Category Archives: What God Taught Me Today

The Blessing of Adversity that Rises to Meet Us in 2016

Posted on by
Reply

The word adversary in some form occurs around 100 times in my NASB. In many cases it seems God is saying, “ Don’t worry, I’ve got this one… I have your back.” Other times we see God clearly raises up specific adversaries to advance His purpose. (I’m thankful He, and not I, controls the “Adversary Button.” I might tend to be vindictive now and again… And from that perspective I am thankful you don’t have an adversary machine either.)

However… adversaries are calculated to be either obstacles or enhancements to our walk before God. As we encounter them clothed in our Gospel armor it is a Biblical norm to expect that someone is be redeemed by the engagement turned skirmish. Believers are ideally perpetually redeemed in and through daily conflict by the Spirit with the Word as guidance, as nonbelievers or nominal believers NEED to be redeemed. Today.

Consider Paul’s worthy perspective: “…for a wide door for effective service has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.” Paul was not a super-saint. We sometimes forget he was a sinner saved only by marvelous grace. Sure he was a chosen vessel. So are you. So am I. What we are chosen to do is God’s call. Our response is to be lost in wonder, love and praise. We are called to be a person as David of “one thing I have asked of the Lord…” (Psalm 27) Paul viewed adversaries as evidence that God was on the move, not asleep at the Heavenly Wheel. This is a reasonable goal in perspective and application that I must shoot for in 2016. 

The #NewYear #2016 contains near infinite unknowns to all of us, yet God holds each of us as children in the palm of His hand, and grants REAL tangible joy and peace to His followers in the midst of life and struggles. He is God. That’s what He does for members of the Covenant. We bring the expectation of trust in God who is wise and good and powerful as daily providences unfold. Always remember God does not do random. He is right on schedule. Never early and never late. 

The year 2015 for a number of traditionalists and Christ-followers was very distasteful in many social, national, moral, political and corporate ways. Even so it was a spiritual feast of abundance for me personally as I still hear His voice daily as I discipline myself to seek Him in secret. What does life consist of but to “know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent?” I know full well that #2016 will likely reveal appalling and heart wrenching challenges as our nation continues its fall into pagan pluralism and rank godlessness by departure from the revelation and light “once delivered to the saints.” The principle of sowing and reaping always touches the present, tomorrow and propels one into eternity, for either good or ill. God is just. He will by no means clear the guilty. May I quickly add that Christ is sufficient and His blood takes away our sin. It is past time for us to cease from sin and seek the Lord. God separates light from darkness. He has from The Beginning. 

So I close in saying that God has calculated in perfection what we as His people need that we might be awakened to love and good deeds as we stand firm in the Lord to graciously but emphatically resist the evil of the day and do His will. The ending of the story says we overcome and God’s Kingdom comes. Understand though the battle is not for the faint of heart and between now and the end the potential to depart and quit because of adversity will be daily pressed upon us. That is why we are called to “Take heed to yourself and to your teaching, for as you do so, you will ensure salvation not only for yourself but also for those who hear you.”

I believe in the perpetuity of the Law and Grace as I believe in the perpetuity of application of the Year of Jubilee in Christ. He makes all things new. He equips us to forgive as we have been forgiven. He shows the folly of anger and bitterness. We have become and are becoming new creatures in Christ. May He grant us to overcome and be swept up into His presence to see His face and rejoice. May it be said of us as it was of Peter and John, “They recognized them as having been with Jesus.” Do you have specific plans to hang out with the King the next 365? I promise you that this and this alone will change your life. He bids you come and drink freely and daily of the water of life as we journey into 2016.

The confetti is still falling and I am #AlreadyOutOfControl

“I was in Prison and you Preached and I could care less…”

Posted on by
Reply

Reflecting back on my #CCC experience from this past Tuesday night, I was providentially pulled to a new pod where the group was larger and a few prisoners were less than attentive as they did not know me nor the Gospel I preach. Others seemed genuinely struck by the word and appreciative to know that Option B was opened to them through the preaching of the Gospel and that God’s power was abundant that they might flee the wrath to come. 

I saw again that the very means appointed to save some, harden others in their indifferent iniquity that they might fill up the full measure of the wrath appointed them. All we can seek to do is glorify the Saving Christ in the preaching of a powerful Gospel to a lost and dying world.

Successful preaching does not have to end in the salvation of the hearers. (Reference Jeremiah and Noah, et. al.) Successful preaching simply leaves man without excuse for rejection of the grace that appears in setting forth the Word become flesh as He who is full of grace and truth.

“Today if you hear His voice do not harden your heart.”

The Suffering Lamb Receives His Reward

Posted on by
Reply

“Save Your people and bless Your inheritance;
Be their shepherd also, and carry them forever.”

Psalm 28:9

The provision of God in Christ meets the totality of our needs. “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering.” (Moravian Missionary)
He was called JESUS and His mission was not to provide for a potential salvation but to accomplish a redemption by ransom of His people. “It is finished.”
Hebrews 1:3 states that “when He had made purification for sins He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” Redemption was accomplished and its impending application is only a matter of your encounter with grace which rushes toward you and upon you as it has been “granted you in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” How does that happen? It is a cataclysmic event ordered of God called the New Birth when God invades your life and overthrows your rebellious heart and makes you willing to repent and believe (conversion) in the Day of His Power. God knew you and predestined you and called you and justified you and glorified you… before the world was. (Romans 8) Christ bore the names of His people as He bore their particular sins on Calvary’s Tree. (He even died for their UNBELIEF.) Thank God for sovereign grace or hell would have held me for sure. In reality none would escaped the chains of sin and death, “but God, being rich in mercy…” (Ephesians 2)

Back to Psalm 28…

He saves us in particular as His inheritance for we are the reward of His suffering. “All that the Father gives shall come…” 
He shepherds us by provision and protection in intimate manner as we are twice-born to be carried in His bosom even as our names were inscribed in the books and upon His heart from all eternity.

Consider John 10:1-30 in the account of the Good Shepherd 

“But it is by His doing that we are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption…”

1 Corinthians 1:30-31

My Personal Tent of Meeting

Posted on by
Reply

“And now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me,And I will offer in His tent sacrifices with shouts of joy;

I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.”

Psalm 27:6
Notice this exultation in the Lord is not by deliverance FROM enemies but by worship of God in the MIDST of enemies ALL around. How so? Prominently so… lifted up above… It’s all about a mindset set above, where Christ is. It’s about an act of worship wherever we are, indifferent to circumstance. All things we encounter today are calculated by a sovereign God to stimulate a faith-walk of worship, not sinful frustration, reactiveness nor retaliation. (How we doing on that? Hmmm?) Either our Heavenly Father works all things after the counsel of His will or He doesn’t. I choose to believe a God who rules in the midst of the praises of His people. I bow low in His presence. And He lifts me up in adversity. He moves me to worship the beauty of His holiness. He completes my lack by His abundant sufficiency. 
Perceived hinderances and adversaries are in reality to be viewed and experienced as gigantic springboards to propel one heavenward as we dive into the ocean of His joy-filled presence. (“To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry…”)
It’s really a story of keeping your “tent of meeting handy”…

The thing about tents is their portability. They pack and store well, so when I arrive on location today, (work or school or home with kids, etc…), the first objective is to unpack and secure the tent, (HIS TENT), to enter in and begin to sing praises and offer sacrifices with shouts of joy to God as the enemies of the Lord congregate about. Isn’t that neat? Wherever… Whenever… In all places we hang out today we are to worship the King of glory in the midst of the conflict as we shout with joy, joy, joy… down in my heart this day! He has designed you and He orders your particular circumstances to aid you to construct an altar of worship as you go through life fulfilling your duty by the Light and Salvation of His countenance. I think of Abraham as he trudged throughout the land, not having a clue but only a promise, yet he seemed quick to construct multiple altars of worship as he sojourned. Don’t all people of faith? So it doesn’t really matter how many Philistines or Canaanites surround you or me today: Worship God! He seeks you to be a worshiper in spirit and truth. All is well when we worship God.

I encourage you to hang out with the Shepherd-King David today, especially in Psalm 27. Who knows but that light and salvation may sweep you away into another place. To a holy place. To a place of joy and praise. That is what I seek upon the eve of the eve of the #NewYear #2016.

Have We Pursued Repentance As a Thief?

Posted on by
Reply

“And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”

The Thief of Luke 23

The thief on the cross personifies Biblical repentance for us. We must become as he, and stumble upon the same awareness as he, to enter the narrow door that leads to life. He presents himself as he is and offers to Christ only what he owns… his sin and guilt, without pretense or excuse. We tend to be trust our own advocacy to explain our narrative to God. Repentance includes a radical departure from all explanations, excuses, and all blame we have utilized in the past to resolve guilt by blame of others to protect and excuse Self. Nothing fits through that narrow door of conversion that symbolically represents the new birth. Nothing. Not even your sinful heart. God must give you a new one. This is why we say it is incorrect to say you must give your heart to Jesus; He does not need that nasty thing. In reality we all need Jesus to grant us a new heart as He takes out the old heart of stone. Our sin and our guilt are squeezed off as we press through the gate into the narrow way to be adorned in His robe of righteousness alone. 

The Thief’s Awakening Cry:

He is aware of personal guilt. 

He senses justice must be served. 

He owns his deeds as evil. 

He sees in Christ perfection. 

He senses the suffering Christ is sufficient. 

He cries to Christ for protection. 

“Jesus, remember me.”

He believes as Abraham that God raises the dead. 

One day we will meet this very man. He is in the presence of God today. He will be identified as the humble man who is quick to say it is all of grace. Won’t we all?
“Nothing in my hands I bring;

Simply to Thy cross I cling.”

(Toplady in ‘Rock of Ages’)

Lord, I could never deserve Your merit nor gain Your forgiveness by my performance, even on my best day which I must have misplaced. Unravel my pretense and confusion. Clear my vision and open the eyes of my heart to see my only hope in the very dying form of the Lamb of God upon Calvary’s Tree. Give me faith as this repentant thief. Paradise is His presence. Gripe me with this eternal reality. Never let me lose sight of the Light. Grant me fullness of joy.

“I need Thee. Oh I need Thee. Every hour I need Thee. Oh bless me now my Savior, I come to Thee.”

The Advent Renewed by My Daily Walks in the Psalms

Posted on by
Reply

With good reason I start my day with a reading and reflection upon the Psalms:God speaks to my need and renews my vision of glory therein. A great Light appears where there was darkness. That Light is sufficient and relevant today. Whether cloud or pillar, He leads. Stand and see His salvation.
Psalms 113:3-7 (NASB)

“From the rising of the sun to its setting 

The name of the LORD is to be praised.

The LORD is high above all nations; 

His glory is above the heavens.

Who is like the LORD our God, 

Who is enthroned on high,

Who humbles Himself to behold 

The things that are in heaven and in the earth?

He raises the poor from the dust 

And lifts the needy from the ash heap…”

 
#Perspective

Isn’t all of life about perspective and worldview? Who do you believe? What do you believe? How do you act upon what you believe? Show me faith by works. Let’s move beyond word-faith. “Talkative.” What are you given to pursue? Do you chase trinkets or true treasure? Do you know affliction or shared blessings? God has not changed. He is “patient toward you not willing that any should perish but that all might come to repentance.” It is His kindness manifested that acts as the tentacles of love that draw you irresistibly toward the Manger to consider the Babe, and then to Behold the Man lifted high to die as One cursed of God on the Tree, whose cry of finality in death sprung the captives unfettered and Free into the Most Holy Place. We still “call His name Jesus, who saves His people from their sins.” From the guilt. From the power. From the pollution. And finally in glory, from the presence of sin. Jesus. There’s something about that name…

“No more let sins or sorrows grow.

Nor thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make His blessing known,

Far as the curse is found,

Far as the curse is found.”

 

He speaks still. He commands as King, “Come unto Me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden. Rest. I give you rest and an easy yoke… Learn. Follow. Live. Love. Dance with joy!” His sheep still hear the Voice of the Shepherd. The call shall forever ring throughout the ages, world without end until that final Day, “Adam. Where are you?” Then we shall know. “We will see Him as He is and be like Him.” Glory. Throughout all the ages to come, we shall bask in His glory and dance in His Light.
The Psalms put all these things into perspective for me and daily drives my heart to constraint of love and worship of the King as the shepherds and then as the Magi of old. “The things of the world glow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
“Mary treasured all these things in her heart.” The shepherds returned to their labors changed, full of joy and worship. What do I return too? Who has my heart? Do I worship a “what” or a “Who” or my “Self”? Or do I worship Christ the newborn King? Joy to the World! The Lord is come!
#GloryToTheNewBornKing who is birthed again through the Psalms with fresh urgency and relevancy to me in my walk through life. Today. And all days. “World without end. Amen. Amen!“
#ILoveChristmas
#YadaYada
I’m afflicted. But I’m loved of God. What else matters? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Oh the Reasoned Hell of Vain Worship

Posted on by
Reply

“BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME,TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.”

(Jesus quoting Isaiah in Matthew 15)

Vain worship is not an act of ignorance performed in darkness but a carefully distilled product of Man’s reasoned logic boldly set forth in brilliant humanistic display. Vain worship has qualities that replicate the form of true religion because it is based upon thoughtful conclusions. Though it seems the right way to a man it still lands one in a dark hell cut off from Eternal Light fully equipped with a powerful argument that dies upon the resounding closure of the prison doors.

The fallacy of vain worship is our normative acceptance of rational, cultural arguments that minimize the significance of or our transition beyond, (and then the subsequent denial of), the revelation of the righteousness of God, especially as “He has spoken to us in His Son in these last days.”

A reasoned argument based upon a relative religion expressed and experienced in an aesthetically pleasing manner may assist my conscience to be quietened and my mind to be convinced I have discovered an acceptable alternative to homage of the King’s Son. This will perish into the wisps of vanity it is “as all together we are lighter than breath” as we bow our knee and confess with our lips that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth.

Oh to Cure the Malady of Prayerful Silence

Posted on by
Reply

Irony was discovered lurking at the end of Session 6 of the Prayer Conference when the pastor’s request for closing prayer was greeted with resounding silence. Uncomfortable silence. Twitch inducing silence.

Thankfully, yet sadly… the paid professional flinched first.

Why does the church struggle with prayer? Is prayerlessness the auditory evidence indicative of a larger problem hidden beneath the spiritual waters? Do we fail to pray for we are unfamiliar with our God? The guesses could become endless. Some elementary notes:

  • Prayer is work.
  • Prayer is joy.
  • Prayer is essential.
  • The Lord inclines his ear to hear our prayers.
  • Prayer is learned.

The response of silence to a given opportunity to practice what we were just taught is not unique to this church or that church. Not in my experience. Moreover the distinguishing mark of churchmanship we long for is that rare assembly become many where the men trip over themselves to seek God in public for they are much acquainted with Him in private.

“Brethren, do you pray? Do you seek God in secret?”
#AH

Preaching & Prisoners & Prayer

Posted on by
1

When prisoners of #CCC (Caddo Correctional Center) crowded round in response to the Gospel message there was joy as God made His move at the end last evening’s chapel service. They soberly entreated prayer for felt needs and tangible fears. You see they have no hope nor help unless God acts, and they daily live in the driven reality of this constraint. That is not all bad. It can turn redemptive by Divine design.

“Dust and rust, thy life’s reward? Slay the thought! Believe thy Lord!” (A Carmichael)

Ideally this present life of imprisoned restraint could actually become the narrow neck of the funnel that rapidly propels the prisoner toward that unique avenue that opens into the flowing River of Life. Part of my role as “shade-tree” pastor-counselor is to first isolate their location and then encourage their escape out of the difficult place they live by entry into the path of possibilities filled with Gospel promises. This great escape can only be offered without promise of immediate change in circumstance and with no pretense of anything beyond God’s presence and approval in the final analysis. This is not really a “hard-sell” to the inmate if they are apprehended by the God who delights to build His new house upon the very foundation that their sin constructed. It rings with a clear, full tone of eternal truth and hope. Otherwise their life seems destined for destruction. 

Simply stated their surroundings are at work to sharpen their spiritual acuity as their visual perception becomes focused upon an ever-narrowing experience of reality. The fluff and stuff of life are gone. These disappeared into Neverland with the resounding clang of the prison doors. Four walls now encroach upon their existence. Their experience is confined to the consequential grind of old life choices come home to haunt them. We on the outside easily neglect and even stumble over that which they have come to value as true needs in their distilled, simplistic world. Our affluence becomes a distortion… an idol… of our perceived reality, and we easily miss what they learn, where they live, what they value, and why this is Truth that screams incessantly to Conscience. 

In retrospect I think the real obstacle in this opportunity of prayer is to draw their attention to prayer’s reality, not as an “abracadabra magical-method” to swish away all troubles. The goal is the challenge to unmask prayer’s mystique. The prisoner must begin to embrace prayer as quiet communion with God as an elementary exercise God affords to teach us to entrust our cares and burdens to the wise, personal, powerful God who knows our needs before we even think to ask.

So my real goal in prayer with any inmate is for us to seek God together, not to the end of audible clangs of the cell doors as they rattle and swing open; rather my prayer for them is answered if I point them to a God who is near to the broken-hearted and a God who is willing to forgive the debts of those now crushed in spirit.