Meeting the Minimum

Meeting the Minimums

My son, Sean, loves coffee and it shows. I just make a cup of coffee. He creates an amazing beverage! He takes pride in the freshness of the beans and getting the grind just right. Some people landscape their yard, carefully trimming, raking, mowing, spraying; and it shows in a lawn that looks like a golf course. I just mow mine.  When I prepare to speak, I never just ‘get up and talk off the top of my head.’ I think, pray, plan, write and re-write, with the goal of moving my audience to take action. Why? I am passionate about communication!

Here’s a pointed question:  do you have a passion for serving God, or are you content with meeting minimal expectations? It’s a serious issue.  Christianity without passion offends the One who deserves our highest and best.

In ancient Judah, even the priests were just going through the motions of worship. God spoke and did not spare their feelings. "The Lord of Heaven’s Armies says to the priests: “A son honors his father, and a servant respects his master. If I am your father and master, where are the honor and respect I deserve? You have shown contempt for my name! “But you ask, ‘How have we ever shown contempt for your name?’" (Malachi 1:6, NLT) "When you give blind animals as sacrifices, isn’t that wrong? And isn’t it wrong to offer animals that are crippled and diseased? Try giving gifts like that to your governor, and see how pleased he is!” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies." (Malachi 1:8, NLT) “How I wish one of you would shut the Temple doors so that these worthless sacrifices could not be offered! I am not pleased with you,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and I will not accept your offerings." (Malachi 1:10, NLT)  “Should I accept from you such offerings as these?” asks the Lord. “Cursed is the cheat who promises to give a fine ram from his flock but then sacrifices a defective one to the Lord. For I am a great king,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, “and my name is feared among the nations!" (Malachi 1:13-14, NLT)

Simply stated, God says that no worship is better than half-hearted worship.

Do we give God the best part of our life or the leftovers?
Does He get our attention in prayer or just sleepy words?
Do we do ministry in prime time or just ‘fit it in’ as conveniently as possible?

“Shut the Temple doors!” He says. “If you won’t give the best, then don’t go through the motions!”  It’s not just an Old Testament principle.  In His address to the churches in the book of the Revelation, Jesus says “I know all the things you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other! But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!" (Revelation 3:15-16, NLT)

If we want a God-blessed life, if we want to enjoy His favor and know the fullness of joy that Jesus promises- we must give Him the first, the best, ‘our utmost for His highest.’ (Oswald Chambers)

Here’s a thought to ponder -
Would you want God to love you in the same way that you love Him?
______________________

Give me one pure and holy passion,
Give me one magnificent obsession.
Jesus give me one glorious ambition for my life.
To know and follow hard after You

To know and follow hard after You,
To grow as Your disciple in the truth.
This world is empty, pale, and poor,
Compared to knowing You my Lord.
Lead me on and I will run after You.

One Pure And Holy Passion
Altrogge, Mark

© 1988 PDI Praise (Admin. by Word Music Group, Inc.) / Dayspring Music, Inc. (a div. of Word Music Group, Inc.)

CCLI License No. 810055

Are you full of ... the Spirit?

Solomon, king of Israel, spent a fortune to build a Temple in Jerusalem. From the mount it stood out visible for miles. The walls of white stone gleamed, the gates of polished bronze shone. It’s splendor made it a wonder of the ancient world. But, it was not architecture that was the greater glory of that building. It was the Presence that filled it. At the dedication, Solomon prayed for the Lord to come and be among His people. "When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, “He is good; his love endures forever.”(2 Chronicles 7:1-3, NIV)

The “glory” of which this passage speaks is the Presence of God, His indescribable Radiance. Though He is an invisible God, those who were gathered that day felt Him and the only appropriate response was to fall down in worship. 

Today, God does not inhabit buildings or holy places. He lives in us, His temples. "Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16, NIV)

Christians, you and I, are given the awesome privilege of carrying the Lord’s glory wherever we are, whatever we are doing. It is not us, but the One in us, that is magnificent. Even more wonderful is that fact that where His Presence goes, there is joy. My desire is to be a temple prepared for His Presence, a person marked by His radiance. How about you, Christian?

What spills over from you? What fills your thoughts, your dreams, your days? It’s not a silly question because whoever we are on the inside will become what we are in our world. Jesus said that "the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart.’" (Matthew 15:18, NIV)

When the Spirit fills us, the beauty of His Presence will spill over from us. 

Invite Him to fill you up! Yes, we participate in this process. As He comes to live in us, He points out attitudes, actions, and choices with which He will not share space in our lives. He asks for access to every part of our lives - our past and present, our resources, our pleasures, and our personality. Some think He steals from us, robbing us of our creativity. Exactly the opposite is true! Where He makes holy, He also make whole. In that wholeness we become the amazing creatures He designed. The Spirit-filled life is a thing of beauty very different from the religiousness that some practice in the Name of Christ.

Ponder this word from the Word. Pray, “come, Holy Spirit.”
May the Radiance shine from deep inside of you.

"So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord... The god who rules this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. They cannot see the light, which is the good news about our glorious Christ, who shows what God is like.... The Scriptures say, “God commanded light to shine in the dark.” Now God is shining in our hearts to let you know that his glory is seen in Jesus Christ. We are like clay jars in which this treasure is stored. The real power comes from God and not from us."
(2 Corinthians 3:18, 4:4,6-7, CEV)

_________

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;

wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;

stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,

and make me love Thee as I ought to love.

Has thou not bid me love Thee, God and King?

All, all thine own, soul, heart and strength and mind.

I see thy cross; there teach my heart to cling.

O let me seek Thee, and O let me find.

Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh;

teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.

To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,

teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart

  - George Croly, public domain

Are you full of ... the Spirit?

Solomon, king of Israel, spent a fortune to build a Temple in Jerusalem. From the mount it stood out visible for miles. The walls of white stone gleamed, the gates of polished bronze shone. It’s splendor made it a wonder of the ancient world. But, it was not architecture that was the greater glory of that building. It was the Presence that filled it. At the dedication, Solomon prayed for the Lord to come and be among His people. "When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. The priests could not enter the temple of the LORD because the glory of the LORD filled it. When all the Israelites saw the fire coming down and the glory of the LORD above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, “He is good; his love endures forever.”(2 Chronicles 7:1-3, NIV)

The “glory” of which this passage speaks is the Presence of God, His indescribable Radiance. Though He is an invisible God, those who were gathered that day felt Him and the only appropriate response was to fall down in worship. 

Today, God does not inhabit buildings or holy places. He lives in us, His temples. "Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16, NIV)

Christians, you and I, are given the awesome privilege of carrying the Lord’s glory wherever we are, whatever we are doing. It is not us, but the One in us, that is magnificent. Even more wonderful is that fact that where His Presence goes, there is joy. My desire is to be a temple prepared for His Presence, a person marked by His radiance. How about you, Christian?

What spills over from you? What fills your thoughts, your dreams, your days? It’s not a silly question because whoever we are on the inside will become what we are in our world. Jesus said that "the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart.’" (Matthew 15:18, NIV)

When the Spirit fills us, the beauty of His Presence will spill over from us. 

Invite Him to fill you up! Yes, we participate in this process. As He comes to live in us, He points out attitudes, actions, and choices with which He will not share space in our lives. He asks for access to every part of our lives - our past and present, our resources, our pleasures, and our personality. Some think He steals from us, robbing us of our creativity. Exactly the opposite is true! Where He makes holy, He also make whole. In that wholeness we become the amazing creatures He designed. The Spirit-filled life is a thing of beauty very different from the religiousness that some practice in the Name of Christ.

Ponder this word from the Word. Pray, “come, Holy Spirit.”
May the Radiance shine from deep inside of you.

"So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord... The god who rules this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. They cannot see the light, which is the good news about our glorious Christ, who shows what God is like.... The Scriptures say, “God commanded light to shine in the dark.” Now God is shining in our hearts to let you know that his glory is seen in Jesus Christ. We are like clay jars in which this treasure is stored. The real power comes from God and not from us."
(2 Corinthians 3:18, 4:4,6-7, CEV)

_________

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;

wean it from earth; through all its pulses move;

stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,

and make me love Thee as I ought to love.

Has thou not bid me love Thee, God and King?

All, all thine own, soul, heart and strength and mind.

I see thy cross; there teach my heart to cling.

O let me seek Thee, and O let me find.

Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh;

teach me the struggles of the soul to bear.

To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh,

teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart

  - George Croly, public domain

Are you a cracked pot?

Are you a cracked pot?

We have this expectation that the call of God will somehow turn us into a perfect person.  Consciously we know that is not true, but still it persists in our unconscious mind.  When that Christian artist who writes songs that move us so deeply leaves her husband and gets involved with another man,
we are beyond disappointed.  “How could she do that?” 
we wonder, often angrily!  When our favorite minister reveals a side of his personality that is deeply flawed, we tend to toss every lesson we ever learned from him, as if the truth he taught is invalidated by his human nature.  The fact is that the call of God does not perfect the person.  The Bible tells us, repeatedly, about God using some very broken, sinful people to accomplish His purposes.

Jonah is one. They don’t come much more flawed than this man. His story opens with rebellion. The Lord said, “Go.”  He said, “No!”  This prophet was acquainted with God and His Presence, enough that he knew the call clearly. In spite of his familiarity with the things of God, he chose to run in the other direction when sent to Nineveh.  He was not just a rebel, he was a coward.  His actions endangered the ship on which he was traveling, while he hid out below deck. When he got to Nineveh after his famed weekend in a fish’s belly, he whined and complained when the Lord spared the city from destruction. There just isn’t much to admire in Jonah. Never the less, he was a man God used, and quite effectively!

Does that mean we can live in willful disobedience and expect to continue under God’s blessing? Not at all.  The point is that the Lord is faithful to His Promise and that He is able to use ordinary sinners, like me, to do amazing things for His glory.  We must not put doing His will on hold until we think we are ‘good enough’ to be used.  We also need to think twice about insisting that someone else should be perfect before we allow God to use them to minister to us. 

Paul, the great apostle, referred to himself as the ‘chief of sinners.’  (1 Timothy 1:15) This was not just rhetoric! He understood that God found him in sin and used him despite his sinful nature. He reminds the Corinthians that the treasure of the Gospel and the Spirit  were carried on earth "in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV)  The gloriously perfect message comes our way through quite ordinary, unimpressive people. We need to rid ourselves of the need to pretend that we are better than we are even our desire is to ‘help out’ the Gospel message. Prophets who pretend to have it all together in their lives do worse in their hypocrisy than those who admit to being a cracked pot!

I am not making an excuse for any Christian to live in open rebellion against God or His Word!  When we receive the call of Christ, “Follow Me,” that’s what we should do. And, as we walk with Him, we are ‘becomers,’ increasing like Him, by the work of His Spirit.  The Bible says that "when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him." (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, The Message)

Are you looking for perfect people to lead you? 

Are you holding back on doing what God would have you do because you think you’re too sinful to be useful?

Remember, the Lord uses cracked pots to do amazing things and as He restores those broken lives, His Gospel shines ever more brightly.

Those are MY kids!

I love my kids and it brings great joy to my heart to do whatever I am able to do to help and encourage them. Yes, I was and I am a tough Dad who doesn’t shrink from speaking truthfully.  I know that love is sometimes best expressed in discipline, but it also is full of mercy, quick to forgive.  My Heavenly Father feels the same way about His kids. Do you know that?   He delights in showing us love, in caring for us.  He will, as necessary, allow us to walk a rough path of discipline, too. 

When I call my children to account, they do not always show appreciation!  Years ago, when Bev and I grounded one of our daughters being openly defiant we heard these angry words from her:  “Right now, you two are not my favorite people!”  We laugh about that moment now realizing it was a natural reaction to unpleasant circumstances, part of the price that a loving parent pays for attempting to shape irresponsible teenagers into productive adults.  

 Let me ask you if you have ever hurled a similar charge at your Father in Heaven?

In the writing of the prophet Malachi, the actions of the Lord’s people are called into question.  “Why are you offering me inferior sacrifices?” God asks. “Why are you breaking faith with the wife of your youth? Why are you robbing Me by cheating on your tithes and offerings? Why do you pretend to be devout and ‘flood my altars with tears’ while doing whatever you want to do?”  When He called them to change their ways and explained the inevitable consequences of His discipline; they did not repent! Instead, they justified themselves, excused their perfidy, and angrily accused Him of being uncaring.  

As you read this excerpt from Malachi, note the counsel of the Lord and how applicable it remains for us. “You have said harsh things against me,” says the LORD. “Yet you ask, ‘What have we said against you?’ “You have said, ‘It is futile to serve God. What did we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the LORD Almighty? But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape.’”  

With a failure of memory, the people responded to God’s challenge by telling Him it did no good to serve Him, that He never came through for the righteous.  If we’re honest, there are times when we may feel the same way. Though we might hesitate to say it out loud, we think – “What good does it do to serve the Lord?  Good guys finish last!” Such a point of view ignores reality. 

When we are angry with the Lord, like teenagers who are angry with parents for simply doing what loving parents must do,  there is an important lesson in this text. “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.”  They stopped looking only at that moment and reviewed their history. The record they compiled revealed the goodness of the Lord.  As they worshipped, this promise was renewed. “They will be mine,” says the LORD Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.” (Malachi 3:13-4:1, NIV)

God says, “those are MY kids, and everybody will know it by the way I take care of them!”

Christian, let’s love Him, even when we cannot see the ‘why’ of the present, the reason for the discipline, or the value of living a holy life. Own these words from the Revelation; the promise to all those who walk in fellowship with the Spirit. "Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you. … They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out his name from the book of life, but will acknowledge his name before my Father and his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3:2-7, NIV)  We are His children, beloved treasures.

______________

How Deep The Father's Love For Us

How deep the Father's love for us,

How vast beyond all measure,

That He should give His only Son

To make a wretch His treasure!

How great the pain of searing loss,

The Father turns His face away,

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory.

Stuart Townend

© 1995 Thankyou Music (Admin. by EMI Christian Music Publishing)

CCLI License # 810055