Seeds of Eternity

The Zeal of the Lord of Hosts Will Perform This!

2011-11-29T23:50:00.001-05:00

"6 For unto us a Child is born,
      Unto us a Son is given;
      And the government will be upon His shoulder.
      And His name will be called
      Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
      Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of His government and peace
      There will be no end,
      Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom,
      To order it and establish it with judgment and justice
      From that time forward, even forever.
      The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this."
– Isaiah 9:6-7 (NKJV)

Isaiah was a very special prophet. His career began in the throne room of God’stemple where, in his vision, the Lord of Hosts Himself personally commissionedhim. Perhaps that explains the intensity of divineemotion that Isaiah’s writings convey, such as the opening line of chapter 64:
“Oh,that You would rend the heavens! ThatYou would come down!”

And surely it’s no coincidence that this same Isaiah bringsus more messianic prophecies even than David himself. Perhaps the most often quoted of these isIsaiah 9:6-7, which begins with: “Forunto us a Child is born …” In twoshort verses, the majestic reign of Jesus is chronicled from birth, to throne, toeternity.

But then, the prophecy is sealed with a singularpronouncement:

“The zeal of the Lord ofHosts will perform this!” Get that—God’szeal is the force that will usher in the everlasting kingdom of His Christ.

Now, the word translated here as “zeal”—qinah—is used sparingly in the Hebrew Scriptures. It describes one of the most powerfulemotions: gut-curling jealousy, usually in the context of fiercely protectiveaction (“zeal”) on behalf of one who is the object of love.

And it’s Isaiah who introduces this particular phrase about“the zeal of the Lord has done” such-and-such a thing. He used it two or three times, always inreference to God’s prodigious action in defense of His chosen people.

“Oh, that You wouldrend the heavens! That You would comedown!” Think of it—that’s exactly what He did.

Let us pray:

“Thank you, Father, for Your great zeal which, in the fragile shape of a newborn, delivered ourconquering King—the One Who would destroy the works of that great usurper,Satan, and redeem to Yourself a bride for eternity! Hallelujah!!

A Scroll of Remembrance

2011-10-03T23:09:00.000-04:00

"Then those who feared the LORD talked with each other, and the LORD listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the LORD and honored his name."
– Malachi 3:16 (NIV)

"Church membership in Wales was declining in the last decade of the nineteenth century."

So begins church historian J. Edwin Orr's classic book The Flaming Tongue.

"All of the denominations (Nonconformist and Anglican) suffering the effects of a loss of power in the pulpits and of a worldly spirit in the pews.  Writers in various denominational papers complained of low attendance at Sunday services, fellowship and prayer meetings, and of a decline in Bible reading and in family worship; a Divine visitation was the only remedy, they said.

"Evan Phillips, a Moderator of the Presbyterian Assembly (the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Church), declared in June of 1900 that Revival was the great need, and until met, all efforts to supply every other need would be in vain."

Sound familiar? CNN's recent story, A Rough Decade for American Congregations certainly sounds like a rerun. And yet, Orr's opener was a segue to

glorious events. It wasn't long after, at a young people's prayer group in Wales, that most historians agree the first spark of the great Welsh Revival of 1904 was ignited. Which led to awakenings around the world through 1905 and 1906. (Remember Azusa Street?)

So, let's not lose hope, America, but as Malachi said "talk with each other"---band together in a united assault on the Throne---till the Lord hears and responds with the flame of revival in our own day! Let our generation go down in His Scroll of Remembrance as those who shook the American status quo to its foundation.

One minute of united prayer per day may be all it takes to strike the first spark. Read the Minutemen blog to find out how, and let's start adding names to our own generation's Scroll of Remembrance!

As He Is, So Are We In This World

2011-09-27T22:16:00.000-04:00

To our good friend Bradley Brown, missionary to Nicaragua, on his 60th Birthday

At the Last Supper, Philip implored Jesus, “Show us the Father, and it’s sufficient for us.”

Jesus replied, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you haven’t known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”

You see, Jesus didn’t need to live among us for thirty-three long years in order to purchase our salvation. He could have beaten a path to the cross, risen from the dead, and returned to His throne in considerably less time than all that. But then, how would His disciples—and how would we—ever have known the incredible love of the Father Who sent Him?

What does this have to do with Brad Brown as we celebrate his 6oth birthday?

“As He is, so are we in this world,” John the Beloved tells us (I John 4:17, NKJV). In fact, the entire chapter is about our Father God’s love for us, and how He longs, in turn, to extend that love through us to a lost and dying world.

In the words of an old hymn: “Lord, lay some soul upon my heart,

and love that soul through me.” Now, we all know it’s possible to engage in evangelistic outreach without feeling a thimbleful of love for the people we’re reaching out to. Possible, yes, but not too awfully effective.

On the other hand, when we become a broken spigot showering the lost—not with dry words, but with a demonstration of the Father’s soaking love—why, that makes a difference indeed! But, oh, how difficult I find it, breaking through to that level of ministry. I, for one, have a hard time “getting it.”

But Brad gets it! His ministry, more than any other I’ve seen, reflects Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “You might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, but I’ve been a father to you!”

Thirty-five years ago, Brad Brown introduced my future wife, Janette, to her Savior. But it didn’t stop there; he (along with his wife, Ruth) continued mentoring and fathering her till she was able to stand on her own without falling away. I met Brad seven years later, and he’s always been a father to me when I needed one.

Time and again, I’ve seen him drawn to those who are wayward and fatherless, showing them the Father’s heart through action—not just words. He’s not afraid of long-term commitment, for true fathering isn’t a hit-and-run business. And you’re vulnerable.

Brad’s heart has been broken more than once by those he’s cared for the most, and the longest. Sometimes he’s felt like giving up. (Don’t we all!?) But he keeps on giving away. As He (Jesus) is, so are we in this world. As He showed the Father’s love, so we must do the same.

Brad Brown, thank you for hanging in there. Thank you for being an inspiration to us all.

HAPPY 60TH BIRTHDAY! WE LOVE YOU!!
-- Brad and Janette Fenichel

Visit Brad and Ruth Brown's website at www.FatherHeartMissions.com.

When We Pipe, God Shall Dance

2011-09-01T18:25:00.022-04:00

Brad's new book is now available—in paperback and e-book formats!

For more information, visit the web site:
When We Pipe, God Shall Dance

Told in parable form, this story is a challenge for each of us to connect with God and discover personal revival and the fulfillment of His purposes for us in our generation.

A DAUNTLESS QUEST FOR SUBSTANCE
IN A WORLD OF MAKE-BELIEVE!
Are they twenty feet tall and swallow live kittens—or eight inches tall and shelter in tree hollows? Nobody knows for sure. But the strange, ugly creatures must be found, and their wretched curse broken, before it’s too late.

Willi Wagner, a young Anabaptist, fled his native Germany in 1916 on a pilgrimage that would take him deep into the forgotten sierras of Central Mexico in his search for the legendary Skunk People. At stake … the very notion that God still cares to be involved with men and women in our own time!

Wagner’s dogged tenacity, through triumph and tragedy, stands as an inspiration for those of us living a century later who would dare—as he did—to believe that God not only exists, but that He rewards those who diligently seek Him.

WARNING: You will NOT be able to put this book down!

A bonus 39-page Study Guide is included, for personal devotion and small group dialogue.

Why Leave Egypt?

2011-01-31T23:14:00.002-05:00

"For the generations to come this burnt offering is to be made regularly at the entrance to the tent of meeting, before the LORD. There I will meet you and speak to you; there also I will meet with the Israelites, and the place will be consecrated by my glory. So I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests.
"Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God."
– Exodus 29:42-45 (NIV)

Egypt is headline news this week, with sociopolitical upheaval bordering on anarchy. May God comfort and sustain that nation, and may His will prevail speedily.

Of course, it won't be the first time Egypt makes global headlines. One well known instance was about 3500 years ago. That's the time when Pharaoh's impressive cavalry was defeated at the Battle of the Red Sea, where God fought for His people and thereby led them out of slavery.

But, why did God do it? In His own words, "...So that I might dwell among them."

He wanted to be close with them, and not just in a poetic sense. In fact, they were instructed to build a portable

temple, which included an inner sanctum that was accessible only to those who had undergone a painstaking, and very bloody, ritual of consecration. Because God was in there to meet them. And speak to them!

Like most of the Old Covenant order of worship, the tent of meeting, with its Holy of Holies, was a glorious shadow of things to come. Revelation chapter 21 discloses the final scene, of the final act, of God's dramatic story of love for His people, when Evil is defeated at last and the New Jerusalem descends out of Heaven with its magnificent temple that is the dwelling place of God Himself. Among us. Forever.

Like cosmic bookends, the passages of Exodus and Revelation describe strikingly similar events.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.'"
– Revelation 21:3-4 (NIV)

But what of the present? Do we serve a God Who inhabits only the "long, long ago" and the "someday yonder?" Certainly not.

Jesus came to consecrate us with His blood, and also to personally deliver the Good News of the Kingdom that blood ushers us into. "The Kingdom of God is within you," He said. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, Who is Jesus Himself dwelling among us---within us, in His Holy of Holies, to meet us and speak to us---until we see His face again in the New Jerusalem.

Jesus. Emmanuel. His very name means "God with us."

We're part of that cosmic love story. Somewhere between the two bookends, true, but we can meet Him, talk to Him, experience His presence just as tangible as the shekinah cloud that filled the tent of meeting and, later, the temple in Old Jerusalem.

Let's not count too high the cost of painstakingly pursuing Him, of being daily consecrated anew in His blood, of hating even the sight of our robes smeared with the vile filth of our own sin. For the heart of God yearns as a Lover to meet with us, speak with us, spend time with us.

It's not poetic. He's more tangible---and much closer--- than that TV remote in my hand. How about let's shut the thing off and spend some time in the kingdom...in the temple...in the presence of the Lamb of God who paid with the last drop of His blood to purchase a dwelling place...within us?

ONE

2011-01-25T23:03:00.001-05:00

“Onward, Christian soldiers / Marching as to war / With the cross of Jesus / Going on before; / Christ, the royal Master / Leads against the foe; / Forward into battle, / See, His banners go.”

Deep calls to deep in one of the Church’s best known hymns. Indeed, it dredges up memories of countless revivals great and small, which have left their crater on our land. It’s difficult, though, to sing these words during a time of spiritual drought (such as the present) without feeling their poignant irony.

For my part, the most frightening passage of the anthem is the part about: “We are not divided,
All one body we, / One in hope and doctrine, One in charity.” What an utter farse! And yet, I’ve witnessed periods of American Church history—in the ‘60s and ‘70s—when these words didn’t stick in my crop quite like they do today.

So, what was different during those times?

The answer is that God was sovereignly at work. And when He moves, the Church seems to forget its petty fractures. Not that we would ever fully agree on all points of doctrine and practice. But rather, we have no time to dwell on minutiae because our eyes are on the One Who it’s all about!

If we, the American Church, wish to have an impact once again on them, the American lost, then let us pray effectually and fervently for unanimity of purpose, for Him to manifest Himself once again and “lead us into war” against the enemy who has (for the moment, once again) divided and conquered.

In Ezekiel 28:25, God promises to gather Israel together as one—as a witness to the world of Who He is.

In John 17:15-23, the principal focus of Jesus’ prayer for us, the Church, was that we shall be one—as a witness to the world of Who He is.

Our disobedience leads to fragmentation and defeat (Deut. 28:25), while our obedience and focus on Him alone leads to His sovereign power of unanimity (Deut. 28:9-10).

Christians of America, let us assault the throne with our prayers. That we may be one. That He may lead us as one body. To victory. That the world may know...! Amen.

Onward, Christian Soldiers (1864)
Sabine Baring-Gould and Arthur S. Sullivan
Chorus:
Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.

1.
Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before;
Christ, the royal Master
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See, his banners go.

2.
At the sign of triumph
Satan's host doth flee;
On then, Christian soldiers,
On to victory.
Hell's foundations quiver
At the shout of praise;
Brothers, lift your voices,
Loud your anthems raise.

3.
Like a mighty army
Moves the church of God;
Brothers, we are treading
Where the saints have trod;
We are not divided,
All one body we,
One in hope and doctrine,
One in charity.

4.
What the saints established
That I hold for true;
What the saints believed,
That I believe too.
Long as earth endureth,
men the faith will hold;
Kingdoms, nations, empires,
In destruction rolled.

5.
Crowns and thrones may perish,
Kingdoms rise and wane,
But the church of Jesus
Constant will remain;
Gates of hell can never
'Gainst that church prevail;
We have Christ's own promise,
And that cannot fail.

6.
Onward then, ye people,
Join our happy throng,
Blend with ours your voices
In the triumph song;
Glory, laud, and honour
Unto Christ the King;
This through countless ages
Men and angels sing.

Sawdust and Paper Fans

2010-12-01T23:00:00.000-05:00

"LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy."
– Habakkuk 3:2 (NIV)

To a thunder of applause, Bob Dole took the podium to accept the 1996 Republican presidential nomination. "Let me be the bridge to an America that only the unknowing call myth," he said in his acceptance speech. "Let me be the bridge to a time of tranquility, faith, and confidence in action."

Dole's Democrat opponent, Bill Clinton, responded with, "We do not need to build a bridge to the past; we need to build a bridge to the future."

Well, there's no telling whether Dole might indeed have marched us all across his bridge to tranquility, faith and confidence. We do know that Bill Clinton was ushering America into his version of the future---fraught with scandal and disgrace of his high office---even as he uttered that tart comeback.

How about God's people? Some of us reminisce about great moves of God in "the good old days", secretly wondering where to draw the line between substance and legend. Others look forward to a Great Harvest in the distant future, much as the Samaritan woman in John 4, who said, "Someday Messiah will come and set us all straight."

As for me, I tend to be more of a Bob Dole. Raised in the 60's, I saw first-hand the tail end of what's referred to as the "Great Healing Revival." Healing evangelists were still casting their long shadows across the American churchscape---A.A. Allen, T.L. Osborn, Oral Roberts, and many others.

I recall the time when you could find some sort of tent revival meeting to attend just about any night of the week, anywhere across the South. Wooden folding chairs, cardpaper hand fans, pump organs, and of course...the regulation three-inch-thick layer of sawdust on the ground. Many people spent a good portion of the meetings lying in sawdust. I know. I was down there with them.

But, as novelist Thomas Wolfe reminded us, You Can't Go Home Again. Don't expect to see a revival tent sprouting in the local Best Buy or Mega Mall parking lot. Look again at the prophet's prayer.

"LORD, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD." King David makes a similar statement saying, "I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your works; I muse on the work of Your hands." (Psalm 143:5, NKJV)

So, we ought to meditate on God's historic deeds, but we build our bridge to the past only by building one to the future. That's the second part of Habakkuk's plea: "Renew them in our day..." Notice that he asks, not for reruns, but for renewal of His awesome deeds!

Church in America, let us assault the Throne with our prayer, not for sawdust and paper fans, but for the power of God that was manifest under those tents to be renewed in our day, in our time. When God responds by doing a New Thing among us---when He Who dwells in past, present, and future builds His bridge of revival in our nation---the deed will be more awesome than what our minds could have conceived.

Even so, come Lord Jesus and work among us! Amen.

If Satan's Such a Hateful Fiend, Why Is There So Much Good In the World?

2010-11-25T23:17:00.008-05:00

— A Thanksgiving Meditation for the Believer —

With Thanksgiving Day so close I can almost smell the hot, buttered rutabagas, it seemed appropriate that I should spend the evening giving my neglected old thank-u-later a tune-up.

So, for starters, I got to thinking, "What's the number one objection we humans raise—consciously or otherwise—to unreservedly expressing our gratitude toward God? And how should we deal with it so as to become duly thankful?"

Google.com, that unquestionable authority on all human knowledge, lists 305,000 places to visit across the World Wide Web that attempt to deal with that #1 question:
"If God is such a loving God, why is there so much evil in the world?"

How excruciatingly depressing! 305,000 worthy philosophers have stocked the shelves of cyberspace with answers of all sorts. And what’s more, in a mere 31,000 verses, God Himself has provided the right answer! So, where does that leave me?

Being a reasonably resourceful chap, I decided to tackle a different, and possibly more relevant, question that might prove more of a challenge for Google:
“If Satan’s such a hateful fiend, why is there so much good in the world??"

You see, God is so incredibly, unfathomably good! The world is simply asking the wrong question.

Think about it! After God made us a little lower than the angels, crowned us with glory and honor, and set us over creation, what was our response? High treason! We bit the Hand that made us, broke the Heart that conceived us, sold ourselves and out to His archenemy, and ultimately murdered the Chosen One Who came to offer eternal love and redemption.

And yet, that offer stands. In Him we still have free access to glorious salvation and all good things if we only lay down our weapons. But while we spurn both gift and Giver and persist in our wanton dissipation, even so He still causes the sun to rise and the rains to fall in their due season on both the righteous and the unrighteous. All His creation—vast oceans teeming with life, majestic glaciers, innumerable heavenly bodies, and warm, fuzzy pink-tongued puppies—all these things He has given in abundance for our admiration and enjoyment as well as His own.

Why?? How can so much good endure on a planet that is in a state of flagrant rebellion against its supreme, benevolent Maker? Why doesn’t He simply kick us to the gutter of the universe as we deserve? Herein lies the mystery of the love of God that defies all comprehension.

This Thanksgiving season, I choose to focus my heart...

- Not on the 0.1% of mankind the were the tragic victims of our hateful fiend's murder plots this year, but rather on the 99.9% that God preserved alive and unmurdered, with a hope and a future (and to die of natural causes at the appointed time).

- Not on the 0.004% of American soldiers that have tragically died since 2001 while deployed in the Global War on Terror perpetrated by the same hateful fiend (to say nothing of deluded terrorists, sympathizers, and innocent civilians caught in the crossfire), but rather on the 99.996% of American soldiers that God has brought back alive to their homes and families.

- Not on the 0.000006% of American college students that have tragically died in campus shootings instigated by our hateful fiend during the past 10 years, but rather on the 99.9999994% of them that God has graced with the opportunity to complete a higher education degree.

Of course, this sort of list might continue ad infinitum, but the point is obvious. Without minimizing the shock and heartbreak of our hateful fiend's heinous war crimes against humankind—which is precisely where he strives, through his news agencies, to keep our attention focused—we can choose, instead, to sing joyfully to the Lord, because...well...let's cut over to Psalm 33 for a few good reasons!

Psalm 33: A Thanksgiving Perspective

1 Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous;
   it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
2 Praise the LORD with the harp;
   make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
3 Sing to him a new song;
   play skillfully, and shout for joy.

4 For the word of the LORD is right and true;
   he is faithful in all he does.
5 The LORD loves righteousness and justice;
   the earth is full of his unfailing love.

6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made,
   their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars[a];
   he puts the deep into storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear the LORD;
   let all the people of the world revere him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
   he commanded, and it stood firm.

10 The LORD foils the plans of the nations;
   he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
   the purposes of his heart through all generations.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
   the people he chose for his inheritance.

13 From heaven the LORD looks down
   and sees all mankind;
14 from his dwelling place he watches
   all who live on earth—
15 he who forms the hearts of all,
   who considers everything they do.

16 No king is saved by the size of his army;
   no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
   despite all its great strength it cannot save.
18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
   on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
   and keep them alive in famine.

20 We wait in hope for the LORD;
   he is our help and our shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
   for we trust in his holy name.
22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
   even as we put our hope in you.

(New International Version)

SO...
“If Satan’s such a hateful fiend, why is there so much good in the world??"

Because of the incomprehensible, majestic King of the Universe, Lover of our souls and—if we will have Him—our eternal, personal Father.

Hope for America - Part III: Gate Busters!

2010-11-08T23:05:00.003-05:00

"...upon this rock I will build My church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
– Matthew 16:18b (KJV)

What are gates for? Why, that's easy! They either keep something in, or they keep it out. Or, they might do both.

Have you ever been attacked by a gate?

I can't say I've ever been chased and assaulted by any gate, large or small. On the other hand, I did once have an extraordinarily strong-willed garden gate. It was bent on doing what gates do best---keeping me out. Sometimes the gate prevailed and I didn't. And if I was in a particular hurry, I would have to find some other way into my own backyard.

And what is the most common device of hell to be found in America today? The Gate!

There are gates of hell that keep America OUT---out of the garden of God's wisdom and provision, out of all opportunities for a hope and a future, and most importantly...out of touch with God Himself.

Then, there are gates of hell keeping America IN bondage---to sickness and affliction, substance abuse, physical abuse, demonic oppression, false religions...even empty forms of religiosity in the church itself.

Where is the Church? The one that God has built upon the great Gibraltar rock of His own lordship and living being?

Are those hellish gates pursuing the Church? Are they assaulting us? Pummeling us into the ground? Absolutely not! But, there's no denying that they are prevailing against us, because they're holding strong In other words...strongholds. Strongholds that defy our polite remonstrances. "Open up and say 'Ahhh', won't you, please? Come now, don't be a naughty-naughty little gate! Jesus would be very cross with you, don't you think? ... Oh, bother. I guess this one just won't open up today. Can't say we didn't try!"

Blast it!

I had a vision of an Abrams tank leveling its fire on an obstinate gate. Nothing can stand up to an Abrams; why, it's the mother of all tanks!

It's about time that the Church stop seeking diplomatic solutions to the gates of hell. Blast them! And if they don't fall the first time... Blast again! THEY SHALL NOT PREVAIL!

- The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds!

- Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might! He's not daunted by those gates, and neither should we be, because...

- Greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world.

On the Great Rock---the lordship of Jesus---we the Church have been built. We have a position of high advantage! Those gates are nothing but a bluff, guarded by flaming and thundering apparitions that keep us trembling in our boots. But when we enter the presence of Jesus Christ, He pulls back the thin veil of deceit and we see an emaciated, defeated little enemy working the machinery of fear. "Pay no attention to that little rat behind the curtain!" he bellows. But we see the rat is all that's guarding the gate! Blast it!

Hope for America must emerge within the heart of the church. It's time for us to stop "looking like grasshoppers...in our own eyes" like the Israelites did as they stood at the gates of the Promised Land. No! Shut off that TV and spend time in the presence of God. And soon, those impish, bluffing little gatekeepers of hell will shrink down to their true size before our spiritual eyes. They are the grasshoppers. Blast them! And let the Abrams tank of the Church of Jesus Christ roll in and reclaim what's His...set the captives free...bring a Hope and a Future once again.

Can you see it? I can see it! Let's do it! Amen.

Greater Than a Gulf Gusher

2010-09-28T22:17:00.472-04:00

A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.”
So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.”
So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.”
And he said to her, “There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.
– II Kings 4:1-7 (NKJV)

Yep! Heard it before. Nice Bible story about how God took care of a poor widow.

But, reading this passage again, something jumped out and sank its teeth into my soft parts astern. You see, a dear missionary friend e-mailed me today from Central America in response to the question, "What is your A-Number-One most urgent prayer request?" Here’s the reply (in paraphrased form)…

"My wife and I have developed serious health issues, but we lack the funds to get medical attention. We’re inundated by ministry needs, but barely have enough resources to get by. God recently provided a new Youth Center, but we lack the money to fix it up so it's serviceable. Bottom line, the needs are plentiful and the dollars are few. Please pray that God would provide 30% more per month than what we’re taking in now," he said. "That ought to do it."

This got me thinking… Why does it feel, sometimes, like God's late cutting the paychecks, and when He does, the net take-home pay barely covers rent and a few groceries?

Come on. Don't say you haven't been there!

When I brought the matter to prayer that evening, I saw a picture of my own daughter all dressed in rags. Rotten, smelly ones. Her face was grimy and her hair matted and tangled because she had no access to fresh water. She was sprawled outside my front gate on a tattered old mat. As I approached, she asked if I could spare a crust to take the edge off her hunger.

"But, Sarah!" I said. "My home is yours. Come in and have a hot meal—all you can eat!"

"Oh no, sir. A crust’ll get me by. Maybe two, at the most. That oughtta do it."

Absurd...preposterous! This is my daughter we're talking about. Why, she needn’t bother knocking. Just march right in and sit a spell...wash up...take a nap...raid the fridge! But, how do I make her understand?

You know, most traditional Jewish blessings start with the words, "Baruch Atah, Adonai Eloheinu, Melech Ha’olam…” which means, "Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe..." Before we enumerate our needs, let's remind ourselves Who it is we're addressing. Our loving Father happens to be King of the Universe. He's King of the Universe! And, if the thing we need is to be found anywhere in this universe, it's a good bet He can pull some strings and get it for us.

Trouble is, we're so used to reaching for the old adding machine. "Let’s see. A crust'll get me by for today, Lord. I mean...well, two crusts would be awfully nice, but…only if You can manage it. I hope I'm not asking too much…am I?"

Surely we make God weep. "Keep your numbers off Me!” He says. “Yes, I'll toss you that crust today, if only to keep you from starving. But, when will you understand that everything I have is yours? When will you stop limiting Me?" In fact, there are times when even the ration of crusts dries up because He’s trying to get our attention. Break our "Poor God" mentality.

Is this all about "God wants you fat and happy?" Not at all. But, He absolutely does want His children fit and fully provisioned to fulfill their destiny.

“And how much provision might that be?”

No! Forget the "how much!" We humans quantify everything in finite terms because we’re finite ourselves. But, God thinks in terms of infinite provision because He's the infinite One.

On April 20, 2010, an explosion and fire on the BP-licensed Transocean drilling rig "Deepwater Horizon" in the Gulf of Mexico unleashed a horrific oil spill that lasted five months and cost billions of dollars for cleanup efforts alone, not to mention the havoc it wreaked with the regional economy and, of course, the environment.

About two months into the nightmare, a CBS News/New York Times poll was conducted to solicit Americans' opinions on how long it might be before this volcano of petroleum would be controlled at last. Responses ranged from "a few weeks" to "a year or longer", while 7% of respondents said they believed the gusher would never be capped. In other words, roughly 14 million Americans believed the oil might be flowing into the Gulf of Mexico forever!

Surely, it could not have gushed forever, since the reservoir of petroleum beneath the Gulf of Mexico is finite. There is, however, a record in Scripture of an even greater flow of oil—an infinite one. And, it all came from one small jar.

In II Kings 4, we see how God plugged that little oil jar directly into His infinite supply pipeline. But, no need for alarm! He's never the Author of catastrophe because His system is based strictly on demand.

Let's suppose the number of containers that poor widow had gathered was exactly fifty. So then, fifty containers were neatly filled, and then the oil stopped flowing. And, had there been five hundred containers? Or five thousand? Or five warehouses full of them? No difference to God; they would all have been neatly filled, and then the oil would have stopped flowing.

Think of it this way. The only limiting factors on God's provision are: (a) need and (b) demand.

"But wait!" you say. "Isn't demand the same thing as need?"

Sadly, no. Although, it ought to be!

You see, need is an objective measure. If I were honest with myself, and assuming I had a clear idea of what God wanted me to accomplish in the next month, or year, of life... ("But, I have no clue!" you may say. And that is the topic of a whole other discourse.) Again, assuming I know what I must do, I should be able to work out a rough idea of the resources I'll require in order to get it done—i.e., need.

But, demand—well now, that's a different concept. Demand is a very subjective measurement. It represents how much of my need I will try to secure resources for. And alas, this is where things get dicey.

Logically, I should say, "Lord, I'm here to ask for Your divine resources to meet my calculated need. Here are the numbers, and I trust You to provide the full amount." So, demand = need.

In real life? It sounds more like, "Dear Heavenly Father, my flawed human calculations suggest this exceedingly great need. May Your holy will be done. Whatever Your gracious hand is willing to contribute... I know You have ever so many other people to worry about. Help me be duly appreciative no matter how little You can manage to scrape together for me." So, demand = hmmm...nothing, really!

And, which of the two approaches is correct? Which is truly pleasing to God? Let me suggest—neither! What does Scripture teach?

- Consider the Prodigal Son. He came with numbers: "Hire me on and pay me an hourly wage like the rest of your employees." The father answered with abundance: "Best robe, best ring, best party. You're part of the household again, and everything is yours."

- And his brother, of course. Numbers: "You never gave me one single goat so I could throw a party." And Dad said: "You don't get it. All I have is yours."

- How about Jesus feeding the multitudes? The disciples worked out the numbers: "Two hundred denarii might buy 'em each a Ritz cracker and a sardine to top it with!" Jesus responded with abundance: "Pass out the food. And when they're all stuffed, collect the surplus in baskets. It'll feed people you never planned for (but I did)."

- And the disciples' fishing expedition? Numbers: "Worked all night. Zero fish." Jesus' abundance: "Haul the net in and fill the boat. Supply your need in full. Oh, and did you notice how the net broke? That's because the lake's entire fish population was in your net. Don't worry, though; they'll still be there whenever you need to dip that net again."

God doesn't think in finite numbers, but He understands that we do.

- "Whatever measure you decide to use, that's what I'll use to measure it back to you. But, it'll be pressed down, shaken together, and running over!"

- In Exodus 16:17-18, the Israelites had a specific need for a specific amount of food each day. They walked outside with a container just the right size. But this manna was a divine provision, so it followed divine laws rather than physical laws. The guy who didn't quite fill his container? He walked into the house and...presto! It was full. How about the greedy one who heaped it high? "Boy,” he thought, “this stuff sure does settle in transport." So, the container was simply a reservoir to hold the full-and-abundant provision to meet that day's need.

- How about Malachi 3, where God demands His tithe? Is it because He's having trouble making ends meet? On the contrary, it's an exercise of the soul. He says it sets the stage for Him to respond with an abundant blessing that we cannot contain!

- In Luke 18, Jesus had just concluded a conversation with the rich young ruler. The one He admonished to "sell all you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me." The disciples seemed to misunderstand; they asked Jesus, "You know, You’ve got us worried. Because we left everything we had. What now?" But Jesus responded, "You will surely receive in this life more than what you sacrificed. Not to mention what's waiting for you in the life to come!" And so it was; the believers in the early Church didn't live a fat and happy life, but they always had what they needed, and enough to share with those less fortunate.

Back to the principle of need vs. demand.

God does not want us begging like the epileptic boy's father, "Oh, please, oh, please! If there's anything You can do, won't you please try to help us with this need? ...a crust or two, maybe?"

The straightforward approach is always a vast improvement: "Lord, we need a loaf of bread today. Your bread is fresh every morning, and we trust You to provide the loaf."

But, though He's pleased to deliver the loaf, He sometimes keeps us waiting. Until we get really hungry. "Where are you, Lord??" And make eye contact. And he walks us over to the delivery van.

That's when God opens the doors and an abundance of bread drops into our lap. "Wait, Lord, but I only demanded one loaf! That's all I needed."

"Better start expecting more! Look behind you." And then we see the needy multitudes lined up. We find that God delivers, not only enough to keep us fed, but enough to pass along to the whole world. Wherever there’s demand, it will be filled. And the delivery truck is larger on the inside than what we saw of the outside. It's an infinite supply. Because He's an infinite God.

So, in conclusion, what are we saying? That God's perfect plan is: “Everything is yours!” In other words, demand = supply!

Get your oil jar plugged into the heavenly supply line. God wants to supply all your need according to His riches in glory. But, it'll be more than what you calculated your need to be, since He expects you to be overflowing—filling the needs of others as well as your own.

Truth is… As I write this message, God is addressing my own point of weakness. All too often I find myself whipping out the old adding machine and telling God what I think I need. For today. For me. And, sometimes I'm not so sure He's even willing or capable of filling the order. "...at least a crust, Father...if it be Your will…pretty please?"

Then I discover that the oil's stopped flowing altogether. Until I get desperate and look in His eyes. And He tenderly reminds me, "Your demand is too small. Bring your empty vessels—not just a few! Bring an abundance of vessels, and let's get filling, you and I, because the supply is infinite, and the world is waiting!"

Oh, and don't worry about an out-of-control gusher. The infinite supply flows no further than the demand.

Hope for America - Part II: Picking the Bones

2010-09-07T23:06:00.002-04:00

History repeats itself, sure. Man will create the same "pool of cess" again and again and again and again...

Prophecy repeats itself too. The God of boundless mercy will come through again and again and again and again...

Downstream from our 8/27 post---about hope for revival in our nation---we come to a valley full of bones. Oh, we've visited this valley before. It figures from time to time in trite little pep talks about recovering our spiritual "get up and go"---whatever that may be. We hear the bones emit a feeble rattling that sounds something like "Rah! Rah!", only to clatter back to earth exhausted by the effort.

But, hey! God really meant it. He took a Major Prophet to visit the valley and deliver a personal prophecy. One that echoes down the tunnels of time announcing hope beyond hope to the dismembered people of God in generations past, future, and present.

Why not revisit Ezekiel 37 and pick through these bones in their Scriptural order? And as you do, may God put the puzzle together in your own spirit and add flesh to it.

- In a Valley. They had descended to their death.

- Very Many. Untold potential had met untold defeat.

- Very Dry. A long, slow process---losing every trace of the fluids of life. Picked over by scavengers. For years. For a lifetime. Many, many lifetimes.

- Son of Man, Can These Bones Live? God solicits a human evaluation.

- Lord, Thou Knowest. The only source of hope would be a miracle.

- Prophesy!
   (a) God does nothing but He prefaces it with prophecy.
   (b) He speaks the impossible into being.
   (c) He awakens hope where there was none.
   (d) He challenges us to take notice of our hopeless state
        so His glory is evident when it changes.

- Noise and Rattling. God begins to get our attention.

- Dismembered Skeletons Come Together. Reconciliation among believers who had drifted apart.

- Sinews, Flesh. Teams begin to form around goals and objectives that God is birthing in them.

- Skin. Suddenly, the body has integrity. A sense of identity.

- Prophesy That the Breath May Come. The Spirit had departed and was at work elsewhere---the Four Winds. At His people's call, He returns and brings Life.

- They Stood. Up and ready to act.

- An Army. The prophet recognized the multitude as an army. He must have noticed their armor. And their mighty weapons.

- Exceedingly Great. This army exceeds expectations. Exceeds man's hope and imagination. What hath God wrought!

- My People Say, "Our Bones Are Dry, Our Hope Is Lost!" Sounds like the church in America. Anything God ever did is in the past, and there it'll stay.

- "And We Ourselves Are Cut Off." It seems Humpty Dumpty has fallen, and not even God Himself can put us back together again.

- "I Will Open Your Graves and Cause You to Emerge." Don't forget...bones...dead. But, God is the God of resurrection. Death doesn't bother Him.

- "And Bring You Back to Your Land." What purposes and destinies does God still have for the Church in America? Has His arm become short, that it cannot bring them to pass?

America is a graveyard of disconnected splinter denominations---relics of revivals long forgotten. Even these groupings have fallen apart. Even the churches within them are in disarray. All very dead, very dry in God's perspective. But when they come back by His sovereign move, it will be as a single army. An Exceedingly Great Army!

Hope for America - Part I: Pay Attention!

2010-08-27T23:05:00.006-04:00

"These are the... men armed for battle who came to David at Hebron to turn Saul's kingdom over to him, as the LORD had said...
Men of Issachar, who understood the times and knew what Israel should do..."
– I Chronicles 12:23,32 (NIV)

Space Camp--the movie. It doesn't rank among the classics of the silver screen, by any means. But, I like the message. A group of average American teens gets to spend the summer at a NASA facility, but all they care about is having a good time and...you know...youthful frivolity. Except for one. This gal has a sense of destiny, and she expects that one day she'll be "going up."

I won't give away the plot, but in a nutshell, the group of teens is headed for disaster during a flight mission when the pilot is wounded and unable to pilot the craft. Who saves the day? Of course--the one teen aboard who's cared enough to pay attention.

There comes a time in the history of a nation that's been adrift, when God says, "Enough is enough!"

It doesn't take much looking to see that the Church in America, by and large, has given up. We're like passengers on an aircraft with no pilot, fully aware that we're headed into a mountainside. The other folks on board can't see it coming, but we Christians can. And we figure, "Hey! There's no saving this crate, so let's just pull into our little make-believe religious shell and hope the end will be quick and painless."

There IS hope for America--if God's people will understand the times and know what to do! As in David's day, there are a number of ingredients that God will pull together to rescue our nation. We just need to pay attention. As in David's day, we need to watch for...

God's Timing
We must connect with God and listen to the voices He's raising up in our generation to help us understand His timing.

God's Message
We need to pray for a clear word that will rally His people, like a trumpet call, to assemble for battle. In Lincoln's day, for example, the wake-up call was Uncle Tom's Cabin.

God's Leaders
The Church in America needs strong leaders to unite us.

God's Visionaries
That's us--the men of Issachar. Time to poke our heads out of the shell and catch His vision!

God's Sovereign Move
Pray, pray, pray! Battle cannot begin until the mighty wind of God stirs in the treetops.

God's Plan
Don't run off half-cocked like the Israelites who tried--and failed--to take the Promised Land after God had told them they would need to wait forty years.

God's Battle
It won't come without a fight. Read Ephesians 6 and practice dressing for battle. This is no game, but take courage! We know Who wins in the end.

God is about to proclaim over America, "Enough is enough!" And when He does, let His people be ready for the battle that follows--and the victory! Amen.

I haven't Seen It Yet

2010-08-11T23:05:00.001-04:00

"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.’"
– Revelation 3:17 (NIV)

I'm not a big fan of inane movies, but Ernest movies are definitely worth the time. Jim Varney is a veritable genius in his field. And his best role, in my opinion, was in Ernest Saves Christmas.

It's a comedy that tugs at something dangling from the heart. You see, deep down, each of us wants to find something meaningful to do with the brief time we have on this planet. Trouble is, there are many things that claim to be meaningful but turn out to be...well, let's just fast-forward to what I'm talking about...

It's what writers call an "HCM"---a "Heart-Clutching Moment." Santa Claus himself (well, we haven't decided yet whether he's the real Saint Nick) is running out of time to recruit his replacement before Christmas Eve. And now, he's standing on the doorstep of the most caring, personable, eligible candidate in the world---Joe Carruthers---trying to talk him into taking the job. Not surprisingly, Joe's suspicious that this sweet old fellow may be off his rocking horse.

Santa's brought the one thing that should convince Joe---his magic toy sack. Or, at least it looks like it. But, things haven't gone exactly per plan today, and it turns out someone's pinched the real sack and left Santa with a facsimile stuffed with feathers.

"Look," says Joe, "I have an appointment to keep...with people who want to give me more than just...you know...feathers."

"Joe, search your heart. There must be something that can convince you of the truth."

"In a way, I wish there was. But I haven't seen it yet."

Freeze frame.

God is at work reconciling the World to Himself. And to that end, says the Apostle Paul, He has made us His ambassadors of reconciliation.

How often we stand at the door of some unfortunate person, who so needs a shot in the arm of hope, who is so ready for a personal encounter with the God of all hope. And then...we invite that person to reach into our magic "God sack", and out comes...a fistful of feathers.

Why? Because we started the day, like so many other days, thinking we had God in the sack. Didn't even need to check---no time for that. Truth is, we left God behind waiting for us to connect with Him for the day. Instead, the enemy filled our sack with a lot of feathers. You know what those feathers are---things that take up the space where God should have been. Make the sack look all round and jolly on the outside, but tragically useless when it comes time to impact the world.

Sometimes, it's been so long since we opened the sack and let God in that...well...we don't even know the difference. "What do you mean, saying my sack is full of feathers? Just goes to show how far gone you are! Can't tell the Living God from a fistful of goose down. There must be something that can convince you of the truth."

"In a way, Christian, I wish there was. But I haven't seen it yet."

Just Touch Me!

2010-07-29T22:41:00.005-04:00

"And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them.But Jesus called for them, saying, 'Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.'
"A ruler questioned Him, saying, 'Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' ... He said to him, 'One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess ... and come, follow Me.'But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.And Jesus looked at him and said, 'How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!'"
– Luke 18:15-24, NASB (excerpts)

Children just wanna be touched.

I recall some of the earliest words out of my little girl's mouth, as she was learning to talk---"Please...me up! Please...me up!"

In her plaintive, wee voice, with chubby little arms stretched upward for Daddy's love and attention, the plea sounded exactly like "Beam me up! Beam me up!"---until she was magically transported through the air and into her father's arms.

Children just wanna be touched.

Not so with us adults. We're more reserved. Like Richie, the young aristocrat, who came to Jesus for a to-do list.

Or worse yet, we're protocol people, like the disciples: "Orders are, Nobody can see the Great Oz! Not nobody, not nohow!"

Jesus surely cut loose a hearty laugh, as he called over the shoulders of his self-appointed bodyguards. "Nonsense...Step right up, kids! Children just wanna be touched.

"And by the way, if you oafs had half a brain, you'd line up for a touch too. You're so busy guarding the doors to the Kingdom that you haven't entered it yourselves! Step inside. You'll discover that it's not about rules, to-dos, or protocol. The babies have it right---it's all about touch."

These two vignettes---Jesus touching the babies and Jesus confronting the young ruler---are listed back-to-back for a reason. He's speaking to us across the centuries, saying, "Some of you are missing My touch because your rules and religiosity keep you away. And, some are held back by other affections such as money or status. Have a good look at these babies! See the joy and laughter? Children just wanna be touched!"

Why the Golden Scepter?

2010-03-09T22:58:00.008-05:00

"The king extended the golden scepter to Esther. So Esther arose and stood before the king."
– Esther 8:4, NASB

As in a fevered dream, Hadassah watched herself totter into the chamber, then press her back against the arch of the door. How foolish to expect such a frugal thing as a linen shawl to conceal the violent shivers that racked her slight frame. There it lay—the treacherous thing!—across the marble threshold. Could it be…was it possible…they would see the wild throbbing of her temples?

“What in seven thunders is this!” bellowed a great black-maned figure across the vaulted hall, thrusting his bushy jaw in the intruder’s direction.

“Your Supremacy, it is the queen of Persia—the new one, Sire.”

For a flash instant, Hadassah thought she would be sick. No! Better yet...run…and keep running until the palace was far, far behind. But they would see her. All the people would see her. And the guards had horses. She couldn’t outrun horses in this long gown…

“HA! Ha-ha!” The black bearded chin was bouncing. Up and down, up and down. “Haaaaaaaaaah!” he bawled.

“My last beauty queen is banished.   BANISHED! For refusing to appear on command. But, this new one? Why, she just blows in whenever she pleases, eh!”

“Your king…your…Sire! The reason…” began Esther.

“SILENCE!”

“Your Supremacy, shall we seize her? I’ll give the order…” said the Captain of the Palace Guard.

“SILENCE, I said!” A glint of white punctuated the massive beard, as a golden scepter drew a neat curve in the air, then came to a stop pointing directly at the queen.

“Esther, First Lady of Shushan and queen of my heart, you have my permission to interrupt any boring old meeting in this palace anytime you please. Come forward!”

Haddassah. A young immigrant girl from a vanquished civilization, transplanted to the capital of the most powerful nation on earth. And through a bizarre sequence of happenstance, she is now Esther, Queen of Persia. But, even her royal title cannot save her from the king's law: death to anyone who appears in his presence unbidden.

Ahasuerus' surprise at seeing his bride standing in court led to an action of grace, as he held out the golden scepter--the only act that could override her death sentence. Why? Because "the king loved Esther more than any other woman." (Esther 2:17) It was his love for this, his chosen bride that gave her free access to his presence and, consequently, to the favor she came to ask.

In the end, what the young queen came for was to beg the life of her people, who had been condemned to genocide by the villain Haman. King Ahasuerus held out no golden scepter to the Jews. If any of them had appeared in his court, it would have been the end of them. But, through the king's love and grace toward Esther, she had access to stand in their place and beg for their life.

Under the old covenant, we see a few examples of this intercessory model. Moses had such a powerful relationship with God that he could beg for the life of his people--"...And if not, blot me out of Your book...!" David pleaded for his people at the threshing floor of Araunah, saying, "They are but sheep!"

But none paints as vivid a picture of our own place of sonship under the new covenant as does Queen Esther's scene.

God has no contract with the world at large, sold under sin, until and unless each of them comes of a freewill to seek Him in repentance. But, through our relationship with the King--as the bride of Christ and objects of His love--we can enter His presence at any time. The golden scepter is perpetually extended. The veil is forever rent.

And, by entering and touching that scepter, we receive grace to preach the gospel to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted. His healing gifts and acts of grace flow out from us---salt to a dying world, light to those in darkness.

So, then... Don't just stand there by the doorpost! Approach our loving King and lay hold of His scepter. The world is waiting.

Lost in My Attic - A New Year Meditation

2010-01-01T20:08:00.001-05:00

"Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, ‘I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD.’"
– II Kings 22:8, NASB

At-tic ['at-ik] (n.): A place where time stands still

In the summer of ’99, my kids and I explored an abandoned Victorian house along the back roads of Pennsylvania. Judging by the odds and ends strewn about, this structure had last housed a young family in the late 1950s. My favorite part was ascending a dilapidated staircase to the cavernous attic and finding a stack of ancient newspapers—including one with a prominent article about the return of space monkeys Able and Baker (May 28, 1959). Being in the center of the stack, this newspaper was hardly yellowed after forty years!

2 Kings chapters 22-23 tell of Josiah, the most godly king since David and Solomon. He led Judah in a search for the purposes of God that they had lost under a clutter of sin and neglect.

As the priests, by royal command, set about cleaning and repairing the temple, they discovered the “Book of the Law”—God's revelation and covenant as recorded by Moses. The king was stunned to realize how much God had invested in His people, and how they, in turn, had walked away from His presence into spiritual wilderness. He immediately launched the most ambitious plan of repentance and restoration that Judah would know under the Old Covenant.

What’s this got to do with me?

I’m often expecting God to toss me some salient new morsel of revelation or guidance. Instead, I should be probing the cobweb-covered corners of my attic. There I would find the lost purposes of God buried beneath the clutter of a thousand failed agendas and projects of my own.

But, the good news is that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." (Romans 11:29, NKJV) As soon as I set my heart to "stir up" what God has already placed in me, it will blossom into fulfillment as surely as it might have done long ago. The only tragedy is that all those years lost in the attic cannot be recovered.

Is reconnecting with God your #1 New Year priority? Consider an exhaustive search in the attic of your heart. You may stumble upon the “lost” purposes of God—still fresh and un-yellowed after years of neglect!

What's Wrong with the Good Book?

2009-10-04T22:06:00.006-04:00

(A Book Review)

[Subject:]
Making Sense of Bible Difficulties: Clear and Concise Answers from Genesis to Revelation
by Norman L. Geisler and Thomas Howe
Baker Books, 266 pages, $13.99
____________________________________
“New Cave of Aladdin”, shrieked the 1923 headlines. “Matchless Works of Art!” The name Howard Carter vaulted to prominence, as did the news of his crowning achievement—fated to become, arguably, the most celebrated (though by no account most significant) archaeological coup of his day.

Others had relinquished their concessions five years earlier in the Valley of the Kings, a desolate sand ravine west of the Nile that served as final resting place for the New Kingdom pharaohs. Carter’s outgoing colleagues declared the valley bankrupt…washed up…sucked dry. Whatever the ancient grave robbers had overlooked, modern archaeologists had carted off. For safe keeping, of course.

But, Howard Carter was a man not so easily deterred. He had clues. Crumbling glyphs that spoke of a boy pharaoh whose tenure was cut short by some unknown tragedy. A 3300-year-old clay pot that the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art had examined and found to contain bone fragments of sheep and ducks—sacred leftovers from the funerary banquet of this young monarch, Tut.ankh.Amen.

After five blistering years in this valley of waste, even Carter’s best friend and sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, was urging him to cut their losses and pull out. But, Carter begged him to bankroll just more season of excavation; and, indeed, it was just three days after digging resumed, on November 4, 1922, that a carved stair emerged from the desert floor, followed by a staircase…an underground passage…sealed doors…and within, a trove that surpassed even what Carter could have imagined (or hallucinated) during his thirty-one years of shoveling Egyptian sand.

It took all of the next decade to evacuate King Tut’s tomb and inventory his assets, as Carter describes in his three-volume, 800-page account, The Tomb of Tut.ankh.Amen.

The point is that Carter grappled with the impossible, and he did so with the dogged tenacity of one who knows. Having studied the signs, he was convinced not only of the existence of King Tut’s tomb, but also of its unspoiled state. The fact that this trophy had eluded all of his predecessors did not prove it a myth; it simply presented a “difficulty” to be vanquished by assiduous study and fierce endeavor.

Wilbur and Orville Wright knew that man could fly. Millenia of miscarriage? Mere “difficulty” that must surely succumb to the onslaught of twentieth-century enlightenment.

John F. Kennedy knew that America must walk on the moon and return to tell of it. When Apollo I burned on the launch pad in January, 1967, incinerating all three astronauts aboard, that calamity was not considered an indictment of America’s enterprise—only a “difficulty” along the road to inevitable success.

It is great men such as these who live on through their exemplary human faith—the sort that surveys a puzzle that, after exhaustive work and research, is still missing key pieces, and refuses to believe it unsolvable. The pieces shall be found—Destiny demands it!

Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe, having spent their lives studying the Holy Scriptures, bring us this new title, Making Sense of Bible Difficulties (Baker Books, 2009). Now in its maiden printing, their book focuses on, and, in fact, touches each of, the sixty-six books that comprise what John P. Burgess, in his book Why Scripture Matters (Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) refers to as the “common canon”, i.e., those books regarding which both Catholics and Protestants find common ground, accepting without dispute that they belong between the covers of the Holy Bible.

The authors’ position is unequivocal, as suggested by the opening line of their introduction: “The truth is that there is not even one demonstrated error in the original text of the Bible.” Such dogmatic posturing is sure to raise eyebrows, but then, Geisler and Howe are both veteran eyebrow raisers.

According to his website, Dr. Norman L. Geisler has been “a leader in the defense of the inerrancy of the Bible and was a founder of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, which produced the famous ‘Chicago Statement’ (1978) that has been a standard in the field ever since.”

He has authored or co-authored about seventy books, including To Understand the Bible, Look for Jesus (Moody Press, 1975); Biblical Errancy: Its Philosophical Roots (Zondervan, 1981); and Baker’s Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Baker, 1999).

Geisler, whose credentials include a BA, MA, ThB, and a PhD in Philosophy, has taught Apologetics, Philosophy, and Theology for fifty years, including at Trinity Evangelical and Dallas Seminary.

Thomas Howe earned his MA in Biblical Studies from Liberty University, followed by a PhD in Philosophy of Religion from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Both courses of study included concentrations in ancient languages; Dr. Howe is proficient in Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Aramaic, and Latin.

He is a professor of Bible and Biblical Languages, and Director of the Apologetics Program, at Southern Evangelical Seminary. Howe’s literary works include Objectivity in Biblical Interpretation (Advantage, 2005) and Daniel in the Preterists' Den (Wipf and Stock, 2008).

Geisler and Howe lament the presumption-of-guilt bias that modern biblical critics often betray as they subject the Word of God to scathing interrogation. Like Aesop’s blind men attempting to describe the elephant, critics latch onto sticky snatches of Scriptural enigma as if these uncertainties defined the whole.

Like most works of nonfiction, this book attempts to fill a unique gap. Its first goal is to supply believers with well-researched and coherent arguments to effectively share and defend the Faith. Secondly, it offers insight into how God has spoken in the context of cultural perception and expression across millennia of human advancement.

But, most importantly, it is intended to bolster the readers’ courage to tackle their own exegetical bogeys without fear of their faith crumbling under the onslaught of reason.

Did these authors achieve the objective they set out to accomplish? Well, the Bible difficulties to be addressed are trotted out and neatly dispatched one by one, in biblical order from Genesis to Revelation. Each “problem” is concisely stated in a paragraph or two, followed by the authors’ “solution”—a few paragraphs of facts and arguments.

To supply readers with tools for dissecting and solving their own biblical puzzles, the book includes a twenty-page introduction, subtitled “How to Approach Bible Difficulties.” Here, Geisler and Howe explain what is at stake in the popular game of scriptural fault-finding, including Jesus’ perspective on the matter as He addressed the religious hacks of His day. The material segues into a discussion of the appropriate attitudes with which we should approach our own exploration of Scripture, and how to steer clear of fifteen alleged blunders that modern critics commit when interpreting difficult passages.

Geisler and Howe tend to flavor their material with a dash of denominational spice, and in a few instances spin dizzying arguments to support the conclusions at which they have arrived. However, in all fairness, they are not reluctant to acknowledge other points of view that merit discussion. Occasionally, they will serve up a choice of well articulated, often contradictory, answers proposed by various commentators, leaving the reader to be the judge.

Nor do the authors play a one-string fiddle, but rather, they give equal forum to a wide variety of Bible difficulties. Some involve apparent doctrinal disagreements between various Bible authors—or even within the writings of a single author. Other exhibits feature apparent mismatches in reporting of dates and statistics, passages that appear to contradict modern scientific findings, alleged historical inaccuracies, and even entire books that have been decried as outright fiction (e.g., Job) or subject matter inappropriate for inclusion in the Holy Bible (e.g., Solomon’s Song).

Geisler and Howe defend God’s proficiency in matters of science, and attempt to show that His Scriptures are not at loggerheads with scientific fact. On the other hand, they cannot seem to resist taking an occasional potshot at the postulates of science, even suggesting that the very Laws of Thermodynamics are flawed in that they fail to account for a universe where higher laws—God’s creative and miraculous phenomena—may occasionally supersede them.

What could stand improvement? First, the actual text of the “problem” Scripture, instead of just a reference to it, should be included in the book. For example, the “problem” statement for I Kings 6:1 opens with a question: “How can this be an accurate calculation if Ramses the Great was the pharaoh of the Exodus?” How can WHAT be an accurate calculation? The reader must reach for a Bible in order to fully comprehend the problem and appreciate its solution.

Secondly, paragraphs. Shorter ones. Whereas a good deal of the book is reader-friendly (e.g., the entire Ephesians section is impressively laid out), there are still portions where the reader is languishing in the paragraph doldrums—such as the “solution” to Colossians 4:16, which contains a 10-sentence, 251-word paragraph! The greatest thing since sliced bread is a sliced paragraph, so let us hope that Baker does not spare the slicer next time round.

In conclusion, why would God be so cruel as to give us a holy book that defies comprehension? One point Geisler and Howe emphasize is that none of the “difficult passages” of the Bible detract from the clarity of its message on essential points of faith and practice. Those who search the Scriptures with diligence and reverence will usually find clarity on the body of truth that God has given to mankind.

Jesus often addressed the multitudes with hard sayings and parables. This effectively presented a closed door, so those with humble faith would make the effort to knock and enter, while the self-confident would go away empty-handed. Or, as the Virgin Mary poetically stated in her Magnificat, “Esurientes implevit bonis: et divites dimisit inanes.” (“He has filled the starving with good things, sent the rich away empty.” – Luke 1:53, NJB)

Making Sense of Bible Difficulties... Is it worth the read?

For those who firmly believe that the Bible is an anthology of poetry, myth and superstition, this book is unlikely to be a convincer. But, for the rest of us who are fairly certain that the Bible—at least in its original manuscript form—was the infallible, inerrant Word of God, or if we are desperately hoping for some evidence to that effect, the theses of Geisler and Howe ring true.

As for me, it was a pleasure to crack open my chest of “questions to be asked when I get to heaven”, dust a few off, and get some answers that make sense!

Slime Balls on the Road to Nowhere

2009-06-12T23:01:00.000-04:00

[Article 4 of “Men or Mules” Series]

By faith Abraham…left his own country, not knowing where he was to go. --Hebrews 11:8

“Phhhhthwattt! How can you be putting these in your mouth? They’re disgusting!”

If you’ve never hand-picked wild Concord grapes on a New England summer day, well…don’t. Once you’ve punctured the thick, rubbery skin, your reward is a mass of seeds securely sealed in a slimy ball of sour pulp. And, here are my wife and kids, happily tangled in wild vines endlessly strung up the trunks of wild maples, on a hot, dusty road in a wild corner of Vermont. Where ARE we, anyhow? And, how do I herd these grape munchers back into the car to get where we’re going? (If it even exists!)

That was 18 years ago and, no—we never got there. The rest of that day was spent negotiating back-country Vermont roads with increasing speed—as we became increasingly lost—in search of some elusive “must-see” destination listed in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Remote New England Places That Don’t Exist.

Janet—that’s my wife—is never anything but gracious. A few days later, when I was in a better mood, she suggested that those fifteen minutes of grape-wrangling were, for them, the highlight of an otherwise fruitless summer day.

So nowadays, our road trips are more like “mystery rides.” We usually have a destination in mind, but allow plenty of time to brake for unexpected adventures.

Of all the styles of guidance God uses in my life, my mind still has the most trouble with the “Road to Nowhere” style. He gives me a long-term destination, but I get so busy hunting for it that I have no patience with all the “stuff that comes up.”

Abraham struck out westward by faith to occupy an unknown land. But, hundreds of years later, it would be his great-great-great-extremely-very-great-grandchildren who would finally inherit that country. And along the way, God would fashion them into a mighty nation worthy of this “land of milk and honey.”

Do you ever find yourself so tangled up that you despair of ever reaching the place where God’s taking you? Stop and munch the grapes! Help your neighbor, spend time with the family, and mentor the weak. And when you eventually get there, you can look back and see how all that “stuff” prepared you to inherit the land!

Taking What Isn’t Mine

2009-05-12T23:05:00.000-04:00

"...It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." – Mark 7:27b(NIV)

Like a sweat-soaked statue, the young corporal stood squarely at attention, while his beloved leader paced the chamber, stopping at intervals to re-read the communiqué that had just been delivered with such dire haste.

Napoleon Bonaparte interrupted his pacing long enough to gesture absent-mindedly. “At ease, Captain.”

“Captain!...Of what regiment?…Sir!” barked the soldier.

Napoleon spun around, speechless at this petty messenger’s brazen impertinence. But in a moment, the furrowed brow relaxed and the eyes were smiling. “My Personal Guard.”

This scene reminds me of that equally “impertinent” Syro-Phoenician woman who approached Jesus requesting a miracle for her little girl.

Imagine the whispers. “How dare she?” “A woman…a gentile…petitioning a rabbi! Just who does she think she is??”

Jesus, too, was astonished, but for a different reason. He could see her extraordinary faith—faith that would withstand one final test. “So! You’re saying I should take food from the children’s table...and toss it to their dogs?”

“But, even we dogs get the crumbs, don’t we?” she shot back. Jesus surely laughed out loud as He proceeded to order up a miracle for this amazing lady.

I’d always heard the faith sermons and read the books. “Know your place in Christ!” they admonished. “Claim what’s yours!” And, nothing could be more rock-solid scriptural.

But, then I watched this no-account woman taking faith to a whole new level. In her Old Covenant context, she was definitely OUT of line, reaching for what was certainly NOT hers. And, it didn’t seem to bother Jesus one bit!

Now I’ve learned to comb the Word for “crumbs” of promise. The ones Satan says can’t possibly have been meant for me personally.

So, the Father gives good gifts “to his children?” Guess what?...I’m one of those! These signs shall follow “those who believe?” Yep, that little crumb of dynamite’s going in my basket too.

How about you? What unique passion lies forgotten in your attic because they’ve told you it’s unachievable...unthinkable...too outrageous even to ask? And, your mind says, “Sure, God can use ‘people’ to do great things. Just...not me personally.”

Hey! Jesus needs a good laugh today. And, He still knows how to give good gifts to His kids. So, go ahead—walk into the throne room now and take what isn’t yours.

Nothing Sinks Like a Sub

2009-03-15T22:53:00.001-04:00

[Article 3 of “Men or Mules” Series]
This article by Brad Fenichel was published in the March, 2009 issue of King's Courier, a bimonthly magazine. Used by Permission.

It’s 1730 hours aboard the USS San Mateo, as the galley crew begins serving supper. Meanwhile, in the Control Room, the Officer of the Deck orders a dive to 550 feet. All routine events aboard an SSN-688-class U.S. attack submarine. Twenty-three minutes later, they’ve leveled out at a comfortable 36 knots (about 41 mph), cruising along in the South Pacific.

And then it happens. The Control Room is a tangle of chairs, equipment and sailors careening through space. They’ve hit a “seamount”, a sheer underwater mountain cliff that wasn’t on the charts.

“Negative Sonar!” somebody barks. Then from the intercom: “Massive flooding, Torpedo Room—evacuate and secure watertight bulkhead!” Followed by that sickening down-elevator sensation. This boat is going down. There is only one course of action, and only one man aboard has authority to order it.

“Emergency Surface!” bellows the Conning Officer. “Repeat. EMERGENCY SURFACE!”

“Emergency Surface, aye, Sir!” echoes the Diving Officer. The diving alarms are already droning their aaaaOOOOgggAAAAHHHHH, aaaaOOOOOgggAAAAHHHhhh, signaling the crew to prepare for a submarine’s most drastic maneuver, reserved strictly for life-or-death situations! “Chief of the Watch, EMERGENCY BLOW—NOW!”

Reaching above his head, the Chief of Watch throws open two tiny hydraulic switches that unleash 4500-psi pressurized air from the enormous, curved “banana bottles” nestled along the ship’s hull, to blow the seawater out of the Main Ballast Tanks. All hands aboard brace themselves for the expected roar of air, and “jet takeoff” effect, as the ship shoots to the surface and literally leaps out of the water like a flying fish.

But…nothing happens!

For a split second, everyone in the Control Room is frozen in place, as they sink—faster and steeper now—plunging toward Crush Depth, where a 2-inch-thick steel submarine hull will crumple like a soda can.

Hydraulic Failure!

Only one thing left to do. “Attention, upper-level ‘Boats’, forward and aft, man all Emergency Blow hammer valves! Repeat. Man the hammer valves!!”

Four massive valves are located on the upper deck, two forward and two aft, to release the 4500-pound Emergency Blow air. These valves are operated remotely by those hydraulic switches in the Control Room. But, in case of hydraulic failure, each valve features a massive bronze hand wheel, weighted internally with lead. Two Boatswain’s Mates (“Boats”, as they’re called—guys that look like Arnold Schwarzenegger) grab each hand wheel and spin it back and forth repeatedly to “hammer” the reluctant valve open, against the stubborn resistance of 4500-psi air pressure.

Finally—like a jet engine—comes the roar of rushing air forcing seawater from the main ballast tanks. A few seconds more, and the wild ride begins. The ship shoots toward the surface…breaks the surface…splashes back down in a magnificent 200-foot plunge…then up again. Finally, the sub is bobbing on the surface like an injured sea lion waiting for its mother.

Emergency Blow. With it, a crippled sub can surface and lives can be saved. Without it, all hands aboard will be lost.

Emergency Guidance. With it, a child of God discovers direction in the face of seemingly senseless events, and wisdom when all choices seem hopeless. Without it, despair, shipwreck, and lost years that may never be redeemed.

Sometimes we’re cruising along in “Doin’ OK” mode. Not quite headed in the right direction, but too comfortable—and busy!—to give it much thought. No time to ask God where He’s going with our lives. There’s that project plan due Wednesday, and back-to-back soccer coaching this week. And, next week doesn’t look so good either.

Then, about halfway through Thursday—SLAM!!! The seamount that wasn’t on our charts. School calls to say Tommy was caught with some little blue pills. The wife calls at work to say you need to come home and talk—Allie just found out she’s pregnant. The kids’ youth pastor just skipped town with the church secretary. Your spouse’s office is closing, and he has to move to Chicago or get laid off—and they need an answer by next week. And on, and on, and on… Just when you you’re “Doing OK”, suddenly it seems Crush Depth is only a breath away. Where is God in all this? Asleep at the wheel? Hmm… Come to think of it, when did we hear last from Him? Or, when did he hear from us?

Pastor and author Charles Simpson said, “God isn’t just the God of miracles; he’s also the God who’ll put you in a place where you’ve got to have a miracle.”

Just when Israel thought they were “Doing OK”, God sent them on a long vacation to Babylon. But, He gave them this promise: “ You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.”

Emergency Guidance.

One day, twenty-five years ago, the phone rang. It was my sister out on the west coast, hysterical, saying that her husband Chris had just been diagnosed with a brain tumor the size of an orange, and needed immediate surgery. The best neurosurgeon in Tucson was going to operate, but he gave Chris only a 50% chance of coming through.

Our whole world was put on hold as Janet and I took to our knees. There were no easy answers—our trite little “hydraulic switches” were not doing the trick, so we had to start swinging the hammer valve of prayer together. It was hard work. We had to break a sweat…a lot of sweat! But, then we heard the sweet sound of God’s guidance rushing through the channels from heaven down into our spirits.

“Gerry!”

What’s that?

“Gerry!” my wife repeated. “Uncle Gerry! Isn’t he a neurologist?”

I only remembered meeting this Uncle Gerry once, and vaguely knew that he was “into neurology.” I doubted that it would do much good, but we felt God had spoken, so I placed the call to Nashville.

As it turned out, he was eager to help. In fact, I discovered that my uncle Gerald Fenichel was actually a famous author and professor in the field of neurology. Now semi-retired, he spent most of his time traveling and lecturing on advanced topics in neuroscience.

Uncle Gerry knew every neurosurgeon who amounted to anything, and he told us that Tucson was not the place to have this operation! To make a long story short, he flew Chris out to Nashville to be operated on by the best-of-the-best neurosurgeons at Vanderbilt Medical Center.

It was a high-risk operation, removing this huge tumor from his auditory nerve. Recovery took many months. But Chris was able to go back to his job at the power company. And today, 25 years later, he still lives in Tucson, has eight kids and six grandkids, and is a pillar in his church.

Would things have turned out as well after a surgery in Tucson? Maybe. But, more likely, they could have gone much worse.

God’s guidance is the best possible plan for the best possible outcome, but sometimes it won’t come until the violent take it by force. Until we realize the folly of our position, and man the hammer valves of desperation.

Doing OK? Think again. “You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.”

Tough Act to Fallow

2009-02-08T22:36:00.000-05:00

"For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: ' Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns.'" --Jeremiah 4:3 (NKJV)

Fallow ground---that brand new piece of property we bought, so we could break it up and plant watermelons---right? It shouldn't be too hard to knock out those few bushes and weeds, right? Wrong!! Think again.

Fallow ground is earth that has been cultivated before. It's been broken up, conditioned, nourished. It's soaked in the spring rains and pushed up a bounty in the summer. But not lately. Not for a while. Whether through neglect, or perhaps deliberate planning, the farmer has left the land uncultivated for a time. And, that's what makes it a chore!

Uncultivated soil---rich, plowed, but idle---is the favorite of weeds. Tough, thorny, stubborn, opportunistic weeds form a thick blanket across the field, until not a square inch of soil remains for a useful crop.

It's a grim picture when the Church lies fallow. After all He's invested in us, the leafy, fruitful crops of our First Love have given way to choking thorns. And thorns never look so healthy as when they suck the God-given life out of the soil of our hearts.

The LORD delivered His clear message through Jeremiah: "Break it up! Tear up those thorny weeds without mercy! Wipe your hearts clean through repentance so useful crops can thrive there again."

Hosea 10:12 goes on further to say, "...break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you."

We have no control over the rain, but He's promised to send it---if we're willing to seek Him and willing to let Him wipe out the thorns.

Are We Going Up—Or Seizing Up?

2008-11-27T22:43:00.000-05:00

[Article 2 of “Men or Mules” Series]
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Maybe the prop would somehow manage to drag the whole heap of junk across the sand on its skids until they ran into a water point… “Why do we have to risk getting airborne? We could just taxi out all the way!”

“I don’t think you mean it seriously, Mr. Towns. I should remind you that the coolant system is designed to operate chiefly at cruising airspeed. Therefore, the engine would overheat and seize up within ten miles or so, leaving us a hundred and fifty miles short of the nearest oasis.”
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Who are these people? Why are they (apparently) stranded in the great Sahara with a junked airplane? Will they ever reach a “water point” alive?

Sorry, King’s Courier has no space to run adventure stories. Read The Flight of the Phoenix, by Elleston Trevor, 1964. (No—not the movie!! The book!)

But, the point is that Frank Towns—former pilot of the “heap of junk”—seems to have momentarily forgotten the key difference between a dune buggy and an airplane: that the latter is designed for three-dimensional travel. (Translation: flight!) It simply cannot “taxi out” for any significant distance without self-destructing. It must go up! It was created to go up.

You may have guessed by now that this isn’t about aeronautics. So, then… As a disciple of Jesus, there is nothing more vital for me than to hear from the Master. I need His guidance with day-to-day decisions, and more importantly, I need a revelation of the unique plans and roles, the unique mission, that He has for me.

But all too often, I bounce along the desert floor with only a vague sense of His will, blundering into every dune and sandstorm along the way. I must go up!—get above the blowing sand and find clear guidance for the journey. I was created for three-dimensional travel.

And yet...days turn into weeks, weeks into years, and altitude is still zero. Just when I think I’ve found God’s will...oo-pphhhhh! Another mouthful of sand! Failure...Stress...Anger...I’m seizing up!

David, the “man after God’s own heart”, knew something about connecting with the purposes of God. His 32nd psalm contains many precious keys to finding God’s will, but perhaps the most precious of all is stated matter-of-factly in verse 8: “I will guide you with My eye.” What! God’s eye...as a GPS?

Actually, eyes speak volumes. Remember when you would stare into your true love’s eyes, drinking from each other’s soul, dreaming of all that the future held? But, somewhere in those first few years of marriage—between the dog throwing up and that tree limb crashing through the kitchen window—somehow you lost eye contact—and soul contact as well. (Hey! Why not try staring into those eyes again—on a regular basis? You might just fall back in love...and rekindle some of those old dreams, too.)

So then, if our own schlocky human souls can meld through the simple act of eye contact, think how much more glorious it is to look our Heavenly Father in the eye!

Mark tells us that Jesus “looked at [the Rich Young Ruler] and loved him,” then gave him a simple three-step plan to realize his destiny with God. But Richie’s “face fell”, and he trudged away. By neglecting to make eye contact, he had failed to see the Savior reaching out to him—entreating him to connect with his destiny by trading his measly net worth for God’s eternal love.

There’s one problem with eye contact: it requires time. Staring into my honey’s eyes means I might miss the early bus, and get to work three minutes late. (...or, maybe even skip work altogether!)

And, staring into God’s eyes means quieting my soul for a few minutes—maybe even hours—of all the things I want to “talk at Him” about. It means worshiping, loving on Him, fanning the flame of my “first love”, and then... listening to Him!

No more can I expect to pay Jesus a two-minute visit, hoping He’ll toss me a bit of fortune-cookie guidance to escape the latest sand trap.

But, through consistent time spent in His presence, as we begin to make eye contact, He will pilot my life above the shifting dunes of futility, and guide me toward His glorious purposes. I’m going up!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
—Helen H. Lemmel, 1922

Brother, Can You Spare a Minute?

2008-11-23T22:39:00.001-05:00

This article by Brad Fenichel, which appears below in its original form, was first published in the November, 2008 issue of King's Courier, a bimonthly magazine. It has since been modified (to suit available space) and reprinted by a number of publications. Used by Permission.

By Brad Fenichel

"I shan't come through this struggle, you know.”

Wellesley, startled out of his own dark musings, studied the barely discernible bedroll that was the source of his fellow officer’s voice. But, it was a different voice—uncanny, strained.

“What? Buck up now, mate! You’ve never been the morbid sort. Just think of all the scrapes we’ve been through together, and, well…you know...here we are!”

A full minute of silence ensued, punctuated only by the companions’ raspy breath against the brittle chill. They sat in a meager lean-to perched in the Palestine hills. It was 1917, the 8^th of December. Tomorrow’s battle would be the long-awaited and tediously planned “final move” to wrest Jerusalem from the Turks. So much had gone amiss in this Great War, but portents were favorable—at least to the hopeful—for a decisive victory at sunrise. If you can call it a sunrise, in this icy, rain-drenched winter! Wellesley caught himself shivering. This won’t do, now!

"I shan't come through this struggle, I say. Like millions before me, it will be my destiny to go on. But you will survive, Wellesley. And, when that time comes, remember us.”

“Look here now— No more of this talk! It’s just the eve-of-battle jitters, that’s all. Nothing to shame of, you know.”

“For us who go on, time is up, but you will still have time. Lend us a moment of it each day.”

At dawn, the fateful engagement of the Battle of Jerusalem was joined. That day, the speaker was killed, and his friend Wellesley—W. Tudor Pole—found himself critically wounded, abandoned behind enemy lines, where he lay pinned beneath a fellow soldier’s icy corpse. Yet, miraculously, he survived and eventually made it back to the British camp, keenly aware that he had been preserved for some vague Destiny. Something hinted at by those prophetic words uttered in the lean-to. [1]

Following the Great War, Pole immersed himself in the new wave of Eastern mysticism, becoming a key proponent of the emerging Bahá'í religion. But, God has a puzzling way of using even imperfect vessels in the fulfillment of His perfect plans.

You will still have time. Lend us a moment of it each day. Although Pole never forgot his friend’s enigmatic final speech, its meaning remained shrouded—that is, until a second, and much greater, conflict threatened to wipe Britain, as he knew it, off the map.

In April, 1940, Pole launched into action, campaigning for what he billed as “a rallying point in time, for a few moments every twenty-four hours, for thought, prayer, and personal renewal of courage, resolution, and faith.”[2] His personal theses on the spiritual value of this “silent minute” sound a lot like something from Obiwan Kenobi—a nebulous synergy of psychic thrust with the vast, sympathetic legions beyond the grave. God was in the mix somewhere, as a great Force of Light and Good Will.

But, in spite of his colorful theology (which he wisely—and diplomatically—kept on the Q.T.), no man could have campaigned as relentlessly and passionately for this “National Minute of Silence” as did W. Tudor Pole. It seemed a hopeless task at first. Few could see the virtue of a daily “minute of interruption” in the lives of a nation that struggled hour by hour against impending calamity and fear.

Then came the miraculous evacuation of Dunkirk. Hitler’s forces stood virtually immobile, like the prophet Daniel’s lions, for nine full days while hundreds of small, unarmed fishing boats and pleasure craft, manned by their civilian owners and crews, helped evacuate the British and French armed forces to safety. This “miracle of deliverance”, as Prime Minister Churchill labeled it, came in direct response to the May 26^th National Day of Prayer declared by his majesty King George VI.

Suddenly, the “old major, lobbying for his ‘minute-a-day’” didn’t seem so foolish after all. Members of Parliament warmed to Pole’s idea, and eventually Churchill, and even King George himself, threw their support behind the plan: a daily minute when all of Britain should put human activity on hold and bend their thoughts to Heaven. The proposed time for this daily tryst would be a natural focal point in their war-torn nation: the BBC’s nine o’clock news broadcast.

So it was that, the night of November 10, 1940, Pole’s dream was realized, as the recorded voice of Big Ben chimed nine commanding peals—a full minute—across the airwaves, preceding the evening news.

BBC announcer Howard Marshall heralded the debut of this nightly “Big Ben Minute” as a time for Britons everywhere to pause and seek unity of purpose as a free people. Pulpits and periodicals across the nation were swift to define the Minute as a call to prayer. As one clergyman put it, “May the precious Minute turn millions of hearts to seek strength in the Almighty God, Who is the Father of Mercies and the God of all consolation.”[3]

But, the Third Reich of evil fell at last, and Big Ben’s nightly broadcast minute became a Sunday-night-only feature in 1947. By the 60’s, it was dropped from programming forever and, eventually, all but forgotten—a nostalgic memory of silver-headed nannies.

A fetching story. But, did this Big Ben Minute indeed have any effect on the outcome of World War II? And even if it did—what relevance could it possibly have for us “twenty-first centurians?”

Walter Lang, in his introduction to W. Tudor Pole’s 1968 book Writing on the Ground, recounts, “According to the BBC, the number of those observing [the Silent Minute] in Britain and Europe from 1942 onwards ran into many millions.”[4]

During his eight bloody empire-building years, Adolph Hitler invaded—depending how you count them—some 20 to 25 sovereign countries. But, in the face of relentless, punishing attacks from the Nazi Luftwaffe, culminating in a shower of over 1400 V-2 rockets (roughly as big around as an SUV, and as long as a school bus), over a 200-day period, which killed and maimed thousands of civilians, Britain not only remained unconquered, but joined the waves of offensive that rolled back the dark blanket of terror from the face of Europe.

How could this be? Lang’s account goes on to say:

Soon after the end of hostilities in Europe in 1945, a British Intelligence officer, interrogating high Nazi officials, asked one of them why he thought Germany had lost the war. This was the reply: “During the war, you had a secret weapon for which we could find no counter-measure, and which we did not understand, but it was very powerful. It was associated with the striking of Big Ben each evening. I believe you called it ‘the Silent Minute.’”[5]

George Santayana, the great philosopher-poet, warned that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”[6] True enough. But, as another deep thinker said—carving the same thought with a more inspirational knife—“Wisest of the wise is he who learns by the experience of others.”

For those who have gone before us, time is up indeed. But we who still have time can seize the baton—of precedent and of legacy—proffered by that great cloud of witnesses, to fulfill God’s purpose in our own generation.

Indeed, a grassroots movement is already afoot, in our own United States of America, to establish a daily Silent Minute for reconnecting with the Almighty.[7] And, we have never been in such desperate need of it.

There is no Luftwaffe blackening the skies over our cities, no U-boats closing in on our coasts. But more insidious—because they go unseen—are the very hosts of hell that threaten to destroy us from within: atheistic humanism, pervasive substance abuse, rampant immorality, the holocaust of abortion, the god of entertainment...and the list goes on. Judgment hangs over America like Damocles’ sword—suspended by a single hair of God’s patience.

God is looking for Americans who—as he said to Ezekiel—will “...stand before Me in the gap on behalf of the land, so I [will] not have to destroy it.”[8]

Brother, can you spare a minute?

Our plight seems so hopeless that we assume it would take an army of Elijah clones, all dressed in potato sacks, fasting and praying for forty days, to begin to make a difference. Not so!

Consider that Elijah was made of the same stuff as we are. Consider that, through the cross of Jesus Christ, God has “something better for us”[9]—better, even, than what the prophets of old enjoyed: namely, the right to approach the throne of “Abba, Father” as His beloved children. Consider Jesus’ words: “...if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.”[10]

Consider that, just as a minute of united, concurrent prayer disarmed the satanic engine of the Third Reich, such a phenomenon could open the windows of Heaven to slake the moral and spiritual drought of our time.

My wife and I were at a roadside rest area last winter, when we noticed a man acting very strangely. First, he spread a blanket on the tarmac behind his parked car. Standing on the blanket, and shading his eyes with one hand, he turned this way and that, studying the sky like E.T. waiting for the Mother Ship to arrive. Then he knelt, forehead to the ground—facing precisely east.

I have no doubt that we were witnessing a Muslim worshipper facing Mecca to say his prayers at the prescribed daily hour. But to us, this was a foreign scene indeed.

Jesus told the woman at the well, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know...”[11] As disciples of the living Christ, we can stand to learn something of the discipline of Islam. If they can synchronize their prayer times in united appeal to one who does not hear, then why can’t we approach our loving, attentive God in unison of time and purpose from coast to coast?

And, what effect might this collective onslaught have on the gates of hell? Don’t think it would be feeble—but, staggering indeed! Such was the deafening, united shout that brought down the walls of Jericho.

Why not join a growing corps of “Minute-men” across our land who, like the Minutemen of the American Revolution, are committed to decisive action: one minute of daily, consistent, concerted prayer to change the course of history in our nation?

In fact, most cell phones and pagers come equipped with an alarm feature. Set it for 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time (8:00 Central; 7:00 Mountain; 6:00 Pacific). Then—facing, not Mecca, but the very throne of God in heaven—join with thousands across America in a one-minute prayer of agreement.

The sword of God’s judgment remains suspended by an unbroken hair, partly because of the righteous few. We still have time. Let us lend a minute of it each day, until the rain of God’s grace saturates our dry, thirsty land once again.

“If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

– II Chronicles 7:14 (NIV)

[1] Lang, Walter. Introduction. Writing on the Ground. By Wellesley Tudor Pole. London: Neville Spearman, 1968. 9-18.

[2] Dakers, Andrew. The Big Ben Minute. London: Dakers, Ltd.; Edinburgh: Riverside, [1943?]. 7.

[3] Dakers 14.

[4] Lang 9-18.

[5] Lang 9-18.

[6] Santayana, George. Reason in Common Sense. 1905. New York: Dover, 1980. 269-291; ch. 12.

[7] "One minute of prayer each night-Grass Roots Effort." TruthOrFiction.com 2008. 23 Nov 2008 .

[8] The Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). 1973. Grand Rapids: Zondervan; Colorado Springs: International Bible Society, 1988. Ezekiel 22.30.

[9] NIV Hebrews 11.40.

[10] NIV Matthew 18.19.

[11] NIV John 4.22.

What Sports Does God Love to Watch?

2006-12-28T21:45:00.000-05:00

"He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man. The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy." -- Psalm 147:10-11 (NKJV)

What sports does God watch for enjoyment?

Transposing this passage to our modern cultural context, it might read something like, “God does not enjoy watching Nascar racing. Nor does he get a kick out of the Super Bowl. The Lord loves to watch those who know Him and who draw their strength from Him to do exploits.”

Yes, God seems to be a sports fan after all. When we are weak enough to let Him be strong and thus achieve impossible goals, He has a front-row seat and His cheers make all the effort worthwhile.

"Mustard" to Action

2006-12-16T21:38:00.000-05:00

"The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!' He replied, 'If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, "Be uprooted and planted in the sea," and it will obey you.'" -- Luke 17:5-6 (NIV)

The Mustard Seed. Jesus used it as an object lesson at least three times in recorded Scripture. The first is a parable, telling of the man who took that tiny seed and planted it in his field, so it grew and became a sturdy tree.

Twice He spoke of it clearly to His disciples as an analogy to faith. In the above passage, as they were requesting more faith, Jesus responded that their mustard seed faith, if put to use, could uproot a mulberry tree. On another occasion, when they were unable to cast out a demon, Jesus scolded them for lacking faith because, as He said, if they used their mustard seed of faith, they could move an entire mountain.

Jesus has woven this common thread about the mustard seed into a tapestry of truth. As the Apostle Paul tells us in Romans 2, God has dealt to each of us a measure of faith, and the implication is that, although we may not all have the same amount, we definitely have some.

But, the hinge point of the matter is what we do with that faith. “Show me your faith by your works, else it is dead faith,” James declares. Back to the mustard seed, we see the farmer in the parable take his seed and plant it so it grows. We see Jesus encouraging the disciples not to bemoan the smallness of their faith, but to put it to use felling the forests of doubt. And later, he reproves them for still not learning to put their faith to use moving the mountains of the enemy.

Why do God’s people shrink from adversity and box at shadows when, by now, we should be putting to flight the armies of the alien? God has an investment in his children, and He expects a handsome return. As with all things in His universe that speak of potential, He begins with a seed. A mustard seed. If we will but plant that seed–set its potential in action, no matter how initially small–then it will grow in strength and be well rewarded.

Search the Scriptures, and find this principle restated in a dozen ways.

Proverbs 4:18

"The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day." Start down the path, one step at a time.

Matthew 25:23

"His lord said to him, Well, good and faithful bondman, thou wast faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many things." Plant the mustard seed, He will see to the tree.

Matthew 24:46-47

"Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods." Act now, for He is watching and wanting to reward our faith.

Revelation 3:8

"I know your deeds…I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name." When the going gets tough, Jesus notices our steadfastness.

It is often said that heroism is not the absence of fear, but the courage to act in spite of that fear. Hebrews chapter 11, Faith’s Hall of Fame, speaks of God’s heroes down through the ages, while chapter 12 tells us that these same heroes are a living “cloud of witnesses” watching to see what we will do, how we will serve the purposes of God in our generation!

These were men and women of like passion as ourselves; that is, they ate their soup one spoonful at a time just as we do. They had the same mustard seed of faith that we do; in fact most of them were handicapped in that they did not have the Holy Spirit anointing that’s available to us.

So what was different about these heroes? What made them achieve where others failed? Hebrews 11 tells us that their “weakness was turned to strength” when they acted. As each hero of faith is introduced, we see a mere human being. Then we see what a great journey of faith that human being realized by taking one step at a time—starting with the first step.

There is a first step ahead of us today.

What is it?

Shall we dare to take it?

Belshazzar's Ways

2006-12-01T21:47:00.003-05:00

"But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself...you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways." -- Daniel 5:23

As the curtain opens on Daniel 5, we find a merry royal party in progress. But soon a mysterious hand appears and engraves four words on the wall, striking terror into the heart of the emperor-king and all his nobles. End of party. In fact, it was the end of the empire as they knew it, and of the king's life as well.

What was the divine indictment against Belshazzar, ruler of the known world? He had not humbled himself as his father had, and had not honored the God "Who held his life and all his ways."

Good story, but what does it have to do with us modern-day Christians serving God in a Western world, in the twenty-first century? Possibly everything!

Belshazzar's epitaph rings through time, and calls us to awake from our complacent, business-as-usual lives, to the alarm of God's message: "Honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways."

While enjoying our comfortable (if utterly useless) modern lifestyles, we often console--and even convince--ourselves that we are worth a lot to the Master, for we would surely lay down our lives for Him if that should ever be necessary.

Yes, God does hold our lives in His hands. We belong to Him, so it is only natural that he might demand of us the ultimate sacrifice someday, if that should be in the interest of His kingdom.

But what about our ways?

Ways?? What mystery does the Scripture bespeak? In addition to owning our lives, God is also Lord of our ways! We may not face death today at the hand of wild beasts, or roasted at the stake, but we do face more subtle decisions that are equally weighty. Spending Saturday mowing a lawn for the neighbor who just got out of the hospital. Working that extra half hour to make up for the long lunchtime that just happened. Keeping silent when falsely accused by a "friend".

If Jesus is Lord, then He must be Lord, not only of the last breath we take, but of every day, every hour, every decision we make moment by moment--in thought, word, and deed. Honor the God who holds in His hand your life and all your ways.

In Baroness Orczy's masterpiece The Scarlet Pimpernel, there is one scene where Sir Andrew is telling Lady Marguerite, "There are nineteen of us ready to lay down our lives for the Scarlet Pimpernel if he is in danger!" Her reply is, "There is no need for lives just now, my friend...", as she goes on to describe more practical actions that these devoted men can take to assist with the matter at hand.

At the Last Supper, Peter made a similar proclamation: "Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!" But Jesus answered, "I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me."

Prison and death? Very romantic, yes. Maybe someday.

How about acknowledging Jesus in everyday situations?

"Who, Him? I don't know Him. I'm not one of those weird religious types."
Oops!

And in our day...

How about that extra little tax deduction that you're pretty sure Uncle Sam wouldn't approve of? "Come on! I'll never get audited, so what does it really matter?"
Oops!

How about that banner ad that just appeared on the screen? "Switch pages? Now, wait a minute! She does have clothes on...well, not much...but at least she has her minimal underwear on!"

And...umm...was it really her underwear you were checking out??...Yeah, right! Now, what would Jesus do?
Oops!

"But you...did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways."

Why does God not move in twenty-first-century America as he did in ages past? Why do we not experience the showers of blessing that were evident during the great awakenings? Perhaps we are too busy enjoying wallowing in the everyday muck and reek of this world, craving the slops that the other pigs are eating.

"NO NEED FOR LIVES JUST NOW", Jesus is saying, "give Me your WAYS!"

In the words of Australian songwriter Reuben Morgan...

Lord, I give You my heart
I give You my soul
I live for You alone
Every breath that I take
Every moment I'm awake
Lord, have Your way in me!

Here is the key to true revival. What divine power the Church would brandish against the enemy if only Jesus were Lord of our ways!

Is God's Word Ambiguous?

2006-03-25T21:54:00.000-05:00

These posts will have to be more sporadic because, although I used to enter posts before work in the morning, the company has now blocked access to this site.

Amazingly, I wrote the previous post (Feb. 10) not thinking that it applied to me at the time! We can be so blind sometimes. Between then and now, I experienced everything referred to in that post as never before, and--thank God--with the appopriate result of running back to His arms. I think I'll stay here a while!

But as for the title of this one...Is God's Word Ambiguous? One would expect that this is a rhetorical question, with the obvious answer of "No!"

Not so fast! I say. God can do or be whatever He chooses, and He always does it with a divine and righeous purpose. Check out the following Scripture passage:

Psalm 11
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 In the LORD I put my trust;
How can you say to my soul,
“Flee as a bird to your mountain”?
2 For look! The wicked bend their bow,
They make ready their arrow on the string,
That they may shoot secretly at the upright in heart.
3 If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?
4 The LORD is in His holy temple,
The LORD’s throne is in heaven;
His eyes behold,
His eyelids test the sons of men.
5 The LORD tests the righteous,
But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates.
6 Upon the wicked He will rain coals;
Fire and brimstone and a burning wind
Shall be the portion of their cup.
7 For the LORD is righteous,
He loves righteousness;
His countenance beholds the upright.[a]
---------------------
Footnotes:
1. Psalm 11:7 Or The upright beholds His countenance

Check out that footnote! The final thought in Psalm 11 has a double meaning.
The translators had to choose one for publication, but it can be read either way in the original Hebrew:

כִּֽי־צַדִּ֣יק יְ֭הוָה צְדָקֹ֣ות אָהֵ֑ב יָ֝שָׁ֗ר יֶחֱז֥וּ פָנֵֽימֹו׃

Or, even in Spanish, where the subject and object can likewise be ambiguous, since it lacks the grammatical niceties of English, Russian, and other languages where the ambiguity does not translate:

...el hombre recto verá su rostro.

So, does the passage mean that the upright beholds His countenance, or does it mean that His countenance beholds the upright?? Did the God who authored this Scripture get an "F" in Hebrew Grammar 101 class? Why does His choice of words leave us wondering what He really meant?

We know, of course, that God never makes a mistake, so the only conclusion is that this was 100% intentional. We can read the end of Psalm 11 as:

7 For the LORD is righteous,
He loves righteousness;
His countenance beholds the upright [who, in turn, may behold His countenance].

Hallelujah! A divine play on words! He is saying that (a) He is righteous, (b) He loves righteousness, and (c) when his children choose to be righteous like Him, they can look upon His glory while He, the proud Father, is beholding them.

God can use even ambiguity to make a powerful point, if we will stop and listen.

Are We Men or Mules? [original post]

2006-02-10T21:59:00.000-05:00

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.

9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you. -- Psalm 32:8-9

What a picture our Loving Father paints. He has invested His own Holy Spirit to live in us, to be our built-in Counselor, Comforter, and source of all wisdom. Yet, too often, we do not take the time required to quiet our spirits and commune with the Holy Spirit each day. We do not put on the blood covering and enter beyond the veil into the Holiest place in our temple: within our spirit, where He abides.

Instead, we sally forth into the day half cocked, not spiritually dressed in His armor or prepared for what awaits us, not awaiting first His words of direction and wisdom for the day. We move so fast that we don't even notice the next cliff over which we are about to careen, the next enemy ambush into which we are about to blunder. At day's end, we lie crumpled, nursing our wounds and wondering what went wrong--and why God did not prevent what just happened.

The Spirit speaks to us so tenderly in this Psalm. "I will instruct you...direct you...counsel you." He is saying, "Why will you not listen, when I have so much to tell you, which would spare you so much grief?"

When we don't listen, it is as if we are horses or mules without understanding. In fact, we are without excuse, because we do have God-given understanding, but we wilfully ignore what He's saying by not making time to listen. That is when He must arrest us using the bridle and bit--through the hard knocks of life's circumstances. The painful zap of the cattle prod applied to our posterior parts reminds us that we are--once again--running ahead of God.

Let us return to Him now. Notice that the Spirit does not say, in verse 9, that He uses the bridle and bit to lead us--as we might expect. That is not His way. Rather, He uses these things to steer us back to Him!

Next time we feel the sting of the whip, the jolt of the prod, the cut of the bit, let us stop and think: Where did I get ahead of God? How can I hightail it back to Him, and redeem this wasted day, this year, this lifetime?

Thank you, Father, for your patience. Let us find your loving arms and be led by Your voice again, beside the still waters.

The End of the Book

2006-01-04T22:06:00.000-05:00

6 Many are asking, "Who can show us anything good?"
Lord, let us see your face smiling on us with favor.
7 You have filled my heart with great joy.
It is greater than the joy of people who have lots of grain and fresh wine.
8 I will lie down and sleep in peace.
Lord, you alone keep me safe. -- Psalm 4:6-8 (NIRV)

We live in a very negative world. People tune into the news daily, hungry to know what is wrong in their world--and they are seldom disappointed. Although there is plenty of encouraging news to be had every day, it's just "not newsworthy." Our culture is like the stock market, a self-fulfilling prophecy; as "consumer confidence" drops, so does the stock market; as the stock market drops, so does "consumer confidence." Dow Jones is a fool's prophet; but many in our culture still swear by him. And, if our hearts rise and fall by economic indicators, then who rules our hearts--who is our god--but the Dollar?

Our culture soaks up negativity like a sponge, until we are too saturated to pick up on what is positive. As the Psalmist puts it, "Many are asking, 'Who can show us anything good?'" We are jaded, going through life in silent despair.

But, what about the people of God? As in every dimension of our lives, we often absorb the culture that washes over us, rather than impacting that culture with God's truth. We are so saturated with the spirit of negativity that it cripples our effectiveness as ambassadors of the God of Life.

Let us quiet our hearts, let us pull down the shades on the windows of our spirit and shut out the lethal rays of negativity a while, as we spend time alone with God at the opening of the day. Suddenly, His face takes shape in our vision, and we can see Him smiling on us with favor. Imagine that! God Himself is smiling on us; there is nothing negative about Him! We begin to realize that we just lay down and slept in peace, and we awoke alive and healthy. No enemy bombs rained on our home overnight, no sudden ruptured aneurysm, stroke, or heart failure snatched us away from our loved ones unexpectedly. The Lord alone kept us safe.

Let our hearts be filled with great joy, greater than the joy of people who have lots of grain and fresh wine. This the key that shuts off the destructive engine of negativity: spending time in God's presence, meditating on all that is right in this world He created. Wherever His Kingdom is embraced, He is at work, and we can see Him smiling there.

We Christians have read the end of the Book, and there is nothing depressing about it. Let us be encouraged and go forth to a new day full of hope, as the Psalmist says, with God's smile giving us strength to overcome every challenge. This is true joy, greater than the joy of people who have lots of grain and fresh wine, i.e., greater than the rich and famous can ever hope to find in their empty existence.

Oh Lord, You're beautiful, Your face is all I see, For when Your eyes are on this
child, Your grace abounds to me. -- Keith Green (Click here for full lyrics.)

Turn your eyes upon Jesus; look full in His wonderful face, and the things of
earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. --Helen H. Lemmel (1922) (Click here for full lyrics.)

Make Foundations While the Sun Shines

2005-12-15T22:11:00.000-05:00

Let's think about Jesus' sermon on the Two Builders, in Matthew 7:

(24)"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. (25)The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. (26)But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. (27)The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash."

What caught my attention is something implied in the sermon, albeit ridiculously obvious to anyone who knows about building. Although it does not tell us when each man built his house, it was definitely not while the rain, floods, and wind were present.

Ignoring, for this discussion, the idiot who built on sand, let us think about our own goals of building on the Solid Rock. When do we lay such a firm foundation in our lives, on the Rock Who we know is Jesus, and on His Word? Certainly not during life's storms! The key truth is that we need to have laid our foundations while the sun was still shining. We need to have taken time to build our relationship with God through spending time in His presence, to build our faith and hear His voice through meditation on His Word, during those periods of life when "all was well in our world."

The sad truth is that we have no problem finding time to howl to God when our house is collapsing about our ears. When all our work lies in a wreck, we have no trouble weeping and praying for help to rebuild. But the strength to endure life's storms--the foundation laid on Solid Rock, would have served us far better; it would have prevented the loss of our efforts, of years of our lives. Why did we not build such a foundation "while the sun was shining?" It's the same stupidity we see in all walks of life: "There's never enough time to do it right, but there is always time to do it over again."

In conclusion, let's think about the words of a popular Newsboys worship song. The songwriter understood this principle. Spend time in God's presence while the sun shines, and you will have the foundational strength to stand before Him and continue to "bless His name" through any storm--pain, suffering, sorrow--fill in the blank--that life throws at you.

Blessed be Your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name
And blessed be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll
Turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's "all as it should be"
Blessed be You name
And blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name

Eagles Have a Different Perspective

2005-11-17T22:15:00.000-05:00

What a busy summer! Too busy, if I could not take the time to journal the thoughts of my personal journey with God.

Came across the following this morning: text of a pamphlet published by Larry Tomczak (while with People of Destiny) a number of years ago. I believe this vision is just as fresh today, and it still patiently calls to us...

http://www.lastdaysministries.org/Articles/1000008612/Last_Days_Ministries/LDM/Discipleship_Teachings/Taking_Action_Living.aspx

Death of a Vision

2005-07-26T22:20:00.000-04:00

This is a sequel to the last posting.

Scripture teaches us, over and over, that:

a. God has a unique Calling for each of us, which is irrevocable

b. Once he manifests that Calling (which makes it a Vision), it must go through a death. Any ideas we might have about how we will make it happen are going to die during this stage. This death may take days, years, or even decades. (Part of this may depend on how long we take to relinquish control of the Vision!)

c. Finally, when all human hope and self-dependency is exhausted, the vision is reborn. Now it is free to be God's work in, and through, us. Now it can achieve what He intended.

Examples...

- Abraham was promised great offspring, and a great land for them to possess. He wandered about in tents, and produced the wrong offspring. The true offspring (Isaac) finally had to go through "death" at Abraham's hand, before rebirth could be achieved, and the Vision sealed for fulfillment.

- Jacob was promised that he would have God's favor and fulfill the calling of Abraham. He had to live in exile for years, and learn hard lessons, before returning home as a humble leader under the new name Israel.

- Joseph saw in a dream that he was to be a great leader, but he had to endure the dungeon first. In the end, he was the gentle ruler over his family that God had intended him to be.

- Moses was raised in the palace, groomed not only as a great leader, but also well enough versed in Egyptian culture and protocol to be able to confront Pharaoh himself. He was The Man to pull off the Exodus. However, he also had his own ideas about how he would fulfill God's purposes. These ideas died a miserable death during 40 years that Moses had to take care of dumb sheep in the desert, while he learned to be the meek, gentle, godly leader of the other flock of dumb sheep--the Israelites.

- David was anointed king, but this was not fulfilled until he had first spent years running for his life from Saul. He started out as a great giant-killer (which was not so bad), but emerged as the most humble king, one who trusted 100% in God to ultimately rescue him before his enemies, as we see in the business of Absalom.

- Peter was a friend of Jesus, part of His inner circle, and a great future leader, but he had to walk through the "death" of actually denying that he knew Jesus, before finally letting go of his self-reliance.

- Paul's calling and destiny were incredible, but he had to spend 14 years in his own "wilderness" before he could be a leader so pure, so devoid of himself, that he could actually invite the Church to imitate him, as representing Christ.

This is getting too long. In conclusion, the previous posting about Job goes hand in hand with this one about--if you will--"the Paths of the Dead" that we must each pass through as God refines us to be vessels of silver and gold for His table. Let's NEVER skirt the furnace of refinement, unless we are content to be rusty old buckets, fit only to transport fertilizer in God's garden!!

-----------------------------

OK, back to Job... (My problem is not doing something until I can do it just right. God is working on me about that, because sometimes it means nothing gets done!)

My thoughts returned to the Job devotional I meant to post in April. Sometimes we are disappointed because of not being recognized for all the "wonderful things" we do. We get "weary in well doing" because there seems to be endless planting and weeding, but no harvest! This scripture jumped out at me, from 2 Chronicles 15--a moving chapter about a king (Asa) who took the time to put God first. God sent him a prophet to encourage him when he needed it most, with these words:

"But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded." 2 Chronicles 15:7

We are all called to do some kind of work, even if it's sweeping floors. We should do that work with skill, character, and a servant's heart. There will be jealous people who brush us off because we show up their mediocrity. There will be subordinates who quietly rebel because they do not share our vision. However, the toughest form of rejection can be when our superiors do not even seem to care that we are doing a good job. All sowing, no reaping.

If we take a break from the pity party, we can hear God's voice gently reminding us, as He did Asa, that He is the One we are really working for, that He is keeping the books, and that He will ultimately reward us if we don't give up.

The "catch" is that things are happening in the spiritual dimension that we cannot see. Sometimes these things are really exciting. Sometimes God is "cheering us on", so to speak, through a really rough time, and we cannot even comprehend that we are so, so close to a big reward--a reward that will be forfeited if we give up before reaching the finish line of the current trial!

So what about Job? Here is where he comes in...

The whole book of Job seems, at face value, like it's all about Job and his friends. Trouble is, Job felt the same way: "It's all about me!" Unfortunately, Job's misguided friends also felt: "It's all about me!", i.e., about each of them serving up the choicest bits of wisdom. But, read it again! The entire book of Job is about God! He gives us a unique seat at the 50-yard line, and shares with us His entire plan for Job, and His purpose for walking him through this awful trial. When we read Job's pitiful complaints, we feel like saying, "Just hang on a while longer, be strong, don't give up, there's a reward coming if you hang in there!" Fortunately Job hung in there and did not sin or curse God in his heart, even though he totally misunderstood and believed that God was simply playing games with him for sport.

But, how often do we give up during a long, dry spell? Maybe we don't sin by commission--by blaming God directly, but we VERY often sin by omission. We desert our assigned post, abdicate our position of leadership (with the world watching us), and go off to do something more comfortable for ourselves. The result is that we fail the test. The result of failing the test is that we'll see the same test again in a different form. And again. And again. And again, until we get it right. Once we emerge from the causality loop in triumph, still clinging to the promise, still focused on the will of God even when we do not understand it--then, and ONLY THEN do we receive our reward. And, what a reward!--a God-size reward!!

When Job passed the test, God's heart was bursting with pride. He held Job up as a trophy before all the powers of darkness who accuse mankind. Here was one who fulfilled the ultimate purpose of man--to voluntarily choose faithfulness to God above all else. Job's wealth, happiness, and renown were double, in the end, what he had already enjoyed at God's hand in the beginning.

Job is an example for all the ages. The book of Job is God's secret revealed. It is what He sees as we plod through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Let's not give up--lie down and die--when the reward is just around the bend!

Finding Strength in Hardship

2005-04-26T22:22:00.000-04:00

Something just hit me today, regarding Philippians 4:13, and I had to go look up the context. This is, I believe, the first verse I ever memorized--that is, my parents encouraged me to memorize it because I would always whine about "I can't!" Yes, it is a powerful verse, and the entire Bible stands behind the message it presents, when read at face value.

Back to the context, though. I think this verse has almost always been taken out of context. The STRENGTH that Paul refers to is not the Go-Forth-and-Do-Exploits Power we always think of. In fact, it is a much more powerful power--flowing, of course, from the same Source--the power to endure and thrive in uncomfortable situations. Ouch! We like to think about having more Might for Exploits, but we don't like to consider our, often more important need, for Strength to Carry On.

Paul speaks of being content whether in need or in abundance. It builds character, it does away with the drive to whine, and most important of all, it flows from the One Who gives us strength for this and all other aspects of our walk in this world.

Read it again!...

¹¹I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹²I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

You Are Not the Issue; God Is the Issue

2005-03-18T22:24:00.000-05:00

The key passage from one of my favorite sermons, by Charles Simpson:

I Kings 19:8-18 8

...Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the LORD came to him: "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

10 He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

11 The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD , for the LORD is about to pass by."

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD , but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"

14 He replied, "I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too."

15 The LORD said to him, "Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu. 18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel-all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him."

Cleansing the Temple

2005-03-15T22:26:00.000-05:00

Lord Have Mercy - Lyrics
Michael W. Smith

Jesus, I've forgotten the words that You have spoken
Promises that burned within my heart have now grown dim
With a doubting heart I follow the paths of earthly wisdom
Forgive me for my unbelief
Renew the fire again

Lord have mercy
Christ have mercy
Lord have mercy on me

I have built an altar where I worship things of men
I have taken journeys that have drawn me far from You
Now I am returning to Your mercies ever flowing
Pardon my transgressions
Help me love You again

I have longed to know You and Your tender mercies
Like a river of forgiveness ever flowing without end
I bow my heart before You in the goodness of Your presence
Your grace forever shining
Like a beacon in the night