facts and figures, but on experience. There is evidence for the existence of God and the reliability of the Bible. It is important to have this, because it doesn’t matter how sincerely we believe something. If what we believe is not real then our belief does us no good. 



Through the Bible we also learn about who God is and what He has done through history. The knowledge we gain through the Bible helps us to understand God’s character and the purpose behind our creation. We can learn this, but the knowledge will not make us close to God.

Knowledge is important in a relationship, but it is not the most important part. The most important is experience. Going through life together. It is being together and experiencing life with each other that strengthens a relationship. 



I could learn all sorts of facts about Rebecca St. James. I could find out her birthday, her favorite food, the names of her brothers and sister, her favorite color, where she went to school, her favorite movie, and other interesting facts about her. My knowledge of her might be pretty comprehensive, but it doesn’t mean I have a relationship with her. I don’t have a relationship with Rebecca St. James because my I am lacking in knowledge, but because we lack experience. We have not experienced life together. It is that experience which produces a relationship. 



The Pharisees of Jesus’ day knew the Scriptures. Many of them devoted their lives to memorizing and studying the Law and the Prophets. They knew what the Scripture said and they had a knowledge of God. Though they had an impressive knowledge of God, their knowledge was incomplete. They knew facts about God, but they didn’t know God personally, they had missed out on experience. They didn’t live their lives in trust of God, and therefore they never experienced God first hand in their lives. Because they lacked a real relationship with God, they missed Jesus when He came.

The apostle Paul wrote; So that’s why faith is the key! God’s promise is given to us as a free gift. And we are certain to receive it, whether or not we follow Jewish customs, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe (Romans 4:16; NLT).

  By observing the life of Abraham we realize that for Paul faith wasn't just the acceptance of doctrine, but it was a life of action.  Abraham had faith because his life reflected the fact that he trusted God.

The key to experiencing God is faith. Abraham lived a life of faith and that led to experiencing God working through him. The relationship Abraham had with God was a product of trusting the promises of God and living as if those promises would come to pass. 

If we are going to have a relationship with God it is going to take us trusting the promises of God. Not only the promise of eternal life, but the promise of being new creations and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. By stepping out in faith we experience God and our relationship with Him grows.

The Joy of Fellowship

Take some time and think about those moments in your life that you would describe as joyful.  What is a common theme that runs through those experiences?  I am going to take a wild guess and say that the theme of relationships runs through your experiences of joy. 

I am aware that there are exceptions to this.  There is a certain amount of joy I experience from running in the morning.  There is joy in the watching the world "wake up," just as there is joy in the knowledge of the warm shower which awaits me when I return home. 

Yet, I want to suggest to you that joy is primarily found in relationships, and our relationships are the primary reason why we experience joy even when we are alone.  In other words: an absence of relationship means an absence of joy.  Relationships make joy possible.

Consider the words of John in 1 John 1:1-4

We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom we have heard and seen. We saw him with our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he is the one who is eternal life. He was with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that you may fully share our joy. (NLT)

The two key words I want to pull out of this passage are fellowship and joy.  The apostle John here connects these two words together.  Fellowship is necessary for joy.

Fellowship is not just about "hanging out," going out for coffee together,  going to a party together, or taking a vacation together.  Fellowship is about doing life together.  It is living life with a common purpose.  One of the best illustration for fellowship, in my humble opinion, is The Lord of the Rings.  The fellowship was bound together by a common purpose, and through that purpose relationships began to flourish: even between an elf and a dwarf.  To have fellowship means to be in relationships with people that a striving for the purpose you are striving to acheive. These relationships are the best relationships that we can have.

I also have to point out that John tells us that there is one relationship, one fellowship, that is more essential than any other.  That relationship is the relationship we have with God through Jesus Christ.  This is the supreme fellowship of our lives, and when we have made this our primary fellowship joy will then seep into every area of our lives.

Relationships have the ability to get us to focus outside of our tiny little lives to see the world that exists around us.  When we are in fellowship with other people, and especially in fellowship with the Creator, our minds are not thinking about all the unmet desires in our lives, but rather our attention is placed on the those that we love.  The foundation of joy is found in those feelings of love and contentment that we experience in community, but those  feelings often give away to a third feeling of joy, the feeling of desire.  Joy awakens in our hearts the desire for better things to come.  We desire because we realize that in those short moments of joy we experience are just a foretaste of what lies ahead.  Part of the experience of joy is the expectation of God's new creation that rests in our hearts.

There is joy in the journey and it is discovered through our relationships.  Today is a good time to start focusing a little more attention to those people who matter the most to you. Who knows the joy that awaits you if you do.

See the Scars

{John 20:24-29; ESV}

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.”

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

 The phrase, “Jesus died for our sins,” rolls off our tongues with tremendous ease.  Many of us have been taught this truth since we were very little.  It is something that we accept, and something we take for granted.
    
I often wonder what Jesus went through when he died.  We know from Scriptures that it was not something that he was looking forward to doing.  He asked His Father to provide another way, because Jesus knew that it was going to be a terrible time.
    
I believe that Jesus sacrifice on the cross was something that we will never fully understand this side of Heaven.  We can take about the physical aspects of flogging and crucifixion all day and still not fully understand what Jesus went through the day He gave Himself to be crucified. 
    
This passage in John reveals to us an interesting aspect about Jesus’ resurrected body.  Thomas was able to see and touch the scars.  There was still and hole in his side from the spear, and holes in his wrist from the nails.  Jesus’ resurrected body was not free from these scars Jesus received from dying for you and me.
    
There is an verse in Revelation 5 that goes along with this passage in John; And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth (Revelation 5:6; ESV).
   
The distinguishing feature about this Lamb was that it looked as if it had been slain.  Think about the fact that the Lamb, which is a symbol for Jesus, had the looked like it had been killed.  Something about His appearance made John imagine that He had been killed

When Jesus appeared to the disciples He bore the scars of His death.  When John sees Jesus as the Lamb, John makes a note His appearance, that he bore the marks of death.
    
It is my belief  that Jesus will bear the marks of His crucifixion for eternity.  Every time that we look at them we will be reminded of the Love God has for us and the sacrifice that Jesus went through to show us that Love.
     
Pause and try to imagine what it cost Jesus to secure the salvation of the Church.  I don’t know if we can every truly imagine the price God paid for us to have eternal life, but perhaps the thought of Jesus bearing our scars for eternity will give us a tiny bit of perspective on the issue.

Sunday Quote: Fuel for the Future

"While God instructs his people over and over again to remember all his great deeds, he dosen't call us to live in the past.  Memories are intended to be fuel for the future of faith.  They aren't intended to become an alternative reality in which we choose to hide from the present challenges.  God's promise is that he's doing something worth living for right now.  And it's happening in front of our very eyes.  The tragedy is that we may not even see it." ~ Erwin McManus, An Unstoppable Force, p. 92

To Be With God is Better

Each and everyday we are bombarded with images and advertisements about being cool. We assume that if we behaved like this, wear that shirt, or drink this brand of soda we would be cool. This creates a desire in us to have and to pursue coolness, because that will make our lives better.

The trouble is that we could act like the “cool kids” act, we could wear the clothes the movie stars wear, and we could drink what Kobe Bryant tells us to drink, but that doesn’t determine our value. Our value is not determined by the friends we have, the family we were born into, the clothes we wear, or the hobbies that we have. Our value comes from the fact the God loves us.

We are created in the image of God, that means we have value. He not only created us, but He made us to resemble Him. That should give us meaning and value to our lives. God also created us for a purpose. We have a job to do, our lives are not meant to be boring or to be wasted. God has a purpose and a task for each and everyone of us. We are worth something because we are useful to God. But above all of that we have worth because God loves us.

Never doubt the love of God. There maybe times when you don’t feel God’s presence or love, but that doesn’t mean that it does not exist. The life and death of Jesus established once and for all that God loves people. Including you and me. Since God loves us that means we have value: no matter who we are or what we have done.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:7-11; ESV)

Here is the point: to be with God is better than being “cool.” The apostle Paul at one time in his life was on the fast track. He had reason to brag, but when he met Jesus, he realized that there really was nothing to brag about. One day the fashions that you wear today will change, the beauty you depend on so much will fade, the talent you enjoy showing off will disappear, but God’s love will always be there. It is better to be in God’s will than to be in style. Be faithful to God, because someday everything else will be gone.

A Shadow and a Thought

On Facebook I follow a certain female Christian celebrity (who shall remain nameless), and I have found it interesting that number of adult males who have publicly declared their love for her. When I read these public declarations of love I can’t help but think about a scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. In the scene Aragorn, the heir to the throne of Gondor must take a perilous journey under the mountain to enlist the of the army that resides there, and so he prepares to leave the Riders of Rohan, with whom he has been traveling. Éowyn, the princess of Rohan, comes to him to plead for him to stay with them. Aragorn asks her why she has come, and she looks shocked and hurt, and says, “Don’t you know?” There is a pause as realization comes over Aragorn’s face and he replies; “It is but a shadow and a thought that you love. I cannot give you what you seek.”

There are two thoughts from this scene that I think are vitally important for those of us who are single to remember. The first is that we have to dwell in reality and not fantasy. I understand how easy it is to allow our emotions to control our thoughts. I have done the eHarmony thing a couple of different times, and it was so easy for my imagination to go wild as we went through the stages of communication. Before I knew it I could say in my heart that I loved her, before I had even met her. My so-called love wasn’t built on reality, but it was built on a fantasy that I had created. This is part of the reason why we have the saying, “Love is blind,” because we look at the girl through the lens of our fantasy, which blinds us to the reality of who she is, and that is not fair to her or to us.

So how can we avoid living in a fantasy world? First and foremost we need to anchored in our relationship with God. The apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 3:2-4; Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory (ESV). When our primary focus is on God and His Kingdom that is going to help illuminate the other areas of our lives, and thus bring clarity into whatever relationships (real or fake) that we might have.

Second it is vital that we have two or three Christian friends/mentors that we can trust to tell us the truth and not simply what we want to hear. I know that I have this in my friend Sam and my brother Tom, I can’t tell you how many times God has used them to bring clarity into my life, and not just in the area of relationships. The key, apart from their faith in Christ Jesus, is your willingness to hear their counsel. If you are not willing to consider what they have to say then you will not benefit from the counsel they give.

Third is to examine your heart. Are you spending an inordinate time about thinking about her and what life with her would be like? There is nothing wrong with a little daydreaming, but there is something wrong when it consumes your thought life. Especially when you begin to feel the terror from the thought of having to live without her. That feeling of terror or of hopelessness is a good indication that you are not living in reality when it comes to the relationship.

Second thought builds off Aragorn’s words, “I cannot give you what you seek.” Think about what John Eldredge wrote in Wild at Heart; “We must reverse Adam’s choice; we must choose God over Eve. We must take our ache to him. For only in God will we find the healing of our wound” (emphasis added, p. 117). The healing that we need, the purpose we long for, and the worship we need to give cannot be found in a relationship with a woman, she doesn’t have that power.  Only God can give us what we truly need.

If we believe that the only thing missing from our lives is a romantic relationship that should reveal to us that we are trying to find life apart from God. As Christians we don’t enter into a relationship in order to get something, we enter into a relationship in order to give. The ironic thing is that when we are in the best place to give is when we are most content with our life right now, trusting God to lead us into life, and the importance of a romantic relationship has faded into the back ground. That doesn’t mean that you no longer desire to be married and have a family, but it does mean that those things are no longer essential to your happiness, for you trust God for life.

This thought has lead me to pray, “God help me to be content with Your timing, for I know Your timing is the best timing. In this time of singleness prepare me to be the husband and father that You desire me to be.” In order for me to bless my wife I have to first go to God for healing and training, and trust Him that at just the right time she will show up in my life (though this doesn’t absolve me of responsibility, like Boaz in the book of Ruth, when she shows up I have to take the initiative to pursue her).

God has placed within us a desire to love and to be loved. He has also wired us to notice that wonderfully beauty that we find in women, and so it is not a bad thing to desire to be in a romantic relationship. What is bad is when we allow that relationship to consume us and to blind us to reality. For that reason we have to make sure that we are grounded in our relationship with with God, and that we are content with His timing and His working in our lives. After all when it comes to life He will give us everything that need when we need it, and that includes our relationships.

Divine Opportunities

I have big plans which I would like to accomplish in my lifetime. There are books to write, trips to take, lessons to teach, and sermons to preach. There are so many things that I would like to do and places I would like to see. The problem is that as I look at my life I see the time gradually slipping away. Life, quite literally, is passing me by.

Forgive me for assuming, but I would bet most of you have projects and dreams you would like to accomplish. You want to be able to look back on your life and know that it counted for something. Just like me you look at life and realize that another day has passed without any of these things coming true.

Why does life seem to gradually slip away? I believe it has much to do with the choices which we make. I am not necessarily talking about good and evil, often those are the obvious choices to make. Rather, I am talking about the choices in how we use our time. In our society we feel like we don’t have enough time to get everything done. We have so many different ways to use our time, that we cannot do everything that we would like to do. The truth is we don’t make good use of the time we have been given. A Nielsen Media Research study, mentioned in the January/February 2004 issue of Men’s Health magazine, found that the average American spends 2 months a year watching TV. That is around 1440 hours of television a year, or approximately 4 hours a day. With things like the internet and video games we can sit down and get up two hours later not realizing so much time has passed. Americans spend billions of dollars on camping, golf, and entertainment each year. It is not that these things are bad, but that we allow them to consume the time God has provided to us. When we constantly choose to use our time in this manner we make it possible for the impact God wants us to make to pass us by.

Erwin McManus in Seizing Your Divine Moment wrote; “This may sound too simple, but the abundant life that Jesus promises is ushered in through the choices we make in the ordinary moments of life.” Time continues to come our way, it is a constant. This has led us to take time for granted not giving to much thought to each moment. If we are going to use our lives to their fullest potential we must stop going along with the flow of time. Instead we must choose what to do with the moments we have, making a conscious decision to use them for God’s glory. If we continue to choose the path of least resistance, to get caught up in the hectic pace of life, we will miss out on the life God wants us to have. We will look back on our life and wonder: “Where has my life gone?”

So what is the answer? “Seizing your divine moment,” is the phrase Erwin McManus coined to describe our impact in the world for God’s kingdom. The Apostle Paul put it this way in Ephesians 5:15-17; So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. (NLT). “Make the most of every opportunity,” is what Paul wants Christians to do. But what does it mean? How do you “seize your divine moment”?

John 5:1-15 is an example of what it means to “make the most of every opportunity.” Jesus is in Jerusalem to celebrate one of the Jewish holy days. While Jesus was in the city he went to the pool of Bethesda. At this pool gathered people who sick: blind, crippled, or paralyzed. It appears that these people came to Bethesda for the hope of a miraculous cure, or at the very least to have some soothing for their condition. Among all the sick, Jesus singles out a crippled man, who had been crippled for thirty-eight years. “Stand up, pick up your sleeping mat, and walk!” (John 5:8; NLT), is what Jesus told the man to do. At this point the man has a choice, this is a divine opportunity, given by the Son of God, and the man can either seize it or let it pass by. The man stands and is instantly healed. To make the most of our opportunities, to seize our divine moments, we have to obey the command of God. The opportunities we have to serve, love, and to speak the truth are not chance events, but they are divinely appointed tasks for us to accomplish.

For us to obey the will of God we first need to know what God’s will is. We will miss the divine opportunities in our lives if we are ignorant of what God wants us to do. When it comes to knowing God’s will I think we divide it up into two categories. First, there is the board category of God’s universal will, which will help all of us understand the characteristics that should define our lives and should inform our lives enough for us to make decisions for the everyday opportunities that come along. This aspect of God’s will comes to us through Bible as we discover His desire to see all the nations of the world blessed through Christ Jesus and His desire that everyone come to know and love Him.

The second category is the God’s specific will for our lives. Since God’s specific will for our lives will never contradict God’s general will means that we have be students of God’s Word so we can properly evaluate God’s specific will for our lives. Too many people have been led astray because they heard a voice, had a dream, or saw a sign and did not evaluate what they thought was being said to them by the truth of God’s written Word.

The Bible reveals to us that God has spoken to people in many different ways through out history to provide them with specific guidance for their lives, so I think it is still valid to seek God’s guidance for our lives and expect Him to provide it to us. So a prayer that has become part of my life is Colossians 1:9, 10; So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better (NLT). Notice how Paul’s prayer for the Colossians not only included a knowledge of God’s will, but also spiritual wisdom and understanding. We need both if we are going to live a life that honors Christ Jesus by making the most of the divine opportunities that God gives to us.

Seeking wise counsel and evaluating our circumstances are two other essential actions that we must take as we seek to discern God’s specific will for our lives. I believe that if we are honestly searching for God’s will, and not just putting God off because we don’t want to do what He asked us to do, then He will honor our search and provide us with the answer that we seek.

There is one more things I would like to mention. We miss many opportunities because we have forgotten that we have been created for a purpose, that God has a divine plan for our lives. Remember what the apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians; For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (Ephesians 2:10; NLT).

There are two truths from this verse I believe are vital for us to make the most of the opportunities we are given. The first is we have to realize that God has created us for a reason. He has planned for us to do good and to bring glory to His name. Our lives are not accidents and the moments we live are not chance events. There is a purpose and plan to your life. The second great truth is that we can only accomplish that purpose through Christ Jesus. Yes, God has created us for a reason, there is a purpose behind our lives, but sin has wrecked that purpose for us. In other words we cannot accomplish God-given purpose by our own strength, we need the blood of Christ Jesus to free us from the bondage of sin, and we need the power of His resurrection to transform us into new creations. We will never be able to discover God’s purpose for our life apart from Jesus.

We were created to make a difference in this world. Too often we think we can only make a difference in some big or spectacular way, but that is simply not the case. The way we have influence in this world is through the small everyday opportunities we have to encourage, serve, love, and help those around us. Don’t miss the opportunities for you to leave your mark in this world because you are looking for the big opportunity that might never come along. Seize the divine opportunity that is just around the corner.

Prayers For My Unknown Wife

There are certain activities/disciplines that we understand should be part of our lives as we follow Christ, but we are uncertain how to do them, and so they remain undone. For most of my life I have known it was important for me to pray for my wife, but I never knew what to say, and so it has never been something that I have done on a consistent basis. In the past three months as I have made a renewed commitment to marriage I have begun praying everyday for the woman who will be my wife. What I am sharing today are the prayers that have risen to the surface and thus have guided my time of prayer.

In my life I have set-aside three times during the day to pray. The first time of prayer is in the morning after I have done my devotional reading for the day. At this time I pray for the day that is before me and for my family, lifting each one up to God by name. The second time of prayer is when I go home for lunch. At this time of prayer I pray for people and organizations that God has put upon on my heart. The third time of prayer is right before bed. At this time of prayer I pray for the Storm Lake Church of Christ and my ministry in this community.

During each time of prayer I say a prayer for my wife. I do this for two reasons. The first reason is to lay her life in the hands of God, teaching myself to trust Him to guide and protect her life. The second reason is to help my heart form an attachment to her, even though we are apart. I need to be constantly reminded that what I do right now will eventually effect her as well.

In the morning this is what I pray for my wife:

Heavenly Father I ask that you will bless my wife’s life this day. Bless her work, may she be productive and may it be helpful to people. Bless her home, may it be a place of rest and a refuge from the world. Bless her study, may she come to know Your truth more deeply. Bless her play, may she be able to enjoy the pleasures of this world and find rest and relaxation in Your goodness. Bless her worship, may it be a time of intimate connection with You. Bless her ministry, may it provide hope and encouragement to other people.

Lord, I ask that You will clothe her with Your armor this day so she is able to stand firm against the attacks of the enemy. Put the belt of truth around her waist so she will live a life of integrity. Put upon her the breastplate of righteousness and enable her to do the good works that You have planned for her to do. Slip on her feet the shoes of the gospel of peace which will enable her to stand firm because she knows she has been reconciled to You, but will also give her the willingness to share this Good News with people who need to hear it. Put in her hand the shield of faith and give her the knowledge and experiences she needs to use this shield effectively. May her faith prove to be a formidable barrier against the attacks of the enemy. Put upon her head the helmet of salvation which will give her confidence and hope in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus, so she knows that her life is secure in Him no matter what happens in her life. Train her in the use of the sword of the spirit, which is Your Word, so she is able to use it correctly and gently to convict her heart, as well as the hearts of others, with Your truth.

In the afternoon this is what I pray for my wife:

Heavenly Father I ask that You will use my wife to be a beacon of hope, love, and faith in this dark world. May her life burn brightly for You.

Lord God fill her with a knowledge of Your will and with spiritual wisdom and understanding so that she will live a life that honors Christ Jesus (adapted from Colossians 1:9, 10). Help her to lay down roots into Him so that He will be her source of life (adapted from Colossians 2:7).

In the evening this is what I pray for my wife:

Dear God, Creator of heaven and earth, I ask that You will watch over my wife tonight. Grant her sweet dreams and provide her with a restful night sleep so she is able to arise to the challenges that await for her tomorrow.

Lord, You are her shepherd; provide for her what she needs. Lead her to places of rest and restoration that will renew her strength and restore her soul. Guide her along paths of righteousness so she will bring honor to Your name. Comfort her in the dark, depressed, and tragic times of life so she will come to know You as her Loving Heavenly Father. Bless her life so she can be a blessing to others. Love her and teach me to love her.

There is more that I pray around these themes, such as giving us a shared passion for ministry and to help us use this time of singleness to prepare for marriage. I share these thoughts with you in the hopes that they might spur you on in praying for your wife. We need to start moving beyond good intentions to actual action, because an intended prayer is worth nothing, but a prayer prayed makes all the difference.

Leave a Legacy

I have been going through some of my old writings and I came across this pondering that I wrote eight years ago when Paul’s Ponderings was a weekly e-mail “devotion” that I sent to friends, family, and the youth I ministered to in Stronghurst, Illinois. It was eight years ago this week that I attended my Grandpa Steele’s funeral, and I thought this would be a good time reflect on the legacy he left behind.

“All of us have adults in our lives who have encouraged us, prayed for us, and helped us ‘live the life.’ We need to treat them with respect and thank God for the godly example they have been to us. Our generation so desperately needs role models worth following.” ~ Rebecca St. James, You’re The Voice: 40 More Days With God

Last week I attended the funeral of my Grandpa Steele. One of the themes that ran throughout the whole service was the Christian heritage that Grandpa left to his family. I am privileged to have had him as my grandpa and I have benefited from his faith.

Reflecting back on what I remember about my Grandpa Steele, two lessons come to mind. These are the lessons I believe he would want his family to remember and pass on to the ones they know.

The first lesson is be a person of the Word. Grandpa was a farmer, and that is what he did to make a living in this world. That was not, however, his entire identity. He was also an elder and Sunday School teacher at the Sutherland Church of Christ. Grandpa didn’t have a Christian College Degree like a few his sons and grandsons had, but he knew the Bible. He studied the Bible, he read the Bible, and he made it a part of his life. It was obvious to us as grandchildren that he did these things because of the open Bible that was constantly next to his chair.

The first lesson I think he would want us to learn is that we have to be in the Bible. It is God’s Word to us so that we will have a firm foundation for life. If we want to live the life God created us to live then we must be in His Word, for it is what will guide us on the path of righteousness. Reflect on what the author of Hebrews wrote; For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are. (Hebrews 4:12; NLT)

The second lesson is the need to be part of the Church. It was mentioned over and over again, by family and friends, that every time the church doors were open Grandpa and Grandma were there. Church attendance was a fundamental part of their lives. My Grandparent’s involvement with the church went further than just going to services. It was found forming relationships with the people who were part of that local body of believers, inviting visitors home for coffee, helping with work that needed to be done, and praying for those in need. To Grandpa church was not so much something you attended, but it was something you to which you belonged.

We treat church as one of the many activities “good” Christians do. It is more than that. The Church is God’s design for His children on earth, and therefore the Church should be a family in which we have strong loving relationships with the other Christians. When Church becomes just an activity to attend we miss out of the wonderful blessing God intended the Church, His family, to be. The writer of Hebrews urged Christians to be in fellowship with one another:

Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23-25; NLT)

The two lessons that I want to pass on to you from my Grandpa’s life are (1) study the Bible and (2) be part of the Church. If we were more committed to doing these disciplines we would be better equipped to love God and to love our neighbors.

We all have people who have guided our lives and who influenced our faith. I am indeed thankful that not only do I have Christian parents who have richly blessed my life, but also two sets of Christian grandparents that have been role models for me for my life.

More than Savior and Friend

As Christians we have the responsibility of obeying Jesus. So often we talk about Jesus being our friend and our Savior that we miss the fact that He is also our Lord. In our freedom loving country with our "freely" elected government we do have a cultural problem when it comes to understanding what it means for someone to be a Lord. Basically the idea of a lord is that of a master, ruler, or king. A lord has authority over a person’s life. The lord can decide whether or not a person lives or dies. He decides what task a servant should do. The Lord is the one who makes the decisions and thus He is the one in control.

Jesus is our Lord. He has the authority over our lives. I know that we don’t like the thought of someone having authority over us; after all we are Americans and we value our liberty. Yet, Christ claims that He has authority over our lives. He expects us to obey Him, not because He is mean and wants to make our lives miserable, but because He loves us and wants to lead us into true and everlasting life.

Why does Jesus have authority over our lives? Jesus has authority over our lives because He created us. We are His creation and as our Creator He can tell us what to do. Being our Creator He also knows what is best for us. Jesus also has authority over us because He died for us. Jesus gave up Heaven and came to earth to die a cruel cross because He wants what is best for us. He has authority over our lives because of His creative work and because of His sacrifice.

Consider for a moment what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans:

For we don’t live for ourselves or die for ourselves. If we live, it’s to honor the Lord. And if we die, it’s to honor the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. Christ died and rose again for this very purpose—to be Lord both of the living and of the dead. (Romans 14:7-9; NLT)

We need to stop living to please ourselves. The way we live should not be determined by what we want or what will make us feel good. Our lives should be lived for the purpose of pleasing Jesus. We please Jesus through love: we love God and we love people. We love God through our obedience and through our worship. We love people by praying for them, by serving them, by being a compassionate shoulder to cry on, by being generous with the blessings God has given us, and by telling people the truth.

Here is the point for today's pondering: Our lives belong to Jesus! Not only is this true because He created us, but it is true because His death rescued us from Satan, sin, and death. Therefore we will only discover true life when we surrender our lives to Him. It is time that we give Christ Jesus our hearts, our minds, our souls, and our strength, after all they belong to Him in the first place.

Sunday Quote: Face to Face with the Cross

"When we come face to face with the cross, we have a choice to make: We either recognize its implications and bring ourselves, our passions, and all that we are, to be crucified with Christ so that we might live with the sound of His voice and the feel of His heart, or we walk away from the cross and live feeling alienated from God." ~ Ravi Zacharias, Cries of the Heart, p. 60

Ransomed Heart: Restoration

I wanted to share with you one of the daily readings that Ransomed Heart sent out this past week. I hope you enjoy it.

February 3, 2010

Restoration

Look at the life of Jesus. Notice what he did. When Jesus touched the blind, they could see; all the beauty of the world opened before them. When he touched the deaf, they were able to hear; for the first time in their lives they heard laughter and music and their children’s voices. He touched the lame, and they jumped to their feet and began to dance. And he called the dead back to life and gave them to their families.

Do you see? Wherever humanity was broken, Jesus restored it. He is giving us an illustration here, and there, and there again. The coming of the kingdom of God restores the world he made.

God has been whispering this secret to us through creation itself, every year, at springtime, ever since we left the Garden. Sure, winter has its certain set of joys. The wonder of snowfall at midnight, the rush of a sled down a hill, the magic of the holidays. But if winter ever came for good and never left, we would be desolate. Every tree leafless, every flower gone, the grasses on the hillsides dry and brittle. The world forever cold, silent, bleak.

After months and months of winter, I long for the return of summer. Sunshine, warmth, color, and the long days of adventure together. The garden blossoms in all its beauty. The meadows soft and green. Vacation. Holiday. Isn’t this what we most deeply long for? To leave the winter of the world behind, what Shakespeare called “the winter of our discontent,” and find ourselves suddenly in the open meadows of summer?

If we listen, we will discover something of tremendous joy and wonder. The restoration of the world played out before us each spring and summer is precisely what God is promising us about our lives. Every miracle Jesus ever did was pointing to this Restoration, the day he makes all things new.

(Epic, 82-83)

A New Outlook

{Matthew 5:3-12; ESV}

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

The first time I played miniature golf was quite an experience. My family was on vacation near Branson, Missouri and one night we were able to go and play a round of putt-putt golf. I realized that the object of the game was to get the ball into the hole in the fewest strokes as possible, because I remember being upset that I was getting beat by my sister. Yet when the scores were read, I could not believe that I was winning, because I had the highest score. Until that time in my life all the games I had played consisted of scoring more points than the other guy, so I assumed that there was a similar point system in golf. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that it was the person with the lowest score that won. It took me a while to finally comprehend that fact, because it seemed so strange to me.

Tiger Woods would not be able to play basketball using clubs and a little white ball, just as Kobe Bryant cannot play golf by dribbling a ball down the fairway. The two games are different, and you need a different mindset to play each game.

The object of basketball is to score more points than the other team. It requires putting a leather ball into an iron hoop. The object of golf is to get a little white ball into a little hole in the fewest strokes as possible, hopefully less than par.

In the Sermon on the Mount, in particular the Beatitudes, Jesus is telling people that they are trying to play golf by using the rules of basketball. It just does not work. The Beatitudes reveals a new way to look at life, which is contrary to the way the world thinks people should live.

For many people the object of life is to look after self. We are told that we need to make more money and have more things. When someone hurts us we are told, “Don’t get mad, get even!” We learn that a fulfilling life is one in which we become totally self sufficient, without having hardships or risks.

What Jesus said is totally different. He said that people should become servants, looking for ways to help people, and willing to give what they have. The Beatitudes are a totally new outlook on life. Living according to these principles the objective in life totally changes.

The difference between living for Jesus and living for the world is as different as playing golf and basketball. The objectives and the rules are totally different. Which set of rules are we going to play by? Are we going to play by the rules given by Satan, the “Father of Lies”? Are we going to play by the rules given by Jesus, the Creator and Savior of the world? You decide.

Created to be Loved

You and I have the desire to be loved. From Adam and Eve to the end of time every person who has ever lived has this one desire. Not one of us wants to be alone, we all want to have relationships with other people. The problem is that love relationships with other people will not meet the deeper desire of our heart and soul. Even a marriage relationship, the most intimate of human relationships, cannot meet the deepest and most profound desire that we have.

Our desire to be loved will only be met in a love relationship with God. It is for this relationship that God has created us, and we will never be fulfilled apart from that relationship. We have a “God-shaped hole” in our lives that only God can fill.

People, throughout history, have tried to fill this void with different things. Power, sex, money, and drugs are all examples of things stuffed into peoples lives to help them feel complete. How pathetic life is when it is lived without the One who created it! There is nothing on this earth that will fulfill us like God can. When your life feels empty there is only one place to look to find what you need, and that is God.

How do we know God loves us? Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God wrote; “The cross, the death of Jesus Christ, and His resurrection are God’s final, total, and complete expression that He loves us.” The facts of the crucifixion and the resurrection prove, not only that God exists, but that He loves us. The One that has created us and who has power over death loves us! I want you to take a moment and try to comprehend the meaning of that. The most powerful Person in the universe loves you so much that He sent His Son to die for you!

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can’t, and life can’t. The angels can’t, and the demons can’t. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can’t keep God’s love away.Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38, 39; NLT)

The Apostle Paul made it clear that God’s love for us is unconditional. There is no person or experience that will separate us from God’s love. The evidence that Paul gives is Jesus. The sacrifice of Jesus is the evidence that God loves us. God allowed Jesus to experience the pain and rejection of life. He allowed Jesus to experience the pain of death and the burden of sin. We can be confident, because of what Jesus went through, that God will turn around and reject us and withdraw His love from our lives. God’s love is revealed in Jesus.

As I close this pondering I want to mention one more thing. There is no experience or person that can separate us from God’s love, except one. You can voluntarily separate yourself from God. You can take yourself, by your lack of obedience, to a place that God cannot bless you and reveal His love to you. If you want to experience God’s love in your life you have to obey Him. God will never force His love on anybody. He does not need your love, but God does desire your love.

The Hurt of Healing

The past two days have been a roller coaster ride of emotions for me. God has used circumstances in my life to bring much needed healing to my heart, but it was not an easy process. It was a painful process that forced me to look at a place in my heart that I would have rather ignored, but it was something that needed to be dealt with if I was ever going move forward in faith. The amazing thing to me is that intellectually I know this needed to be done, but emotionally I feel like I have lost a significant part of my life. To be honest it hurts like crazy.

I think the reason so many of us miss out on the healing God wants us to experience in this life is because we are scared of the momentary pain of letting go of the things that have us in bondage. I know for me I was terrified to let go of what God asked me to lay at His feet because it was how I learned to cope with my loneliness. "To give this up," I thought, "means I have face the reality that I am alone" (that I am without romantic attachment, not that I lack friends.)

Because we give into the terror we choose to cling to whatever SEEMS to give us hope, peace, love, etc. rather than trusting that God will lead us to a place of freedom and healing.

Remember in Exodus, the children of Israel cried out to God to be delivered from slavery in Egypt, but after they experienced some difficulty in the desert they cried to go back to Egypt rather than to trust God to provide for their needs and protection. Given the choice they would have rather spent their lives in the misery they knew than go through the process of finding freedom by trusting God.

As strange as it sounds the same is true for us. We may call out for healing and deliverance, but when things become difficult or painful we give up, deciding that it is easier to live in the misery we know than to go through the pain we don't know.

Here is what I want to communicate today: in order to experience God's best we have experience the pain of deliverance. I think this is why the author of Hebrews wrote:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won't become weary and give up. After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin. (Hebrews 12:1-4; NLT)

Think about the price God has paid for our deliverance. Because He was willing to do whatever it took that should give us the motivation we need to pay the price that will lead to our deliverance and healing. Not only that, but because of the pain God went through we can trust Him to get us to the right place, even if the process is painful. The promised land of healing is on the other side of the wilderness of hurt, so don't give up, but trust God to get you to the right place.

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We were Created for More

C. S. Lewis wrote; “We are halfhearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." That is such an apt description of my life.

We settle for a life that is so far less than the life God wants to give us. American Christians have settled for a life of moral living (when it suits us), attending Sunday worship (when we have nothing better to do), and giving $10 (if we can spare it). We have made Christianity something we do rather than who we are. In the process we have settled for life in the slums, when God wants to take us to the beach.

The problem is that we don’t understand that God promises us something more than what we dream about having. He intends our lives to have a purpose to make an impact on our part of the world. God created us to be part of something greater than ourselves.

As I come to realize this truth my heart gets excited. It is not because I want to have a legacy, something that goes on after I die. It is because I want to use my potential, I want to do what I was created to do. I was not created to sit in a pew once a week, I was not created to just live a moral life, and I was not created to give a little bit of my income. Neither were you. Don’t settle for life in the sandbox. Accept God’s invitation to the beach.

When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears. I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews. I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus. (Acts 20:18-21; NLT)

The Apostle Paul knew he was created for a purpose and he lived his life to fulfill that purpose. I want to point out two truths about accepting God’s purpose in our lives. The first truth is that living out our purpose will bring hardship. Obeying God is not always easy, it is not a walk in the park where we can stop and smell the flowers. It will bring sadness, tears, and heartache. Though we will never know true joy apart from obeying our calling, with great joy also comes great sadness.

The second truth is we will only find meaning for our lives in our purpose. The Apostle Paul saw his live as worth nothing if he did not do what God had called him to do. The same is true in our lives. We will always search for meaning, a reason to live, apart from the calling of God.

You were created to accomplish something bigger than yourself. The call to be a follower of Jesus is more than a call to attend Sunday Morning worship. To be a follower of Jesus means that we join Him in His work around the world. Following Jesus leads to a life of significance. It is time to leave the slum, God is taking us to the beach.

Could You Pray

I am not going to be able to post anything of substance today because I have been dealing with a difficult situation in my life which has consumed most of my evening. I would like to ask you to pray for me because this evening I really felt betrayed and let down by God. The good news is that as I was talking to my brother, it is so great to be in a family of fellow believers, I was able to gain some clarity on what was going on and realize that my feeling of betrayal was based on some faulty assumptions that I had about God. Could you please pray that God would grant me clarity on what my responsibility is in helping someone I love. Thank you.