Year: 2017

A Time for Praise

Someone confesses and repents of deep, dark, heavy sin before God and before men and declares the Blood of Christ and I’m ready to jump up and shout praises like someone just got baptized! 
I have to hold in my hearts desire to jump up,  run to them, hug them and thank them for bringing into the light what was once hidden — because many would believe that in acting in such a peculiar way that I am justifying sin,  which I in fact hate. 
But I see the death of that sin in its being brought into the light from a humble and contrite heart! I see the enemy falling broken again under the heal of the Children of God! I see chains falling off and burdens being lifted! I see Christ victorious even in what the enemy meant for evil. 
Hidden sin is what makes my heart mourn. Empty religion and hypocrisy is what makes me want to turn over tables. Accepting and approving of sin, quenching the conviction of the Holy Spirit against sin, these are the things that are a stench in my nostrils. 
But confession – a man turning from his sin to righteousness because he had realized the error of his ways and turned back to God – what a blessing! What it uncovers in our own hearts when the enemy is put on display in the light by another! What an opportunity it is to restore a brother in gentleness and love and see the healing, the deliverance, the freedom of Christ overcome the slavery of sin. 
Thank you, LORD!

I was in the grocery store last night before men’s prayer group at the church and thought about picking up a six pack or a bottle of wine to take in my backpack and open it up in the church sanctuary when everyone started opening their drinks.
I was going to wait for the inevitable reaction and then ask, “But why are you surprised? Don’t some of you have this in your own house? What is different about this building as opposed to our own houses? Aren’t WE the temple of God?”
And when the inevitable,  “But it could stumble someone if I did it here” came as the response,  I would ask,  “But what is more dangerous,  them taking a drink because they saw one of us doing it outwardly – or their learning inward hypocrisy because we live one way when we are around ‘respectable religious people’ but live another way when behind closed doors?”
We are find powerless far too often because “the experience”, “the feeling”, “the moment in the presence of God” doesn’t go forth with us because we aren’t going where we’ve been sent – because we leave the “Christ in me” as a promise hanging on the wall of the church, or as a fire insurance contract we hang onto for the future.  
Too many of us don’t mind hearing the Word of God, but falling head over heals, crazy in love with God to the point that we don’t want anything else in this temple but Him? The world says, “Why,  that just sounds foolish! Why, giving up my sin, that just sounds like a lot of work! Why, giving up something that I don’t even feel bad about in my conscience ‘any more’ but that I know isn’t profitable, that just sounds like slavery to me!” 
But that’s because the world serves a different master — their hearts confess their true love –even as their religion teaches them to hide it by shining the outside of their cup — and their love is for the desires of the flesh, the desires of their eyes, and the pride of life. It doesn’t matter how respectable they pretend to be if they do not in fact live the LORD, right? 
And are we pointing that finger foolishly at someone else? Wise teacher, are you so blind that you cannot teach yourself?
You see, we must ask ourselves, do I even remember the love, the mercy, the furrowed that I have received in return for my own wretchedness? Have I so quickly forgotten the only thing that is valuable and precious and is worth laying down everything else for? 
Do these “on fire,  born again, radical heathens” who are upturned by their overflowing of love for God sicken us,  shame us,  leave us confused,  or leave us Don’t down our religious noses at “their foolishness”? Yes, the gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, so you should examine yourself to see that you are indeed in Christ!
You say to me,  “But you are planting the seed of doubt! You are tearing down what the LORD has built up.” And I ask you, “Can a mere man shake a foundation of solid rock, or bring down a house that is built upon it in truth and in love, or does the Word of God tell us that house will stand the test? And what is better, that a worthless house that is bound to fall do so while there time for it to be rebuilt, or for the wise to wait and see the foolish and his whole family die within it when it comes tumbling down?”
No, I am sowing the Truth in Love. Not kisses from an enemy who would say,  “Sin is okay, it won’t kill you.” I’m not giving approval to those things that the Word of God says, “those who practice such things deserve to die” — nor am I saying “you are under the obligation of the law of Moses”. No, I am asking you a greater question,  in fact,  the most important question – Do you love God?
Do you?
Then let your praises ring forth! 
But if I ask this question and you find no well to draw from,  where are your flowing waters? If they are not there, are you too proud to repent, to call upon the name of the LORD and ask for the life you need breathed into you? Will you not call out to Him even now, at this very moment,  to give you oil for your lamp? Or will you sleep and tarry until poverty has proven is reward. 
I am not asking you to go out if you aren’t sent. But I’m telling you that if you are indeed His you ARE SENT, and if you aren’t His, there is still time to repent and believe! 
I am telling you that this faith is not a thing of our minds, but of our very hearts! 
I am telling you that you must be born again. I am telling you that the old must pass away and the new must come. 
So submit yourselves to God. Do not claim a Savior that you do not want as LORD, because He has told us that the most important commandment is to love God with your everything – not just your 10 percent,  not just with your Sunday, not just with your morning, not just with your firsts. And if this seems burdensome to you, do you even know of Him, much less know Him? He is for you, not against you!  Have you not heard,  “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you”? Do we foolishly lay our hope in this verse being about earthly gain and misunderstand what the true prize and portion is for the Children of God?
If we indeed love Him, can’t we trust Him?
Isn’t His way best? 
Isn’t He worthy of our praise, of our worship,  of that reasonable sacrifice of laying down our lives, turning away from sin and submitting fully to Him?
There is time to build,  if we will build upon the solid rock in Truth and Love. But if we are intent to build from something else, or upon the sinking sand – there will never be enough time for all of the constant repairs trying to “make it look right”.
Go to the carpenter’s son. Be introduced to your betrothed. Fall in love with Him deeply, because He is faithful and true. See Him build your house even as He lives with you. And now you will have a life that is filled with praise and awe and wonder – not one of religious hypocrisy.
He loved you first.

Free Pest Control

If I have a dead and rotting animal somewhere in my house, and an exterminator offers to remove it for free – am I foolish enough to think that it “cost me” the dead animal and filthy stench of its death filling my house?
What if I were to go back and say, “No! You can’t have that dead animal, give it back to me! It is valuable and you can’t have it!” And refused to let him remove it from my house,  and I instead tried to hide it in a closet deep within the house and pretend that I couldn’t smell the stench of death? 

Could I say that he had not offered and rendered his services free of charge? No. He did his part and it was free of charge as advertised. It would be my own foolishness that made his work useless in my own house, not whether or not his work was effective. 

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. – Romans 2:13 ESV

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? – James 2:14 ESV

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; – James 2:14‭, ‬19‭-‬22 ESV

THE FAITH THAT SAVES

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.  For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. – Romans 5:1‭-‬11 ESV

BE CAREFUL YOU ARE NOT DECEIVED

Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. That is why God abandoned them to their shameful desires. Even the women turned against the natural way to have sex and instead indulged in sex with each other. And the men, instead of having normal sexual relations with women, burned with lust for each other. Men did shameful things with other men, and as a result of this sin, they suffered within themselves the penalty they deserved. Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. – Romans 1:21‭-‬32 NLT

Heavenly Father, you are not a trickster, nor do you have any part with darkness. We have been blind. We have been rebellious. And we come to you in repentance and in surrender. Heal us from our doubt. Overcome our lack of faith. Create in us a new heart. Hear that we confess your name, and sing your praise, and cry out to you for this Hope we have found in the promises of Jesus Christ to be grown and manifest into a true faith that has substance and work and love because you have poured out your Holy Spirit on your people. And teach us not to quench your Holy Spirit, not to shrink back from the light, but to come with confidence into the throne room of grace to be sent out as your chosen people, as your ambassadors, as your children bearing your image. You are gracious, and you are righteous, and you are merciful, and you are just. Lead us in the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen.

Wives and Husbands

​“Friends see most of each other’s flaws. Spouses see every awful last bit.” – Gone
Girl

“Gone Girl” What a truly scary movie. What a warning of a marriage gone so horribly wrong in the hands of two self centered people. And how easy might it be for people to live their own versions of this inside their own marriages if there is no fear of God or respect for one another — if they have no understanding of covenant, of commitment, of an abiding and enduring relationship. 

When we as spouses see each other, in all of our flaws, in all of our mess, in all of our crazy, and we remember our covenant and remember our own flaws – we can see how blessed we are to have such a fitting helpmate in life. We aren’t perfect, so how can we expect perfection from another? But have we trained our eyes to seek out their beauty, their treasure, the life in them shining forth? Or have we trained ourselves to only be critical and blind to what makes them precious and valuable in the eyes of God.

The way that married men and women get into “Gone Girl” kind of trouble is not so much rooted in the temptation that walks past their eyes when away from each other — as it is rooted in their forgetting the value of what they already have. 

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.  The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain.  She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life.  Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:  “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”  Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.  Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates. – Proverbs 31:10‭-‬12‭, ‬28‭-‬31 ESV

And there are men and women who have had a good spouse, but who have sown the wrong things into their marriages and who have starved their spouses of the love that they needed to grow — and they have ended up with a withering, almost dead relationship that now needs lots of tender loving investment in order to bring it back to a good place. 

Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.  Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?  Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.  Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,  a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.  Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?  For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the Lord , and he ponders all his paths.  The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.  He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is led astray. – Proverbs 5:15‭-‬23 ESV

Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.  It is not good to eat much honey, nor is it glorious to seek one’s own glory.  A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. – Proverbs 25:26‭-‬28 ESV

No, don’t pollute your life with adultery, pornography, lusting after another, indulging in old memories, or fantasizing about new possibilities. Drink from your own fountain. Invest in your own marriage. Value what you have and invest in it. Long term investment, not manipulation so you’ll get something back today. Selfless love and appreciation for your partner that God has provided to you. 

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.  Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. – Ephesians 5:22‭-‬33 ESV

Just for desiring to live a Godly life…

The world hates you, true Christians. 

“Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” – II Timothy 3:12 NKJV

We are not friends of the world,  true Christians. We are the blessed who hunger and thirst for righteousness. 

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.” – I John 2:15‭-‬17 NKJV

That unholy trinity of selfish desires that are the master of the lost man’s heart. The lost man longs for the guilty pleasures that bring comfort to his flesh while attempting to forget the burden he now carries in his soul. The lost man longs for those things that are not his, that he has neither earned nor received, and is not content with his many blessings but is only content with prideful murmuring over what he “should have”. Yes, this is the lost man. 

And when the lost man sees someone seeking to walk in integrity and yield their lives over to the will of God – the conviction over so many things that are dark and hidden in their own hearts are brought to light in their own consciousness. For those who are seeking righteousness, for the true Christ follower, having their rebellion brought to light is a blessing — because if we humble ourselves before the Lord and confess our sin,  He is faithful to forgive. But for those content in their rebellion,  they do not like having light shinged on the sin that binds them – they would rather justify to themselves and others why it is okay for it to remain in their lives. The enemy has fed them the same lie as he fed to Eve, “surely it will not kill you”.

There are even false Christians and false teachers who do not know God,  who do not hunger and thirst for righteousness, who still serve that old master, and who male excuses for why it is okay for others to remain powerless against the enemy,  and powerless in serving the Lord daily. This is because they are liars like their father the devil. 
I am not attacking anyone with these words. I am not a vicious wolf tearing at your throat. I am not a servant beating the flock. No,  I am just a messenger crying out into the darkness,  I am just a lighthouse in the middle of the storm. I am the one humbling myself in prayer that your eyes and ears and heart might be open to the truth. 

Do you desire a Godly life? 

Are you eagerly awaiting His return? 

Is sin made uncomfortable and powerless in the presence of the light of Christ that reigns supreme in your heart so that it must tuck is tail between its legs and flee from your presence because you trust in the authority of Christ who lives in you? 
Or is sin a welcome poison at your daily feasts and celebrations? 
The persecution is not me bringing to light what you have tried to keep hidden in your heart,  sinners. No, that is conviction,  that is the good work of the Holy Spirit to lead you to repentance. 

Yes,  repentance. A turning away from sin. 
You’d rather hear more about grace and skip over all of that talk about repentance, righteousness,  and sanctification? 
Yes, the lawless who claim Him by name but deny Him in their hearts and lives are quite comfortable with a twisted, powerless,  fruitless perversion of grace that leaves them bound to the wages of death because of their disbelief and their disobedience. 

But we are not those are we? 

When we examine our hearts honestly what kind of life do we desire to live – worldly or godly?