Trusting God In A Loss

This is one of the most powerful things I have ever seen on Christian TV, and I encourage you to watch this 12 minute segment from the 700 Club if you are or have ever gone through loss, regardless of the type of loss.  May God use this to bring comfort to you.  Click on this link, then click on Session 1 http://www.cbn.com/700club/features/voiceofhope/

Oh, the lives we touch

Just read an article I really liked by NY Jets reporter Kristian Dyer about "sources" saying that Tim Tebow will bolt from the Jets if he's not used as a starter this season.  You can read it here:  http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/09/13/dyer-the-tebow-we-know-wouldnt-ask-for-a-trade/ 

It's not often that the focus of sports reporting is about the character of the man.  But that's what Tebow has become known for...not what he is, but who he is.  Here's what I consider to be the best paragraph in the article-

"Sources are sources, and they can be right and they can be wrong, but when speculating on a player like Tebow, there’s more to take into account then just what happens on the field. The impact of this man isn’t measured in snaps, passes completed and touchdowns. No, Tebow will weigh his years on this earth by the lives he’s touched, and no source anywhere can know just how much that means to him."

Oh, that this is what could be said about every one of us...that our lives were measured by the lives we touched.

Healing from Blindness

There is a passage in John 12:37-40 that has troubled me for years, but recently I believe that God has given me understanding from His Word regarding it.  Here’s the passage from the English Standard Version:

Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, ³⁸ so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

       “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us,

and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

³⁹ Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said,

⁴⁰    “He has blinded their eyes

and hardened their heart,

       lest they see with their eyes,

and understand with their heart, and turn,

and I would heal them.”   

I have not understood why God would blind the eyes and harden the hearts of people so that they would not believe, and therefore could not be healed.  This means that some people would not receive the benefits of believing (salvation, and all that it encompasses) because HE had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts.   

This is the sort of passage that skeptics use and ask the question “what sort of God is this anyway?”  and adding “I don’t want to believe in a God that would blind people to so-called truth.” 

But look at verse 42a: Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him.   

Apparently, many did believe, and if you read through the entire book of John, you see that multitudes believed.  So who is Isaiah and John writing of here?  Exactly who is it that could not or would not believe? 

I believe it to be those who are proud.  It is people who have raised their own intellect and their own viewpoint to the level that it is their own god.  In that day, those who were proud were the Pharisees, who were in power in the Jewish religion.

In John 9, Jesus healed a man who was born blind, but the Pharisees were so proud that they were blinded and unable to see the manifest power of God through this miraculous work.   Here’s what Jesus said regarding them:  “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (verse 39) 

I believe that this same pride remains at a number of levels, especially in Western society.  It continues to remain in religious circles as it did in the time that Jesus was on Earth.  It also is more prevalent than ever throughout educated people who have bought into thought birthed in the Industrial Revolution and that has grown throughout the age of technology.  Intellect and reason has been placed on the throne of our lives. 

But what I believe God asks of us is intellectual honesty.  If your decision rests that there is no God because you have studied it out for yourself, including the study of the Bible and other Christian apologetic materials, then so be it.  But if your decision comes as a result of prejudice, then my friend, you are mired in pride.  You would know that it is prejudiced if your belief system has been formed  through lectures, conversations, books and magazines that only those who believe as you do have used. Or worse yet, you believe what you do because someone you respect convinced you to do so.  That sort of belief system lacks integrity.  This includes many who consider themselves Christian.

Here is the fundamental reason that a blind person remains blind.  It is found in James 4:6, and repeated in a number of places throughout Scripture:  “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” 

Friend, if you have the disease of pride, the first step in being free of it is to come to God with humility and confess it to Him.  May you be able to see the Lord Jesus in all His glory, and be healed.  That is my prayer for you.

A Declaration of Dependence

Today as we celebrate our independence as a nation, I want to celebrate my dependence on God.

Jesus told me that I can do nothing without Him.  (John 15:5)  But He also told me that we will do works greater than those He did, if we believe.  (John 14:12)

He has told me that there’s a secret place where I can find protection from all the things of life that paralyze others with fear—those who don’t believe Him. (Psalm 91)

He has told me that as I am dependent on Him, He will exalt me.  (James 4:10)

He has told me that as I diligently seek Him, He will reward me.  (Hebrews 12:6)

So I make a declaration of my dependence on the Creator, Yahweh, the Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, the First and the Last.  I am finite, You are Forever, and I humbly believe that you are who you say you are.  (John 14:6)

The Integrity of a Man (or Woman)

While at a School of Pastoral Nurture last week, we listened to a presentation from the CFO of Church on the Way.  He talked about the quality of integrity in the servants of the Lord, and told a story or two to illustrate.

Near the end of the presentation, one of the pastors had a confession to make.  He told us that during the previous evening he had “nicked” a certain parked car while trying to parallel park his own car in front of the house we were meeting in.  While listening to the CFO’s presentation, he was convicted that he needed to confess what he had done, and hidden.  He told us all what he had done. 

I thank God that this pastor responded to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and obediently confessed before his group of brothers.  What this showed me was that his heart is tender towards the Lord.  While he should have revealed the “nick” at the time of the occurrence, his posture of humility and obedience to God would not let him continue to hide the infraction, as minor as it may be.

A hard heart hides the “nicks.”  A tender heart is moved easily by the Spirit of the Lord, and makes amends.

God wants us to live a holy life.  He wants us to have nothing holding on to us that our flesh or the enemy can use to bring shame to ourselves or to the cause of Christ.  He wants us to be free. 

How wonderful it is to live free!

My Nigerian Friend

Hello Friends,  I so want to show you photos of our goings-around Yosemite and the Bay Area, and tell you about his home town that he told me about.   But I’m not going to because I want to protect my friend.  In our church, we have missionaries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and we write little about them online for the same reasons.  Their names and location need to be withheld for their protection from those who would want to bring harm to them and their families.

So you want to know my main take away from two weeks of living with a pastor from Nigeria?  Pray about everything.  The first time I met him, last year, I asked him how he got the money to buy a plane ticket, knowing that it cost him roughly six months income.  His reply:  “I prayed and asked God for it, I believed for it, and by God’s grace it came in.”  For him, everything is “by God’s grace.”

Lord, my prayer is that by God’s grace, I will enter into that place of prayer that hears, sees, and receives…to your glory.

You do not have because you do not ask.  You ask, and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.  (James 4:2b-3, NKJV)

The Helper

Jesus said in John 16:7 “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.”

Well, Jesus did go away.  He’s no longer in the Earth.  He’s in Heaven.  But he sent the Helper, aka The Holy Spirit.  It is the Helper who is God in the Earth today.  If you want to know what he is like, pay attention to what Jesus said one of his names was.  The Helper. 

What do you need help with?  I can think of lots that I need help with.  But the main thing that the Helper gives us, I believe, is the ability to live for God, to love God, and to love others.  I know that left to myself, I have no desire to do any of those.  But when I look to The Helper and ask for a fresh fill-up, he never says no.

He delights to fill us up.  It is only in the fullness of the Spirit that we can honor and glorify God.  And from that full-ness comes the full-fill-ment that makes life exciting and productive.

That’s the sort of help worth living for.  Everything else I think I need help with just sort of fades in importance.