Out of My Heart

Putting Your Trust in A Cloud? Seriously?

2012-01-22T12:41:00.001-08:00

So it was, when the cloud remained only from evening until morning; when the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they would journey; whether by day or by night, whenever the cloud was taken up, they would journey. ~ Number 9:21

Imagine living with the uncertainty of this situation. One day you work at getting your yard planted, redecorating the living room and adding on a family room. The next morning a signal is given and you have to start packing boxes and loading up the SUV and move. Your personal ability to plan your life is totally gone.

Perhaps however is the greater temptation to move when the signal (the cloud) did not move because you felt it was time to move.

For the Israelites, a people of a Promised Land, and with all the moving in their history, perhaps the grass was no longer green. Perhaps the water was not easily accessible any longer. Perhaps the bugs were a problem or it was too humid (ergo, the bugs). Whatever the case, they were strictly prohibited from moving if the cloud, the presence of God, did not move.

This next part is the hard part. Mostly because it is not part of our spiritual tradition typically nor of our American culture. It is still the same today. We are not to move unless God, in the form of the Holy Spirit. instructs us to do so. We are not to make that business deal on the basis of whether or not it makes sense, but on the leading of the Holy Spirit's "cloud" in our life.

The Old Testament was our tutor according to what we are taught in the New Testament. Israel, spiritually, was following a literal cloud. For you and I it can be a difficult process to move only when we are directed, and to remain if we are not. Why? Because we are not used to following an inner version of "The Cloud." And even more of a challenge with no practice to hear and follow the pressure is always upon us to move, to plan, to act from external forces in our life. How much do you think this happens in the Church, the Body of Christ today? I'm guessing a lot! And to add fuel to the fire this might be even more true when our personality and preferences meet the timing of God.

God's kids learn over the course of a lifetime to move when God says move. But we need to embrace the spiritual fact that Jesus came to recreate that ability and for this to occur. It is a sign of hope and an act of faith when, in complete surrender and dependence on God's Spirit to direct our steps we gain the confidence and then have the ability to act out of watching the Cloud and then moving to follow it.

Ask God today if you are sitting under His cloud. Or, have you moved when He said to stay put. Have you even considered God providing you with personal leading? If not you have much to question about your faith.

May our anthem be:

In the glory of your presence
I find rest, for my soul
In the depths of your love
I find peace, makes me whole

I love, I love, I love your presence
I love, I love, I love your presence
I love, I love, I love you Jesus
I love, I love, I love your presence - Anthony Skinner, I Love Your Presence

The more time in His presence you spend, the more familiar to His call, His voice you shall become.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

In The Face of Betrayal We Found Grace

2012-01-21T16:15:00.001-08:00

...Peace be with you! - John 20:19

How would you respond to a group of friends, those who followed you as a teacher, mentor, and more if having poured your life into them, teaching them all you know for three plus years, only to have them disband though you had instructed them otherwise? What would you say to them after you were reunited for the first time? I'd be cynical. I'd use sarcasm. I might want to speak with them one at a time and enumerate their failings.

I'll tell you this, at the very least I'd make sure they felt shamed by their lack of loyalty and commitment. After Jesus was crucified and raised from the dead, He appeared to the disciples. His first words to them were, "Peace (Grace) be with you!" The word grace means "unmerited favor." When someone loves you unconditionally, without regard to your behavior in return, it becomes a powerful force in your life.

Such was the case for the disciples when Jesus appeared to them. They could have expected reprimand. Instead, they received unconditional love and acceptance. He was overjoyed to see them. They were equally overjoyed to see Him.

And in this, Jesus created a teachable moment. Jesus understood that the disciples needed to fail Him as part of their training. Quality, wise, understanding Coaches are just like that. For the Apostles it would be this failure that became their greatest motivation for service and one of the things they would use to illustrate God's amazing love personally. Failure allowed them to experience incredible grace for the very first time and grace would transform them from men into men of God. Have you experienced this grace in your life?

Have you extended grace to those who have hurt you? Can you let go of any wrongs that have come through friends or associates?

The grace you extend may change their lives-and yours.

I remain... InHISgrip, ~J~

What "Blameless" Looks Like

2012-01-04T07:55:00.001-08:00

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does He withhold from those whose walk is blameless. - Psalm 84:11

If you were running for political office, what approach would your opponent take against you? If he wanted to launch a smear campaign, would there be any ammunition for him to use? Think how you would feel if the director of the opposing campaign came to you afterwards and said, "Sir, we tried to find something negative to play up in our campaign against you, but we couldn't."

What does it really mean to be a person who is blameless before God? Being blameless before God does not mean we are perfect. No human being is perfect. It means that we so fully trust in God that we are willing to make things right when we fail. We are willing to humble ourselves continually before the throne of God.

"…Blessed is the man who trusts in You" - Psalm 84:12

God has a specific plan for the people who face their lives toward Him. He promises to be their shield, to bestow honor on them. He will not withhold any good thing from them. What a promise! We get "blameless" when we turn our eyes early and often His way!

Believe in Jesus for a life that God views as blameless. It Him to withhold no good thing.

The Leader Who Waits…The One Who Lingers & Even Meanders!

2011-11-08T07:48:00.001-08:00

So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the droves before me and that of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir. - Genesis 33:14

Our work often determines that we move at a pace that can put incredible stresses upon people and relationships. We all have our own pace. I like speed. It speaks efficiency and tells me that I am more competent for my ability to move quickly. I like feeling like I am competent. I also get annoyed when things do not move at my pace and in my direction.

In the Old Testament there was a certain man who would one day be known as Israel. His name was Jacob. Jacob was a man who learned to manipulate and control outcomes. He even stole the birthright of his older brother, Esau, through trickery. The Bible speaks of Jacob as a man who strived with God. That means he tried to push God along like a child wanting to leave one place to go to another, Jacob would "pester" God.I am sure those around him would say that Jacob had a knack of forcing issues to his advantage. Because his motives were selfish and greedy took years for God to break down all the rough edges of Jacob so that he could be worthy of becoming the patriarch of the 12 tribes of Israel. God saw something in Jacob that He could use.

Robert Hicks, in his book, Masculine Journey, describes five biblical stages of manhood that must be passed through before a man becomes a mature man of God. I like the idea of this. It's linear. My experience however is that God is not linear in His dealings with me; at least not necessarily. Nonetheless, one of those early stages is known as the "warrior stage." In this stage of manhood, the man is known by what he does, what he accomplishes, and he is primarily defined by his performance. It can be a tumultuous time for the man and those close to him. It is often signified by broken relationships because the goal is often about him, his needs, his goals, his aspirations, his work and this phase is most about about the goals and not the way the goal is accomplished. Yesterday I had the chance to meet with a man who was through this phase. You can tell. He was not driven in the conversation. But, he did talk about this phase without naming it; a time when he was dogged and relentless in his pursuits.

In an effort to get to the point I have shown a time when Jacob had successfully passed through these five stages based on the verse above. It takes someone mature to be able to "move along slowly at the pace of the droves before me and that of the children." Leaders who never come to understand this may be successful materially but fail at the most important aspect of leadership-leading at a pace that his followers can maintain and where they feel an integral part and also accomplished. The lives of men are full of wives, children, and workers who cannot keep up with the pace of leaders and are left behind with broken dreams, broken hearts, and unfulfilled promises.

Are you a person who is more concerned with outcome than how you achieve the outcome? Can the people around you describe you as someone who leads at a pace that ensures respect, admiration and an observed value on what is also important to those around you? Ask the Lord for the ability to be a godly leader who understands the condition of those left in his charge and stop to observe and best understand the pace in which you can lead without alienating those for whom God has made you accountable.

I remain…

InHISGrip, ~J~

God Stamps It "AWESOME!"

2011-10-10T11:49:00.001-07:00

And David knew that the Lord had established him as king over Israel and that his kingdom had been highly exalted for the sake of His people Israel. - 1 Chronicles 14:2
King David learned an important lesson every leader must learn if he is to ensure God's continual blessing. He knew why God blessed him. It wasn't because he deserved it, though he was a man who sought God with his whole heart. It wasn't because of his great skill, though he was a great military strategist. It wasn't because he was perfect. Most of us who profess Christ as Saviour and God as our Father haven't come close to having done what David did. He did hideous things. He did horrible and awful things. No, it was for none of these reasons.
God blessed David for the "sake of His people Israel."
As a people most of us are so focused on the one-to-one connections of our actions and an associated outcome. That is why Christians have such a love/hate relationship with God's forgiveness, mercy, grace and the conditions of our relationship with God the Father. We want to have been and continue to be an active participant in His patting us on the back. We want to believe the healthy Christians are "more" sanctified, more spiritual, better people. And, in fact we might have subjective proof that this is true. But no...it is not a universal truth of how God responds to you and I while we walk this earthly realm.
God never blesses an individual just for that person's exclusive benefit.
God calls each of us to be a blessing to others. Specifically, like David, God calls you to a people. Who are those people you are called to bless? Who are those you are called to serve and love and care for in a unique and special way?
You might be unsettled and dissatisfied in your life because you haven't attached to the "who" you are to bless and serve. People often lose sight of their life purpose because they think of it in terms of "me," and "my calling," and "my purpose."
R.G. LeTourneau, a wealthy Christian businessman who built heavy construction equipment, came to realize this only after God took him through massive trials. Once the Lord had LeTourneau focused on the purpose to which God had called him, he came to realize that the question wasn't whether he gave 10 percent of what the Lord gave him. Rather, the question was, "What amount does He want me to keep?" LeTourneau was known for giving 90 percent of his income toward the end of his career and was a great supporter of world missions. Why? His calling, the one God associated with the success he had allowed R.G. to achieve, was to a "who I am to serve?" His "who" was missions! And, so it is with all of us who are called in Christ Jesus. Your serving may not be financial.
Your ministry discovery might be with your personal gifts. Yours might be through specific talents and learned and honed skills you have obtained through your life. But the blessing follows the serving. The peace and joy does as well.
What is happening with the spiritual fruit of God's blessing on your life? Is it clogged at the root of the tree? Or, is it freely growing and feeding others? Ask the Lord to free you to be a blessing to those in your circle of influence; to those He reveals are yours to love in unique and special ways!
I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

...And Faith Responded Unusually

2011-09-15T12:05:00.001-07:00

...Everything is all right.... - Elisha, Prophet of God, 2 Kings 4:26

I was reflecting on friends that I have been blessed with for nearly 40 years. Wow! 40 years...it doesn't seem so long ago. We knew each other at the end of high school and in college and we raised children together, worked together, prayed and played together. This thinking came on the heels of my reading about the prophet Elisha. Elisha regularly found himself traveling to and through a town called Shunem. In that town was a well-to-do couple who extended hospitality to him. As the story unfolds we discover initially they simply broke bread with him as he passed through. Later, seeing that Elisha needed accommodations and a place where he could also study, they built a room for him; a second story no less Now, each time he came through town, he had a place to stay, to eat, to rest and to study. He was so appreciative of their kindness that one day he asked the wife what he could do for her. Though not directly, later the woman explained to Elisha's servant Gehazi that the woman had a lifetime of having been barren. No children. Her husband was old and she did not feel he could provide her with the seed for a child.

What was Elisha's response? It was this, About this time next year,' Elisha said, 'you will hold a son in your arms - 2 Kings 4:16.

True to his word, and as he had promised, a year later the son arrived.

One day the father was working in the field, and the son became ill and quickly died. The woman, knowing Elisha was near, ran to him to inform him of what had just taken place.

But...not as you might imagine.

She shows up. There she stands. Now, check this out, when Elisha asked what was happening or had happened, she did not panic nor react in fear. Her response to Elisha seemed almost unnatural; it was truly unusual as she said to him, Everything is all right. In the next scene Elisha goes to the boy and raises him from the dead. It was a glorious miracle. Of course you can read all about it in 2 Kings chapter 4.

Faith, has a practiced and decisively different look and feel about it. It considers not just what is but what has gone on before. Faith measures the possible by a different scale. This kind of faith, what we see in the thoughts and history above, looks at our lives and the situations, troubles, predicaments we go through and see's them as God would. More than that though, faith is based on an understanding that we have a Heavenly Father who has our bests interests at heart always and regardless of what appears to be the tragic end.

In the Kingdom of God there is no limited understanding. This momma did not panic. Why? She knew something more than the current circumstance. Her spiritual awareness was enlightened beyond her friends, her family and beyond what typically happens historically to those who appear to be gone off and into eternity; those who have died.

Faith does not panic.

Faith realizes that what looks like devastating circumstances and tunes into the heart of God. It asks, How will God bring glory to Himself by demonstrating His power this time? And then it listens.

When Jesus appeared tooling across the water and his disciples caught a gander of it. It was in the middle of the night, they exclaimed, It's a ghost! (Check it out in Matthew 14:26) First appearances can bring great fear upon us even to the point of paralyzing us. Being a child who has moved from an earthly kingdom with it's laws and rules and moving into a Kingdom that operates outside of this world takes some getting used to. Find the Lord in your circumstance today. Exercise your faith today and trust Him for His outcome in the situation.Tap into what He is saying and doing. You will be surprised...and in a joyful way!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Among the Living Comes Triumph Out of Dying

2011-09-08T09:20:00.001-07:00

My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death - Matthew 26:38, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the Living God

There are few days etched into my mind as deep and abiding as the lines of the face of Abraham Lincoln at his memorial or the busts on Mount Rushmore of those great men. These days are timeless. I am glad they are few.

I was less than four yet there are things that I can still remember about the day my father died. It is similar but with more detail on the day of my mother's passing, my brother and my father-in-law are just the same.

With the living comes the dying. Most all the time the latter just doesn't feel right. This week an old friend passed who was a decade younger than I am.
Younger than me dying is never right. Ever!

Then one fifteen years younger, a great man of God passed yesterday. It somehow just does not feel right. I am sure it never will. Ever...

What was my great revelation from these and many more in my life? Often the place of our greatest pain becomes the place of our greatest triumph.Gethsemane, that quiet garden place where Christ would cry and plead to God the Father was easily the place of Jesus' greatest trial to that moment in time in His life. Before He had to go to a hill of death and three times He asked His Father to let this trial pass.

It was not to be.

The Father sent His Son to the cross to pay a debt owed by humanity. It was an awful thing. It was unthinkable. It was unfair.

Jesus, unlike each of those I named above had options. Each of those, the day they moved into eternity from this earth had no clue it was to be that day. Jesus manned-up to His own temptation to quit, to not fulfill His destiny, to run from His calling and purpose. It was a personal battle to persevere. to choose dying.

Sometimes we face situations that cry out "Stop the madness! Get me outta here!" We want to cash in our chips, cut our losses and gather what little "respectability" and/or faith we have left and walk away. We become "temporary atheists", concluding that this faith thing simply does not work each time; all the time.

Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him - Luke 22:43

After Jesus asked the Father if this bitter cup of pain and humiliation could pass, an angel was sent to Him to comfort Jesus. The Father's response to His eternal Son was "No." But, His loving mercy extended to Him came in the form of an angel, a messenger, a comforter. Some temptations, some life situations, even death, seem they are more than we can bare. But, God is true and No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it1 Corinthians 10:13.

If we rest in our heart of hearts; if we wait in our spirits we realize as the drama unfolds that the very place of our greatest battle has become our legacy; the place of our greatest victory and often the defining moment of a life lived.

For the Savior of mankind it was here, a place named the Mount of Olives, near the Garden Gethsemane where Jesus ascended and would return triumphantly, not as a sorrowful soul or one whose life was snuffed out early. No. He returns as a triumphant Savior. The battle He won in Gethsemane would result in the triumphant entry to be Lord of the universe! Most terrible pain - Most stunning life experience!

God will use your greatest failure or greatest sorrow to be a powerful force in your life and the lives of others. He will. Only He can. Your Valley of Baca (place of weeping) becomes springs of life giving eternal water for you and others watching you. You will go from strength to strength (Psalm 84:6).

It is in the dying that the new springs are allowed to come forth and a new strength emerges that previously was not even remotely considered latent within you.

If you find yourself in your Garden of Gethsemane, lay yourself at the feet of the only one who can sustain you. Entrust yourself to your Heavenly Father. Let Him determine your fate. It will ultimately become a place of victory. From the dying comes great living!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Oh You Beautiful Mess Maker!

2011-08-24T08:34:00.001-07:00

Where there are no oxen, the manger is empty, but from the strength of an ox comes an abundant harvest. - Proverbs 14:4

When I was a 7 year old we moved to a brand new neighborhood. It was a brand spanking new house! One of my favorite things was to play in streets filled with red clay from the land, plastic pipe and wood and other building materials as bulldozers would be left behind for us to play on. The job site was a beautiful mess from a 7 year old boys point of view. There was always all sorts of trash from workers, and is generally a mess. The houses looked ugly; all of their insides were exposed as they were being being pieced together. It was good for us that this process is necessary to get to the finished product. When completed, the homes were gorgeous. The landscaping looked like they came out of a home-design magazine. Everything would go from "MESS!" to clean and perfect in order for the new homeowner to move in.

I am sure you get the picture. The Christian life is just like this. Often we must go through s messy period of our lives in which all aspects of it are in chaos (Or, at least it feels that way to us). It is in these times that God builds out new aspects of His human tabernacle. He might remove some structural timbers in our lives and replace them with new ones. He might even add on another room. And unless this process takes place, we will never see the end product. The goal the Father aims at is for his kids to exhibit greater Christlikeness. In order to achieve this in us, He requires a period of breaking away what is not "of Him" and replacing it with new appliances and buildings; all that is not of Him replaced with all that is "of Him!"

It can be a painful process. But when the pain and messy start be lifted up! A brand new awesome wing of who you are will be coming forth. Years ago a song was penned that had this lyric line:

Sometimes a shadow dark and cold - Lays like a mist across the road - But be encouraged by the sight - Where there's a shadow, there's is light

Where there is a mess there is, out of the midst of it great beauty, power and strength

It would be impossible to keep oxen in a barn without having to clean up the mess from time to time. It just comes with the territory, but the result of the oxen is an abundant and useful harvest. God may be allowing a mess in order to ensure a fruitful harvest in your life. Learn from Him so that you might experience the fulfillment of His purposes for you in these times.

One other thought, those messes are not just created unilaterally and they are not cleaned up and that order is not just built in this world by one man or one woman. God creates or allows the messes to come through people. He uses people to build order. In the midst of the beauty of building he encourages us to gather to ourselves others in the building process. At Vision Reach we would love to be on your team. We would love to be your coach, your encourager, your exhorter; someone that helps to keep you on task and on purpose.

Join Cindy and I today in the adventure of an eternal lifetime!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

O' Death You Do Ride On...

2011-08-16T11:22:00.001-07:00

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth. - Revelation 6:8

A few years ago I read this excerpt from a book by Chuck Swindoll: The path of the pale horse named Death, mentioned in Revelation 6:8, is littered with bitterness, sorrow, fear, and grief. This ashen stallion started his lengthy journey ages ago and races through time with steady beat and dreadful regularity. As long as we exist in the land of the dying, we shall hear the somber knell of his hoofbeats.

I just received the second E-Mail in as many days from friends who have lost loved ones. The loss in each case was not just that death marched on but that, what was preventable for the time being wasn't. In two days two individuals who were deeply loved by their family took their own lives. Sadly, some people hurry their appointment with death. Painful though it may be to hear and accept, thousands of people will take their own lives during the next twelve months. For in our land, suicide is now almost an epidemic.

The acoustic/vocals band The Thorns sing this thought...

Among the living you'll find the dying
Waiting softly to pass on
Why can't a love be like a spirit
As it floats up to the sky - Among the Living, The Thorns

Once every minute someone in the United States attempts suicide.

In this country, there are 24% more deaths by suicide than by murder.

Suicide is the number 9 cause of adult death in the USA. For Americans between fifteen and thirty years of age, it is the number 3 cause of death. It is the number 2 cause among teenagers.

Four out of five people who commit suicide have tried it previously. Those who are unsuccessful usually try again.

Contrary to popular opinion, people who threaten suicide often mean it. Threats should be taken seriously.

Thankfully, suicidal individuals usually communicate their feelings before acting, thus making this irrevocable act preventable if those who are close are wise and sensitive enough to read the signals.

Some of the warning signals or clues you should be aware of are 1) talk about suicide, 2) a sudden change in personality, 3) deep depression, 4) physical symptoms---sleeplessness, loss of appetite, decreased sexual drive, drastic weight loss, repeated exhaustion, 5) actual attempts, and 6) crisis situations---death of a loved one, failure at school, loss of job, marital or home problems, and a lengthy or terminal illness. These are certainly not "sure signs," but if any or several persist, please step in and offer help. Contact your physician or ask advice from your local Suicide Prevention Center's twenty-four-hour crisis line; you may also want to contact one of the spiritual leaders or officers of your church or a member of the pastoral staff. Such situations are often emergencies. To delay could result in tragic consequences.

Those who are strong need to bear the weaknesses of the weak - Romans 15:1. I think, many of us, when we consider our faith, do not think ourselves "strong." But, perhaps "stronger" than someone who is being overcome by a pale horse is all that is needed; just a little stronger. You may be the means that God uses in blocking the path of the pale horse!

Sometimes if we are to hear what is being said, we need to listen to what is not being said.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

The Alliances & Friendships We Form

2011-08-15T09:04:00.001-07:00

Woe to the obstinate children," declares the Lord, "to those who carry out plans that are not Mine, forming an alliance, but not by My Spirit, heaping sin upon sin; who go down to Egypt without consulting Me; who look for help to Pharaoh's protection, to Egypt's shade for refuge. - Isaiah 30:1-2

Think hard. Who, currently is deeply ingrained in your life that you find either draining or detrimental to your character, your family or your work. Let me ask it differently, less personally: Have you ever entered a business association with someone that seemed profitable but concerned you from the outset as to its affect on your character or your own ethics?

If you have spent any time at all in the Old Testament studying or reading about the nation of Israel, you have read how it was that God, time and time again, told them to keep themselves separate from those who were not God worshippers. A metaphor for holiness is God leading Israel out of Egypt and throughout the history of Israel, the people were instructed to come out of an old way of life into a life that personalized and solidified their relationship with God.

Of course Egypt represented that old way of living; a way that was convenient and perhaps even easy but also was full of bondage. You will recall after leaving Egypt when things got tough for the Jews, the Israelites reverted to what was familiar and comfortable; they reverted back to the way they acted in Egypt. Another way of saying it was the Jews always knew they could take a mental, emotional and actionable (How I decide to act) trip to Egypt and find what they presumed they needed. I'm sure because of their lack of familiarity with God they would think to themselves: "If we can't get it accomplished under this new "God-lead" way, we can easily go back to the way we used to do it? At least we know what the outcome will be there!"

When God calls us into a Life in Christ we can expect the rest of life to go on. We will still, every day, be given choices. Every day we will have to choose to be godly or rebellious to a God-lead life. One area that is a tough one is relationships. It seems like a balancing act. How do we grow and develop healthy, eternal relationships and how do we interact with the world? A key is our alliances. If we enter into alliances that God has not ordained, it will only bring heartache. Such was the case for Israel., But Pharaoh's protection will be to your shame, Egypt's shade will bring you disgrace - Isaiah 30:3.

Beware what you perceive as an alliance that may advance your position in life, your standing in the community, your business or, even favor in your local church! This is a great time to "try the spirits" to see if they are a leading from God or if they are simply an opportunistic decision which has no God approval at all. We all know that without Godly approval relationships may actually bring us great distress. If God has not directed you to align yourself or does not wish you to deeply involve yourself with others then my suggestion is to consider it as a halt in your spirit not to move forward in that particular joining. A good question might be to ask yourself is, "What the motive is behind this possible connection?" Make sure that it is not based on fear, greed or a quick fix. Get confirmation that God is leading you to make come together with important relationships. Let's avoid the history of Israel. They spent way too much time untangling themselves from sin brought on through poorly considered relations.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

The Broken Heart of Faith

2011-08-12T16:09:00.001-07:00

Do not hide Your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. - Psalm 143:7b

We learn so many lessons when we read the Psalms that are credited to David. I don't think, (perhaps Job) there is a biblical character for me who seems more human than this man. Actually, I don't think I would deeply understand the depths of God's mercy and grace, love and acceptance if there was no David. In David we find a man who time and again broke the most cardinal of our laws and who had the capacity to appear the most rebellious in God's site. Yet, in David, we find a man, though full of fault also was powerful and virtually so until the very end of his life.

David provides for you and I a peek into the window of a man's life that walked with God with great emotion in victory. And, in defeat we see deep into his troubled and tortured soul.

Here's a little known fact (Perhaps you knew) David never lost a battle throughout his many years of serving as king of Israel. In many of the Psalms, David often lamented about the difficult places where God had placed him. He talked of his enemies and the need for God to deliver Him. He talked of God's everlasting love for him. You might suspect after years of victory that David would simply get comfortable with God giving him and his armies the victory.

He never did.

How do you suppose David came to the understanding time after time and year over year that he must seek God and that is was alright for him to go before God and explain to his Heavenly Father how strong, vast, angry and powerful those enemies were? We can look at the beginning of his formative times and one might suspect this could have created in David a loser's limp. After all, having been promised the kingdom, he next finds himself running, and for no small period of time; years, from the current king. Later in his life, the last 30 percent of it, David experiences horrible turmoil within his nuclear family. How does that speak of a loving, merciful, miraculous and healing God. Yes David's life gave him many reasons to lose all hope in a loving God. That however, was not who David was. He saw beyond the events.

David often began his Psalms in a place of discouragement and sounded as if he had lost all hope. However, he never ended one Psalm in defeat. Through the process of meditation, prayer and worship David always came to a place of internal victory in God by the end of his writing. David consistently placed his life in God's hands, knowing He would care for him and then obediently moved forward in the action set before him.

Let the morning bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You. Show me the way I should go, for to You I lift up my soul. Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in You. Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; may Your good Spirit lead me on level ground - Psalm 143:8-10

You are a human. Humans get discouraged. God's people get discouraged. It is okay to be discouraged! More than this, discouragement, being heartsick, is part of the process of grieving and working through times of pain. Just always bring back to mind, like David, that God wants each of us to allow Him to walk with us in these places. If you find yourself in one of these places, do what David did. Ask God to show you the way and let Him bring the word of His unfailing love deep into the spirit He has restored within you!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Reflecting the Glory of One Whose Glory Should Be Recognized

2011-06-13T11:17:00.001-07:00

They will tell of the glory of Your kingdom and speak of Your might, so that all men may know of Your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of Your kingdom. - Psalm 145:11-12

How do you measure your effectiveness in God, or should you even be thinking like this? I know it is quite popular to use a sense of reasoning about our spiritual "walk" like this:

God loves me and is all knowing. Because He is all knowing and nothing about who I am or what I do affects His love for me can I disappoint Him. After all, He knows me. He knows who I am and what I do. He made me! Therefore why should I even worry or even worse, feel guilty for being the person God made me to be

The early Church turned the world upside down in that first century. What made them so effective? Was it their theology? Was it great preaching? Was it due to one man's influence apart from Jesus? Was it an attitude reflected in the above paragraph? Could we validate that kind of thinking by any historical analysis? The answer to the last 2 questions is a simple no.

This little Bible morsel speaks definitively. It creates prophetic clarity that in a future time, God's people, would espouse a mighty message that created widespread knowledge of God, His glory and kingdom. I suggest this happened and can happen and it is what makes the the Bodies of Christ effective.

I am also convinced that it is at the core of God's heart. It is quite simple. God desires to reflect His nature and power through every individual. When this happens, the world is automatically changed because those who reflect His glory affect the world. The world "sees" God as He is.

I am also convinced we need to better understand words and their Kingdom meanings; vocabulary, if you will, from God's perspective. The Bible uses words like love, obedience, serve, servant, suffer and I am sure we flavor their meaning based on who we are and not what the Scripture clearly states what is truthfully meant; what is their fulness from God's perspective. Here is one we don't get easily: We serve a jealous God. He is a God who will not share His glory with anyone. (Check it out - It says it right there in that Big Black Book) God sets up situations in order to demonstrate His power through them and more than this to illustrate so we can get our tiny minds around his enormity. He does it. It is His doing. We might be arms and legs and a mouth in the process but it is His plan and His power that accomplishes. Why? That we might, in turn, understand just how little we make of Him and how tiny is the full grasp of our understanding about Him. And, more to the point so that through us His glory shines and people are drawn to Him!

Father God has visibly expressed His power and control and strength since the day He created man. His glory is His own. Only He can have it and express it. However, our God and Father desires to reflect His glory through you and me, so that all men may know of His mighty acts and the glorious splendor of His Kingdom and, in their knowing they would embrace their God-given and provided right to be on the inside of His love, affection, glory, grace, mercy and all of the other overly abundant joys His own should experience.

The apostle Paul understood this principle: My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power" ( - I Corinthians 2:4-5.

If you do not see His glory being reflected through your life, then you need to ask why. Of course, you also might want to study the concept of God's Glory so you would recognize it should it be expressed in your life. It might not be precisely what you are thinking at this moment. Just know this, He has promised to use you and me to mirror who He is if we will walk in obedience to His commands.

But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. - Hebrews 11:6

That is an If/Then statement. There is in fact an our part and His part. You embrace it or you don't. Which will it be?

So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. "If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? "Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him! - Luke 11:9-13

As challenging as it is for you and I to understand, there is a truth here that says God does gives us a part in our relationship with Him. We get to learn, grow and become more today than we were yesterday. We are no longer under a shadow of guilt. It is not our lot to constantly wring our hands and wonder if God is pleased with us however. To do that we make His sufficiency, His power in us, His saving and redemptive skills weak. No, we just need to know we get to partner in growth so that who we are in Him shows clearly to the world naturally and draws all men to Him.

It was on my heart today...I hope it blesses yours...I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

When God Must Love the Way I Demand! Or Does He...Doesn't He?

2011-06-03T22:37:00.001-07:00

What Does "God Is Love" Mean?

What do we mean when we quote 1 John 4:8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.? Or even John 3:16For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son...?

I have watched believers on all sides of the issue try and get their arms around this. Thus, it's something I'd been thinking about a lot lately. I even discussed this in my previous post a bit and if you follow me on FaceBook I've been grappling with it and so many odd ideas of God and how He must love.

I believe the North American post-modern mind (Besides slowly fading into the sunset) has a tendency to deal with this out of the context of how they were raised. We tend to sentimentalize God's love. Similarly Christians often ascribe human ideas of fairness to talk of God's sovereignty and how God interacts with human will and volition. We read much that ascribes human or, more succinctly humanitarian ideas of love to talk of God's love. We also speak of it singularly as if God, unlike you and I, loves always the same way with all people in all circumstances and at all times.

I am convinced that God loves everyone. But I am not convinced that He loves everyone the same way.

Here are a couple of passages from D.A. Carson's excellent treatment of this subject, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God:

I do not think that what the Bible says about the love of God can long survive at the forefront of our thinking if it is abstracted from the sovereingty of God, the holiness of God, the wrath of God, the providence of God, or the personhood of God -- to mention only a few nonnegotiable elements of basic Christianity.

Later, Carson writes:

If the love of God is exclusively portrayed as an inviting, yearning, sinner-seeking, rather lovesick passion, we may strengthen the hands of . . . those more interested in God's inner emotional life than in his justice and glory, but the cost will be massive. There is some truth in this picture of God . . . some glorious truth. Made absolute, however, it not only treats complementary texts as if they were not there, but it steals God's sovereignty from him and our security from us.

Now, I will try to be good and not state any conclusions or firm personal beliefs on the details of these matters in this post. But in the comments thread, perhaps we can hash out our differences through discussion and maybe even reach some conclusions.

In another book by Carson, a sort of companion volume to The Difficult Doctrine called Love in Hard Places, he takes on certain "hard cases." If Christians collectively believe we are to love everyone because God does, we must ask ourselves questions like:

"What does it mean to love Osama bin Laden?"
"What does it mean to love Saddam Hussein?"
"Is this similar to the love you have for your mother and if different how and why?"

I ask you the same questions. Does God love everyone the same way? If not, should we?

Perhaps we should begin with a biblical example.
How do you personally interpret the following passage: - THOUGHTS?

Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad . . . she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."
-- Romans 9:11-13

Detour Ahead - The Path Is About To Change

2011-05-24T10:06:00.001-07:00

The crooked places shall be made straight And the rough places smooth; The glory of the LORD shall be revealed, And all flesh shall see it together... - Isa 40:4-5

I read the verse above and it became part of what God, my Father, has been working to get into me. Somehow things that seem incongruent are really more linear than I would have previously thought.

Any statement that starts out by saying, "The crooked place shall be made straight..." in my way of thinking, should be followed by a step-by-step instruction of just how either God will do it or how God expects me to straighten (and smooth) my journey through life. But that is not at all the progression of the thought here in Isaiah.

First off, unless we are 4-wheeling or bushwhacking, we all dislike bumpy roads. They are annoying. They are troublesome. They can cause damage. They rattle us. However, when I think about it I have to personally admit to you that, though I know they are the solution, I dislike even more road closures, detours...road work in general. Until the housing and real estate debacle I would tell you that I lived in a growing city and it seems like there has been ongoing road construction forever! One portion of the Phoenix metro or another is a mess, you need up-to-the-minute GPS to plan your trips because of delays, and sometimes you get caught off guard when traffic signs are placed in unusual places and the natural flow of traffic takes you off the main road onto rough and tumble surfaces.

Recently, a friend told me in their town where one of our main local roads was hit with a sink hole in the middle of the road. The road was closed for more than a year. They of course then had to take alternative routes that, I am sure, were inconvenient and annoying.

Sometimes God takes us through our own life re-construction project. Our lives get disrupted, we can no longer depend on the things we did before, and we don't have control over our circumstances or timetable. God is doing major construction. Our response to this often is to try and make personal adjustments. Some of those take the form of internal attempts to make conscious emotional adjustments. Often through what I call "hunkering down," we try and internally conjure up a new attitude about the trouble we've encountered because of what God is in fact doing or allowing into our life.

But, in the midst of the re-construction this verse does not tell you and I to go through an internal assessment. We are not given some 5 step process to change our attitude. I'm sorry Zig (Ziglar) but this is not to get an "attitude of gratitude" in the midst of the detours and struggles of the rough patches of our life.

No.

The glory of the Lord is revealed in that place. In the midst of this, God's glory is found. The only thing we should be doing is expecting to find it. Perhaps further, to search for it and expect it so shine forth either within us or in the midst of the problem. I get a sense that for many it is the first time they've ever seen the hand of the Lord in their life; His power, and presence...His GLORY! The solution in this incongruent little passage in and amongst all the other verses of the Bible is this, "You have a rough row to hoe? Look for God's glory in the midst of it!" I get a sense that when one of God's elect see it, it then become like a lightning rod; others begin to see it too. And to the degree that this process allows them to experience Him, it becomes a place in time and space for His love, mercy, light, wisdom and personal goodness to them to shine through!

The troubled patch, the rough spot is a process they would never choose to go through voluntarily, but it is an experience they value for the rest of their lives because the glory of the Lord was revealed in the process. God showed up. I suspect He is there before we know it. His job is to be there. Ours is to look for Him, expect Him.

Once we see His glory things begin to flow better. Just as the new roads allow you to drive on a smooth, more spacious area, so too God paves a way for you to move into an expanded place with Him.

Isaiah tells us: He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows - Isa 30:23-24.

Be patient with God's re-construction project. You will like the finished project. You will really like you after it's all said and done.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Well...er...The Reason You See Is....

2011-05-10T14:06:00.001-07:00

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. - Hebrews 10:23-25

Everyone I know realizes I am a major baseball fan. This is my season! I had two "stupid human tricks" as a child growing up. First, I could never ever make, model and year of every car from 1947 (I was born in 1952) until 1976 on the road. The other was I could remember the most minute details about ballplayers and the game itself. I loved it! I didn't see it as trivia because I loved it so much. To me it was cool and fun and I suppose it was also important. How good was I? Even my friends, who had teams that they loved more than I did and had heroes that were not my heroes knew less about their favorite players and teams than I did. I hated the Yankees but my Yankee loving fiends marveled that I knew more about Mantle, Maris, Ford, Berra, Richardson, Kubek and all the lesser known Yankees than they knew. You may be that kind of person or have friends and family like that. Well, I still am a bonifide member of this group of trivia containers.

Fans have other traits as well don't they? They have an indomitable sense of commitment, loyalty or determination - okay, okay, maybe "addiction" is a better word! Against incredible odds, sound logic, and even medical advice, sports fans will persevere to the dying end! Difficulties are viewed as a challenge ... never an excuse to stay away or miss a chance to support our teams!

I've often wondered what would happen if people were as intense and committed and determined about their love of Christ Jesus and the Body He died for as they are about sports or any other hobby. This topic was covered some years back in a Moody Monthly piece that illustrated twelve excuses a fella might use for "quitting sports." The analogy isn't hard to figure out.

1. Every time I went, they asked me for money.

2. The people with whom I had to sit didn't seem very friendly.

3. The seats were too hard and not comfortable.

4. The coach never came to call on me.

5. The referee made a decision with which I could not agree.

6. I was sitting with some hypocrites---they came only to see what others were wearing.

7. Some games went into overtime, and I was late getting home.

8. The organist played music that I had never heard before.

9. The games are scheduled when I want to do other things.

10. My parents took me to too many games when I was growing up. (Hmm...I'll have to ask my boys)

11. Since I read a book on sports, I feel that I know more than the coaches anyhow.

12. I don't want to take my kids, because I want them to choose for themselves what sport they like best.

I've come up with a few more:

13. The parking lot (steps, walkways, etc.) was awful . . . I had to walk 300 yards to the stadium entrance.

14. Nobody came up and introduced themselves to me; it was so impersonal!

15. The public address and lighting systems don't suit me.

16. It's always too hot (or cold) in the stadium.

17. It's so loud there!

Enough said. Think it over.

What would happen if we approached our responsibilities to the Body of Christ with the same enthusiasm we give to our hobbies, sports, and other extracurricular activities?

You Can Deal With This Or You Can Deal With That!

2011-04-27T10:29:00.001-07:00

Now the serpent was craftier than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'? - Genesis 3:1

Have you seen the commercial with the Gangsta Hamsters for the Kia Soul? You get two choices of "cool" which actually get reduced down to a toaster and a brightly colored boxy Kia Soul. There is a 3rd choice which is the cardboard equivalent of the Fred Flintstone mobile. But the cardboard option collapses upon itself; not such a good choice is it?

Of course in the real world we do have those kinds of choices all day long. I'm still working on the real lesson of the commercial but it's catchy and sticks in your head. I suppose we can choose practical and more fun (the Soul) or just practical and cheap (An unplugged electric toaster with no personality).

God is big on giving man freedom and boundaries-freedom to manage what He has entrusted to us, boundaries to protect us from evil. It is a kind of "this" or "that" scenario. We can choose but clearly in the economy of the Kingdom of God there are good choices and those which are summarily hideously horrible.

Our typical thinking tells us that God was the original law giver. That He created these boundaries and this was the first form of, "You better do what I say." In the case of those first boundaries in the Eden and between God and Adam and Eve I see this differently however. I'm hoping it's a view from God's perspective. The rule was not set for the purpose of limiting the couple. No, it was the first lesson in understanding the value and the responsibility of bad choices. It was a first lesson in not just communicating with God but truly taking His lessons and thoughts and messages to you personally to heart. They got into trouble when they first allowed His clear direction to be misrepresented and then more so when their questioning caused them to ignore those boundaries.

If you are churched you know that God had provided everything Eve and Adam would need for life on earth. In my mind this is the "Adam Project." He also entrusted them with responsibility to manage and work the Garden. God works and so does His progeny. God gave the two of them freedom in that responsibility. He has those same characteristics and we are made in His image from that perspective. Our mutual substance indicates we, both our Creator and us were made to express ourselves creatively through our mental and physical efforts.

But we are not God. We are merely "in His image," thus each of us has freedom of choices and boundaries in our lives. Whenever you are hired for a job, you must have the freedom to make certain decisions. You must have the authority to manage things within your area of expertise. You must also have limits within your area of responsibility. You need to know where those limits are and stay within them. In the case of our lives we have both freedom and boundaries and to those who recognize God's authority (it is a choice you know) we should embrace that our eternal life is always under the umbrella of God's authority. As a side note, we should also "get" that regardless of politics, our definition of competency, personality and its conflicts that we are also under authority in many other areas of our life.

So, several thousand years after the failed "Adam Project" in Eden Jesus comes on the scene, in the form of a man and is put under the same earthly contingencies that a typical dude of His time faces. He grew. He matured. He listened and communicated with God the Father. This led to a point where He understood the concept I speak about regarding boundaries. Jesus, under the headship of His Heavenly Father, accepted a form of freedom and boundaries that you and I would recognize.

This all leads me to my point (I think). When Jesus was tempted for 40 days by the Satan after being baptized, He was challenged by the evil one to venture beyond His freedom and personal boundaries.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ” Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God. ’ ” ; , Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ” Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.- Matthew 4:1-11

Now Jesus boundaries were very different than some of ours aren't they? For instance, Satan said to Jesus that He had the power to turn a stone into bread. Jesus was hungry and easily could have justified, from an earthly perspective, using His power to feed Himself. However, Jesus understood He could do nothing outside the boundaries of God's will for His life. Guys, can you see how intimate the Will of God is? There is a certain and vital perspective here. You need to know what it is the Father wants you to do. I guarantee you it isn't discovered at a church meeting, Sunday School, home meetings or seminary. It certainly isn't between the covers of a book (though all of these things have the potential to feed it). It is found in your intimacy with God the Father. In this instance Jesus knew it was God's perspective for Him to eschew the advice of Satan and continue as a man, feeding Himself, in this instance, as a man, with the limitation to not create food miraculously. God was showing His Son that "man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" - Mt. 4:4b. The lesson was personal. It was intimate. It was proximate to Him and He could embrace its power by accepting this boundary.

You and I are tempted every day to go beyond our God-ordained boundaries. I suspect we normally aren't aware of it. We aren't used to thinking in the way I just described of Jesus. But we have issues relating to hearing the Holy Spirit. There is the obvious of course such as financial problems that have arisen through debt, making wrong decisions due to pressure, or manipulating someone in order to achieve our ends, it all represents rebellion toward God. But what about those gray areas? What happens when we are taken away in our own life situation where we feel out of control and some of the choices seem to be morally neutral. Then what?

We both, you and I need to start on a new path today. Perhaps a good start is a lengthy time of reading the stories of those who heard from God in the Bible to get a sense of just how He might do it in us. We need to spend quiet time "listening" to our spirit. We should write down what we hear or think we hear. We need to surround ourselves with others who are hearers of "The Word" and bring them along on our journey. Ask God to show you His freedom and boundaries for your life. These are meant to bring God's love and intimacy into your life, your heart, your actions...

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

One Component of Quality as a Child of God

2011-04-11T15:18:00.001-07:00

Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me - John 20:20,21

We live in a very odd time. A week or so ago I wrote about the simplicity of life in past centuries. There was a time when we had fairly high agreement from the masses about what was right and wrong and that actions were quite black and white from a moral perspective. A man of character is one that can observe but not be attracted to the idolatry of our time; an idolatry that simply takes anything, good or bad, right or wrong and attempts to have it serve self. Those who do not bow their knee to the culture are people who have declared their allegiance to the one true and eternal King, Jesus Christ. These are people who have humbled themselves in the sight of God and, even when that sight is not within the sight of man.

There was a time when only the great and the gloriously gifted would face the challenge of vanity. It's not so any longer. A nation that has since resigned the concept of greatness has also embraced an immodest version of individuality. We're all special and ergo, we all have the right to elevate self and consider our desires as supreme. In the process of your personal development, you will find great temptation to make a name for yourself, to, by man's account, become "something;" to gain public notoriety, to get the a personal version of the concept of "glory," to increase your fees, to demand your rights, and to anticipate red carpet treatment. You're in authority now! People are standing up and taking notice of your exploits! The temptation is great to consider self first and view others in terms of how they view you rather than caring for them; being considerate and gracious to others first.

To this subject my friend Chuck Swindoll said this, "Let me remind you that if you're in life only for yourself, you'll have no endurance. On that precarious top of the ladder, you'll always have to maintain your balance by maneuvering and manipulating, lying, deceiving, and scheming. But if you're committed to kingdom-related excellence, when you go through times of testing, you can count on kingdom endurance to get you through."

I like that.

If you have the kind of faith that demands to deeply understand the whole purpose of God, then you dare not leave out a personal commitment to the Kingdom of God! This means you spend time alone and apart and that your meditation allows the Holy Spirit to work in you God's good pleasure and a personal definition of His will; which normally translates into His uncovering place His mercy and grace have not 'til then uncovered.

It means that your personal stewardship of time, talents, relationships, assets and finances usually will go through a process of dialogue between you and the great God of the universe. In the end your love for Him translates into His glory in you! It makes a reality of, "Christ in you the hope of (the) glory." It means things will change and your peace and joy will be increased and devotion multiplied.

I'm not suggesting I know what the Holy Spirit and you will come to in these conversations. There will or should be more than one. It should mean that ownership goes back to the original owner and your care for them return to one that honors His faith and confidence in you. The following of me part of that little verse at the top implies much. What it does not imply is that anything more than you should be a concern. You follow as you are led. You do with the stuff that makes up this life as you are instructed. It's a component of a life full of depth and breadth of quality; the kind of quality an eternal King gains honor through and by.

Simple...(smiles) right? I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Integrity Where Imperfection Takes Up Residence

2011-03-31T10:01:00.001-07:00

Now the LORD said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil, and go; I am sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite. For I have provided Myself a king among his sons.” And Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears it, he will kill me.” But the LORD said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the LORD.’ Then invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; you shall anoint for Me the one I name to you.” So Samuel did what the LORD said, and went to Bethlehem. And the elders of the town trembled at his coming, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” And he said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the LORD. Sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons, and invited them to the sacrifice. So it was, when they came, that he looked at Eliab and said, “Surely the LORD’s anointed is before Him!” But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” So Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.”Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the LORD chosen this one.” Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The LORD has not chosen these.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all the young men here?” Then he said, “There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he comes here.” - I Samuel 16:1-11

Truly, if you and I, assuming you have had a similar life and church experience as I, had someone of note, thought to be a grand leader of the faith and a man of massive political and military importance such as David in our midst and, if we had known half of the things he had done, we not only would have written David out of the congregation of the elect, the saved, the righteous, the blood bought believers but we would have hid our children's eyes as we passed him on the street!

But God knew David. And, had we acted the way I just described, we would have proven that we did not.

God knew David had the quality of integrity. For as many ups and downs and hideously horrible and unspeakable evils that he did, David was a man the God of the universe could count on; both to hear His voice and obey His directives. God could count on it because David, as many times as he might fall, loved Loved LOVED God.

The church comes under massive attack from inside and out because we have bought into a system that says the appearance of right and good and just and holy is as good and maybe even better than the genuine article. After all, if you are just acting holy you can real put on a show! Actual holiness requires that whole humility thing and hey, if you can't be known for your righteous and pure life then why bother? How can you change the world if in fact the whole world doesn't know just how amazingly good you really are? Huh? Huh?

But you will never be a man or woman of God if hyperbole is your guiding principle. Never. You cannot fake it with the Almighty. And, in the final analysis, He is the only one that matters. He is not impressed with externals. Don't get me wrong. I am sure God would have preferred less adultery and killing in the life of David. But apparently actions aren't the whole story. Daddy Father God always focuses on the inward qualities, those eternal qualities that only time in His presence are created .

The love of God and time with God trained David for a leadership role with four disciplines. Now this is just a perspective. It is not the only one that exists on the life of David but I believe it holds relevance for you and I.

First, God trained David one-on-one, alone. David needed to learn life's major lessons with the great Mentor of the Universe, in a practice, before he could be trusted with responsibilities and rewards before the people. Solitude, just you and God, has nurturing qualities all its own. Anyone who must have superficial sounds to survive lacks depth. If you can't stand to be alone with yourself, you have deep, unresolved issues in your inner life. Solitude has a way of bringing those issues to the surface.

Second, David grew up in obscurity. That's another way God trains His best personnel - outside the limelight, the lights, the crowds and the context of the "big picture". Most nearly always those who love God and serve others are first unknown, unseen, unappreciated, and unapplauded. In the quiet context of obscurity, character is built. You learn to hear God's voice and therefore be led by something deeper and with more value to you than the shouts of the crowds, the pressures of friends and family. Strange as it may seem, those who first accept the silence of "no stage" are best qualified to handle the applause of popularity.

Which leads us to the third training ground, David's life was monotonous. That's being faithful in the menial, apparently insignificant, routine, unexciting, uneventful, daily drone of life. Life without the lavish and exciting . . . without the wine, the lobster, the caviar and roses. Just dull, plain, walk-it-out L-I-F-E. It is when life is consistent but more to the point it's constant, unchanging, tedious hours of the otherwise boring as you learn to be a man or woman of God and there is nobody else around to notice or care. Heck! What would they see? It's all just a big 'ol yawn. That's how we learn to make it real and do what needs to be done.

That brings us to the fourth discipline and that is David lived within reality. Up until now you might have the feeling that despite the solitude, obscurity, and monotony, David was just sitting out on some hilltop in a mystic haze, composing a great piece of music, or relaxing in the pastures of Judea and having a great time training those sheep to sit on their hind legs. That's not true. He simply lived what was normal and he fit into it. Yet, in all of his "fitting in" David found God in the quiet. He learned from Him. He honored Him. He did what He did so as to ensure that with God greatness is relative. "Whatever your hand finds to do...do it all to honor God." That would resonate with David. For David reality might be on earth but earth and all its workings are here to glorify God. David found it easy.

So the great struggle a King who craves but always returns to his roots; his integrity. He bows to the King of Kings. He loves on His relationship and fully expects God, as bad as he might have been, to speak into His life and in all of this he fulfilled the role of a man of integrity...ultimately.

Isn't that us? Aren't we "mostly" something but not perfectly and completely those qualities. David had great beginnings. They served him when he came to the end of his days and provided him a path back when he got lost in between. How about you and I? I'll leave it at that. It's worth a thought...

I remain...
InHISgrip,

~J~

Why Do I Have To Explain Myself to You?

2011-03-30T09:27:00.001-07:00

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does. - James 1:22-25

I was reading an old devotional that was making the point that once upon a time life was simple and uncomplicated. Oh sure, there were struggles and problems, but they weren't all that complex. Good and evil did battle with each other and, for most of us, these battles were in the sunshine of "the obvious". Our own willpower and our lack of focus were right in there; they stood in stark opposition to one another. In the rugged west we were comfortable with the notion that right fought against wrong in life's main event and not too many folks remained neutral; you were a good guy or a bad guy! There was a clear, unmistakable line between winning and losing . . . victory and defeat . . . accomplishment and failure ... actual war between opposing forces and peace, real peace - not smoldering, game-playing peace which seems in our world to be the norm.

Sometimes we loathed self. When we did and we admitted our guilt and genuinely were ashamed for our words and actions. Thinking of it another way, there would also be times when, regardless of whether it was easy or suited our purposes we sucked it up and moved forward, did the right thing. In America, pride was a function of our focus on doing right and this was something we desired to pass on to our children. And children? Well, they looked up to dad and mom. I recall my uncles telling me grandpa was their hero.

What else was in this mold? How about this, a marriage was fa once in a lifetime deal. A job was for work. A crime was for punishment. Irresponsibility was met with a visual lack of trust, a broken promise put you on the outside with a man and his whole clan, adultery was an unspeakable, hardship was expected and thought to build character, extra effort was admired, applauded and maybe, just maybe the only reason for special reward.

Then, ever so slowly, the fog rolled in.

All the evils of the world, once black as tar, turned strange shades of gray. Instead of our seeing them clearly as wrong or someone's responsibility, they became part of a new social fuzzy logic ... and ultimately "explainable"; rationalized by social and psychological inference, implication, that had much more "significant" and far reaching implications. At the end of the day, society searched for and discovered justification for anything. And the outworking of all this is a remarkable twist, a subtle switching of expectations and definitions.

Our society now protects the guilty (you'll excuse the expression) and it almost always appears, at some level the victim is put on trial. We have seen a turn about in reason years with the advent of the most caustic of all atrocities in the actions of terrorists. Still the guy who uses words like discipline and diligence and integrity and blame and shame who is the weirdo, freaky oddball.

I knew a man who shared his story of walking away from the Body of Christ (His local church) and God when he was confronted by leadership because he did not immediately embrace the drunk who killed his wife. "If a drunk driver kills my wife or cripples my kids, how dare I hate him? We all know alcoholism is a disease and nobody gets a disease on purpose. But if I do hate him and if I'm caught up with such rage that I kill the driver, you can't be angry with me. After all, wasn't I suffering from temporary insanity? (That's a brief disease ... like the flu.)" - and all of that would make sense.

Explanations abound, everything from poor toilet training, battered families and unfair parents to oppressive work conditions and governmental rip-offs. Sometimes in my more maddening moments I entertain crazy "what if" ideas. What if we were suddenly stripped of our twenty-first century maladies and "scientific" explanations? What if there was a resurgence of such dated phrases as:

"I have decided to . . ."
"I will . . ."
"I will no longer . . ."
"I am wrong . . ."
"Starting today, I won't . . ."
That would mean saying farewell to foggy terms like:
"I am thinking about it . . ."
"I'm working on it . . ." and,
"Someday I plan to . . ."

which psychologists, pastors, and counselors worth their salt realize mean little more than, "I'm working out some great excuse for not doing it."
How do I know? I've learned those phrases, too! And occasionally, when I get cornered by a hard set of facts, I dip into my bag just like you do---especially if I'm not ready to come to terms with my own responsibility. Out come those handy little guilt-relieving "explanations."
Little by little I'm learning just how enamored I was of all those catch phrases that made me forget I was on a sinking ship.

Let me level with you. And I say this for one reason only - to encourage you to replace explanations with decisions and actions. If I had continued giving in to those lame excuses, my marriage would not have held together, any ministry I have would have become mediocre or more likely non-existent, I would never have finished even this paragraph, I would not have a close friend, I would have jumped from job to job because of the pressure, and who knows what else!

Jesus was right. After telling His disciples how to live fulfilled lives, He put the clincher on it by adding, If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them - John 13:17, emphasis added.

So, today, you and me, let's get the right combination of learning, embracing mentally/spiritually and doing. Let's allows the cleansing power of Jesus Christ to wash over us. It's part of the redemption package. Don't dive under a pile of guilt! Bask in the warmth of a God who is loving and changing you and I.

I remain...

InHISgrip,

~J~

My Internal GPS

2011-03-17T10:34:00.001-07:00

Thus says the LORD: “ Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,” says the LORD. - Jeremiah 9:23,24

There is a kind of thinking that goes like this..."If I am sensitive I will know that God has provided instruction, but then it's up to me." Does that sound about right? Or, maybe you are of a different school of thought regarding you and God's will. Maybe yours is as simple as, 'If I just knew the Bible better I could better understand God's will." Or, maybe yours is more mystical or more practical than either of the above. Nonetheless, there is a part about knowing and a part about doing.

My experience is this, those who are most in love with Jesus; those who crave Him most deeply and glorify Him most easily do not seem to have much of a problem with the whole issue of God's leading in their life. It just sort of flows.

Period.

The focus of our attention should be on the relationship that Jesus Christ came to earth to re-establish with us and that is, to get us back to a place where we realize and fully embrace God's love, acceptance and forgiveness and desire to provide direction for our lives so we can snuggle into a relationship with Him. The rest seems to just fall into place.

But, regardless, we must accept His instruction and apply it to our lives in order to see that He is in fact working in us and through us for His good pleasure and our fulfillment. It is then, and only then, that we can expect to cash in on the benefits of His leadership in our lives. My friend Chuck Swindoll would say, "application is the link between (God's) instruction and change (in our lives)."

I'm not sure that is what God is concerned about. Therein lies the rub. God doesn't lead us just so we do stuff. The end game for our lives isn't but it does include it.

Let's look at a realistic metaphor for this scenario and our most common way of interpreting what God requires of us.

Imagine that you work for a company whose president must travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad. So he says to you and the other team members, "Look, I'm going to be gone to Outer Mongolia. While I'm gone, I want you to pay close attention to the business. You manage things while I'm away. I will be in communication with you regularly. It most likely will be snail mail since I'm not sure that I'll always have Internet or that my cell phone will work there. But, when I do communicate, I will instruct you as best I can given your situation and give you what you should do from now until I return from this trip. The direction that I want you to take the company will be outlined in writing." Everyone agrees. He leaves and stays gone for a couple of years. During that time he writes often, calls when he can, and tries to find enough Internet signal to E-Mail if possible...the point is though he is communicating his desires and concerns and most of the time, as he had indicated it was by written communiqué primarily. The more personal messages seemed to be fewer and farther in between.

Finally he returns.

He walks up to the front door of the company to find everything is in disarray - weeds flourishing in the flower beds, windows busted out across the front of the building, the receptionist is dozing, loud music roaring from several offices, two or three people engaged in horseplay in the back room. Instead of making a profit, the business has suffered massive losses. Without hesitation he calls everyone together and with beet red face and a frown asks, "What the *#@^! happened here? Didn't you get my instruction?" You say, "Oh, yeah, sure chief. We got all your letters. We've even bound them in a book. And some of us have memorized them. In fact, we have 'letter study' every Sunday. You know, those were really great letters." I think the president would then ask, "But what did you do about my instructions?" And, no doubt, the employees would respond, "Do? Well, maybe not everything we should. The studies were helping us to determine what the correct interpretations should be. We didn't want to assume you meant what you said. But we read every one...a lot!"

In the very same way, God has sent us His instructions. But how do we use it? Did it provide you with an ability to understand general instruction (love, don't lie, cheat, steal, assist, care, show mercy, forgive, redemption story, how end times will occur, etc.)? Did you see the pattern of how you should be responding in life based on what you read? Was the written signals God has given you enough of a link for you to more deeply understand personally how you should act or, more importantly, when He is speaking to your spirit (heart, soul, mind, etc.) is the general messages and examples enough of a framework that you can discern His intimate communication to you?

God has preserved every word of much of His hearts desires and even provided great examples of how to live them out in a Book, the Bible. It's all there, just as He communicated it to us. When He returns for His own, He is not going to ask us how much we memorized or how often we met for study. No, He will want to know, "What did you do about my instructions; more succinctly, the ones I gave to you personally? Did any of your time in study of the Bible, did it link in to our specific times of discussion, meditation, and personal communication? Did you even listen during our one-on-one Skype calls? Were you even there? Did you even have any with me? Didn't you get that from the big black bound book; that I desire to speak directly into the lives of my children?"

One leads to the other. The Bible gives us hope. Not just the hope of salvation but the hope that God turns his attention and in earth time that attention is aimed directly to people who are very much like you and I. Just folks. Oh sure, a few Kings and prophets along the way got messages from Him. But our father spoke to white collar and blue collar working stiffs too. He spoke to children and to women and to people of ethnicity's very unique from one another. It is a message to you: I want to have your attention and time and I want to be your greatest lover and fan. Most important of all, He spoke personally to them.

Remember, it to rebuild the bridge and loving, personal communication and relationship... that is what Jesus came to do...to put you and Abba Father back together again. So, when you read the Bible what are you hearing in your heart? How is it changing, affecting and guiding your actions...your life?

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Mmmm...Melty Christians We Must Be!

2011-03-01T14:48:00.001-08:00

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. - Matthew 5:13-16

Chuck Swindoll, in his gorgeous work, "Come Before Winter" shares this story: During the reign of Oliver Cromwell, the British government began to run low on silver for coins. Lord Cromwell sent his men on an investigation of the local cathedral to see if they could find any precious metal there. After investigating, they reported:

The only silver we could find is the statues of the saints standing in the corners. To which the radical soldier and statesman of England replied:
Good! We'll melt down the saints and put them into circulation!

Not bad theology for a proper, strait-laced Lord Protector of the British Isles! In just a few words, Cromwell's command succinctly stated what, though obvious, was not at all expected ... the kernel ... the practical need, and God's full expectation of His expectation of authentic Christianity. God does not look for rows of silver saints, polished to a lustrous glow and that are frequently dusted and crammed into the corners of elegant cathedrals.

God has no use for plaster people cloaked in thin layers of untarnished silver and topped with a metallic halo. The essence of the move of the body of Christ through history has been a marching army. These saints circulating through the mainstream of humanity have had hard brassy hearts melted down. What we do or should or must and can is to bring value down where life happens, and, wherever it happens for mankind. The group Petra once sang, a lyric that must never be spoken of you and I, we must neither be nor cower behind, rose-colored stained glass windows. Our theology must live and breath and do and move and touch and care as the one for whom we owe our love and allegiance; as was His.

It's easy to kid ourselves. So easy. The Christian must guard against self-deception. We can begin to consider ourselves martyrs because we are in gatherings (never call it church) twice on Sunday - really sacrificing by investing a few hours on the "day of rest." Frankly kids, unlike my duped and doped "wilderness brethren", being among the saints is no sacrifice . . . it's a brief, choice privilege. And, yes, I know, but even the phony ones will, from time to time be caught up in the spirit and from them will emanate God's glory and wisdom.

No, the draining liabilities side of the Christian walk occurs on Monday through Friday ... and during the rest of the week where we are off and away from the safety and cocoon of the warmth of fellowship. That's when, as Cromwell said, we're "melted down and put into circulation." That's when the enemies of our peace and composure go for the jugular. And it is remarkable how that monotonous workweek test discolors many a silver saint. As Swindoll said, "Sunday religion" may seem sufficient, but that's far from the truth.

It's the acid grind that takes the toll. Maybe that explains why words of the venerable prophet touch a nerve:

“ If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,
Then how can you contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace,
In which you trusted, they wearied you,
Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan? - Jeremiah 12:5 NKJV

I know a part of what I do is rest in the finished work of Christ. That is positional for me. What I mean is, I confidently rest, in faith that everything that needed to be done for my eternal redemption was done. It's forever sealed. God's grace covered me, Jesus' love provided for me. The Spirit's continued keeping and His sealing of "John W, in Christ" is forever settled in the hallowed halls of heaven, God's Kingdom and eternity. But there are yet earthly battles to fight. There is an enemy who would attack. Doing battle in the steaming jungle of the daily grind calls for shock troops in super shape. No rhinestone cowboys can cut it among the swamps and insects of the gross world system. Sunday-Go-To-Meeting silver saints in shining armor are simply out of circulation if that's the limit to their faith. Waging wilderness warfare (sorry all you FBN'er s- there was a wilderness so wild way before you tried to call lack of fellowship on a regular basis your "wilderness" home) calls for sweat ... energy ... keen strategy (God's wisdom) ... determination (Confidence in Christ) ... a good supply of ammunition (Praise, Prayer, A lively Word) ... willingness to fight (Stand in faith and hope!) ... refusal to surrender, even with the crazies stomping on your lifeline.

And that is why we must be melted! It's all part of being "in circulation." Those who successfully wage war with silent heroism under relentless outside pressure (or phony religious internal pressure) - ah, they are the saints who know what it means to be melted by their King!

You can opt for an easier path. You can even dance through the pansies and pretend that "Jesus paid it all" means nothing else must ever occur. Or, Like Pastor Swindoll says, "Sure. You can keep your own record and come out smelling like a rose. A silver saint. Polished to a high-gloss sheen. Icily regular, cool and casual, consistently present ... and safely out of circulation. Another touch-me-not figurine ...Until the Lord calls for an investigation of the local cathedral, or backwoods meadows. Trust all who have had any effect at all on the world, He is more like Cromwell than you might think.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

When Darkness is Everywhere

2011-02-28T09:54:00.001-08:00

The LORD has His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet. - Nahum 1:3b

The current storms that have been blasting across the USA reminded me of a time when I traveled from Arizona to Missouri and half the trip was truly by faith since there was so little to see. The snowstorms they are having in Northern Arizona are one thing but when they have white-outs in areas across South-Central California you know there is a lot of mystified and confounded folk!

And, on her birthday today, a good friend and someone who makes my work easier was just informed that her husband has been put on "administrative leave."

No work.

What about the whirlwinds of disease, disaster, and death. What are we to think when the confusion of having a God who loves and cares but where His blessing seems to have dried up? What about the storms of interruptions, irritations, and ill-treatment? Well, if Nahum's words apply to the heavenly sphere or the place of God's control, they also apply to the earthly - to the heartrending contingencies of daily living which never seem to be timely.

Life is filled with God-appointed storms. I for one never like them. I prefer my personal theology which, though wrong, satisfies my desire for a worry and trouble-free life. My personal theology says, "God loves me and His wonderful plan for my life means it's smooth sailing from now on out!"

"But John! How do you know your theology isn't accurate? Maybe you just haven't discovered the secret formula to a life full of success, health and a deep-pocked bank account?" How about this: a sheet of paper ten times the size of this little blog would be insufficient to list the whirlwinds (Nahum's terminology) of our lives and, for some, would be a one-to-one match for those they have experienced.

But two things should comfort us in the midst of daily darkness; the white-out blinding inability to see every detail of the future clearly. First, we all experience them. Second, we all need them. God has no method more effective to not only get our attention and adjust and change our lives; He also has found it fully effective for us to be able to embrace, love, comfort and care for others and, yes, occasionally provide them with answers and solutions they cannot themselves see. The lack of detail and sight to what's next as well as the massive blows and shattering blasts (not to mention the small, constant irritations) smooth us and humble us and force us to submit to the role He has chosen for us at the moment.

William Cowper, the 18th century poet and hymnodist could take the stand in defense of all I have written. He passed through a period of great crisis in his life. Finally one bleak morning he tried to put an end to it all by taking poison. The attempt at suicide failed. He couldn't even successfully kill himself. He then hired a coach and was driven to the Thames River, intending to throw himself from the bridge but was "strangely restrained." The next morning he fell upon a sharp knife but the blade broke! He later tried to hang himself but was found and taken down unconscious . . . still alive. Some time later he took up a Bible, began to read the Book of Romans, and was gloriously changed forever. Jesus became His treasure. The God of the storms had pursued him unto the end and won his heart.

After a rich life of Christian experiences, Cowper sat down and recorded his summary of the Lord's dealings in the familiar words: "God moves in a mysterious way / His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, / and rides upon the storm."

Before the dust settles, why not ask God to have His way in today's whirlwind and storm? I just reminded myself to be a blessing and comfort to a friend today...tomorrow he will have to do similarly with me.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Exceeding Expectations? Are There Any?

2011-02-23T08:39:00.001-08:00

She said to the king, 'The report I heard in my own country about your achievements and your wisdom is true. But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told me; in wisdom and wealth you have far exceeded the report I heard - 1 Kings 10:6-8

"I'm shocked," said the woman on the phone. "I've just seen your picture. I was expecting a grey haired old man. You are too young to have the wisdom that I read in your messages. And, now, talking to you, I am so impressed!"

That was a few years ago. Today she would just not and look at the white hair and hopefully give experience the credit it is due...

Of course, my point is this, when people meet you, or experience your work life skills, would they say that you far exceeded their expectations? Do you undersell and over produce, or oversell and under produce? Solomon's wisdom far exceeded any man's wisdom and it was evident to others. When people come in contact with you do they come away with a sense of greater appreciation of you after meeting you? I met with a couple last night who were relieved at my level of knowledge and insight into my industry. Is that you?

"Do you see a man skilled in his work? He will serve before kings; he will not serve before obscure men - Proverbs 22:29. Whenever we exceed the expectations of man, we bring glory to our Heavenly Father and He often elevates us among men. You might read a lot of things beyond this into your theology but the thought is straight-forward.

Bezalel was a man who designed the ark of the covenant for Moses. God handpicked him to design it because of his exceptional skill. GASP! God chose him because he was something...Bezalel was actually the most exceptional in his craft and it was this talent that God used.

Then Moses said to the Israelites, "See, the LORD has chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts - to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood and to engage in all kinds of artistic craftsmanship. And he has given both him and Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, the ability to teach others" (Ex 35:30-35).

We live in a time and amongst a people of God where, at some level, and with some who have a voice into the larger world stage, there is a push to fully divorce who we are and what we do and/or how well we do it from whether we are acceptable for use by God. Of course, there is another line of thinking, a branch of this if you will, that simply says, "Just be the person you are, God loves you there; accept who you are and it will all be fine because God accepts and loves you where you are!" And, while God loves and realizes who we are, that has always been true! Prior to our coming to Jesus Christ, and our acceptance and embrace of Him as our Lord, Savior, King and Great Treasure, God loved you and realized who you were. It was not however okay with Him and you were not in fact "accepted".

God isn't in the business of leaving us where we are. While God loves us where we are He in fact loves us so much He will never us there and it is His sovereignty that brings into our lives in order to polish the diamond that is our life If there was a Kingdom project to be done would God recommend you for the job? God calls you and I to live our lives and do our work with excellence. He expects our cooperation. He also anticipates we desire, because of our love and realization of who He is, that we will wish to hone and embrace more of our relationship with Him.

Paul once wrote to a people who had come to Jesus Christ these words, We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth; as you also learned from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, who also declared to us your love in the Spirit.
- Colossians 1:4-8

Jesus brings forth love to the Father. That brings forth a desire to show forth that love to Him and that leads to others seeing the love, the life, and the quality of what it means to be "in Him". Regardless of the voices that cry "just be free!" Freedom means something to those who love not just the freedom but the one who provides it to us moment by moment and day by day!

I remain...
InHISgrip,
~J~

Can I Even Wrap My Mind Around It?

2011-02-09T07:53:00.001-08:00

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. - Job 42:3b

Today, in my Bible reading I came upon old Job. You remember Job. He was the guy to whom it must have seemed that God was really ticked at him. He was of a time that seems great superstition and personal interaction (albeit quiet) between God and man occurred. If I understand my historical sociology correctly (Boy! That class goes back a few years.) mankind would judge God's love and acceptance of them (or "the gods") by virtue of how their lives were going. If they were farmers, and there was no rain in the growing season then God was not happy with them. If they were cattlemen and their animals got some animal disease live the mange or scurvy or something then clearly they were out of favor and they better repent and start doing good things.

Of course when their "luck" changed then God's wrath had been satisfied.

Job seemed unique though. Nonetheless, during the time of the story that we have about him if there was any one man on earth who had reason to question God's love, it was Job. He lost it all... his family, his health, and his wealth-all at the same time. His friends came to his side only to question his spirituality. God had already answered the question of his integrity. Job was described in the opening verses of the book as "blameless and upright" (see Job 1:1). This makes the story that much more confusing. You see, Job's calamities weren't born from sin. Job's theology was spot on and in line (if only he had known) with the rest of the Bible (Uh, Job wouldn't have known about a Bible) But Job acknowledged God's right to do or allow anything in his life. But Job, like you and I, had a breaking point. And one day he could take it no longer. He questioned God's motives.

*GASP*

God smote him and that's the end of the story!

er...

No....

God answered Job, but not in the way he wanted to hear. God answered him with a series of questions that represents the most incredible discourse of correction by God to any human being.

Three chapters later...

Job realized that he had questioned the motives of the Author of the universe, the Author of love..the intimate and personal God. Job responded appropriately however as he fell flat before his Creator and realized his total depravity. Now, I use the word depravity here purposely. Job recognized that without God's insight he would not only judge and question others (He had questioned his friends while in deep sorrow and pain. That can't be a good place to see things clearly and certainly not a good place to see God's point of view easily.) Depravity, for my purposes here is simply thinking, and acting out of one's own viewpoint apart from God and without His blessing and agreement.

When Job spoke these words, "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know." He was acknowledging more than just God has more information than he did. Job was recognizing that God, in the midst of our suffering and pain and sorrow is somehow showing a level of love, care, concern, and desire for us that provides to us insight and growth into who we are and how we also are, "in His image." Later Jesus would come on the scene and this lesson would become more apparent as a Father gave His Son on behalf of everyone for all time a lesson in the use of earthly pain and suffering that takes us beyond the veil of our existence and into eternity.

Have you ever questioned God's activity in your life? Have you questioned His love for you based on circumstances that came your way? The cross at Calvary answers the love question. He sent His own Son in replacement for your sin. You don't have to like God's methodology but you do have to embrace it's reality to make it pay off for you. And, embracing it will mean you are grateful to the Son for having been willing to do it just for you.

If you were the only person on earth, He would have "done Calvary." His ways cannot always be understood or reconciled in our finite minds. The explanation, as in the case of Job, might come directly after the catastrophic events. They may be left for a future time when all will be understood. For now, entrust your life to Him completely. Embrace Him in the hard times and the good.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Does God Have Motives?

2011-02-08T12:30:00.001-08:00

He brought me out into a spacious place; He rescued me because He delighted in me. - 2 Samuel 22:20

I have the opportunity to hang around nonbelievers all the time. I love it. I also choose to hang around believers online that quite often disagree with me deeply. Often, when I engage this group the reason I do so is called into question. At first I became righteously indignant. Well, I did until it had nothing at all to do with righteousness and more about my just wanting to be right. I work on it daily now and attempt to do what Paul encouraged us to do...I believe the admonition to "try the spirits" and to "check our motives" whether they be of God can be viewed as two sides of the same coin.

Questioning someone's motives for their activities can become an overriding response to those with whom we interact. Wrong motives can result in broken relationships, poor business decisions, patterns that lead to alienating ourselves from others but also from right thinking and good judgement. Often, when we practice junior psychology on others we skim the surface of their intentions. Often they don't fully understand why they do what they do. I am of the sincere and biblical opinion that most often, without the guidance and illumination of the Holy Spirit to our spirits do not know the motive of another person. It is wrong for us to assume what their motive is until we have confidence that we know their intentions. When we respond or react prematurely, we become judge and jury over them. We were never given either office.

God has a motive for every one of His children. His desire is to bring us, as the opening verse states, into a spacious place. He wants us to go beyond our borders of safety and security so that we might experience life at a level that goes beyond ourselves, and our narrow perceptions. What do you think of when you think of a "spacious place"? No limitations? A large, grassy field? Open air? Perhaps the evening sky? These are positive images. They can be quiet, serene, and massive!

Sometimes these spacious places, simply by their size and the spark of creativity that the Holy Spirit lights up, encourage us to step out in faith into areas where we've never ventured.

Sometimes we need to be rescued by the Lord...

When Peter walked on the water, God was inviting him to a spacious place. He went beyond the borders of his boat and ventured into a whole new world. He didn't have complete success in his venturing out, but it was a process that would lead him to the next victory in his faith walk with Jesus. Stepping out leads to criticism. Stepping out will also lead to blunders for both those watching and those attempting it. Sometimes failure is what is needed in order to move us to the next level of faith with God and just as likely, when we are struggling with our faith we move out into the great unknown without great direction. What I am learning is for some they must be willing to fail and let God rescue them. Doing "something", "anything" is better than the place they were at.

I have concluded that the Lord delights in the process of His kids going forth into spacious places, into big projects and growing. He also embraces and I am sure, as only God can delights when we learn the lessons of "great going" with "great listening" to His voice. But in this God has a motive for each of us. Generally speaking His motive for His children is always loving. And, as I watch others grow and go one thing becomes evident on that subject: In the going He is always desiring to bring us to a new level of trust and dependence on Him so we become more deeply involved and intimate with Him!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Seeing Inside a Heart

2011-02-04T08:17:00.001-08:00

"...looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." - Hebrews 12:2

Almost every week I come into contact with people who have been misled, thinking that success combines the earthly gifts upon our Rolodex, talent and/brilliance and education.

But the list doesn't end there. For some it's getting the breaks, pulling the right strings, having the right personality, being in the right place at the right time, and again, knowing the right people, playing their cards right.

You see, it is our natural tendency to focus on the external, to be overly impressed with the trappings of this world.

But, just between you and I, wouldn't it be wonderful to develop the ability to look at a heart? Wouldn't it be wonderful to have perfect spiritual vision and insight into our own heart? Wouldn't it be awesome to be able to understand as you look on a group meeting at your work to know what was going on in the hearts of the participants? Wouldn't it be great to be free of the limitations of strictly physical sight so that we could read hidden character traits; to be able to look on what truly matters?

Frankly, I think those who are physically blind, the light of day is something they have perhaps never seen, often seem to see more than those of us who are sighted. They often perceive much more than we can in the tone of a voice or in the sound of approaching footsteps or in the grip of a handshake. But we who have sight usually lack this insightful depth perception; the ability to detect the deeper things, the unspoken, the character, the hidden condition of the unspoken. And although God is able (and willing) to give us this ability, it isn't something we're born with. I'd like to make three significant observations.

First: Age has little to do with achievement and nothing to do with commitment. Trusting in the Lord and not leaning on our own perception and getting what we desire because we align with God's plans and direction happens from the child to the grandfather.

Second: A godly walk is basic to a positive life. There truly are no limits to the powerful effect a man or woman can have if it is a life that walks uprightly in Christ Jesus. What is an upright walk? One that gets up each morning and just loves on Jesus, speaks it, sings it, plays the recording of their life and where God touched it...it is those who have lives of power.

Third: Convictions are a matter of choice, not force.Your convictions don't show in what you are guilty about or for or what you have done...No. Guilt is the result of NOT being fully convinced of how you are to act and fighting over it in your mind. Those things you are fully convinced of will be the leading elements of life in you and through you.

We must keep on continually pursuing - seeking to see life from the heart. You see, my prayer is this, that you pray to have a heart that is exposed to the world, that I have the eyes of my understanding enlightened that you and I can see what Jesus see's when He looks on you and He looks on me and...and when He looks on those whom we come in contact with every day:

Lord! Help us to lead rightly, from your perspective, from your wisdom...help us to see what you see when you look on the hearts of men and women and then touch them as you would have us do. I remain...'

InYOURGripO'Lord,
~J~

The God of Cool, Calm and Collected - Sans the Secret or Degree or AXE!

2011-01-25T08:39:00.001-08:00

Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king’s palace, across from the king’s house, while the king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, facing the entrance of the house So it was, when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, that she found favor in his sight, and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. Then Esther went near and touched the top of the scepter. And the king said to her, “What do you wish, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given to you—up to half the kingdom!” - Esther 5:1-3

When I read through the O.T. and I am surrounded in a story of physical, earthly might and power, it is normally standing "small" against a rather large and unintimidated God! He never freaked out in front of any King, or his armies.

Ladies, He can handle your husband. And, men, I know this might be even harder to grasp but He can handle your wife. Kids? Inlaws? Neighbors with bad manners and hygiene? Noe of those things muss or fuss our God. Pastors, he can handle the church council. And congregants (whatever those are) he can handle your church headship (whatever that is).

He can handle the person who gives you grief. He can handle your Ex. that

He can even handle your enemy. (By the by...what have you done lately to reduce the number of those you might call "enemy?")

What's my point in all of this? It is this, Your Father who hung the heavens, He can handle the most intimidating situation, because in the hand of the Lord, any heart is like water; not so tough and not to very hard.

In the above verses you can see that Esther walked in this kind of confidence in her relationship to God and in fact, though she was the visible marker (the one facing the King) it was her God who provided the answers and the power. Read those verse! Just look at this young girl! She doesn't cringe and cower; she doesn't stumble on her words...she stands like a mighty oak. Esther stood in front of the king's rooms. "The king saw Esther the queen standing"(Note my emphasis)) No shaking in her boots or biting her nails (to those of you who know me, that's a personal rub on yours truly). Though she's doing what's never been done before, a woman of no earthly importance standing in a place where she should NOT be, she is standing tall, confident in the Lord.

And when the king saw her standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight, and he extended his golden scepter to her. This is the gesture. Without it she would die. And now, confident, she touches the top of the scepter, making a connection with the king. "Then the king said to her, 'What is troubling you, Queen Esther? And what is your request? Even to half of the kingdom it shall be given to you' " (Esther 5:3).

I love that! Esther doesn't know what to expect, and the king says simply, "What's on your mind? Whatcha got going on?" In fact, he goes further. He says, "What can I do for you? Name it. There's no limit; it's yours."

If you had been reading the whole story you would know that she had an enemy. His name is Haman. Haman wanted not only Esther gone but the total annihilation of all the Jews. And, now, here it is! This is her moment to cut the neck of Haman - -but she doesn't. Not now. This is a truly wise (as in God's thoughts and God's timing) woman. And, Esther understands the value of timing. No need to sweat it. And, probably an even strong lesson for you and I, no need to be vengeful. You know why she can show such spiritual poise, grace and maturity? Esther had been waiting on the Lord.

Yesterday was not a better day for me and the concept of waiting on the Lord.I freaked. I got in my own way and in the way of God's timing. Do you ever do that? Do you ever get in a hurry, become impatient with things, people activities? We all jump ahead and do rash things. We shoot from the hip. We run off at the mouth, saying things that we later regret. In my case it gave me the opportunity to make my wife a wonderful breakfast this morning. But when we have sufficiently waited on the Lord, He gets full control of our spirit and at those moments, we're like a glove, and His hand is moving us wherever He pleases. Having known that experience, I can testify, there's nothing to compare it to. It's marvelous!

So my exhortation to you this day is simple: Wait on the Lord-You will have renewed strength-You will mount up life an eagle...run, not be weary...walk (or rollerblade) and and not faint...and I...remain

InHISgrip,
~J~

Are You a Domestic Bird?

2011-01-14T08:09:00.001-08:00

But we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
- Hebrews 6:11,12

The people of God, and most all of their forms of gathering, are running shy of eagles, and we're running over with parrots. Content to sit safely on our evangelical perches and repeat in rapid-fire falsetto our religious words, we are fast becoming overpopulated with bright-colored birds having soft bellies, big beaks, and little heads. - Chuck Swindoll

Chuck Swindoll penned those words more than a decade ago. Many positives have hit the church and many a wake up call has slammed into it's walls through the intervening years. But still the fact is that as a people we're still soft!

What would help to balance things out would be a lot more keen-eyed, wide-winged creatures willing to soar out and up, exploring the illimitable ranges of the kingdom of God . . . willing to return with a brief report on their findings before they leave the nest again for another fascinating adventure. We need soaring, adventurous, fast-moving, fast-thinking, quick-witted, single-minded and determined EAGLES!

To Chuck's point it should be obvious (in keeping with the analogy and hoping that the metaphor police don't come and get me!) parrot people are much different than eagle thinkers. They become accustomed to the familiarity of the cage. If you have ever owned a parrot (I grew up with one in my house) they are incessantly picking over the same pan full of seeds. Boring and meaningless repetition such as listening to the same words until they are burned into their lil' parrot heads and can be repeated out of their oversized, giant parrot beaks provides them satisfaction and more comfort; even YEARS later!

They like complacent and similar company too. Since they are colorful and easily, at least outwardly, the "brightest" creature in the room they crave lots of attention. Provide them with a scratch here, and a snuggle there, and they'll stay for years right on the same perch and right in that same cage.

In captivity I bet you can't remember the last time you saw one fly. I can. And, when Polly's clipped wings grew out (who knew they grew out or could?)Polly flew around the room and right back to the perch. End of story.I think what Polly realized was that she did something different and, oh my gosh, different is, well, scary! Parrots like the predictable, the secure, the strokes they get from their mutual admiration society.

Not so with eagles nor with eagle believers. There's not a predictable pinion in their wings! They think. They love to think. They are driven with this inner urge to search, to discover, to hunt, to learn. And that means they're courageous, tough-minded, willing to ask the hard questions as they bypass the routine in vigorous pursuit of the truth. The whole truth. "The deep things of God" - fresh from the Himalayan heights, where the thin air makes thoughts pure and clear - rather than the tired, worn distillations of humanity. And unlike the intellectually impoverished or at least unchallenged parrot, eagles take risks getting their food because they hate anything that comes from a small dish of picked-over seeds...it's boring, dull, repetitious, and dry.

Although rare, eagles are not completely extinct in the historic skies of the church. Thomas Aquinas was one, as were Augustine, Justin Martyr, Luther, Wesley and Bunyan, Wycliffe and Huss. So were G. K. Chesterton, R. A. Torrey, Spurgeon, Moody, C. S. Lewis, Charles, Finney, John Gill, Robert Dick Wilson, J. Gresham Machen, W. R. Nicoll, and A. W. Tozer.

Many of the reformers qualify, as do Jonathan Edwards, John Newton, George Whitefield, and a long line of nonconformists - original thinkers whose lives were interwoven through the treasured tapestry of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.

And in our day? We could name some...but they are increasingly rarer, as the "Entertain Me" philosophy of the public outshouts those who plead, "Make me think!"

Have you fallen prey to a similar mind-set? Do you find yourself contentedly sitting on your perch (i.e. church pew), pecking at dry morsels (i.e. some pastoral lesson or some popular book) rather than longing for the skies? Get off the perch. A great way to worship and glorify and honor God is to step out, step up and attempt great exploits in His name!

Think about it. I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

I'm On The Happy Side of Life!

2011-01-07T09:48:00.001-08:00

Solomon left us many statements about the value of joy in the book of Proverbs. A joyful heart is good medicine, / But a broken spirit dries up the bones - Proverbs 17:22 and A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, / But when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken Proverbs 15:13 and again a cheerful heart has a continual feast - Proverbs 15:15

Today we find ourselves as a worldwide community re-broiled (that can't be good for the meat can it?) in the same 'ol battle relating to the qualifying tenants of the Christian faith.

I'll bring it down to the vernacular: How can you know someone is really a Christian?

The question has no singular answer.

Oh, sure, you can point to things in the Bible that it says about knowing people are Christians but then you realize it says more than one thing. Does it then mean if you have one of those and not another that you are or that you aren't? Love (I John 2:3-11) is the greatest litmus test of our faith (or so it seems today) but if we are not agreeing on what that love is we are not agreeing on it as the final authority. James provides practical advice on whether our faith is authentic (James 1:27). There are objective tests (2 Peter) and subjectives tests to prove faith (2 Corinthians 1:12; 1 John 5:10). There are doctrinal tests (I John 4:2 and 5:1) and moral tests even (1 John 2:3). And, I didn't even get started...(Aren't ya glad I quit?)

The one thing you can know is that someone has had a Christ encounter when they have the testimony of a changed life that takes the form a bright and buoyant spirit. Jesus talked about childlike faith. Most of us take that to mean simple. However, a winsome spirit that is engaging and attractive as the Proverbs above describe is as much or perhaps more of a determiner as anything.

The joy that oozes from that kind of person, the one whose life has been changed by the work of God, well, it's simply contagious. Christians talk a lot about love and faith and hope, but we often fail to emphasize the value of joy, of winsome, wholesome, engaging, bright and exuberant joy! I find it odd that we can't or often don't see great joy is the spirit of a man putting things of this earth in their right ordered and godly place. This is even more evident when we remember back to the fact that joy appears next to the top of the list in the fruit of the Spirit. Remember? But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control -Galatians 5:22-23

I admit that my spirit affirms that should God hand out trophies to those who bear the right fruit, those who demonstrate love on a regular basis would win the the biggest and largest . . . but also as the greatest evangelical force, those who model joy would be right there with them; perhaps not the top honors but a clear, strong second for sure.

Laughter, light heartedness, the ability to see the great wonder and joy all around us are some of the most pleasing things we can experience on the planet and I am convinced that God loves it!

As someone once said, "Joy is the flag flying high above the castle of the heart, announcing that the King is in residence there." (Read that again.)

So, let's lighten up. Let's allow ourselves to rest and relax more often during spontaneous segments of each day. We should gives ourselves permission to fill those times with a little fun. Let's stop suppressing our laughter. Let's remind ourselves that a healthy and well-exercised sense of humor is as much a mark of spirituality as being faithful in prayer and being committed to the truths of Scripture.

You want people to see your Father in heaven? Your heart needs to rest in Him. If it is then you will realize that all that is here and now is but a blip. He has the whole world in His hands and He has YOU! Oh man! Beyond cool...beyond neat...beyond awesome...it rocks baby! No separation from the love of my daddy Father GOD! EEEeeeeeeeOooooooWWWwwwwwww!

So get out your joy flag 'cuz it's time to unwrap that flag, raise it to the top of the mast, and fly it high! I remain...

InHISEmbrace!
~J~

When Your Mentors Speak Pay Attention!

2011-01-07T09:16:00.001-08:00

The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized that Samuel was attested as a prophet of the LORD - 1 Sam 3:19-20

As a boy growing up there was a lot of things that were cool about my neighborhood. First, you could always step outside and find someone out there who could play. Secondly, we played sports year around. We could always gather enough guys to play baseball in the Summer. hockey, Football, in the winter and basketball in Spring and Fall. But, in our neighborhood baseball was king. It just played out that way. We did them all but loved baseball. Baseball was my sport. I grew to be good at it. And, as good a player as I was I found I was even a better baseball strategist and historian. This is not pride on my part, but merely a fact.

For all of my talent in and around baseball and for all my desire to have a life in and around baseball it never has been that way. God has directed my life into business and showed me an interesting mix of how that life, along with family and social life works as ministry. The way I view life, the culmination of all of my life experiences have combined to create the calling I am living out today. Those of you who know me know I center my life as a mentor, pastor and teacher of others. I, and sometimes poorly, pastor a small group, I mentor the men, I consult and work in the franchise industry to help people understand small business and, from time to time also work with the franchises themselves.

Similarly as we mature in life, God uses our parents, teachers, uncles, coaches, mentors and forms of spiritual leadership (pastors, missionaries, evangelists, Christian authors, etc.) to affirm our gifts and callings. I found, especially when I was young that it often seems like these people are attempting to steer our lives. Something shiny, noisy and bright has caught our attention and they are trying to keep us on some other, familiar and maybe more tried and true (i.e. boring) path. But it appears not what we want to do but what they want us to do. However, God uses authority figures to provide key direction during key times (the early teen and twenty-something years). He uses these people to help guide us to the ultimate purposes He has for our lives.

When we are young, we're often more impressionable than at any other time in our lives. The young person who can allow wisdom to rule over immaturity and impatience is a rare individual. However, if you are able to receive from the people God puts in your life at this stage, you will be so far ahead of your peers and you will be amazed.

Having said that, as if I was speaking to teenagers who I would hope read this, I also believe it true of anyone at any phase or age in their life. Having the ability to commit to a strength, a power, a vision, a singular focus and to embrace wisdom from those who guard over your life is a massive step to a successful life.

"God is continually preparing His heroes, and when the opportunity is right, He puts them into position in an instant. He works so fast, the world wonders where they came from," said A. B. Simpson. Often however what seems like an instant has been less obtrusive and/or obvious preparation. We would laugh if a shepherd boy thought himself prepared to be a warrior because he had a couple of encounters with danger a la David.

Quiet your spirit. Take more deep breaths. Consider deeply the words of the successful. Let God do the foundation work so that he can advance you to His ultimate purposes He has prepared for your earthly walk. I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

What Is the Breadth and Width Of Your Life's Calling?

2011-01-06T16:25:00.001-08:00

If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. - 2 Corinthians 1:6

"God must love you a lot! He doesn't allow someone to go through the kinds of adversity you have experienced unless He has a special calling on your life." Those words were said to me by two different pastors at two different times when I had gone through a place that was a desert place in my life. If you have walked in the Christian life and have had struggles with work, relationships, family, friends or perhaps what it is God wants to do with you I bet you have heard them or some form of them also. Later I would learn another related truth from a respected man of God - a man who lives in another country, a man whom God uses throughout the globe. This man would say, "The depth and width of your faith experiences are directly proportional to your calling." What were these men of God saying? What were they getting at?

They were describing a process of preparation that God takes each of His leaders through when He plans to use them in significant ways. In Full Gospel circles a "faith experience" is an event or "spiritual marker" in your life about which you can say, "That is where I saw God personally moving in my life." It was usually preceded by a place in your life where you either thought or said, "God! Why is it that I cannot figure out what you want to do with me or why you are putting me through this?"

The time I speak of though is an unmistakable event in which God reveals Himself personally and in a very intimate manner to you. It was the burning bush for Moses; the crossing of the Red Sea or the Jordan River for the nation of Israel; Jacob's encounter with the angel with whom he wrestled and sustained a life changing injury. You get the drift. It was the feeding of the 5,000 for the disciples. It was Thomas putting his hands in the wounds of Jesus Christ and it was Paul blinded on a dusty road in the Roman Empire. It was the time when you saw God, and His reality for you might as well have been face to face.

If God has plans of using you in the lives of many others, and you need to know if you are reading this I can nearly guarantee it, you can expect that He is going to allow certain faith experiences to come into your life in order to build a foundation that will be solid. That foundation is what you will be able to look back on to keep you faithful to Him in the times of testing. You will hold on when Satan attacks viciously. Each of us must have personal faith experiences in which we experience God personally so that we can move in faith to whatever He may call us either into to to do to further the Kingdom of God and rightly honor and worship Him. Do you need a personal faith experience right now in your life? Be careful what you ask for but pray that God will reveal Himself to you. He may not do it in some manner you might otherwise think conventional but He delights in doing just that.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

But God! You Promised...

2010-12-22T11:33:00.001-08:00

Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt; each man and his household came with Jacob: Reuben, Simenon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. All those who were descendants[a] of Jacob were seventy persons (for Joseph was in Egypt already). And Joseph died, all his brothers, and all that generation. But the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly, multiplied and grew exceedingly mighty; and the land was filled with them. Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.” Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel. So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. 14 And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage—in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor. Then the king of Egypt spoke to the Hebrew midwives, of whom the name of one was Shiphrah and the name of the other Puah; and he said, “When you do the duties of a midwife for the Hebrew women, and see them on the birth-stools, if it is a son, then you shall kill him; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live.” But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive. So the king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this thing, and saved the male children alive?” And the midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are lively and give birth before the midwives come to them.”
Therefore God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied and grew very mighty. And so it was, because the midwives feared God, that He provided households for them. So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, “Every son who is born[c] you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.” - Exodus 1:1-22

After reading my devotional scripture this morning I had to ask myself a question or two. First, in the past, how far have I gone to argue what I learned was not at all the right answer or position? Second, at this stage in my walk with Jesus, how much of my pride am I willing to give up when I know God wants me to stop what I am doing and go in a different direction?

In the scripture reading above the Egyptians' insecurity and abhorrence for their Jewish neighbors eventually led to savagery. They actually were more humane toward their immigrant guests decades earlier (the Jews) than they were to them toward the end of their time in Egypt where they truly had become captives of their hosts.

I find that interesting for a number of reasons. First, apparently we do not learn from history. Nor, has humanity become more of anything more sophisticated or more civil. Also, it strikes me that if you are prone to arguments, violent anger and brutality, God's wisdom would dictate for you to regroup mentally and spiritually and ask yourself what kind of fear has gripped you? Throughout my 58 years, I have with a fallen heart seen just how brutal people can be and how often they are driven by various fears and insecurities. Fear of loss. Fear of humiliation. Fear of exposure. Fear of weakness. Fear of losing control. How many other forms of fear can you name?

The Egyptians wallowed in these kinds of fears. Fear of losing their land or power over their possessions drove them to ever increasing acts of injustice and brutality. What's the point? How about this: once you've decided to ridicule, alienate, (starve or beat) or mistreat one person, it becomes increasingly easier to persecute others and, as in the case of the nation of Egypt you eventually dehumanize a whole population. As you follow this story what you eventually see is this, The Egyptians compelled the sons of Israel to labor rigorously; and they made their lives bitter with hard labor in mortar and bricks and at all kinds of labor in the field, all their labors which they rigorously imposed on them. - verses 13, 14.

The Hebrews (Jews) found themselves in terrible straits, but God had promised, "I'll send a deliverer." When times grow hard it is easy to leap to the conclusion that God has forgotten His promises. Somehow we have to see past the kinds of experiences we are having and fully and consistently be in touch with The Father through the indwelling Holy Spirit to understand what our experience means. That was something the Jews had lost site of. It's easy to do. The new movements amongst Christians (free believers, Jacobsenites, Emergents, etc.) often question the validity of constant biblical contact. They view daily reading and devotions as a sort of duty that only the guilty and misinformed amongst believers continue to practice. But I often forget things about my walk in Christ. In this case. the Book of Exodus illustrates to us that when God says, "I promise you something," He never forgets it but that He does have a way and a timing that, unless you are sensitive to Him, His work in and amongst you and His people you associate with that You may forget. I often forget. A whole nation here is shown to have forgotten. But God cannot forget nor fail.

So let's put the shoe on the other foot. I am being persecuted. Do you ever imagine that your hard, harsh moments and tests escape God's notice? You may become so discouraged, so filled with acute pain, that you begin to think God couldn't be aware of your circumstances, or, if He is aware, then obviously He doesn't care. If you had an earthly father, aware of your pain, would He keep you in the dark as to his position on your predicament? No, nor does ours. However, if your earthly father was not kept in the loop about it how could he respond? It is similar to God. Though He knows what is going on He consistently desires we invite Him to the party (or persecution) which is our life. He asks that we seek Him, His face, His thoughts, His leadership and that is a very personal and intimate thing.

God is always aware. And He cares very deeply. He practices the means to redeem those in His family. It may be by calling someone home to Himself, or it may be by splitting an ocean right down the middle so you can walk through on dry ground. His deliverance may not arrive on your timetable or in the manner you expect it, but it will arrive at the best time, the right time. God will not abandon His own. Today, make a commitment to self and Him that you will invite Him in daily and practice His presence in your life. There is truly no need to go through the valley alone. He is there!

And in this season of both joy and sorrow; of relationships and loneliness I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

A Proper Legalez'd Version of The Night Before Christmas

2010-12-20T10:06:00.001-08:00

THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS in Legalese

Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter "the House") a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to a mouse.

A variety of foot apparel, e.g., stocking, socks, etc., had been affixed by and around the chimney in said House in the hope and/or belief that St. Nick a/k/a/ St. Nicholas a/k/a/ Santa Claus (hereinafter "Claus") would arrive at sometime thereafter. The minor residents, i.e. the children, of the aforementioned House were located in their individual beds and were engaged in nocturnal hallucinations, i.e. dreams, wherein vision of confectionery treats, including, but not limited to, candies, nuts and/or sugar plums, did dance, cavort and otherwise appear in said dreams.

Whereupon the party of the first part (sometimes hereinafter referred to as ("I"), being the joint-owner in fee simple of the House with the party of the second part (hereinafter "Mamma"), and said Mamma had retired for a sustained period of sleep. (At such time, the parties were clad in various forms of headgear, e.g., kerchief and cap.

Suddenly, and without prior notice or warning, there did occur upon the unimproved real property adjacent and appurtenant to said House, i.e., the lawn, a certain disruption of unknown nature, cause and/or circumstance. The party of the first part did immediately rush to a window in the House to investigate the cause of such disturbance.

At that time, the party of the first part did observe, with some degree of wonder and/or disbelief, a miniature sleigh (hereinafter "the Vehicle") being pulled and/or drawn very rapidly through the air by approximately eight (8) reindeer. The driver of the Vehicle appeared to be and in fact was, the previously referenced Claus.

Said Claus was providing specific direction, instruction and guidance to the approximately eight (8) reindeer and specifically identified the animal co-conspirators by name: Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen (hereinafter "the Deer"). (Upon information and belief, it is further asserted that an additional co- conspirator named "Rudolph" may have been involved.)

The party of the first part witnessed Claus, the Vehicle and the Deer intentionally and willfully trespass upon the roofs of several residences located adjacent to and in the vicinity of the House, and noted that the Vehicle was heavily laden with packages, toys and other items of unknown origin or nature. Suddenly, without prior invitation or permission, either express or implied, the Vehicle arrived at the House, and Claus entered said House via the chimney.

Said Claus was clad in a red fur suit, which was partially covered with residue from the chimney, and he carried a large sack containing a portion of the aforementioned packages, toys, and other unknown items. He was smoking what appeared to be tobacco in a small pipe in blatant violation of local ordinances and health regulations.

Claus did not speak, but immediately began to fill the stocking of the minor children, which hung adjacent to the chimney, with toys and other small gifts. (Said items did not, however, constitute "gifts" to said minor pursuant to the applicable provisions of the U.S. Tax Code.)

Upon completion of such task, Claus touched the side of his nose and flew, rose and/or ascended up the chimney of the House to the roof where the Vehicle and Deer waited and/or served as "lookouts." Claus immediately departed for an unknown destination.

However, prior to the departure of the Vehicle, Deer and Claus from said House, the party of the first part did hear Claus state and/or exclaim: "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!" Or words to that effect.

(Author Unknown)...

Is Christmas Discouraging for You? Time to Attack the Blues!

2010-12-17T06:36:00.001-08:00

Psalm 5 - To the Chief Musician. With nehiloth. A Psalm of David.

1 Give ear to my words, O LORD,
Consider my meditation.

2 Give heed to the voice of my cry,
My King and my God,
For unto You I will pray.

3 My voice You shall hear in the morning, O LORD;
In the morning I will direct it to You,
And I will look up.

4 For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness,
Nor shall evil dwell with You.

5 The boastful shall not stand in Your sight;
You hate all workers of iniquity.

6 You shall destroy those who speak falsehood;
The LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.

7 But as for me, I will come into Your house in the multitude of Your mercy;
In fear of You I will worship toward Your holy temple.

8 Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness because of my enemies;
Make Your way straight before my face.

9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth;
Their inward part is destruction;
Their throat is an open tomb;
They flatter with their tongue.

10 Pronounce them guilty, O God!
Let them fall by their own counsels;
Cast them out in the multitude of their transgressions,
For they have rebelled against You.

11 But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You;
Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them;
Let those also who love Your name
Be joyful in You

12 For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous;
With favor You will surround him as with a shield.

I love this Psalm. I even made a song out of it's first 3 verses once. The entirety of Psalms, our most ancient hymnal, contains some of the most moving and meaningful expressions of the human heart that have ever been penned.

I had lunch with a songwriter friend yesterday. I was reminded as we sat there that music, songs, are often born out of current, emotionally charged circumstances that so affect the thinking of the writer/composer, that they can't help but break out melody, rhyme and verse. Jazz, blues, gospel spirituals and even the romantics songs all are examples of this. The same should be said of gospel songs and sacred hymns; their historical settings often explaining the full measure and depth of their message.

Psalm 5 is like that. As we read it, we might reason it emerged out of a heart that was in the midst of strife and oppression. David is down in the dumps . . . discouraged. King David was its writer. Whatever his pressures were, they prompted him to compose an ancient hymn that i perceive was in a minor key.

It reminded me of the affect that Christmas can have on many of us. In this season, for a great many, I seriously doubt that there is any subject more timely than the topic of discouragement. As a Life Coach, Pastor and business consultant I find so many folks playing out their entire lives in a minor key and the holidays simply exacerbate this. There is the gnawing and often debilitating discouragement that follows an unachieved goal, broken home, empty nest or a failed romance. Some are discouraged over their marriage which began with such promise but now seems hopeless. Lingering ill-health can discourage and demoralize all who are affected by the one who is at the center of it all. This can be true and even more so when the pain lingers and doesn't subside. Over the last couple of years in our flailing economy how many have made courageous yet failed attempts to stave off economic collapse only to fall flat. How many know someone like that? In my business life I have seen this paralyze individuals. The discouragement brought on by several back-to-back criticisms as they tried and tried can scarcely be exaggerated in their long-term affects in demoralizing and destroying confidence.

In this verse it could be that we are seeing David attempting to pick himself up off the mat when, just at that moment, another biting and piercing verbal attack is leveled at him; the comments knocking him back to his knees . . . hence and perhaps (though the Holy Spirit truly authors this and all scripture) the birth of Psalm 5.

Many a discouraged soul has identified with this song down through the centuries. Frequently, the words just above the first verse (which comprise the superscription) set forth the historical backdrop of the song.

If you glance just above verse 1 in some King James Versions of the Bible, you will see that David desired this song to be played "upon Nehiloth." A nehiloth was an ancient woodwind instrument, something like today's flute or oboe. An oboe is a double-reed instrument giving a sad-sounding whine as it is being played. Its penetrating tone causes it to be used frequently as a solo instrument when the mood of the musical composition needs to illustrate deep longing, hurting, pain or somber reflection.

Interestingly, David did not play the nehiloth, but rather an ancient stringed instrument called the harp (see 1 Samuel 16:23, KJV). My point is simply this: David wrote this sad song of discouragement for someone else to play---not himself. Perhaps the surrounding circumstances were too overwhelming for him to participate in the playing of this piece. Perhaps he "heart it" in oboe; the composition could be rendered better by one who was skilled on the nehiloth. The sad tone of that instrument would enhance the feeling of discouragement which gave birth to this song...the Psalm.

It's Christmas season 2010. The tone in our household this year is upbeat. It's promising. We have been recently financially blessed after a very long dry period. We have experienced earthly new birth. I have a new grandson-Elijah Logan Wilson. He is joy. He is a blessing. He lives and brings light hearts and smiles and warmth and...and...

...and last year my dad-in-law passed just before this season as did my brother and oh, my loved ones and friends, how different a year makes things.

So, I ask, what is your song today?

Let me make a recommendation or two. If you are discouraged in this season, admit it. Spell it out in detail in your time with the Lord. Take time to express the depth of your pain. Don't deny the reality of your sorrow. State your honest feelings. God can handle it! And, He wants you to come clean with Him about it and what you would also hope He would do to intervene.

But don't stop there. Now at least twice, tell a someone why you are grateful to be alive . . . why you are more encouraged than you used to be. It will not only be therapy for you, it will lift that person's spirits as well. Wonderful changes can occur in us and others when we spread a few cheer germs around.

One other thing...go to www.youtube.com and look up and watch several snippets on a fellow by the name of Nick Vujicic...you may know who this is but if you don't just take my advice and do it. Let the idea that blessing may not ever look like what we expect it do overcome and overwhelm you as you watch. That is what David did, and Joseph of the Old Testament, and Jesus and Paul...and we are to do so as well.

Happy Holidays-I pray you had a thankful Thanksgiving and a Jesus Christ filled Christmas...

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Allowing Me Into Your Life

2010-12-17T05:56:00.001-08:00

Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel - Philippians 1:12-13

Have you ever heard these statements: "Money talks." Or how about this: This is the golden rule: He who has the gold makes the rules." Both of these statements have a hint of truth in them.

When Jesus was crucified there was a question as to where Jesus would be buried. Those that hurried Him to the cross, designed that He should make His grave with the wicked; that he would be buried with others who had been accused of crimes and that had also been crucified. God designed He should make it with the rich and prophetically had announced this in the Old Testament in Isaiah 53:9 - Though they prepared his grave with the wicked he entered in death with the rich though he had done no violence nor was there found any lie within him.

And so a rich man also named Joseph (like Jesus' earthly father) ensured he had a proper burial. In order for Jesus to be buried with honor, this man of influence was permitted to take the body of Jesus. It seems this man had a personal relationship with Pilate. Thus, we can call this Joseph a man of influence. Ultimately he retrieved the body of our Lord and placed it in a burial plot he owned in a cave that was reserved for the rich.

Joseph of Arimathea was called an honorable counselor, a person of character and distinction, and in an office of public trust; some think it would be comparable to our State Department. That would allow him to be privy to and associated with Pontus Pilate. This post also seems to have been in the Jewish faith and that he was one of the great Sanhedrim of the Jews, or one of the high priest's council.

The Bible says that God desires His people to be the head, not the tail. He prepares us, when we accept and embrace God's instruction through the Holy Spirit to be sensitive to God's leading and to be instructors, teacher's, leaders.

Guys, if we are to influence the our time, our place, the culture that surrounds us, we must be men and women of influence in whom God uses to impact the culture. If you are a successful person, consider the words of Paul when he said, "...what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel." Although Paul was referencing adversity in this statement, it can be equally said that each of us needs to ask if our prosperity has served to advance the gospel or our training or our advancement in any area of our life. We need to look to heaven and ask God to reveal to us where our personal leverage and leadership exists. We also need to ask where we have not sharpened the saw of our life or maximized our potential to change lives by allowing God to fully develop our tools, talents, passions and gifts.

Are you using your influence to impact your workplace, city, Body of Christ or even nation for the sake of the gospel? Is there something or some things you have neglected that would change your ability to stand in a place of honor, or, as in Paul's case, apparent dishonor (this to be developed more thoroughly in a future teaching) so that God is glorified and the borders of the Kingdom of God are spread by your efforts and position? What else should you be doing? What two things, right now, do you know for certain you could do that would extend your ability to touch and perhaps bring salvation to lives around you? THINK! :-) - I bet you dollars to donuts that if you spend just 15 minutes in consideration, meditation and prayer over this that the Holy Spirit of God will show you what those two things are...

This is a season of warmth, love, consideration, serving and fellowship. Nothing about giving is more valuable then your compassion spread in a way that would fall naturally within your gifting and position. God's richest blessings to you and may your borders and tents be spread and Jesus arise in you and through you to others like the Daystar of the morning. I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

The Real Move-On Dot YOU!

2010-12-10T11:41:00.001-08:00

..."Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you".... - Joshua 5:9

My devotionals and reading and the notes I receive on things to watch and read and view online lead my mind off into many directions. This came from my devotionals today.

In this section of scripture Joshua and the people of Israel had just crossed the Jordan River. They were camped at a place called Gilgal. It got it's name because it was the first place of encampment after Israel was move from the "reproach of Egypt." But the action associated with this removal of reproach would be self-sacrificing and painful. You see, before they could proceed they were required to circumcise all the males. This was in fact because a whole new generation (represented by the males) had grown up while living in the desert through the travel of Moses, from whom Joshua had taken the leadership reigns.

This place is where Israel, like a worm in a cocoon, was transformed. I must tell you that the thought or idea of circumcision is not particularly invigorating and motivating for me. Circumcision is bloody and personal, and in a very real sense exposes all that you are. By this action at Gilgal God was saying that before you can become part of His people, His army, you must roll away the reproach of the Egyptian way of life. Thought it was true they had been separated from it by 40 years they had been raised in it's ways and clutches by their parents who had been steeped in Egyptian ways. To this new generation God was saying you are no longer a slave to the ways of Egypt. It is a time to put aside the old way of life. Many are walking around as goats in sheep's clothes, practicing a form of the purity of a relationship with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but without the true source of truth and power.

Guys, rebellion is a part of the structure of the world and life we live within. It is in our midst. Sin in our midst testifies against us. It keeps us in our own personal Egypt and never allows us to enter the Promised Land of great communication, love, grace and God's ownership and leading in our personal lives. Our lives must be circumcised in order for us to come out of Egypt into our own Promised Land of spiritual blessing with God. Jesus is in fact our circumcision but we must fully embrace all that His life, death and resurrection meant. In this case, I would suggest we need to understand the depths of His sacrifice on our part so we realize how little we must sacrifice to embrace it properly.

In the above scripture this transformation I speak about marks the first time Israel begins to taste the fruit of the Promised Land. No more manna from Heaven. The manna stopped the day after they were circumcised. They were now fully to refine and enjoy the scope of the goodness of God and his culinary gifts. There was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate produce from Canaan with variety, flavor, zest and adventure!

So what is going on in our day that relates to this? I will probably not relate specifically to you. One thing that does seem true however is that God is turning our plowshares into weapons of love to usher in a new generation of His chosen people. But we will not be effective if we have the reproach of sin in our lives. Let go of the past. Hold onto that which is eternal! Ask God to show you what needs to be confessed and shrugged off today so that no reproach exists. The cross of Jesus takes away all reproaches. Enter the Promised Land with power and full of faith!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

To Search Within-To Discovery Without: The Path of Self-Denial

2010-11-16T07:07:00.001-08:00

Now when the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. And Elijah said to Elisha, "Please stay here, for the LORD has sent me as far as Bethel." But Elisha said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So they went down to Bethel. And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, "Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?" And he said, "Yes, I know it; keep quiet." Elijah said to him, "Elisha, please stay here, for the LORD has sent me to Jericho." But he said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So they came to Jericho. The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, "Do you know that today the LORD will take away your master from over you?" And he answered, "Yes, I know it; keep quiet." Then Elijah said to him, "Please stay here, for the LORD has sent me to the Jordan." But he said, "As the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So the two of them went on. Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan. Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground. When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, "Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you." And Elisha said, "Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me." And he said, "You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so." And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it and he cried, "My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!" And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. 13And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, "Where is the LORD, the God of Elijah?" And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over. - 2 King 2:1-14

I find many topics easy to teach and hard to live. Anyone who knows me personally must know this. I myself, as I have moved through my life with Jesus as Captain of my soul, have become more acutely aware of how I get in the way of me.

Self-denial does not come naturally. It is a learned virtue often hard-learned at that. It is encouraged by few and modeled by even fewer. It seems to be discouraged in our society and in the most respected behavioral instruments it is even frowned upon. This is particularly true among those who are Type A personalities.

In church circles, leadership is especially cursed with a lack of ability for self-denial. If you are a student of scripture you would find Prophets are notorious for exhibiting Type A temperament, which, in our reading above, makes Elijah all the more remarkable. Without hedging one iota in heroism, he was as soft clay in his Master's hands. If you rad the previous chapters you would find Elijah the Prophet did his best work "under the shadow of the Almighty." to quote a phrase used in conjunction with him. And, what was the result of this. For Elijah because of his humility and his grip on self-denial his was a life of power. He had come to the place where he welcomed the death of his own desires. He had become comfortable with the thought that God would be glorified and he would give up everything in the process.

Think on that for a moment.

Elijah had become comfortable with a whole new set of "places" in his life where victory would be won; true victory. What were these places? They were the place of beginning, the place of the prayer, the place of battle, the place of death. These became places of conquest. What we find unnatural he would and embraced and realized contentment, satisfaction and purpose.

We, too, have such places in our lives. Don't we?

First, there's a place of beginning. That's home base---the very beginning of our Christian experience when we discovered and embraced Jesus Christ and acknowledged Him as Savior and Lord of life. That's our place of new beginning. If you read this rightly that place might have been Gilgal for Elijah. At our own Gilgal, we become brand new.

For some of us, that place of beginning, that home base, is far in the past. Search your memory. Can you remember when you took your first few baby steps as a new Christian? If you were anything like I was you tottered a little, and those who loved and mentored you helped steady you on your feet or, tried. And you learned the basics of life: how to get into the Word; how to pray; how to have time with God; how to perhaps haltingly, share your faith.

And then comes the place of prayer. Remember? You first began to learn what it was to sacrifice, to surrender things dear and precious to you. You took actual time from your day because, by faith, you were believing God would hear and respond to you. For some started in earnest over a tragedy. Perhaps it was someone else's pain but you felt that pain. Or you began a life of prayer over the loss of a child, a husband, a wife. Perhaps for you it was the loss of a job, your own business, or a lifelong dream, so close, yet seemingly slipping through your fingertips and the fear it would never be realized.

Elijah had a place called Bethel. It was his place to pray. Coming all alone to your own Bethel, you learned to pray. And, you need to know, a place to pray and worship, and lift God up and bring self into right relationship to Him is a place where, on your knees you become more powerful.

If you learned in this way, if it happened for you as I described then God did a growing work in your life as He carried you from that place of communion to the next stage He planned for you. Normally the next stage was more action, more adventure and usually even less control. But because you'd learned the value of prayer and worship, you built your altar, and you learned even more at His feet.

If you are an older Christian; 10, 20, 40 years of Bible, prayer, church, Jesus you might need a time to remember. Search back in time. Remember?

Self-denial is hard to learn, and, for all of us, not just a few, it is just as hard to hold onto. If the life of Elijah is any indicator it's worth the effort.Perhaps more than this, it is the thing that turns the trappings of our faith into a reality. Get real, get down, literally, with God. I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

I Can Be Taught But Will I Learn?

2010-11-15T06:43:00.001-08:00

They were singing and dancing in the streets, welcoming and honoring this young man who had defended the name of their God. If there is a single statement that best describes David at this time in his life, it would be this one: "David was prospering in all his ways for the LORD was with him" - 1 Samuel 18:14

(It might help to read from verse 5 through 16...) Four times in this one chapter we read that David "prospered." That interested me, so I looked up the Hebrew of that word to understand where it came from. The word sakal from which "prospered" is the root word. I discovered two insightful things about that term. Proverbs 10:19 reveals the first: When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise [sakal]

A person who is wise (who prospers) knows how to keep his mouth shut. He can keep confidences when people say, "Look, don't share this with anyone but..." I would also say it's a great characteristic of a good friend, and certainly should be a foundational component between brothers and sisters in Christ. A good friend, a godly friend, can be trusted with the details of your life; they keep things to themselves between the two of you appropriately.

Furthermore, when they open their mouth, they do so with discretion. That's a sign of a sakal person. That was David.

And the second insight is in Proverbs 21:11: When the scoffer is punished, the naive becomes wise; but when the wise is instructed [sakal], he receives knowledge.

The sakal person is teachable. Again, that's the kind of man David was. He was wise because he guarded his lips, and he maintained a teachable spirit.

So, what's my point? How about this, no matter how fast the promotion or how beaming the accolades may be, we are never to lose our teachability. We never reach a level where we are above criticism or we no longer need the input of others. And, frankly, there are times when our best lessons can be learned from our enemies.

A quiet spirit, a closed mouth, a teachable spirit...my hope is, this week, I practice all three. Together they create sakal. God knows I can use all I can get! I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

The Past That Does Not Limit My Future!

2010-11-13T07:05:00.001-08:00

Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jephthah. - Judges 11:29a

It really isn't fair just to point out this portion of a verse as the lead in but it makes the point. So many never enter the Christian walk because, though they have made a profession of faith in Jesus, they live a life that says, "Even Jesus cannot save me from my past. Even the God who redeems all of me cannot use someone who has done or who has been what I have..."

Yet, we all love to see the underdog triumph! We have a natural affinity for the flight of the Phoenix! We've all heard stories of individuals who have overcome extreme hardship borne out of their childhood years. When we speak of children of alcoholics, orphans who never have parents, those who have lost parents to a fatal crash, or with childhood disease - these are all difficult circumstances to overcome.

Jephthah was a man who overcame his obstacles and refused to allow his circumstances to prevent him from becoming great in God's sight. He was born to the Old Testament patriarch Gilead. But Jephthah was the seeming result of his father's adulterous encounter with a prostitute. Gilead's wife, who had bore more sons, decided to reject Jephthah, and drove him away from their home saying, You are not going to get any inheritance in our family because you are the son of another woman. Imagine the rejection this young man felt as he was cast away from his own family.

I'm not sure that what this experience originally taught Jephthah was a great lesson. He became a hardened warrior. Today he probably would have been part of a street gang. As he got older, his reputation as a warrior became known to those in his country, so much so that when the Ammonites made war on Israel, the elders of Gilead went to Jephthah and asked him to be their commander. How would he respond. These were the very ones who did not reach out to him all those years in between. Now, it was the same household, the same people asking for his help. Jephthah had to fight off those feelings of rejection from previous years.

Didn't you hate me and drive me from my father's house? he responded. He overcame his hurt and pain, and responded to the call God had on his life.

It is said that if we were to help the butterfly remove itself from the cocoon, the butterfly would not be strong enough to survive. It is the struggle that prepares the butterfly to become strong enough to fly. Without the struggle in the cocoon, it could not survive as a butterfly. Jephthah used all of who he was and all that he had experienced in order to be the best he could be for the highest good!

Perhaps it doesn't seem this way to you but the Lord prepares each of us in similar ways. Some of our childhoods seem to have been harsh and born from a seemingly unloving God. Certainly if not an unloving God they were propagated in the harshness of an environment that was less than joyful to us. However, we do have a hope. It is the hope of Jephthah. Like he the Lord knows our struggle and will make our life an instrument in His hand if we will follow Him with an upright heart. He does make all things beautiful in His time if we are willing to be patient.

Perhaps you are feeling rejection. Perhaps you are feeling disqualified. You are not and you are not alone. Embrace your past. Allow yourself to see life from God's perspective. Take the pain and use it against the enemy of your soul. Rejoice in your victory because that victory is complete in Jesus Christ! I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Of Things Re-Discovered & Of Things Misunderstood

2010-11-09T08:11:00.001-08:00

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3:13b-14

As I grow older I realize just how empty some things we might say can be. We wax philosophical and might say, "If you could go back and change anything, would you?" Or, "If you could change just one thing in your past what would it be?" There seems to be a 50/50 split in the American mindset over our past. It seems popular today to say, "I wouldn't change a thing" when speaking of our past. Others, (I am in this camp) would in fact change many things. I hate to think of all the things I will weep over as I prostrate myself at the Judgment Seat of Christ. (Uh...all my "GRACE-ITES" it is not the HUGGY LOVEY SEAT OF JESUS.)

Yes, I'd change some things.

But I think we all need to embrace something deeper than the shallowness of an, "Oh well!" attitude. Or, the light and slight wonderment of "what would have been." Whatever has been, our past, can be a hindrance to our personal growth, our effectiveness and to a full wholesome life in our present place and in our futures. It can also be a help in moving toward God's purposes for each our lives as well. That God can use all our past for good should be the soul's sigh of every believer in Christ Jesus.

Is the Glass Half Empty or Is It Full?

For some, recollections of the past has meant pain and heartache. They look on their past and hurt seems to be the overriding theme. They need grace so that they do not let the past dictate their current and future responses. Lifting up life situations to God for them literally means battles fought in the heart and mind, perhaps even daily so that they simply do not respond out of their history. The Holy Spirit, the work of Jesus on the Cross, the provision for love, acceptance and true stature in the Kingdom of God has to be won to provide the fertile ground of right living and responses for a victorious future.

Can you see that? If we allow our past to make us a victim, then we have not entered into the grace that God has for us. We miss the message that we are brand new in Christ. If we live on memories of a spotted past we will fail to raise our vision for new territory to claim and victories to attain. We keep playing a bad record over and over again that validates that we are victims of our past.

We are not!

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland - Isaiah 43:19

God recognizes we will not utterly forget or repress our pasts. The solution is a simple question must be asked however each time one of those horrific moments in our past arises in our memory. The question is, "Lord, I know what the enemy meant when this thinking comes up. What did you mean by it Father God?"

The power of relationship to our Heavenly Father is that He provides us with a new lens in which we can view our personal history. That lens takes into consideration His sovereignty. He knew what we went through. He knows how He can use it to make us whole and further His Kingdom. We must learn as we worship, read the Scriptures, sit at the feet of those who sit at Jesus' feet. It is in this illuminating of actions that does more than just nullify the negative effects of a past with hurt and anguish. It takes that very trouble and makes it powerful and positive in us!

Many have allowed their past to dictate their future. Sometimes we do it in small and silly ways, (I'm Irish, I'm a red head, I'm a Leo, I'm German, I'm this or I'm that...) God is always about doing new things in our lives. He gives fresh revelation of His purposes in our lives. Do not live in the past nor allow yourself to believe anything about you is a limiting factor that God cannot use or turn the negative to a positive.And more than this, do not hold onto bitterness that may hinder God from doing new and exciting things in your life. He turns our desolate deserts into streams of water in an oasis that will bring life and not just to us or for us. It really isn't about you nor I. It is about those we can touch as did our great example Jesus. When we are healers we then have healing streaming through our veins...we are thereby healed. We live and death...well death dies!

How have you viewed your past? Has it hindered you in some areas of your life? Have you relied on past successes to dictate what you will do in the future? Don't negate those good things but do not rely on them. Nor, allow your painful past to negate you from a powerful life in all areas today and into your future. Put aside such thoughts and allow God to not only do a new thing in your life but also reinterpret your past. Expect Abba Father to deep personal insight so you may see the new things He wants to do in and through you today.

When your memories are bigger than your dreams, you're headed for the grave - Author unknown

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Judgments vs. Judgmental

2010-10-27T07:50:00.001-07:00

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven - Luke 6:37

I must tell you all that I enjoy Os Guinness and this is one of the reasons. He brings the Bible alive through the practical applications of it. I believe that is a better concept of theology than simply, "the fact." The story below is a good example and it had me thinking this morning. Have you ever made a judgment about a person or situation only to discover how wrong you were in your assessment? Such was the case in a story told by Os in his book, The Call.

"Arthur F. Burns, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve System and ambassador to West Germany, was a man of considerable gravity. Medium in height, distinguished, with wavy silver hair and his signature pipe, he was economic counselor to a number of presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Ronald Reagan. When he spoke, his opinions carried weight and Washington listened.

Arthur Burns was also Jewish, so when he began attending an informational White House group for prayer and fellowship in the 1970s, he was accorded special respect. In fact, no one knew quite how to involve him in the group and, week after week when different people took turns to end the meeting in prayer, Burns was passed by-out of a mixture of respect and reticence.

One week, however, the group was led by a newcomer who did not know of Burns' status. As the meeting ended, the newcomer turned to Arthur Burns and asked him to close the time with a prayer. Some of the old-timers glanced at each other in surprise and wondered what would happen. But without missing a beat, Burns reached out, held hands with others in the circle, and prayed this prayer: 'Lord, I pray that you would bring Jews to know Jesus Christ. I pray that you would bring Muslims to know Jesus Christ. Finally, Lord, I pray that you would bring Christians to know Jesus Christ. Amen.'

Burn's prayer has become legendary in Washington. Not only did he startle those present with refreshing directness, but he also underscored a point about 'Christians' and 'Christianity' that needs repeating regularly. It highlights another important aspect of the truth of our personal understanding of the idea of purpose: Purpose reminds Christians ceaselessly that, far from having arrived, a Christian is someone who in this life is always on the road as 'a follower of Christ' and a follower of 'the Way.'"*

We often worry about whether we are acting as fruit inspectors (You will know people by the fruit they bear in their lives) or if we are simply judging them out of a religious or worse, self-pious unloving, ungracious spirit. Perhaps from this, and before you and I judge a person or situation, maybe we should consider that our judgment might not be an accurate assessment of the situation and certainly might miss the greater blessing that is associated with a person.

I remain...
InHISgrip
~J~

The Attack On Your Purpose!

2010-10-18T08:32:00.001-07:00

When the Philistines heard that David had been crowned king of Israel, they tried to capture him; but David was told that they were coming and went into the stronghold. The Philistines arrived and spread out across the valley of Rephaim. Then David asked the Lord, 'Shall I go out and fight against them? Will you defeat them for me?" - 2 Sam 5:17-19

The Bible readers and quoter's amongst us all remember, "The steps of a righteous man are ordered (enumerated, designed, etc.) by the Lord." - Psalm 37:24. Though we know that and though we know nothing can overcome God's purposes, at least intellectually we know that, it just seems that there is always opposition from God's enemies designed to prevent you from fulfilling our destiny and our purposes.

When Jesus was born, Herod tried to kill him. When Jesus was baptized and fasted 40 days, Satan came to tempt Him in an effort to derail his destiny. When David had been anointed king over Israel, God's destiny had been revealed for all to see-even Satan. So, Satan raised up the Philistines to try and kill David's destiny. Joseph had his brothers and a lying woman who tried to derail the ultimate purposes God had for his life.

But, and in going back to my example of David and our text today and, David, in response, we see that David does two things.

1. He retreats to his stronghold. It is a place of protection. It is a quiet place. It is his hiding place and sanctuary.

2. He inquires of God. The time of planning and thinking and scheming and creating devising stops. He goes before God and seeks his heavenly Father's Strategy for this life-threatening situation. He has gathered enough wisdom for his life that he wants to know what God's strategy to defeat his enemy should be. Of course for having sought the Lord we find that Father God reveals it to David precisely what he needs to know and he goes on to defeat the Philistines. In fact, David NEVER lost a battle because he learned to inquire of God for the strategy to defeat his enemies.

I always found Proverbs 16:9 an interesting verse. Speaking of the righteous, the writer says, A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs His path.

Today, as with every day, you have purpose. You are to acknowledge (Proverbs 3:6) and glorify the Lord your God and heavenly Dad (Psalm 34:3).
Perhaps for His love and grace and greater glory your God has shown you the depths of His intended destiny for your life as well. It doesn't matter. You have purpose, power and a passion today. Use it! But beware of Satan's strategy to attack you in as he, in a very focused way, attempts to attack God's leading in your life. The enemies of God desire to take you off this divine path.

We must follow David's example in response to these enemies of our souls. We must retreat to our stronghold, seek the Lord, and listen for His answer. Then, we will fulfill the purpose for which God created us...both today and into our earthly future. I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

How To Knock Someone Down With A Feather-Ask to Pray for Them!

2010-10-11T18:16:00.001-07:00

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. - Philippians 4:6

So I sauntered into my favorite coffee house this last week to the delicious (er...not so much) sounds of a wheezing barrista. The young lady behind the counter appeared to be gasping for breath and nearly as white as a sheet!

"Are you okay?" I asked.

"Allergies," she she gasped. "When the weather changes in the fall it gets so bad I can hardly breathe."

"Can I pray for you?" I asked.

She looked up at me with eyes as big as saucers! "Oh, I don't want to take up God's time with something as silly as my hassles. I should have just taken a Benadryl this morning. But thank you for asking." she replied. The woman was touched that I would offer to pray for her and, as a side note, I did anyway, silently, at my table with my Mango Green Tea.

The next time I was in I told her my prayer group was praying for her. She could not believe that I would do such a thing for her. Tears well in her eyes.

It is interesting what happens when you offer to pray for someone isn't it? It can be the most genuine and loving thing you can do for another. It can be the one means of getting a conversation on a spiritual plane that cuts across religious stigmas and gets to the root of the problem-the person's real need. The act of the offer immediately reveals your own values and sets the stage for future encounters. All it takes is a little Holy Spirit led boldness to step through the door when the opportunity seems to present itself. Besides it is a recognition to ourselves that we realize how much has been done for us.

Is there anything too small to pray about? Do we, in fact, bother God when we make any request that is not dealing with only the poor in Calcutta? Paul clearly tells us in this passage that prayer is talking with God. It is having such a relationship with Him that we can bring anything to His attention.

We've all heard the housewife's prayer for a parking spot or other such seemingly trivial prayer requests, but are they trivial to God? If God is our closest and most intimate friend, then it becomes very natural to talk to Him as you would a friend who might be sitting next to you in the car. Yes, God desires to have such close communion with you and me that we can pray about anything-even a parking spot.

As you enter the your day today, ask a friend, a child, a son, daughter or co-worker if you can pray for them about something. You may be surprised at what doors will open as a result...some lead into eternity with Christ!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

...This Work Thing...Is It Our Hokey Pokey?

2010-09-27T05:23:00.001-07:00

But I said, "I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the Lord's hand, and my reward is with my God." - Isaiah 49:4

It's off to do more training. It's another business trip. Where is it this time? Toronto...Chicago...and then home.

You put your right foot in and out and you spin all about and you do the Hokey Pokey and turn yourself around and THAT'S WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT!

Really?

Have you ever felt like you're spending your life using your talent for things that people value to be sure but perhaps in the grand scheme they are useless?

I've been taking more care of my time (really...I have!) and it just seems that life is often spent doing mundane activities that seem to have little eternal purpose.

If you read the entirety of Isaiah 48, 49 you get a sense that the great prophet Isaiah was struggling with his own purpose. He knew he was chosen to be a voice for God, yet life became purposeless for Isaiah. He had come to a place where what he did didn't seem to give him what he needed as a man to feel true fulfillment.

Now this is a big subject and I am about to hop a plane but you must be similar to me. We all go through periods when our purpose seems to be clouded with the mundane. We see little meaning in life. It is my struggle. I see moments and relationships where God is so there. I also see many others and other things I am doing that seem tired, worldly and minimally valuable. As we can read in this segment Isaiah didn't stay in this place. We read in this passage that he knew the truth of his existence and that truth, His being, was of far greater importance in God's scheme than what it might otherwise appear.

Like Isaiah we need to look past this present circumstance and know that our real reward and purpose is fully revealed in eternity. We also need to get that giving God glory isn't about our "doing" all the time but it's about our proclaiming with all of our lives and not just our well-done work. Isaiah knew that God was just and loving, so he placed his faith on this truth. Isaiah wasn't accepted by God because God measured the work of this man and found it, comparatively, really good work. No. This was about the work God did in Isaiah. Our Heavenly Father found that work perfect!

When life appears to lack meaning and purpose, remember that if you devote your life to the purposes your Kingdom Daddy has for you, the fruits of your labor will be manifested in due time. But more than this, you will realize your satisfaction will come in your growing relationship to Him and not to the better and more valued the work of your hands may be judged otherwise.

As Paul said, The ONE who has called you is faithful; He will perform it - I Thessalonians 5:24

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

The Rocket Man Effect!

2010-09-22T11:59:00.001-07:00

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: "Moses My servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them-to the Israelites. - Joshua 1:1-2

A rocket launch is truly an amazing phenomenon to me. We don't see them very often today but thank God for You Tube. What you have is tons of weight stacked vertically to the sky with thousands of gallons of fuel exploding in a matter of moments. As it leaves the atmosphere the rocket drops its take-off boosters and uses additional boosters to move the remaining payload to the next stage of the mission. The first engines have a unique purpose...to get the rocket to the next stage. Massive power-massive results!

The reading today came from the book of Joshua. Joshua was known for almost 40 years as "Joshua, servant of Moses." This was God's preparation for him. On the part of Joshua it required years of selfless service, training in the desert, and through countless tests of faith. We should think of those preparation years as booster rockets designed to move Joshua into each next stage of his development and his ultimate calling. We should similarly look at the massive amount of work, trials, heartache, pain, perseverance and experiences we shoulder in our earthly walk. These are the booster rockets of a true Rocket Man for God! It takes power. It takes dynamic experiences but some of it might also seem mundane and causal.

God allows each of us preparation times to lay a foundation upon which He builds. It does not mean useless training time. It's not all years going by like lightning...like the space left behind by booster rockets. Like those rockets progress is made and important and significant work is done. But I won't discount that some of those foundation times appear to be laborious and meaningless; much like trying to get through west Texas on your way east to some place specific. When we look at all the fuel that is expended in a rocket launch it often seems like overkill. Teleporting would be so much more efficient Lord! Yet in our life these varied experiences are what God is using to frame your life for the message He is building in you. There may be a time when He speaks through you for one amazing end result mission or maybe it will simply be the same mission just with more profound results in its final stage.

My point is that without these foundational experiences, the Jordan River can never be crossed and we cannot enter the Promised Land nor can we lead others and to be sure, if you are in Christ today, you will be leading others.

Embrace these times of both seeming inactivity and times of fiery powerful forward motion that jar you to your foundations. Embrace them as from God. They, too, are a rocket booster to your next stage of your walk with God. You are a Rocket Man/Woman!

Being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus - Philippians 1:6

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

When Love & Respect Rule

2010-09-15T07:27:00.001-07:00

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. - Philippians 2:3-7

This story was shared with me by someone I admire a great deal. Over the years I first looked at him with admiration. Later, as a sort of "arms length" mentor. As of late, as someone who I have my differences as to style and even content of the messages he delivers, but, a true leader, great man in the faith. This is the story though...

It was a cold, blustery January night in 1973. Senator John Stennis, the venerable hawkish and wildly independent Democrat from Mississippi, drove from Capitol Hill to his northwest Washington home. At 71 he was still the powerful chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. At precisely 7:40 p.m., Stennis parked his car and started toward his house 50 feet away.

Out of the darkness jumped two young robbers---little more than kids, really. One nervously waved a .22 caliber pistol as the other relieved the senator of his personal possessions. "Now we're going to shoot you anyway," one told Stennis. He did, firing twice.

For six-and-a-half hours, surgeons at Walter Reed Medical Center labored feverishly to repair the damage and save his life.

At 9:15 that same night another politician was driving home from the Senate . . . a man on the opposite end of the political spectrum, a Republican "dove" who had clashed often and sharply with Stennis. His name? Senator Mark Hatfield. The tragedy was reported over Hatfield's car radio that wintry night. Disregarding the strong differences in their convictions and pulled by a deep admiration for the elderly statesman plus a compassion for his plight, Hatfield later admitted:

"I had no skills to offer. But I knew there was something I must do---and that was to go to that hospital and be nearby where I could be helpful, if possible, to the family."

There was untold confusion at the hospital as fellow senators, colleagues, and curious friends and reporters overwhelmed the hospital's telephone operators. Understaffed and disorganized, the hospital crew tried their best but were unable to handle the calls and answer the questions.

Hatfield quickly scoped out the situation, spotted an unattended switchboard, sat down, and voluntarily went to work. Much later---after recovering---Stennis related what he heard happened next: "He told the girls, 'I know how to work one of these; let me help you out.' He continued taking calls until daylight." An exceedingly significant detail is that he never gave anyone his name because someone would surely suspect some political connection, some ulterior motive. Hatfield finally stood up around daylight, stretched, put on his overcoat, and quietly introduced himself to the other operators. "My name is Hatfield . . . happy to help out on behalf of a man I deeply respect," he said as he walked away.

The press couldn't handle that story when it leaked out. It boggled their minds! No way did it make sense for a Republican to give a Democrat the time of day, not to mention several long hours of personal assistance in some anonymous, menial task. I mean, that kind of character went out with the horse and buggy and silent movies and saying "ma'am" and "sir" to teachers. Or did it?

I want to be Mark Hatfield. I pray to be like that.

Politics and personal preferences and opinions on things like military involvement, immigration and health care may vary among members of the body of Christ - even issues such as church polity, theology, and the balance between personal revelation and the Bible . . . but there is a bond deep within that must bind us to one another. It is the glue of authentic love, expressing itself in honesty, compassion, fairness, willingness to support, and (when possible) coming to the aid of another. We should do this personally and in humility. Without strings attached. Committed to the protection and dignity of another human . . . regardless of how somebody votes or what stripe of faith they represent.

So, this happened to me yesterday. A brother in the faith, came to me, in humility and to correct. It was not easy. It was hard for him to do. It was hard for me to hear. He did it. Thank you Richard Casteel.

But, what did it take? Bigness. Being free of grudges, pettiness, vengeance, and prejudice; in love, considering the greater message and the greater one to be served. Seeing another in need---regardless of differences of opinion or the challenge of the moment---and reaching out in solid Christian maturity.

It takes this though: Just because you care.

That's bigness. It's living above labels . . . it's seeing beyond hurts . . . it's caring unconditionally, helping unassumingly.

And therefore it's rare. As rare as a hawk and a dove in the same nest on a cold winter's night in a city not known for love and unmitigated respect ruling the moment.

I remain...

InHISgrip...
~J~

Who God Uses & How Is About His Purpose Not Our Perceptions

2010-09-07T06:32:00.001-07:00
Esther Chapters 9 & 10
...9:23-29 So the Jews accepted what they had started to do, and what Mordecai had written to them. For Haman the Agagite, the son of Hammedatha, the enemy of all the Jews, had plotted against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur (that is, cast lots), to crush and to destroy them. But when it came before the king, he gave orders in writing that his evil plan that he had devised against the Jews should return on his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Therefore they called these days Purim, after the term Pur. Therefore, because of all that was written in this letter, and of what they had faced in this matter, and of what had happened to them, the Jews firmly obligated themselves and their offspring and all who joined them, that without fail they would keep these two days according to what was written and at the time appointed every year, that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, in every clan, province, and city, and that these days of Purim should never fall into disuse among the Jews, nor should the commemoration of these days cease among their descendants.
I'm really not much of one to read the "girlie" books of the Bible. But this morning it was that time in my reading chart to continue on in Esther. I had ignored it long enough. And, just as the verses exemplify God met me in an unexpected way with unexpected characters.
Has this ever happened to you? Has it ever happened and you just really didn't like it? Well, that's sorta what this was like for me. I got over it quickly however because the depths of the truth of it rang deeply and true.
At the end of Esther's story, we have the same king as you would have found at the books beginning, King Ahasuerus. We have the same kingdom, where he reigns from India to Ethiopia. It's no small place with more than 127 provinces. We have the same country, Persia, and the same capital city, Susa.
But some things have changed.
You see this is a story about the struggles of God's people. Their peril and pain and the panic and improbability of any help on the horizon.
So what else do we have here? Well, Vashti is no longer queen; Esther is queen. And she is a queen who has won her husband's overwhelming respect and loyalty. The great enemy of the Jews, Haman, who was once second in command, is dead and gone. Mordecai is alive and well. Wicked plans have been thwarted. Corruption has been rooted out. Evil has been fully dealt with. To make matters even better, Esther's righteous uncle Mordecai has been promoted by the king, and he is now in Haman's old position---"second only to King Ahasuerus."
In the natural this whole scene is way too freaky. These are not the characters or the kinds of lives that great heroic stories are born. But, then again, when God intervenes, the people He uses are often unexpected.

Or consider another unexpected choice. If you wanted to lead an exodus of two million people out of Egypt, who would you choose to confront Pharaoh---a Jew or a noble, high ranking and well positioned fellow Egyptian? Be honest, now. And if you chose a Jew, would you choose an individual who was not at all Egyptian (although it could be argued he had connections...) who had in fact killed one of Pharaoh's fellow countrymen? How about this qualification: would he be eighty years old? Or, how does this resumé stunner sound: would you select a gruff and rough leather-skinned shepherd who hadn't been in the metropolitan area for over forty years?
See, the further you look, the more surprising it gets! Moses' resumé was pretty, um, FRIGHTENING when considering the responsibility he's being given (save a nation, represent them to the head of a nation).
How about this one: Would you have chosen a seeming pagan harlot to hide the spies you, had sent out, to keep those men safe as they were to navigate the land God had indicated your people were to conquer?
Then of course there is Jonah and I ask you would you have chosen a defecting, rebellious prophet to lead what Chuck Swindoll called, "The Greater Nineveh Evangelistic Crusade"? Is that what we would do; send a whiny, "I don't wanna go!" Ninevite hating racist?
We get to the New Testament and this pattern continues. Would you have chosen a Christian-hating Fundamentalist Jewish Pharisee to model grace and to write most of the New Testament? (Apostle Paul)
Would you have chosen a man who denied Jesus (three times!) as the major spokesman for the early church? (Peter)
Does any of that seem reasonable ladies and gents?

But, you see, God does surprising things. That's why He lifts a no-name Jew from the gate of the king and makes him a prime minister (Mordecai). God delights in lifting up nobodies and using them as somebodies. As Paul writes to the Corinthians, "not many mighty, not many noble"---in other words, not many "A" listers are chosen.

He has chosen the despised and many of the losers of the world to follow the One who died on a cross and to bring ultimate victory for us all. And thus it is in the book of Esther, the God who seems not to be present is, in fact, ever-present, omnipotent, and in complete control.He has plan and purpose for you. Your job is to wrap your spirit around it, anticipate it, believe, it, embrace it and get into the flow of the Holy Spirits' leadership of you in that purpose daily.
Because you my lovelies are not prepared for greatness, not wise, not wealthy, not an "A" lister, not ready for this at all...in God's eyes therefore you are PERFECT!
I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Realigning Our Desires With Our Needs - Are We There Yet Dad?

2010-08-10T09:32:00.001-07:00
Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him! - Isaiah 30:18

I don't think it dawned on me until I had read the same stories like 10 times. It might have even been more than that. All I do know was that I didn't remember the preacher's in my life pointing it out and it had not dawned on me.

Have you ever noticed that God is not in a hurry?

It took 40 years for Moses to receive his specific orders from God the Father to lead the people out of Egypt. Again, in the Old Testament, it took 17 years of preparation before Joseph was delivered from slavery and imprisonment. I still think that it's funny that we call that preparation; as if it is some requirement that we go through some hideous experience and it was the same as Spring Training is for the Cubs! Praise His name that God is more effective in His choice of preparation for us than the Cubs are for their Spring Training! (Sorry, I needed that rant) It took 20 years before the Old Testament patriarch Jacob was released from his father-in-law Laban's control. And, Abraham and Sarah were in their old age when they finally received the son of promise, Isaac.

So why isn't God in a hurry?

God called each of these servants to accomplish a certain task in as that person or persons particular calling. The work of it was, in God's thinking, Kingdom of God activity. You would think if anything demanded urgency it would be something that God is requiring you to do. I mean, in each of these cases, the stories I mention above, each one affected the outcomes of the history of the entire world! Yet our Heavenly Father was in no hurry to bring their mission into fulfillment. At least as we count time, it didn't seem to be hurried.

Well let me point out some things that have struck me about each of these stories and perhaps your story as well.

First, our God accomplished what He wanted in each of them and not just because of them. And, actually, I think this is really the only point I want to make here. We are often more focused on "the goal" or the end result than we are in understanding the process that He is accomplishing in our lives each day. What God does on the road of life you and I travel is often the real story. When we experience our God's presence daily, one day we wake up and realize that God has done something special in and through our lives. It is very much like my realizing that repetitive reading has put God's word in me to recognize truths that were never evident when I had only read them once, twice or more. In this case we get to a point where the accomplishment of the task is no longer what excites us. Instead, what excites us is knowing Him. As we travel the road that is our journey in our faith, we become more acquainted with our God's love, grace, mercy, methods of guidance, His glory, what gives Him satisfaction and His power in our lives. When this happens, we are no longer focused on the outcome because the outcome is a result of our walk with Him. Our life becomes a play for our Lord's very creative mind. It's more like, "Okay Father, what will you do next?" God's great accomplishment is not the goal of our life journey, but the by-product. Hence, when Joseph came to power in Egypt, he probably couldn't have cared less. He had come to a place of complete surrender so that he was not anxious about tomorrow or his circumstances.

This is a massive lesson for you and I. What is that lesson? We must wait for God's timing and embrace wherever we are in the process. If you do not have an insight into what you are doing in your life, ask your Father. He wants you to know! Just realize that if you are feeling anxious it might not be the tugging of the Holy Spirit on you to hurry up; rather, it might just be the enemy trying to get you to ignore the real lessons that cause God to transfer His character into you! When we find contentment in our life, where we are at, the now and now place, we begin to experience God in ways we never thought possible.

For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,"In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength." - Isaiah 30:15 The rest of this verse said, "you were not willing..." We need to willingly understand where God is in our life today. We need to "get" that our God can move us from where we are now to where He wants to take us if we will but look up, worship and adore and realize who He is right now. May we but learn to wait, gain insight into our today and expect His personal leadership in our lives.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

The Great Heist

2010-08-02T09:23:00.001-07:00
But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. - Luke 12:39

I got up this morning contemplating what a great day it had been yesterday at the Church on Rogers Street. Sharing the blessing and realizing all that Ephesians 1 informs us about as to our calling, election; that God has chosen us and it is in Him we find our purpose was awesome!

As the old preachers might say, it was a good day in the Lord.

It also got me to thinking. What are the times when you and I are most vulnerable to being caught off guard by the enemy of our souls? When does it seem easiest to go from being the guy God wants us to be and migrate back into the one that no one wants to be around? Let me suggest that one of those times is just after you've had a great victory. Consider Jesus when He was baptized and was about to begin His public ministry. He was taken away into the desert to be tempted by satan.Now I realize you and I are not Jesus. He is a pattern however, His life and trials for what we can expect from an earthly perspective.

Leisure time is another place that satan seeks to take us off our normal routine of personal quiet time, meditation and contemplation. In the normal routine of life, our senses are tuned to the need to draw upon God's Spirit to see us through the activities of each day. However, when we get away from our routine and go on vacation, we can often drop these routines. Whether we do it intentionally or simply change our dance, we wrongfully think that we do not need to spend time with the Lord during leisure times. This is a grave mistake. The vacation becomes a test of character. During vacations we turn freely to what we enjoy from an earthly perspective most. It reveals to us what is at the core of our existence and often that core is not nearly as strong and stable of a structure that we had presumed or hoped to have.

As a ex-teacher I can tell you that we often exchanged thoughts on the hardest challenge we had to students getting in the "learning groove." Whether it was the long summer or the shorter times during holidays during the school year vacations never helped move the learning process forward it seemed. Just when we had brought the students to a certain discipline and place in their study habits, we would take massive steps backward.

It is the same in our spiritual lives. It only takes a small crack in the door of our heart to lose our spiritual focus and impetus.

I know it is late in the game but I hope this summer you will be on guard when times of retreat are made available to you. Use these times for spiritual refreshment, not just physical refreshment, and you will keep the thief from entering your house! I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

It's Just My Nature - Ya, No Kidding...WE KNOW!

2010-07-26T10:29:00.001-07:00
When the report was heard in Pharaoh’s house, "Joseph’s brothers have come," it pleased Pharaoh and his servants. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, "Say to your brothers, 'Do this: load your beasts and go back to the land of Canaan, and take your father and your households, and come to me, and I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you shall eat the fat of the land.' And you, Joseph, are commanded to say, 'Do this: take wagons from the land of Egypt for your little ones and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Have no concern for your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.'" The sons of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the command of Pharaoh, and gave them provisions for the journey. To each and all of them he gave a change of clothes, but to Benjamin he gave three hundred shekels of silver and five changes of clothes. To his father he sent as follows: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and provision for his father on the journey. Then he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, "Do not quarrel on the way." So they went up out of Egypt and came to the land of Canaan to their father Jacob. And they told him, "Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt." And his heart became numb, for he did not believe them. But when they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. And Israel said, "It is enough; Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die."
- Genesis 45:16-28

So what is the scene we have here? Joseph's brothers are on a journey back home. They had come seeking food in a time of great famine. They had gotten much more than that. However, I want to focus on a smaller point here so I won't go into the whole reunion with Joseph thing. They not only had been given plenty to eat on the way back to their homeland, but had also been given new threads as well. In short, they had all that they needed---and they once again had it in abundance!

Returning to a land that was in the depths of depression and poverty they must have really looked like something. In the midst of a land drying up under the feet of it's inhabitants they would have looked like kings!

Notice, however, the one directive Joseph gave them: "Don't get into an argument on the journey!" It had been years, yea, decades since Joseph had been with his brothers. Yet, through knowledge and wisdom, he knew those men, didn't he?

I just crack up in these historical biblical stories when little tidbits like that are inserted. Centuries may come and go, but human nature stays pretty much the same. As much as we wish it would go away, it's impossible to erase depravity. I know. It would be kinder to call it "human nature." But the fact of the matter is that it's the human nature, the sin nature, that Joseph was bringing to their remembrance.

There is an old Chinese proverb: "Not very many men can carry a full cup without its disturbing their equilibrium." Sudden wealth or promotion can be a tottering experience, both for the recipient and those surrounding him or her. But it's not just when good things happen to us that we are thrown off of our spiritual game.

Is it?

Superiority, inferiority, arrogance, and jealousy can easily to create out of you and I something ungodly and unlovely; certainly not something that God would be honored to call His own. We know this is true. All we have to do (on the positive side...or is it?) is to check on those who win the lottery. Very few can handle the financial windfall.

To top it all off, in our little story here, Joseph had given his younger brother Benjamin more than he had given to the other brothers. He gave them all provisions and gave each of them new garments, but he gave Benjamin three hundred shekels of silver and five new garments. YIKES! Apparently Joseph had not had mommy lessons in counting the sprinkles on the cupcakes to create an "even" or "fair" playing field.

A similar experience had been had in the life of Joseph decades earlier that had caused hatred in the ranks of his brothers toward Joseph. His dad had shown him special favor also. It had cost him years in slavery, prison and humiliation.

It had cost Joseph...

...hadn't it?

No, probably not...not according to God's view; but certainly yes, according to man's view.

No doubt Joseph remembered well what had happened years before when he had been given more than the others, but he had his own reasons for giving Benjamin these items. He didn't want that to result in a fight. "So don't argue about it!" he told his brothers. He wanted to see what they had learned.

A great principle of the Christian faith might be this: Trust one another, but we are never to trust one another's nature. That's one of the reasons parents give their children the warnings that they do. Parents understand their children's natures better than their offspring do. It's not a question of trust; it's a matter of knowing the nature within. The only way that nature changes is when the Spirit of God rules and reigns in a heart. That is a supernatural event and it must happen every day...daily we must die to our natural man. Daily we must realize, "Christ in me is the hope of Glory!" Daily we must come to grips with our eternal nature and invite through our worship, our praise, our affection toward God the Father and our habits God's Spirit to grab hold of us, once again, for that day...and that is why today, I must remain...

InHISgrip,

~J~

To Obey Is Better n' A Sack of Ice?

2010-07-20T10:54:00.001-07:00
We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him. - Acts 5:32

As the Shins once sang, "there's no connection" in the title and to the subject matter of this devotional.

Other than this...obedience is often obscure to Christians and means something very different than we might have thought we were taught.

I am a sales person in my chosen profession. I work in franchising. I have for quite some time. My work requires me to create solutions for both the franchise company and potential franchisee's (franchise owners.) If I can't I do not get paid. It is straight commission. God has been good to me over the years. I have done well. But, it is never far from me that my success and productivity is measured by numbers; you make the numbers you receive the accolades (and pay).

So often we as a society equate numbers with success and my day job is just an example of that. The larger the conference, the more successful we deem it. Sadly, a whole generation of evangelicals got trapped in a "the larger a church, the more we believe that God is blessing" mentality. Most of us know better now.

When I was at AlphaGraphics Printshops we once were planning a conference and because we did not initially promote it with our usual pomp and marketing drive registrations were not where they should have been. We were just a few weeks before the event. There was a new ownership. They had a new Board of Directors. The pressure was on to ensure this conference was as good as any we'd previously held. It wasn't long before I began to get "under the pile" about the level of attendance. One of my Area Managers who was assisting came into the office to check up on me. Though he was not a particularly spiritual guy, Don immediately reminded me of my own teaching in this area. "You always say, (stealing it from Keith Green, the Christian Songwriter) just do your best and pray that it's blessed and God will take care of the rest."

Hmm...

The first part of the lesson about obeying and doing your best was this: God doesn't judge us (though mankind might be ticked) on the outcomes. "If my job required I take responsibility to put on this conference, then the outcome is up to Him if we have done our part."

Since that time, in the world of ministry I have seen God work in just this fashion. We had one idea of success but God had a different idea. His idea was about an individual; or maybe two or three. While we worried about the crowds Jesus wanted us to touch a person.

I have to constantly remind myself of the tension between the world's standards of success and Gods'. Being led by the Spirit often means we must not use the world's standard for success as our measuring stick. You never know what an act of obedience will yield at the time. Leave the results to God. Our role is to obey. His role is to bring results from our obedience. What God ordains He brings to pass; just be prepared for something different than you might have imagined.

This kind of God-led success does however lend itself to a specific issue: "My sheep hear my voice..." - Jesus

We have an obligation as followers of Jesus Christ, as the Redeemed, as His disciples to both hear and follow. We need to focus on the front-end of the process much more deeply. We need more knowledge of the Holy as He relates to us. We need His people to speak into one another's lives. His word needs to be more deeply understood and we need to ensure our goal is His glory and honor.

Do you make decisions based on the potential outcome or by the direction of the Holy Spirit in your life? Do you overly evaluate the pros and cons without consideration to what the Holy Spirit might be saying deep inside? We are all prone to make decisions based on reasoning alone. Ask God to give you a willingness and ability to hear the Holy Spirit and to obey His promptings.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

And So There I Was...Dying...

2010-07-05T10:19:00.001-07:00
So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. - 2 Corinthians 4:12

I've been watching practical transformation in my own home and amongst the members of the Church on Rogers Street.

It's fascinating and it's inspiring!

Many of us have had to adjust to things about our economy, our work, our career paths and even our foundational expectations. We have been in deep valley's. We have gone on emotional roller coaster rides that no earthly roller coaster can compare to. Our cores, our foundations, our relationships...everything about our lives, or lives of important people in our group have been shaken.

We were forced into this internal and external labor and being forced into hard places gives us a whole new perspective on life. Career paths, bank, savings, and retirement accounts, "things" we once valued, no longer hold the same attraction and attachment to us. And, all those things that people used to quip were most important, family, friends, our heritage in our children, they have become big things. That which we cannot take with us into eternity has actually begun to fade.

Have you been experiencing this or watching someone else you know go through and conclude that the world truly should not and cannot hold us in it's grip?

When you are in the midst of it you get a glimpse into the hard places of others. Our "hard places" in America are hardly at all yet that hard in this time. They do not rival the hardship of the Great Depression and that hardly holds a candle to what occurs in third world countries. Does it? Nonetheless trials keep us from having a shallow view of the hardships of others and allows us, like brothers-in-arms, to identify with them. Since this is a transitory time we can also observe those not having the same calamities befall them speak of such trials from no experience and often judge others who have had such hardship. I now have seen the superficiality of Christian experience that often permeates shallow believe and receive kids of brothers and sisters in Christ.

Our kinship with pain means that those going through the fire do not need to explain; they merely look at one another with mutual respect and admiration for their common experience. They know that death has worked a special thing in them. In 2 Corinthians 7:10 Paul talks about two types of sorrow. One leads to life. One kind of sorrow, earthly sorrow, leads to death. This is even deeper than that in many ways but this death leads to life in others because of the hard places God has taken them through and as they watch life triumph over the death working in us.

It is virtually impossible to fully appreciate any valley experience while you are in it. However, once you have reached the top of the mountain, you are able to appreciate what terrain you have passed through. You marvel at what you were able to walk through. The valley of the shadow of death has yielded more than you ever thought possible. You are able to appreciate the beauty of the experience and lay aside the sorrow and pain it may have produced.

Death works in you for a greater purpose. If you are in a place like that today, please know that your Heavenly Father is producing something of much greater value than you will ever know...it is ultimately the greatest triumph of all...life, eternal life of Christ in others!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

All That Is New

2010-07-04T21:33:00.001-07:00
Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 3:13b-14

Our past can be a hindrance or a help in moving toward God's purposes for each of us. For some, the past has meant pain and heartache, and grace is required so that we do not let that which shaped us dictate our responses and the outcomes of those responses in our future. If we allow our past to make us a victim, then we have not entered into the grace that God has for us. To be sure it is a decision we make. God's grace saves us and changes us or it does not. If we live on memories of past successes and fail to raise our vision for new things, we again are victims of our past. Our past becomes our highlight reel.

That is not God's vision for your life

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland - Isaiah 43:19.

Our past should only be viewed for what we can learn from it. We should understand it so we can trace the finger of God, even when we were in rebellion, in our lives. We must move forward and avoid viewing the negative or the positive for more than what we can learn; for how our Heavenly Father can take that information and build our future from and with it. Are you going to allow your past dictate your future.? God is always about doing new things in our lives. New things means He is doing something unique today and will again do something unique to you and I in our tomorrow's. He gives fresh insight of His purposes in our lives. At the very least these new adventures provide us with new clues to His calling and His election of us into the offices to which only He can call us.
Do not live in the past. Do not hold onto bitterness that may hinder God from doing new and exciting things in your life.

Our eternal Father turns our wastelands into streams of water to give life, not death. He means for each event and memory to lead to the glory of His name. Your quest, your adventure is to figure out how.

How are we viewing our past? How much time are we giving to it? Are we glorying in it? Has it hindered us to become more of Jesus Christ? Have you relied on past successes to dictate what you will do in the future or stymy you from moving forward toward new goals? Put your memories in their proper place. Allow God to do a new things in your life. Seek His guidance to assist you to see the new things He wants to do in and through you today.

"When your memories are bigger than your dreams, you're headed for the grave" [Author unknown]...I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

O' Where O' Where Has My God Gone? (In the mirror or to the heavens?)

2010-06-30T12:56:00.001-07:00

God looks down from heaven on the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. - Psalm 53:2
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord, and I will bring you back from your captivity; I will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you, says the Lord, and I will bring you to the place from which I cause you to be carried away captive. – Jeremiah 29:11-14
As a pastor I am a blessed man. I have men in my church that seek after God's heart. As a pastor I am a challenged man. I am challenged not just because of my own shortcomings and inadequacies (the Lord knows) but also because I have men in my church who seek after God and their desire for more of God encourages me on to more of Jesus Christ in my life and less of me.
My men are not my primary motivation for my growth, when I have growth in my Christian walk however. Though these good, godly men keep me on my toes, encourage and exhort one another and bless me with their dissatisfaction with just remaining where they are in their maturity, they are but one tool and not the chief tool God uses to provide my own impetus to be the man God has created me to become.
Late in His three year ministry Jesus explained about an element of His own personal joy and the reason He pressed on through all of life's difficulties. Now, to be sure, Jesus wasn't speaking about a singular joy. Clearly there are kinds of joys that we experience. But each joy is the end-game satisfaction of a more complex series of events and our obedience to God the Father in those events. We see this in John 3:25-28 where John the Baptist, as the forerunner to Jesus, indicates the joy of having been tasked, by God, as the one to announce Jesus' coming. John preached it and saw that it was fulfilled. To that John would say, "Therefore this joy of mine is now complete." John was to receive more eternal joy later.
What I am thinking here is what Jesus expressed in John 15:8-12 when He said, "By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruits and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full."
To have the love of Christ permeate my body, soul and spirit and to be privileged to express it to others and share it's healing, peace and personally satisfying provision is what must drive you and I on into more of Jesus and less of me. Jesus, with great love and care, had been given instruction from the Father. The instruction looked past the discomfort and disharmony. It looked beyond heartache and the physical abuse that would follow Jesus in the same way that training is embraced by a great athlete so that they may reach to the goal; realizing that both Father and Son loved and had as their center attention mankind. Jesus, with love in his eyes for His Father, accepted the task at hand. Here in John 15 Jesus is passing on the lesson of eternity to us instructed us to do likewise, Abide in my love If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love, just as I have kepty my Father's commandments and abide in His love."
Has God gotten your attention. Have you become one who is a seeker of God? The Lord delights in seeing those children of His who truly understand the meaning of life and why there is only one thing worth seeking and that is God Himself.To follow after Him and pursue living the life you now have in this earthly domain in a way that pleases Him because He instructs it was precisely the message Jesus was attempting to convey to His disciples on that day 2000 years ago.
Life on planet earth has been cruel of late. But that isn't God's main concern. It isn't supposed to be mine as it relates to "me" either. I know when I've not been pursuing my God and Father. The cares of this life, the urgent over the important, and the petty irritations begin to affect me. I become emotional. Guys these are the symptoms of a life that has not been seeking God; praying, reading, meditating, waiting on Him. Can you relate to any of this? Is this sinking in with you? These would be questions, our Savior would pose to us. We need to ask them of ourselves daily.
If we understand that it is only in keeping the only two commandments Jesus gave us, to love God with all of our hearts, mind, body and soul and to love others with that amazing, self-preserving, "give-me-joy at all costs" love we provide to self we will have our wish and desire; pure joy.
If you are toiling and fretting over what will soon be dead and gone where are you getting your spiritual strength? What will you pay to get your joy back? We need to set self-preservation boundaries in our lives. We best preserve and serve self when we seek Him! That means time spent with Him and His tools. This is the great challenge in a world that screams for our attention and threatens us with ruin if we do not oblige them.
Create a schedule of time to be with your God, His Word where you meditate, listen, and hear! Are you committed to developing that intimacy with your Lord that He so desires so that YOUR joy as John 15 says will be complete? If not, ask Him today to help you. This is the longing of His heart. Ask Him to make it the longing of your heart. Then you will demonstrate to Him that you understand, and you will be a seeker of God. I remain...
InHISgrip,
~J~

Working On Getting What I May Never Get...

2010-06-22T12:40:00.001-07:00

Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. - Job 42:3b
I want my bank account bank to normal. I want my bills paid. I want to stop being upset about the way my everyday life is going. I want the progress I seem to be making spiritually to count in the real world where there are responsibilities to handle, expectations to fulfill and creditors to deal with in such a way to keep them off my back (I hear they accept cash!)
And I hate all of that!
But then I have to reflect...(because daily I read the Bible...hmmm...I may have to rethink this Scriptures strategy thing if I am to maintain my high level of dissatisfaction, consternation at my life predicament and quality of grumbling and grousing those who love me have come to expect and appreciate.)
If there was any one man on earth who had reason to question God's love, it was Job. He lost his family, his health, and his wealth-all at the same time.
I've lost a few here in there in the normal course of life but not all at once. Okay Job, you got me there.
His friends came to his side only to question his spirituality and dedication to the one true God. They would poke and prod at his life, probably more because this was going to be a once in a lifetime experience for them. They would never have the "upper hand" on Job again.
But the narrator of the Book of Job already fills us in on the man Job. God had already answered the question of Job's personal integrity. Job was described in the opening verses of the book as "blameless and upright" (see Job 1:1). Perhaps the friends made Job doubt the man he was. Maybe they didn't. But, we, as interlopers in this scene do not need to question it. Job was major God material.
No. Job's worldly calamities were not born from sin. Job acknowledged God's right to do anything in his life until one day he could take it no longer.
He questioned God's motives.
God answered.
God answered this favorite son but not in the way Job wanted to hear. God answered him with a series of questions that represents the most incredible discourse of correction by God to any human being...EVER!
Three chapters later, Job realized that he had questioned the motives of the Author of the universe, the Author of love; the transcendent God. He questioned the one who sits outside of all of this material, spinning, ordered matter and looks in, for, as a master craftsman, God not only formed it, shaped it, designed it, built it and more. He was also the supervisor who approved the building permits for it; indicated who would inhabit it, for how long and what they would accomplish for HIM and what it's value would be into eternity.
Job fell flat before his Creator and realized his total depravity. "Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know." This was no mere statement of fact. Job was speaking out of a realization of that old and familiar verse we who have been around church so long can quote so easily,
My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the LORD. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. - Isaiah 55:8 NLT
This was a man who, having lost it all from an earthly perspective had also attempted to squander the one and truly only valuable thing he had ever possessed, his personal relationship with the Great God of All! Despair, anger, confusion, hurt, and constant disappointment, if we choose, can lead us to do devastating things with eternal consequences. Fortunately for you and I, for Job, for his friends and remaining family, he repented.
Have you ever questioned God's activity in your life? Have you questioned His love for you based on circumstances that came your way? The cross at Calvary answers the love question. That He sent His own Son in replacement for your miserable self. If you were the only person on earth, He would have done the same. His ways cannot always be understood or reconciled in our finite minds. That must be left for a future time when all will be understood. For now, entrust your life to Him completely. Embrace Him in the hard times and the good.
You learn trust when you learn that God won’t be formed or fashioned after your image. The outcomes of your life were meant to show you that the value of His relationship to you was to be intimate not just personal, (As in Jesus is my personal Savior). The stuff of your earthly years is a metaphor for your eternity. You have missed it all if you have just prayed a pray and then begun a life of goodly (note: NOT godly) duty. His work in you, His desire for you to belong to others to stand with you, His word as a guideline to understand as He speaks to you personally (and, I might add emphatically) is all about the moment. And in this moment you need to learn He is waiting until the entire world and all it holds is of no value other than to be the currency of your life as you commune, communicate and walk by His voice and not by our plans.
I remain…
InHISgrip,
~J~

Isn't Faithful Like Loyal & Aren't They Both A Ton of Work?

2010-06-18T08:41:00.001-07:00

The Spirit of God came upon Azariah son of Oded. He went out to meet Asa and said to him, "Listen to me, Asa and all Judah and Benjamin. The Lord is with you when you are with Him. If you seek Him, He will be found by you, but if you forsake Him, He will forsake you." - 2 Chronicles 15:1, 2
I am really struggling here. There is a whole bunch of believers these days that are attempting to embrace a God who flows naturally out of personal paradigms in their life. The emergent movement has spawned groups that, though they do not willingly embrace the overall pseudo-non-theological premise of conversation and dialogue based on a lack of foundations it is having an odd effect. May the outcomes be better than the beginnings.

But first what is a personal paradigm? An example might be a friend and you are talking about godly things and you say, "I think that God will let you know when He's ready to let you know." The key words there would be, I think. That is a personal paradigm. You aren't validating your thoughts against anything. You aren't speaking or indicating you are being lead by the Holy Spirit. You are not designating your thoughts as the Bible's position on the issue. You are merely stating an opinion. Now, depending on how valued your advice is to your friend, they may just take it as Gospel. You may in fact be all the Jesus they know. Right or wrong they view you as their spiritual guidepost. You are their moral compass. And that kind of response to them, well, it's sad to me. It's also dangerous for you.

In the verse above Asa was the king of Judah for 41 years. That's a long time. He was known as a good king who served the Lord with great zeal. He reformed and restored godliness to Israel as the direction the nation would pursue. He broke down idols in high places that were worshipped. These were foreign gods brought in by the insurgence of other people's into the lands. He did other moral and cool things as well such as doing away with male prostitutes. And check this out, he even removed his own mother from being queen because she worshiped an idol. The Scriptures say that as long as he sought the Lord, the Lord prospered his reign.

However, Asa was not totally faithful in his calling. There came a time in his life when he made a decision to no longer trust in the God of Israel. He lost his confidence in God as his deliverer. Later in Chronicles we would find the prophet Hanani come to Asa to inform him that God's blessing was no longer on his life because of an ungodly alliance he had made.

Were not the Cushites and Libyans a mighty army with great numbers of chariots and horsemen? Yet when you relied on the Lord, He delivered them into your hand. For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. You have done a foolish thing, and from now on you will be at war - 2 Chronicles 16:8-9

We all are susceptible to do the very same things with our spiritual lives. Many of us are so constantly self-observing that we read, and listen and embrace and heap to ourselves teachers whose thoughts and concepts and attitudes speak to us and validate our current emotional state. But do they provide to us the kind of childlike love that Jesus came to restore to us when He gave us back our Father God? Do they help us hear Him early in the morning? Do they open and reveal the Bible to us in such a way that it provides guidance for our ability to try the spirits and voices?

We should press into God and align ourselves with those who are God pursuers; who seek to Love God - Who Love Others by their actions and words - Whose discipling power is energized by the Holy Spirit because it brings forth life and not just more dialogue. We should not simply be spinning our wheels and validating our weaknesses and the path we have pursued to this moment in time.

I read a series of blogs over the last two days of whining baby Christians. Pointing to a past of teaching, discipling and training that they say, 'wore them out,' and 'caused guilt and shame.' They describe their church experiences as if they had been tied to a chair and water-boarded spiritually. In post after post they validated the horrors of their Christian history. Apparently God was not sovereign in their lives. He missed them. They were not on His radar. Whatever happened to the words of Paul where he indicated that all the things he had gone through were meant to provide goodness, grace, power, teaching and all God things for himself and his readers? Ah! If you ask some of these they would say, "I think he got sidetracked in his pursuit of God by thinking he could please God and his zealousness got him in trouble."

Ya. Uh huh. THAT's what happened.

Wake up believers. Get a grip! The God who loves and saved you is speaking to you. Pursue Him. Follow Him. Expect to hear and be guided by your Heavenly Father as you follow Him.

Look, there are no guarantees that if we began well we will finish well. The life of Asa tells us this. It is only through God's grace that we can be faithful to our calling. But being faithful to it means we actively pursue it. This is the God who said, "You will find me when you seek me...with all your heart."

And, make no mistake of it. You have a calling. Each of us is capable of falling away from that calling in God. God gets great joy in answering the prayers of the week. You don't have to come up with some slick teaching out of your own paradigm that justifies why you feel the way you do. Pray that God will keep you faithful to the purposes He has for your life. Engage your fellow believers in your quest to be strong in the Lord and the power of His might! Reach down and help another. There is ALWAYS someone who needs Jesus love as it comes from you. Our Father strengthens those whose hearts are fully committed to Him. And that is not how I feel. Ask Asa...I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Yes, You Have a Calling on Your Life!

2010-06-16T07:56:00.001-07:00

But the Danites had difficulty taking possession of their territory, so they went up and attacked Leshem, took it, put it to the sword and occupied it.... - Joshua 19:47

This, I believe, is one of the greatest struggles every maturing Christian has in this life and that is the challenge of realizing what God has presented, promised and purposed for us in our lives; to take their inheritance in the land. The gifting, skill-set, and godly passions of your life are first realized and then must be taken hold of. It is the one thing that God abundantly uses that the enemy grapples with us about. It is also the thing that most easily sways us from a path of rightly dividing the word of God (the Bible) and God's voice.

What is the spiritual inheritance God has reserved for you? When God told the Israelites they were going to be given the Promised Land, it was not a walk in the park. They would encounter 39 battles in taking the land God promised to them. The devil and the natural enemies of godliness arrayed themselves against God's people. Obtaining the land, the blessing, the gifts of God, took a joint effort between God and the Israelites to engage and battle the enemy that maintained control of the land. The gifts, the creativity, the ingenuity, the crafting, the power of God for and in them were all used to conquer the enemy so they could occupy the land.

God has given you and me a spiritual inheritance that must be won in the heavenlies. We fight it in our spirits and our minds. A dear friend and mentor once counseled me after watching my life over a period by saying, "The Lord has given you a spiritual inheritance. That inheritance lies in your ability to speak into the lives of people. You are called to caring and close relationships. YIKES! And, if you know me you know why I say, yikes. However, I have found they were right. And, because my purpose, the land God wishes me to occupy lies in relationships, that is the place the enemy attacks most. The devil would use my past against me. He would use my personality to keep me from fulfilling the purposes of God for me. He would take my emotional proclivities and place them at the forefront of my decision-making processes when it came to people in my life. The enemy always attacks us in the area where we are to receive our inheritance or with the things God truly wishes for us to give up to Him for His glory. Invariably these are the places in our lives where we will find our greatest joys in God once they have been given over and back to Him that we might gain great joy in our service to Him through their use and that includes our emotions, gifts, skills, and all the other objects our God has placed in our life to conquer the land we've been promised.

Guys, you and I must walk in faithfulness and obedience to His righteousness in how you deal with the things that God has equipped you with to fulfill His specific call on your life. That call, in large part, is your inheritance in Christ Jesus!

I hope these words speak to you as the wisdom of God. The Lord has proven these words to be true in my life I can tell you.

What is the spiritual inheritance He has reserved for you? What is God purposing for you, first, today? I can tell you it was for you to start this day and proclaim His Lordship in your life and over everything that you do. It was also to give you a sense of duty, presence in the land and purpose for your life and for you to take steps, every day, to take more and more of the land He has promised to you. In your case that land is more and more of the life, the ministry and the purposes that you and you alone were given by God to occupy!

What areas of your inheritance must you take possession of today? What is it your God wishes for you to take back, in His name and for the Kingdom of God? The enemy of your soul does not want you to take possession. If you are frustrated in life then look up! Be glad! You are engaged in the battle. Put on your armor and begin walking in obedience into the areas God has called you to possess. Let's keep one another in prayer about this and together conquer in the mighty name of Jesus! I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

2010-05-29T00:57:00.001-07:00
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.- Anatole France

2010-05-29T00:56:00.001-07:00
The familiar yields something new when I open my mind to discovery and with discovery to those connections to all else that I know-J Wilson

Walking Humbly With My God

2010-05-27T09:32:00.001-07:00

I know, my God, that You test the heart and are pleased with integrity - 1 Chronicles 29:17a
This last week I came once again, face-to-face, with the notion that God uses all things to accomplish His will. That means no evil occurs that He does not get the glory and honor as well as every gift and good grace that we deem a blessing.

God tests His children to know what is in their hearts. He uses every tool, object lesson, event and contingent event to do so.

He has not as of yet, run out of new and creative ways to do this.

For God the key is relationship. God's desire for each of His children is to walk in relationship with Him, to glorify Him in word and deed as we uphold His righteousness and integrity. It is a high calling that we will fail to achieve without complete dependence on Him.
I am convinced, having watched God's people over the last few years here in the United States and abroad that the greatest tests come not in great adversities, but in great prosperity. In having much we begin to lose the sensitivity to particular kinds of sin in our lives. Greed, selfishness and pride come to mind as the top three sins in my own heart that I must be on guard about when things are going well. On the other hand adversity motivates us to righteousness out of a desire to see our plight changed. I'm not sure this is the primary reason we are in our predicaments but, none the less, we are more sensitive to a lack of God's presence when times are tough. We go seeking Him. We want to know if He is still there, hearing us and available to us. Prosperity fails to provide this motivation for obedience. We fall into a satisfaction and confidence in life that is based on our riches rather than on God and truly on our need for Him everyday.
In the little verse of scripture at the top of this posting we find Hezekiah who was a great godly king of Israel speaking. He was a faithful, God-honoring king most of his life, but toward the end he became proud. How many of us know we can even become proud in that we have established a relationship with God?

God wanted to find out if Hezekiah would still honor Him and recognize His blessings in his life. He failed the test when God sent an envoy to his palace to inquire about a miracle that God performed on behalf of Hezekiah. The test was designed to find out if Hezekiah would publicly acknowledge the miracle performed on his behalf. But when envoys were sent by the rulers of Babylon to ask him about the miraculous sign that had occurred in the land, God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart (2 Chronicle 32:31).
Hezekiah's failure resulted in his children failing to carry on as rulers of Israel, and the nation would eventually be taken over by the Babylonian Empire. The lesson of Hezekiah is clear. If we remain faithful to our Lord, we also remain steadfast in our obedience to Him. Prosperity can be our greatest test. In your mind who made you wealthy? Ask the Lord to give you the grace to be a faithful follower during times of prosperity so that in the times when things are a little thinner, a little leaner, you understand and are sensitive to those messages as well.

I remain...

InHISgrip, ~J~

2010-05-19T16:45:00.001-07:00
Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

When the Minutiae Does Count - Life Virtually Always!

2010-05-18T08:24:00.001-07:00

Who despises the day of small things? - Zechariah 4:10
Over the last several weeks I have been working on developing a new tract of thinking as it relates to Life Purpose Coaching, my own franchise consulting work and the purpose for the individuals who are God's people; heck, even the individuals who currently are not God's people.
The reason I make that second statement is that none of us get's to any of our favorite words without our getting to the place where we understand we were made to enjoy a life-long and intimate relationship with God. We do not get there by doing "good work." We can take care of our families and our responsibilities and excel in education and vocation and we will not get to happy, joyful, fulfilled, complete, satisfied or any other superlative that is associated with those if we do not start with the premise that I was made to worship and adore God and take my greatest joy in Him forever. So, it's quite a thing isn't it if you do not even recognize Him at all.
All of this has me reading particular books and authors and points of view. Many of these I have read more than once. And I am now in the process of "splitting hairs" at a very finite degree. I have had to show discipline and in a life that is ordered like mine where my time is often mine to order indiscriminately it isn't always easy.
Life is filled with daily routines and many of them we are not big fans of; I am sure you are the same way. We do things we don't necessarily enjoy but we do them because they need to get done. In my current project that is precisely where I am at.
To cap this thought quickly for you the landscape against which I am thinking has to do with great expectations for God. Attempt great things for God - expect great things from God. But apparently the Holy Spirit is in the details. The great things are, at this moment in my life, a whole bunch of little things.
Every now and then, God takes us to the mountaintop to experience His presence in a dramatic way. This is not the norm. It was not the norm for those in the Bible either. Moses spent 40 years in preparation. Paul spent a great deal of his life working toward the wrong purpose until a dramatic event changed his life. For Paul, after that change he then spent years and years apart from the church and people so Jesus, through the Holy Spirit could speak to Him in an ordered way and provide you and I the great church teachings we depend on for our structures as New Testament Christians. In the case of Jacob he spent 20 years working with his hands for his once and future father-in-law Laban all for the love of a girl; but, more than this all for the cause of a people.

God uses the tiny details of our lives to develop character qualities that He plans to use at the appropriate time. Often the small things and yes, the things we despise are the very tools for immortality. In the small things we develop trustworthiness in our relationship to Father God. He learns He can depend on us. We learn we can handle them in patience and endurance.
Here's the key: The day-in and day-out grind of working life molds us and makes us into what God desires. God is preparing you for something far greater. That isn't a question. It is a fact. For now, however, you are learning the daily lessons of small things. I'll make you a deal. You pray that I remain faith and I will pray that you will be faithful by those little things as well. Let's not look for the devil in the detail. May we find the Spirit of the Living God in every instance of our life.
I remain...
InHISgrip,
~J~

The Greatest Light in Our Personal World Is...?

2010-05-12T08:12:00.001-07:00

Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. - Romans 3:3-5
As I grow older, ya know, just plain older; but also as I mature in faith I have become more concerned with what separates those who have a false sense of security in Jesus than I am worried about those who rightly and properly understand why it is they are bound for eternity with God. I hadn't thought about this much until I began, once more, reading John Piper's book Desiring God. In the book Piper makes a strong case for the joy of salvation that Christians properly feel emanating out of them from a shift in the primary focus on their love and affection. Who do you love most? Piper scripturally argues that if your foundational love; from which all other affection is drawn from; the source of all your love or happiness is your love of God then you can wrap your heart, mind and soul around your correct assumption that you know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior.
So what then is the wrong love focus? How might you wrongly assume the happiness you get from being saved is false hope? What then might it be that gives us a counterfeit sense of, "I am saved?"
In a recent message to his church John Piper spoke these words,
Millions of nominal Christians have never experienced a fundamental alteration of that foundation of happiness. Instead they have absorbed the notion that becoming Christian means turning to Jesus to get what you always wanted before you were born again. So, if you wanted wealth, you stop depending on yourself for it, and by prayer and faith and obedience you depend on Jesus for wealth. If you wanted to be healthy, you turn from mere human cures to Jesus as the source of your health. If you wanted to escape the pain of hell, you turn to Jesus for the escape. If you wanted to have a happy marriage, you come to Jesus for help. If you wanted peace of conscience and freedom from guilt feelings, you turn to Jesus for these things.
In other words, to become a Christian, in this way of seeing things, is to have all the same desires you had as an unregenerate person—only you get them from a new source, Jesus. And He feels so loving when you do. But there’s no change at the bottom of your heart and your cravings. No change in what makes you happy. There’s no change in the decisive foundation of your joy. You just shop at a new store. The dinner is still the same; you just have a new butler. The bags in the hotel room are still the same; you just have a new bellhop.
I believe Dr. Piper is right.
Genuinely being born again, saved, and a part of the new birth in Jesus Christ has the affect of changing our fundamental desires. Where I once desired my own selfish wants and needs primarily, I now simply wish, regardless at the cost to me to glorify my great God.
For each of us the question becomes this, "Am I loving God because He made me a big deal and did a lot for me, and in my future even more if or am I loving Him because I realize the magnitude of what He has done for me though I deserve not one bit of it?" Perhaps another way of saying it would be, "is my love of God founded in Him or founded, in some manner, in me?"
Those who desire to honor God might say it better than I and I am trying to get my arms around it but the core of this seems to be that I need to understand God did all He did for me so that His glory would shine forever. I need to get that into my heart. This is not about me primarily. It is about Him fully. There is verse after verse that point out the ways in which God reveals His great love to us for His Glory and His Own sake!
Check these verses out:
Luke 2:10-14 is the manger story and ends this way, "... glory to God in the highest!" (We get a savior and God gets the glory!)
Isaiah 43:6,7 commands God's prophets to bring forth his children with the end reason, "...whom i created for my glory."
Ephesians 1:5, 6 tells us through the giving of His Son God adopted us back into his family. Why? "...to the praise of His glorious grace."
Psalm 79 essentially says that God pursues us for His Glory. Verse 9 resounds, "Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for Your name’s sake!" I might get a benefit but my God ultimately gets something far superior-GLORY. This is how the truly saved might pray.
John 17:24 and this is how Jesus prays when speaking about this very subject of our right standing and salvation with God. Check this out: Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
Jesus wants us with Him. To be sure He has and will yet do many things for us (Check out the book of Revelation sometime to see what is, in small part, yet to be done for us...HUGE!) but what is our joy and our happiness? ... to see His glory!
This could go on and on but I point these out to express that the love of God is meant to lead us back to His glory and His honor and our praising Him and it is an end in itself and that is how the born again, he saved, the truly blood washed see their salvation. Where once I had no desire to love on God now I cannot help but see how everything points back to Him that is good, right, pure, peaceful, loving and full of His glory.
So what's in it for you and I? Well I think you can probably answer these questions yourself; at least partially. I've already made this way too long but here is a short list and you look up the scriptures to validate it:
I receive eternal life because He receives the glory
I receive riches beyond this worlds count because He receives the glory
I receive His purpose for me in this life because He receives the glory
I receive His personal direction and instruction because He receives the glory
I received and continue to live in His great love through Jesus Christ because in His having given that to me He receives the glory
This is truly the short list...judge angels, joint heirs, ruling and reigning, it goes on and on doesn't it...and for it I weep for joy and bow down and worship the great God of all because He deserves all honor and power and glory for ever! God gives us so much and loves us so much and makes so much of us because in doing so, in the way that only He can do it true and fulfilling love, God's love and loving God is regenerated.
Don't let all God has done and will be done for you become the reason for your love of God. Don't make some aspect (love, wisdom, freedom, power, healing, gifts, etc.) become the reason for your love of God or others. We can love Him because He first loved us, gave His Son for us and now, by opening up our eyes of understanding, allows us to glory in the unfathomable love that is our God.
I remain...
InHISgrip,
~J~

And Your Reason Is? - This is More of a Rant

2010-05-10T00:24:00.001-07:00

Recently a relative of mine called words I had directed toward her in reflection on something she had written a "sounding gong and chiming cymbal." Actually I believe she was calling me those things as she quoted from I Corinthians 13:1. Perhaps she merely was expressing that to her it sounded like I was correcting her without love. It was a response to something she had posted on Facebook about a video that can be found here: http://vimeo.com/11501569. You should cut and paste and take a look at it. It's pretty slick and insightful. Go ahead, open another browser window; I'll wait here.
Nice job fellows at North Point Media (a ministry of the multi-campused mega-church North Point Community Church in the Atlanta, GA area.)
But I think this very cool video is not what some might interpret it to be. You see, the same guys who gave us this http://vimeo.com/8637774 gave us this http://vimeo.com/11501569 - perhaps they were simply providing themselves and the other 220 mega churches throughout the USA and the other 1200 around the world with a little wake up call.It certainly is a funny parady to them.
The rest of the churches who would want to emulate this kind of production couldn't if they tried and can't afford it as it is.
Still all in all the message in the video saddened me but it doesn't surprise me (Though given who they are really did sort of confuse me). That my sweet and loving relative would call me or think I was unloving toward her a noisy gong or clanging cymbal likewise saddened me.
The video as an inside joke is funny. If, its primary intent be to shoot holes in 21st century church, well then guys I would tell you that this is old news about contemporary ills of the Church. This particular piece is wrapped in the very technology that it criticizes; using the same "vices". That's weird.
Perhaps it is "the heart" of the church, the minister or the worship leader that the video, "Sunday's Coming". But who is it? It never says. It just seems to criticize some church (or ministry), somewhere, at some time. But it is just so totally random.
We will never know about whom this specifically was aiming at. We will have to call the character who plays the guy who knows it all, Pastor Guru since whomever this charismatic charmer is in the clip has no name. It just doesn't say.
I guess, since the message is posted for the world to see on YouTube, then the whole message appears should just be taken as a think piece much like you might have gotten from the Wittenberg Door guys back in the 70's and 80's (Shades of Mike Yacconelli). That job, policing and sarcastically criticizing has now been replicated in 10,000 blogs. The difference is that this one is great media. It's well produced. A few magazines of the Christian ilk have attempted to be a helpful policing agent for all things Christian in the past but it was hard to take them seriously across from a full page ad by Zondervan by the latest greatest book by the latest greatest writer, teacher, pastor, expositor, celebrity.
But I have a problem with the video "Sunday's Coming". It has no target. It's an old, worn out misdirected method of trying to cure an ill (or ill's) in the church. The strategy becomes this:
"We, the concerned, will talk about things in a general way that will be validated by the many who view themselves as "not this." I can't say for sure but "not this" offends me and therefore anything that I define as "not this" will be struck from my professional, objective, and classically trained spiritual eye as to be brushed aside. After all "not this" has no place in the 'Kingdom of God.'"
Now, before I get too far you may ask, "John what do you mean by, 'not this?'"
Well I'll give you some examples. Let's say I go to a small church of 45-65 which "preaches the pure word." "Not This" then becomes highly polished, well orchestrated ministry. Perhaps my church has no electrical instruments nor electronics of any kind to wow the masses. "Not this" is then the fancy electronica, sound and lighting affects of the world being used in less than spiritual churches. And certainly our pastor isn't that slick, cool, knowledgeable, Steve Jobs-esque fellow depicted in the video "Not this" becomes any pastor who has charisma, delivery and uses current terminology. Further, no one walks up front with a logo'd t-shirt, sneakers and cool glasses in my church because we honor God by our Sunday best! "Not this" becomes multi-media used to present the announcements or anyone who acts as the Master of Ceremonies of a spiritual service. (Really? Those were cool glasses?) Or, and I am "not this" might say/believe I am not in a big church. I am not in a modern church. I am a Christian but I am not in church at all. These examples could all be a part, in this instance, of the "not this."
And, since you are "not this" don't you just feel better knowing it?
It gives you great comfort in knowing that you are far off the hell bent path of "not this" and therefore much you are much closer to "what it is!" What it is, in my verbiage, is your idea of the right thinking and correct path to follow Jesus.
The problem brothers and sisters is this; In this us and them strategic ideological division you would say to yourself, "I understand 'what it is' because 'not this' makes me convulse to think about it!" I spend time with my fellow believers (or disbelievers) and we all shake our heads in disapproval at "not this," grateful that we have a clearer if not crystalline, objective and abiding understanding of "what it is." I thank my God I live under His protection in "what it is."
So I watched "Sunday's Coming." And in it I recognized the "anti-spiritual" players and realized in 46 years of church attendance I have only seen all of them on the same team, at the same time and place, espousing a similar format and mission twice. I had seen all of those things that Sunday's Coming espoused separately but not all in one place and to think it was the mission and vision of those ministries to succor people on slick stylings would be the subjective rant of an infidel attempting to justify their disbelief in Jesus Christ. ("I don't believe because Christians are hypocrites." Somehow, "Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher..." is lost in that line of thought for me...I'm just sayin'.)
Jesus was contemporary for His time. He did things that woke people up. He changed up the way to ask questions and to speak to people...even WHO He would speak with changed. Using the language of the day, the tools and technologies of the day to reach the churched better to disciple and the unchurched to deliver them into God's kingdom, though must come with God's anointing and direction (as would anything) certainly isn't patently anti-god or anti-church.
The video is funny. I hope every minister who watches it gets that he/she better not become "not this." But to my loving relative and anyone else who validates feelings, experiences and media as well as sentiment to discredit "the church," it isn't that easy. I cannot get past the true, obvious, "smack-you-in-the-face" plain teaching of scripture about why some people would embrace it to validate a particular point. It doesn't make any of us right to acknowledge we know worship leaders who just want to sell CD's (usually to shore up some paltry salary they try to subsist on) or some pastor who has learned the delivery of a teaching or sermon with professionalism and competency.
The video does not say that churches, bodies of Christ are whack; stay away! It does NOT say that. The Bible is plain...
• It says Jesus died for His body - the church (and though we are members of that body...the body is still recognized with ALL it's members working together) - Colossians 2:19; I Corinthians 12:12; Ephesians 5:23
• Oddly enough something we hold very personal, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, is for the Church. You have spiritual gifts. And since you do they are to be used in a corporate body of Christ setting. Check it out - Acts 10:44,45 & 11:15-17
• It says we are to be those who organize as the parts of the body to better attack the gates of Hell (the gates don't attack back) and that Jesus is the churches (not the individuals) leaders - Ephesians 1:22,23 & I Corinthians 12:27
• 47% of those who profess Jesus as Savior in America don't go to church or involve themselves regularly with a body of Christ and I suppose since God allowed, slavery, polygamy, divorce, a taxed society He doesn't kick anyone out of eternity for not attending church but they certainly can't call themselves disciples of Jesus Christ either
• 37% of that group indicate they do not go to church because of deep wounds caused by past associations and that includes being guilted into service and other personally viewed harms.
• The Church body is a unique place where God's glory is illuminated - Ephesians 3:21
I do not know what your "not this" is or if it relates to the church of Jesus Christ at all. But, let me suggest that nothing in life reflects on those who are able-bodied and capable or taking their place as a member of a local body of Christ and do not do it as the kinds of hypocrites that the world finds unbelievable. Secondly, God has few people that He expects to act as a sort of internal KGB to police His own army. He doesn't use believers to ambush His own. It's time we all were part of the solution instead of spy's in the land sent to throw rocks indiscriminately and make self feel better for both agreeing that error lives in the church as a sort of general statement (duh!) and pointing out the errors of our brothers and sisters...where is the love in that? More to the point how loving, in grace, is it and where is the lack of hypocrisy you hope to avoid?
I remain...
InHISgrip, ~J~

The Master Maker of All Things Good...

2010-05-06T06:53:00.001-07:00
Then the Lord said to Moses, "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts-to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. - Exodus 31:1-5

So I got up this morning and I was thinking back on all the great pieces of art that the Lord has allowed me to play as a guitarist. I have had several Gibson guitars, a Martin, a Taylor, and 3 Fender guitars (all American made). In addition I had a Swedish handmade Hagstrom, a Guild and an original Epiphone (before Gibson bought them and took them to Korea to be mass produced.)

God entrusted me with many fine instruments. And, in some cases I did not do very well by the work of the fine men and women who created them. This morning as I looked over at my Black Fender Stratocaster Ultra I realized how someone's gifting had changed my life and created in me a whole new reason to glorify God.

In the little verse above we have an example of a man called of God to perform for the Kingdom of God. Bezalel was called by God to perform a most important work for Him. I am sure that Bezalel believed that he was naturally gifted with his hands to make fine crafts with gold, silver, and bronze. In his original thinking this man may not have associated his artistry with God's work. But the Scripture tells us that God chose Bezalel and filled this dude with HIS own Spirit to enable him.

Does God call men and women into their vocations to fulfill His purposes - to fulfill that which needs to be accomplished throughout the world? Have you ever thought about how many occupations there are in the world? How did that balance of interest among each human throughout the world happen? Did it just happen? Was it by chance that we have only so many doctors, only so many accountants, only so many geologists? Now, I realize that mom's can call doctors. And I know that dad's can push hard for sons to become engineers but nonetheless everything that needs to get done (Well, quite most of it) seems to.

If you are a follower of Jesus Christ your interest in your vocation if understood rightly in the light of scriptures should not be born of your own making. Certainly whatever it is that you do would be best done should the work of it be given to God as an offering. So many believers and even pastors have made the mistake of encouraging us who have a deep desire to walk with Christ in our profession to pursue vocational ministry. To remove us from the world at large where the greatest harvest is yet to occur would be to remove us from where God called us. Do not take this bait. Serve the Lord in the place where He has gifted you and called you. Where is your skill? Where is your passion? Marry those two things and expect God to honor the work of your hands.

I almost made this same mistake when God drew me to Himself when I was 18 years old. I concluded that I must be called to be a full-time pastor. I took steps to fulfill this by leaving my job and entering a Bible school for training. Upon completion, I took a job as an assistant pastor in a church. But God's mercy allowed me to be removed from that position only a few short years into it. I was "forced back into business," where God wanted me in the first place. It was a great lesson. I was never cut out to be a "conventional" pastor in a church, but a "pastor" in the community; to include business, and church, and teaching, training, and applying the growing knowledge God was giving me from His word to be more directly applied to everyday life.

If you struggle today with who you are in Christ and what you do it isn't necessary. Give God what you do now. Expect Him to move you into the place where you affect more for His Kingdom and watch Him work.

One day our friend Bezalel was merely a recognized skilled and talented goldsmith. The next day he was GOD'S goldsmith. Let's all get on THAT bandwagon.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Whatcha Got There? Faith? Or Is It Faith in Faith?

2010-05-05T06:52:00.001-07:00

..."Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," says the Lord Almighty - Zechariah 4:6

One of the things that always bothered me was just how dour a Christian might be. Typically it is some form of, "Well just look at the world would you. The world is going to Hell in a hand basket."

It's this very situation that gives us peace and joy and a right and positive attitude because despite this our God is in control Our God is still mighty. Our God still has each of us in the palm of His hand; knows our ways and will never leave or forsake us!

God's people should be the most positive, joyful people on earth. This joy should be a by-product of a healthy, intimate relationship that Jesus came to restore between each of us and God the Father.

As I got up this morning I was thinking about business. Usually during the work week my mornings are given especially to interaction with my clients. In today's business climate, we are barraged with every possible means of becoming more productive believers both in our work and our homes. Though I would have thought it would have passed from the scene like another fad, positive thinking and self-help philosophy are still promoted as tools for the career minded and vocational believer to fulfill their potential and overcome the mountains in their lives. A sort of god sprinkled, "go go go - rah rah rah" attitude about our faith, the power of believing, the upside of knowing all we have in Christ still permeates much of today's literature aimed at giving us purpose and provision.

So, I want to run something by you and let's see if you agree with it, "God calls each of us to be visionary leaders, but we must be careful that vision is born out of His Spirit, not the latest self-help program." A godly power point cradles us in the peace and knowledge that our God reigns in our life. Any idea that leads us away from dependence on God, though it calls His name to bear to bless our effort is nothing more than a self-based psychology designed to falsely provide us with a sense of more power, prosperity, and significance. The problem is that God is in the small still voice. God is in the service and not in the lording to be great. God is in the desperate understanding that it is in HIM and not His principles that we are strong towers. We are weak and that is our strength. He is strong and that is sufficient for me!

When we put faith in our faith the result is heresy. Our faith in God must never be defined as faith in faith. Faith in faith is born out of hard work, mental toughness, positive thoughts and diligence rather than obedience to God's Spirit. The problem lies in that these philosophies of have faith sound good, and can even be supported by Bible verses. Beware of anything that puts the burden of performance on you rather than God. There are times in our lives when God doesn't want us to climb every mountain. Sometimes He wants us to go around it. Knowing the difference is the key to being a man or woman led by the Spirit.

God has called us to affect the workplace through His Spirit, not by our might. Have you tapped into the real power source of the soul? Jesus left earth so the Holy Spirit could show up (it says so, look it up) Ask the Lord to reveal and empower you through His Spirit today. Then you will know what real positive thinking is.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

What Steals Your Personal Peace of Mind (& Heart & Soul)

2010-05-04T22:38:00.001-07:00
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me - Psalm 23:4a KJV

Today I counted...

I counted how many times some small thing stole my peace of mind away from me. I enumerated each time something in the world around me caused me to lose my grip on this fact:

God is on His throne which is in my heart and yet as close as He is I lost touch with Him and made this earthly minutiae, this temporary interruption, this less than significant obstruction greater than He and bigger than what He had given me to do.

In the battles we face in every day life most of us need to confess, right now, that those battles are over next to nothing. It's not monsters that sidetrack us from following hard after God and enjoying, praising, loving and worshipping Him in our everyday life. We are thrown off course by small things. We might even be embarrassed if our friends and family knew just how easily tiny things keep us from enjoying our God and living our faith. Moreover it is self defeating. Why? Because what we tend to forget (or perhaps never even knew) was that our peace is actually a weapon.

Daily life creates many opportunities to rob us of our peace. Cash flow concerns, deadlines, relationships, something not where it belongs, someone doing what we believe they should not - all have been designed by a very creative enemy of your soul to drape stress on us like a heavy wet blanket. The Biblical axiom we must embrace is this: Our confidence in the God of peace declares that you are not falling for the lies of the devil. He cannot take from you what God has given you. You can hand it over however and often we give up this eternally valuable gift for NOTHING!!!

All of us desire more control. The way we gain it is to lose ourselves in God's rulership in our life. We gain spiritual authority in a similar manner. You see the first step toward having spiritual authority over the adversary is having peace in spite of our circumstances. When Jesus confronted the devil, He did not confront satan with His emotions or in fear. Knowing that the devil was a liar, He simply refused to be influenced by any voice other than His Heavenly Father's. Jesus' peace overwhelmed satan; His authority then shattered the lie, which sent demons fleeing.

There is a place of walking with God where you simply fear no evil. David faced a lion, a bear, and a giant. In this Psalm he stood in the "shadow of death" itself, yet he "feared no evil." David's trust was in the Lord. He said, "...for Thou art with me." Because God is with you, every adversity and adversary, both real and imagined that we face will fold before you in victory as you maintain your faith in God!

In this Psalm David continued, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies" (Ps. 23:5a). The promise is this, as you live in God's rule, in the Kingdom, with a grateful and remembering heart, the battle we are in will soon become a meal for us; an experience that will nourish and build us up spiritually and emotionally.

Only true peace, God's peace will quell our fleshly reactions in battle. The source of God's peace is God Himself. God is the Gospel...HE is the good news and HE is the peace. If anger, bitterness, frustration or fear has been knocking at your door, begin to face them with God's peace. It is God's secret weapon to destroy the hinderances of our life.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Reflecting on the Impossible

2010-05-04T06:46:00.001-07:00

But He answered, "You give them something to eat." - Mark 6:37a

As I was in my study on Mark 10:46-52 in preparation for this weeks message on blind Bartimaeus, I ran back across the feeding of the 5000. And, it sort of struck me as funny. Jesus turned to a group of outcasts, and dropouts and gave; them the aforementioned command, "Feed all these thousands dudes!"

Has anyone ever asked you to do something that seems totally ridiculous? The very suggestion of their instruction may have brought laughter or, once you realized they were serious even anger for proposing the idea.

I imagine that the disciples may have felt this way when Jesus responded with this direction when they asked Him how they were going to feed the 5000, who had stayed around to hear Him speak (and heal and amaze). The disciples, showing a high level of practicality, suggested a logical answer to the problem, "Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat" (Mk 6:36).

But, as you may have guess that wasn't the answer Jesus wanted. He saw the need of the people. He had compassion on them. He wanted to solve the problem with a Kingdom of God kind of response; a response that would bring honor and glory directly to the Father and not obvious and common sense.

So, Jesus asked them what they had in their hand. And, if they were confused and perplexed and certain their leader was 2 bricks short of a load for previous wild thinking and actions this simply sealed the deal.

Jesus' point was is this, often what we already have in our hand is what Jesus wants us to use to solve our problem and to provide the solutions to what is proximate to our current situation but, perhaps more than this, it is the solution to those to whom God has put in our care. We must add hearing ears (What is God telling you to do?) to our faith to what we already have in our hand. Then we will see the gospel of the Kingdom manifested to solve problems in a supernatural way. Then we will see our God show up mightily.

Jesus wanted to meet a need in which God would receive the glory. Sending the people away did not meet that overarching goal or their immediate need.

Do not settle for the gospel of salvation only. Jesus came that we might experience the gospel of the Kingdom in its fullest sense. Our job is to look past our logical reasoning and see how God might want to solve our problem in a supernatural way. After all, we are the generation of "greater works than those that I have done will you do..." Perhaps we need to sharpen our spiritual ears and start expecting it!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

The Fullness of Salvation - Just What Is Full to You?

2010-04-26T07:11:00.001-07:00
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. I Peter 1:3-8

Last year the Church on Rogers did a big study on the Book of Peter. Peter’s epistles are stunning in their clarity, forcefulness and their last days focus. I would actually suggest in their focus on eternity and the idea of eternal life. And, my loved ones, those things are very different from one another. I love Peter! I am not sure I am a "Peter was the first Pope" adherent (some historical facts mess it up for me) but I am of the school of thought that indicated that Peter was one of the two or three most significant of the apostles; a true leader of the movement to which I am a follower.

Lately, since it has been such a big part of my thinking as I have had dialogues to many who were on the fringes of faith I have been studying the idea of belief and salvation. Within first and second Peter we, as the current Church can learn well from his words recorded in Scripture on this topic.

In the passage above Peter is declaring the glory of our new birth, what we would call our “salvation experience”. “In (God’s) great mercy, He has given us new birth into a living hope . . . into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (v.3-4). In recounting to us the experience of our rebirth through Jesus’ resurrection, Peter connects it immediately with eternity. And, in doing this for us Peter enlightens us to several things:

1. The fullness of our salvation is not just in being saved from sin and hell, and being viewed by God the Father as a new creation, though these are all true and wonderful. A "more" complete understanding has the regenerated/saved man or woman with our ETERNITY beginning when we are reborn. The magnitude of this is not shown in time. It is shown by emphasizing that the riches we receive will always contain their full value..."never fade" is not a term we consider when we count the cost in buying good and services and products here on earth. To be sure we value solid, long-lasting, great warrantied products (Yugo or Mercedes?) but the inheritance a newly birthed believer receives has unending, never fading and always "worth everything" value!

2. Salvation is not just the moment we surrender to the calling of Jesus, and receive Him as Lord and Savior. That is the moment of decision. We have that as a beginning, but the fullness of our salvation comes “in the last time” (v. 5). In other words, what we enter into reaches it’s completion when Jesus returns to reign on the earth and create a new heaven and earth; a paradise that will be similar to the original but that will never fade or tarnish. In this last time God and man dwell together in face to face intimacy free from the curse of sin and free from intermediary things; we no longer will talk in metaphors, analogies, similitudes and parables about what that will be like. We will simply live within the Glory of God.

What Peter describes is the transformation of your citizenship. Our salvation changes our citizenship from earth to Heaven, setting us on a course of Life that is Eternal! This Eternal Life is God's quality of living, being, moving and seeing. As such, it sets our vision on a life that is WAY beyond a one year plan; a 3 year plan; a 5 year plan or ever a few decades, but one that stretches on forever and that has significance, adequacy, importance, passion and meaning! It should cause us to long for and love the day of Christ’s return, so that we can receive the fullness of what He paid for with His shed blood.

I have to tell you guys that what I just described is much different than the common Christian mindset that views salvation as a “get out of Hell free” card; some plastic-coated, round edged, business card sized paper that we place in our wallet or purse and go ahead with our lives as “usual”. Salvation, Eternal Life, began at a moment in time when it was obvious to us of our need and that only in Christ could we fulfill it. It is an ongoing process of change and maturity. It does not leave room for a, "life as usual" mindset. No! It calls us to rethink and "re-heart" EVERYTHING about the way we live as we focus on a life with and in Jesus Christ.

So, what happens now?

1. Regenerated & Revitalized Worship! “In this you greatly rejoice” (v.6). We THANK Him for saving our souls and we worship Him for inviting us into His Eternal Kingdom. We worship Him NOW because it is a precious gift of faith that we give to Him. We worship now because it recognizes His leading and calling and daily work in us. For, when He appears, our faith will become “sight”, and worship will be automatic!! Today, we make a CHOICE and it is this: I WILL WORSHIP WITH ALL OF MY BEING & WITH ALL OF WHO YOU ARE MAKING ME — and this blesses Him even more. Our short lives in this “tent” (our natural body) giving Him our daily praise and honor fulfills what is working in us namely our salvation.

2. Trials (v.6-7). I call this the "hassles of faith”. Paul called it “fighting the good fight of faith”. Peter tells us we WILL “suffer grief, in ALL KINDS of trials”. These are NECESSARY components to purify and strengthen our faith. Our natural inclination in trials is to doubt everything we believe. But, as we stand firm, with our eyes on eternity and worship Him in the midst of trouble, frustration, etc. — our faith becomes real. Faith that isn’t tested isn’t really true or trustworthy. Trials are a gift to strengthen us so that the faith we have has true SUBSTANCE.

3. We Love Him, NOW. We love Him now, knowing that we will see Him, soon. And, as we look forward to our Eternity with Him present, and give Him the gift of our voluntary love today, we're filled with joy that has no fully expressible measure in this earthly dimension (V.8). Why? Because as we set our heart and mind on the things that are Eternal; as we grow to realize Eternal is more than just a "long time", we actually begin to taste of the eternal pleasures of God and it happens in the sweet now and now for it is this realized joy, evoked from our current love and relationship with Jesus Christ and through Him with our Heavenly Father that gets us to a life well worth living!

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Unmet Expectations

2010-04-21T07:37:00.001-07:00
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. - Philippians 1:20

Last night I read an article (more like an interview on the run) of Charlie Sheen. Essentially the interviewer asked Sheen as he looks back on his life if there were things he wished he had not done. Smugly Sheen retorts, "Have you even been paying attention to my life? Why would I want to have given up any of that? I wish I wouldn't have gotten so much heat for some of the less fortunate things that people misunderstood but hey...hell no; it's a good life just as is!"

Well good for you Charlie. But, I look back on my life and there are things I wished I had done differently. How about you? Have you ever had expectations that did not get fulfilled? Perhaps a coworker let you down. Perhaps you were trusting God for something in your life that never materialized. Perhaps you became devastated by an unmet expectation that you felt you were entitled to. Or, perhaps YOU let you down in some way that as you look back you now realize colors your life in a way that embarrasses you or brought dishonor to the cause of Jesus Christ and your walk with God.

Expectations can be a difficult trap for each of us if we are not fully committed to God's purposes in our lives.

The verse I've based this little devotional on was written from prison by the Apostle Paul to the people of the region of Philippi. Paul had an expectation. He anticipated that his life would bring glory to God, whether through his continued ministry or his death. His joy in living was not based on his expectations getting fulfilled, but on remaining true to the purpose for which God made him. God's glory and honor must be upheld regardless of the things about his life. The glory of God was preeminent.

Yesterday I vented a distasteful hurt to a loved one. Guess what? I regret it. GASP! What? John? You should have no regrets. Oh, but I do. When we react to circumstances with bitterness and resentment as a result of unmet expectations, we are saying that we know better than God, and that God has made a mistake in not meeting our expectations. We have to look past the history and into the face of God the Father. We must recognize Romans 8:28, "All things work for good to them who ADORE God..."

The process of resolving unmet expectations may require full disclosure to the individual who was the source of the unmet expectation. In my case this is true. It also means communicating how the unmet expectation made you feel. This is not to make the person feel obligated to meet the expectation, but simply to provide a place where reconciliation and healing can occur. If God was the source, then it is important to share this with the Lord. However, once we have done this we must let go of the situation and allow God to work in our hearts the grace that is needed to walk in freedom from the pain of the unmet expectation. If we do not do this, we will allow the seed of bitterness and resentment to enter in. This seed of bitterness will create leanness in our soul (we get skinny responses from God and have a thin and narrow relationship with Him instead of the fulness of His presence in our lives) and eventually will spread to others in our actions and in how they pick up the hypocrisy of our faith. God is either good all the time or He is not. What is it with you and I?

Last night I had to ask myself is my God in control or are people's actions and reactions to me going to drive my emotional and spiritual health. Perhaps you need to ask yourself today if you have any unmet expectations. How have you responded to them? Have you processed this with the Lord and others who may be involved? These are the steps to freedom from unmet expectations.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Just How Much Has God Told Us?

2010-04-19T10:43:00.001-07:00
And he cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?" Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, "O LORD my God, let this child’s life come into him again." And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. - I King 17:20-22

I am still thinking through what I am about to share with you. The record of my thinking on this is not complete. In the aforementioned little verse we have a first time account of God raising the dead. Previous to this He had taken Enoch straight to heaven alive but this was the first time the truly dead are truly brought back to life.

So here is my question: What is Elijah thinking here? How does he dare ask God to do such an unprecedented thing?

You see, Elijah could not go back through the record like some astute and learned prophet (or teacher, pastor or theologian) and try to find another instance of resurrection and say, "Ah! Precedence recorded in the Scriptures - there's a situation like we have here in the present time. You see? God did it there. He will do it here.”

How much do we use precedent to determine what we commit God to doing in our current circumstance? How much have we limited God in our practice by only what He has done in the Bible? And worse yet, in precisely the way He did it (Anyone have an Alabaster box of oil around anywhere? Anyone?)

You see guys God never claimed to provide a written record of absolutely everything He has ever done. And I believe He has left the record incomplete, so to speak, so that we will not trust in the past but in the God who is fresh and alive and creative and real; able to meet today's need today and He can do it in unprecedented methods today. If He wants He can inform you to use Crisco or HoneyTime Honey!

Elijah had no, "God by the numbers" manual to follow. Instead, he relied on his relationship with his Heavenly Father. Elijah's ability to receive direction from God singularly and directly was his spiritual "trick". We should call this faith. However, we don't. We call something else faith. We call faith what we don't know but hope for and maybe it will and maybe it won't happen Elijah had only his faith in the living God. But, in Elijah's case it was a practiced faith. He had spent hours in prayer, reading, fasting, focusing and more than these, meditation and listening so that when the time came Elijah KNEW what God wanted to do.Why? Because God told Him.

Don't you wish at times that you had a book where you could look up "healing," or "impatience," or "forgiveness"? Okay. "What to do when I'm (without forgiveness, in need of healing, lack patience) in the face of testing": here are steps one, two, three, four, and five. And in case of severe emergency: six, seven, and eight.

Ta da! You'd have the answer!

Or, what to do when death comes: Steps A, B, C & D. If it is the dearest friend you've ever known:and F & G. If it is your own child: then E and H and possibly I.

But my loved ones there's no such manual. And for this we should be grateful! We should raise our voices and shout to the heavens! We should dance and laugh and sing HIS praises!. Why? Because it means He must speak to us, with us and through us individually. It also means we must read, pray, sing, praise, glory and meditate on and in Him.

Thankfully, in His Word God does include principles to follow in most crises, but not a precise procedure in difficult or impossible situations. He lets us know that our relationship with Him should cause us to have certain character attributes. We know how I spirit should respond. But Jesus came to restore our ability to hear and receive from our Heavenly Father. God leaves us on the cutting edge of today so that we will trust in Him and the principles in His great and gracious Word and those principles will drive us to Him...personally...throne room of God stuff...in HIS presence. That's all we have but isn't THAT amazing? And my loved ones...get into that...get into your intimate relationship, like Elijah with the God of the Universe but also of your life because one thing I am learning, day-by-day as I grow in my life in Jesus is this: That's enough.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

A Summer Thief - Be On Guard!

2010-04-16T07:53:00.001-07:00
But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into - Luke 12:39

I awoke this morning feeling close to God. Perhaps it was that the last major thing I did last night was pray with a wonderful brother in Christ. Or, perhaps it was that it was how smoothly the morning wen; how refreshed I was by a great nights sleep.

The notion of my serene and peaceful heart got me thinking, "hat are the times when you and I are most vulnerable to being caught off guard by the enemy of our souls?" I was reading through the history of Israel and there it was. Apparently and historically one of those times is just after we've had a great victory. We are doing a study right now at the Church on Rogers on the Life of Christ. It wasn't much of a leap to consider Jesus and His life. When He was baptized and was about to begin His public ministry. He was taken away into the desert to be tempted by satan. First, great victory in the form of obedience to the Father and then comes the trial.

Leisure time is another place in which satan seeks to take us off our normal routine of personal quiet times. I have grown accustomed to recognizing either my sinful nature rising up in me or the enemies attacks on me or my life in the normal routine of everyday living. I am also convinced that if you are growing in the knowledge of God the Father that our senses are tuned to the need to draw upon God's Spirit to see us through the activities of each day.

However, when we get away from our routine and go on vacation, we can often drop these routines. We wrongfully think that we do not need to spend time with the Lord during leisure times. We take a vacation from our communications and times with God.

This is a grave mistake. The vacation becomes a test of character. During vacations we turn freely to what we enjoy and perhaps get least of during the rest of the year. But also, the vacation reveals to us what is at the core of our existence.

A teacher in a large school reportedly said, "The greatest difficulty we encounter is the summer vacation. Just when we have brought a student to a certain discipline and place in their study habits, we lose him; when he comes back we have to begin all over again." It is the same in our spiritual lives. It only takes a small crack in the door of our heart to lose our spiritual focus and take 2 steps backward.

This summer, be on guard when times of retreat are made available to you. Use these times for spiritual refreshment, not just physical refreshment and/or a time to rebuild relationships on earth. Find new ways to walk hand in hand with your God. and in this way you will keep the thief from entering the house which is your soul.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

Knowing That You Know That You Know That You, For Sure Can Know!

2010-04-15T10:17:00.001-07:00
So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: 'See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who trusts will never be dismayed. - Isaiah 28:16

Our Christian walk can be organized, dissected, implemented, executed and defined in oh so very many ways can't it? The many great teachers and preachers, writers and speakers who have changed my perspective is now reaching small population center size.

This morning I was feeling less than uninspired so I took a short walk at which time God gave me a lil sumpin' sumpin' and I think it was more for me than you but I hope you find it useful. IF you are one of those people who loves notes, organization, order, etc. it just might ring true for you

One way that I realized I view my walk with the Lord has been "life stages." Mine seems to have been made up of four distinct and progressive parts. I get this from some language I had been reading as the Church on Rogers has been going through the Life of Christ in a series of messages I titled, "Hello! My Name is Jesus".

Jesus, in explaining the life of true faith compared our growth and development to building a house. First, we must prepare to build by laying a solid and sure foundation. That foundation is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. Any foundation other than Christ will not stand. (I Corinthians 3:11)

Second, as we begin our walk of faith with the one true God, we realize the trials, testings, miracles, and challenges in life are designed to provide "faith experiences" that demonstrate tangible evidences of His work in and with us; Moses' burning-bush experience, Peter's walk on the water, Joshua's parting of the Jordan River, John's son Chuck being run over by a car at 16 months, Cindy's mysterious illness, etc. These experiences built faith. The depth and width of our calling is directly proportional to the faith experiences He allows in each of our lives. But, and more than that, they grow and develop our spiritual character as we allows the Holy Spirit control during those troubled and oft heart-wrenching times. So, the message we embrace, the lessons learned and the love, grace, mercy and compassion received from the throne of God create in us "God capacity". We become more in Christ. As my friend Os Hillman would say, "If God plans an international ministry with you, chances are you will experience a higher degree of faith experiences compared to another." Why? It is likely you will need to look on these to ensure your calling and provide testimony to His work in your life.

The third stage deals with motivations. "All a man's ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord" (Prov. 16:2). What is the motive behind my actions? Is it only financial accumulation? Is it to gain control? Is it to create independence? The primary motive must be to glorify God. His leading in you brings honor and glory and power to His name amongst the nations (and your sphere of influence) forever! So, to take such action requires a growing desire to please Him. It takes obedience to Him.

Finally, the actions we take are ever and increasingly God lead. We find that more of what we do, we turn over to Him. We wish a life that in all aspects is less separated into spiritual and carnal or into church and real life. We realize everything we do, in every breath we take is an offering of love and gratitude to the one who gave me life!

Here we must ask, "Do we have the skill, quality, and ability to enter into new and ever-increasingly bold activity?" So often we have not trained ourselves adequately to be successful in our endeavor. You would never want someone working on your teeth who had not been trained and certified as a dentist. Before you begin your next project, ask yourself these four questions:

1. What is the foundation this project is based on? There is only one - Jesus!

2. What experiences has God demonstrated in my life that indicate His involvement?

3. What is my motive for entering this activity? Am I doing this or can I do this to My Heavenly Father's Glory?

4. Do I have the skill, quality, and ability to accomplish the task? Am I prepared mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually?

Answering these questions will tell you whether God will bless your daily activity. I hope this gives you some good stuff as you go through your week.

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~

I'm Free! I'm Responsible! Er...What!!!???

2010-03-23T08:06:00.001-07:00
Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision - Joel 3:14

It seemed so simplistic I had to look it up. Sure enough this quote is credited to George Bernard Shaw. He said, "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." Over the last several weeks, months I suppose, we have watched and listened, prayed and echoed our positions as our government wheels turned slowly on huge matters of importance. We must fight the urge to pass the buck. In a day when most people easily hand off responsibility...push it downline, Mr. Shaw's words bite and sting to those with conscience; to those in whom the Holy Spirit is at work. .

True leadership carries with it a few privileges and perks, but living with the responsibility of that task makes a reserved parking space and your own bathroom pale into insignificance. I want even start on government. Government is out there somewhere...we don't really touch, taste, walk and talk it.

But this one might hit home...

Conceiving children is (and should be) a moment of sheer ecstasy, but rearing them as a loving and caring parent represents years of thankless responsibility. Our society, many societies are rift with the fruit of both legislation and morality that passed that buck along. The results of which are tragic.

Running an organization that gets a job done, leaving those involved feeling fulfilled and appreciated, can be exciting, fun, and with the kind of "stretched" feeling of accomplishment, but it's a nightmare unless the details of responsibility are clearly set forth and maintained. It's disheartening and often fatal to organizations when the buck gets passed downline, through the executive ranks, mid-management, workers and down to the new kind in the mail room to ensure the important work gets done.

Big projects and meaningful achievements may be conceived by visionaries and dreamers but its the doers that ensure the right activity is executed that "get 'er done". It is not by armchair generals who watch and frown from a distance but by brave troops in the trenches, not by fans in the bleachers but by committed coaches and players on the field, not by those who stay neutral and play it safe but by those who get off the fence of indecision, even though their decisions are occasionally tough and unpopular that make our country go, our businesses succeed, our teams victorious.

"...for the Day of the Lord is at hand in the valley of decision!"

Chuck Swindoll relates this story he saw in the Wall Street JournalAll this reminds me of a full-page advertisement I saw in the Wall Street Journal:

DECISIONS, DECISIONS: Sometimes the decision to do nothing is wise. But you can't make a career of doing nothing. Freddie Fulcrum weighed everything too carefully. He would say, "On the one hand . . . but then, on the other," and his arguments weighed out so evenly he never did anything. When Freddie died, they carved a big zero on his tombstone. If you decide to fish, fine. Or, if you decide to cut bait, fine. But if you decide to do nothing, you're not going to have fish for dinner.

We have been studying the Life of Christ as told by Peter (and probably Luke a bit) to the Gospel writer Mark. If The Church on Rogers has learned anything during this study it is this: God has a different set of definitions for words we commonly use. Here is one of those occasions where we have a great paradox. You see, you and I might conclude, thinking in earthly terms and not in Kingdom of God terms, that pure liberty would mean pure choice to do anything or nothing. But that isn't God's view.

In the Kingdom economy the secret of true liberty as we pass through this earthly life, is responsibility. And that calls for decisions, decisions. Tough decisions. Lonely decisions. Unpleasant decisions. Misunderstood decisions. Courageous decisions. First, personal then actionable community decisions.

As I recall, Jesus rarely missed a meal because he just couldn't decide...He often had fish for dinner. Our friend Freddie Fulcrum should have read more Jesus...less Drucker or Tom Peters or whoever else is popular in the business world... perhaps.

With me, this week, commit to action lead by taking responsibility for the things God has put in your hands to do. If you have a job excel! If you are a parent realize you are accountable for the actions, welfare, growth, and most importantly spiritual welfare of your children. If a husband, to lead your household in a godly fashion using the gifts God has given you. And if a citizen, then to do all in your power to uphold the principles of a higher Kingdom; integrate those in your decisions to talk but more importantly to act in accordance with your responsibilities as a member of your nation...decide with me to be a decisive Christian... I remain

InHISgrip,
~J~

A Freedom All Can Confidently Choose

2010-03-04T08:33:00.001-08:00
I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - Deuteronomy 30:19,20 (The Message)

I was thinking this morning on an early mentor to my Christian life. His name was James Singleton. He was a man of character, and an unwavering single-minded focus on his faith and button-downed in terms of what he believed. One thing he believed was that the concept of sin was being swept away by the psycho-elements of Christianity. Personal responsibility for how we acted and displeased God was being lost under a barrage of pseudo-scientific explanations where each of us was now fully NOT responsible for the way we acted.

The concept of sin was being lost to the church. This was back in 1976. The "modern" world had no place for the archaic concept of sin.

Ya, right.

But my friends and family it is now 34 years later since I had those discussions with this man of faith and power. Sin, the ability for a person to, independently and willfully displease God, is very much alive. No number of books, symposiums, classes, advanced courses or experts opinions to the contrary can change the simple, oft-repeated experience billions of times a day where humans separate themselves in deed, thought and attitude from the God who provides them life. The Greek word, in our New Testament that is translated sin is roughly the word hamartia (ham arr tee ah) and in Greek means to miss the mark. God the Father has a target in mind, His Son actually, and we fall short or miss that ideal in the way we act and/or think daily.

It is a source of heartache, feelings of guilt, aggravation and personal disappointment for most who call themselves Christians.

I wish I could guarantee all of us full freedom from sin 365 days a year, but that is not possible. As long as we roam the earth we will fight a battle, a personal battle with personal sin. I have given great study and thought to the idea of perpetual sinlessness (theologians call it "sinless perfection"). It will not be ours to enjoy until we are given glorified bodies and we are at home in heaven.

But their is good news. The relationship that Jesus re-established for us with His life, suffering, death and resurrection has provided us the leadership we need; the continual presence of our God in our lives and His direction as we both speak with and listen to Him. We don't have to sin on a constant, day-after-day basis. The actions of the Savior has freed us to accept counsel and get direction from a personal relationship with God.

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. - Romans 6:17--18

Wonderful, wonderful truth! Choosing righteousness, we enjoy a lifestyle marked by God's blessings, stability, and strength. God's goodness, His Grace frees us to choose, yes more than choose, make ourselves slaves to eternal life concepts, principles and actions. We can decide to walk with God and draw strength from Him to face whatever life throws at us. However, we can decide to walk away from God and face the inescapable consequences of sin.

The next time you are tempted to yield to your old master, Master Sin, remember this: Grace invites you to return and find forgiveness, but it doesn't automatically erase the scars that accompany missing the mark of the high-calling of being God's child; some scars could stay with you for life.

In spite of the terrible consequences sins may bring, grace also means we allow others the freedom to choose, regardless. To do otherwise abuses as much as those who use their freedom as a license to sin. I am a firm believer in mutual accountability, but grace means I will not force or manipulate or judge or attempt to control you, nor should you do those things to me. It means we will keep on helping others to freedom by providing moments of hope. In naval speak we might call it providing "breathing holes." It means we deliberately let go so each of us can grow and learn on our own; otherwise, we shall never enjoy the liberty of an open sea.

So, this little snippet goes out to parents, brothers and sisters and great friends: For most of us, letting others go is neither natural nor easy. Because we care, it is more our tendency to give people hints or advice. The thought of letting them fail or fall is extremely painful to us, but God treats us like that virtually every day of our lives. We tend to clutch, not release . . . to put people in our frame and not allow them any breathing holes unless and until they accept the shape of our molds.

Let us be carriers of love, patience, grace and space. God is still on the throne and is still the greatest weapon in a battle against missing His very best...

I remain...

InHISgrip,
~J~