Rocks and Mountains

A couple of years ago, I took a trip to the great American West. I drove up a long road to reach the summit of Pike’s Peak, which towers 14,000’ into the sky. There I found an interesting paradox. The summit is incredibly ugly -  if you only look at the immediate surrounding area. There is no vegetation, just rubble and rocks. But, if raise your eyes, and look at the horizon, you see the majestic views of the Rocky Mountains and the sweeping plains that inspired the song, “America, the Beautiful.”  

How you live, who you become, is the result of something called “vision.”  Two people who are in similar situations will find much different outcomes depending on how they choose to understand and respond. One sees only hardship and turns into a victim, blaming everyone for the troubles in which he finds himself. Another sees opportunity and finds a way forward; learning, growing, a ‘becomer.’  

American lore is full of ‘rags to riches’ stories of men and women who worked hard to make life work.  Joni Eareckson Tada comes to mind.  When she was just 17 years of age, in 1967, this beautiful girl with a bright future dove into the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and broke her neck. Left paralyzed from the neck down, she became totally dependent on others. Now 71 years of age, the lovely Christian woman, is a visionary person who has written dozens of books, spoken in thousands of meetings, been married for decades, leading a ministry of compassion for those who are disabled called Joni and Friends. I love her authenticity. She does not sugarcoat the tragedy, but she chooses not to play the victim!

What kind of person do you want to be?

God, the Holy Spirit, promises to work deeply in each one of us, saving us through Christ, restoring us, healing our broken places, and using us to serve.  Look at the life that pulses through this prayer – I am "asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves." (Colossians 1:9-13, NIV)   Go back and read that again, before you read on.

The way that passage unfolds excites me.  IF we will look beyond the rubble, if we will trust our Great Savior, we will find the strength of the Spirit to live a worthy life. We will not be victims, we will be spiritually empowered. We will not be a barren desert, we will bear abundant spiritual fruit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control- Gal. 5:22-23).   Does that only happen to the rich, the beautiful, the advantaged, the bright?  No, it is the work of God that can happen in each one of us, IF we will trust Him and let Him create vision.

Know this – God’s vision for you is provisioned by God’s power in you!

Christian, do not turn Christ’s Gospel into an escape, an excuse for apathy today, focused only on Heaven to come.  We are blessed to have that eternal home waiting but there is living to be done all along the way – from here to eternity.  Don’t turn the blessing of your faith into a constant struggle to ‘do better,’ to set limits on your behavior.  Our high calling is about much more than trying to be nicer person, trying to quash our temper, ignore lust, or stifle greed. Living the Christian life like that is like walking the summit of Pike’s Peak looking down and seeing the rocks.  Raise your eyes to see the glorious inheritance God gives and invite the Holy Spirit to transform you. 

I like think of it like this. IF you attempt to empty a room of darkness you have set yourself up for impossibility. But, you can fill a room with light by just lighting a candle!

Here’s the word from the Word. As you read it, give thanks that the Spirit for eyes that see all the Gospel, including God’s vision for YOU.  "Christ lives in you, and this is your assurance that you will share in his glory. So everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Christ. We warn them and teach them with all the wisdom God has given us, for we want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. I work very hard at this, as I depend on Christ’s mighty power that works within me." (Colossians 1:28-30, NLT)  "Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope." (Ephesians 3:20, NLT)

So, what do you ‘see?’

_________________________

Blessed Assurance
(Christ is our hope, our assurance!)

Blessed assurance Jesus is mine

O what a foretaste of glory divine

Heir of salvation purchase of God

Born of His Spirit washed in His blood

 

This is my story this is my song

Praising my Savior all the day long

This is my story this is my song

Praising my Savior all the day long

 

Perfect submission perfect delight

Visions of rapture now burst on my sight

Angels descending bring from above

Echoes of mercy whispers of love

 

Perfect submission all is at rest

I in my Savior am happy and blest

Watching and waiting looking above

Filled with His goodness lost in His love

 

Fanny Jane Crosby

© Words: Public Domain

 

He WILL Make a Way

 

In 1977, Bev and I sensed a change coming to us, in our young marriage. We were earnest about following the call of God, wanting to serve Him. I believed that the Spirit was directing us to a boom town in Wyoming, a place I had visited many times as a little child. So we moved, with plans to plant a new church. We had no resources and knew that we would be 2000 miles from home and family. Some predicted disaster.  “You have no money in the bank.”  “You have no job, no position waiting.”  But at the tender age of 22, our faith was simple, our hearts desiring only to serve Him.  

That move turned out to be so much different from what we imagined.  We never did plant that church, but we enjoyed rich ministry. In time we both realized that God was leading, but to grow us in grace. We also became pathfinders for several who followed us there whose lives were remarkably changed by their own faith journey. We were only in Gillette, Wyoming for about a year, but those days were God’s graduate school of faith for Jerry and Bev. He taught us new ways to know Him, demonstrated His ability to meet our daily needs, gave us a miracle of healing when our infant son was desperately ill, and brought people into our lives that taught us key lessons that have shaped my ministry to this day.    

We chose to do what some called ‘silly,’ what appeared to be impulsive, and that was very hard in so many ways. I have never regretted that year or the choices we made;  thanking God that He gave us the willingness and faith to take the step of faith.

When the people of the Lord were preparing to enter Canaan, the Promised Land, the second time, they were confronted with an obstacle. They had to cross the Jordan River and it was 'at flood stage.' Joshua went to prayer and God told him to that he had to lead the people forward, that he was to send the priest, carrying the Ark of the Covenant, right into the flowing water. The account says “When their feet touch the water, the flow of water will be cut off upstream, and the river will pile up there in one heap.” (Joshua 3:13, NLT)  

 Would you want to be the one who was first to step into a flooding river, carrying that weighty gold box containing the stone tablets with the Commandments etched on them on your shoulders?  What did that priest think as he waded in?  When did the miracle happen? When he was ankle deep, knee deep, waist deep? God could have just stopped the river's flow that morning as they broke camp, giving them a wide place to walk across. He didn’t!  He asked Joshua and the people to walk into the water by faith.

In our spiritual journey for His own purposes, life unfolds in much the same way so often. God says, "Go," and the obstacles are there. As we look ahead, it seems that there is no way. But, when we are full of faith, prompt to follow, He makes a way.  A thousand faith stories can be told about the discovery of new grace, new dimensions to our relationship with Him IF we step into the water, so to speak.

Is God leading you and it looks like a dead end, a fool’s errand, a path of hardship?
Are you following obediently or screaming protests?

Let me take an aside here. Do not confuse following God in faith with following your own desires and asking Him to bless your agenda. We serve Him. In His will, however, there is provision and peace.  Paul says that the Spirit will change us, inside out, to think and act as He desires. "Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is." (Romans 12:2, NLT)

Has He asked you to step up to the challenge?  Has He invited you to grow in grace, to learn of His love at a new depth? Do not fear, do not falter. Step out, in humility, and wait for the salvation of the Lord.

Follow faithfully. Keep your focus on the Lord who goes before you.

The word from the Word comes to us from the preacher Isaiah who invites us to sing a song of faith.

"Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song;
he has become my salvation.”
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
In that day you will say:
“Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name;
make known among the nations what he has done,
and proclaim that his name is exalted.

Sing to the LORD, for he has done glorious things;
let this be known to all the world." (Isaiah 12:2-5, NIV) Amen

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God Will Make A Way

(a simple song of trust, listen and worship)

God will make a way

Where there seems to be no way,

He works in ways we cannot see,

He will make a way for me.

He will be my guide,

Hold me closely to His side,

With love and strength

For each new day,

He will make a way,

He will make a way.

By a roadway in the wilderness

He'll lead me,

And rivers in the desert will I see.

Heaven and earth will fade

But His Word will still remain,

He will do something new today.

 

God Will Make A Way

Moen, Don © 1990 Integrity's Hosanna! Music (c/o Integrity Music, Inc.)

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He Provides

My thoughts were full of questions, wondering about how’s and why’s, and then the Spirit reminded me:  “The Lord will provide.”  The ancient story of Genesis 22 came to mind. It is one of those chapters of the Bible that some find troubling. Even some Christians who have tamed God, turning Him into a servant of their desires, tend to read that chapter with skepticism, perhaps even disgust. But, if we understand the ‘otherness’ of God, that awful majesty that He is, we can begin to appreciate the revelation that Abraham found that day. He is God alone and His ways are perfect, even when mysterious to our thoughts.

This word today is for those of whom He asks hard things, who are facing a future that feels uncertain. I invite you to a deeper vision of our God.

Isaac asked, "Dad, we have the flint and the wood for our sacrifices, but where is the lamb for the offering?" Abraham and Isaac were on their way to Mt. Moriah. God had asked the father for the ultimate sacrifice. “Give me your son.” One of them is wonders where the lamb is and the other is trying to understand what God is doing and why! Abraham responded to his son's question by telling him: "Isaac, God will see to it that there is a sheep for the offering." At the place of sacrifice Abraham began to prepare his own son for sacrifice. His heir, the promised son, was on the stones piled into an altar. Oh, the horror. Oh, the questions. A son to be offered to God.  Yet Abraham acted in faithful obedience until the Lord stopped him. “Abraham! Abraham!”

“Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called that place “The LORD Will Provide.” (Yahweh Yireh) (Genesis 22:11-14, NIV)

Tragically some read about the Lord’s provision and reduce it to promise about their next mortgage payment. “God will provide” they say, as if God were similar to the government, a Dispenser of Stimulus checks. What an impoverished vision of the Holy One. He is concerned about our ‘daily bread.’  But, the revelation of His sufficiency goes to the heart of our walk of faith, to a promise we can hold onto as we practice radical obedience that brings on the ‘death of Self.’   

Abraham discovered that God will lead us to a place where our trust is deep, our obedience complete, and there He will provide what we need to meet the test.  Has the Lord asked you to walk a road of challenges that you have NO IDEA how to overcome?  Is your faith tested to what feels like a breaking point?  Remember the promise  that He provides; His grace sufficient for our greatest need.

Abraham had to make the journey before he saw the answer. I prefer that He shows me the plan BEFORE I start towards the mountain. Obedience is so much easier when my way is clear, when provisions are abundant, when the outcome is obvious.  God often demands that we follow Him even when we only can see the next step, nothing more.  That is why faith is a basic requirement for doing His will.  The Word teaches that "It is impossible to please God without faith.” (Hebrews 11:6, NLT)

What is He asking of you? Is it impossible? Are there more questions than answers, yet a clear sense that He is leading?  “God will provide.”

Paul’s experience brings us a similar principle. As he traveled in the work of God, preaching Christ to hostile crowds, he nearly broke down. He says, "We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers." (2 Corinthians 1:8-12, NIV)  In that same letter, Paul tells us that God told him to lean hard on Him. “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

Faith is not simple, nor are the choices easy, but God is sufficient. He will provide all that we need, when we need it, so that we can do His will. That’s His promise. Here is a word from the Word, the promise of the God who provides. "Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke fits perfectly, and the burden I give you is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30, NLT)

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 Immortal, Invisible

(A majestic hymn of worship.)

 

Immortal, invisible, God only wise,

In light inaccessible

Hid from our eyes;

Most blessed, most glorious,

The Ancient of Days;

Almighty, victorious,

Thy great name we praise.

 

Unresting, unhasting

And silent as light;

Nor wanting, nor wasting,

Thou rulest in might.

Thy justice, like mountains,

High soaring above;

Thy clouds, which are fountains

Of goodness and love.

 

To all, life Thou givest,

To both great and small;

In all, life Thou livest,

The true life of all;

We blossom and flourish

As leaves on the tree,

And wither and perish

But naught changeth Thee.

 

Great Father of glory,

Pure Father of light;

Thine angels adore Thee

All veiling their sight.

All praise we would render,

O help us to see

'Tis only the splendor

Of light hideth Thee.

 

Immortal Invisible

Smith, Walter Chalmers / Robert, John

© Public Domain

Disappointment

 

Let me begin this thought by telling you that I am a richly blessed man.  I knew love and security from my earliest days. I was loved by a woman of beauty and spirit for 41 years. We have 4 amazing children who have grown into productive adulthood, making enriching contributions to the world in which we live. They each bring me indescribable joy. I have never gone hungry, been homeless, or without resources.  God has allowed me do work I love, serving God’s people as a shepherd, for 45 years. I have known respect and love of many friends. I have enjoyed a few accomplishments that are worthy. So, on the whole, I give thanks for a God-blessed life. That must be said, first!

Then, there are disappointments. In March, 2014, we learned that Bev’s body was betraying her. An ovarian cancer developed that caused her death at age 61, leaving me with a broken heart that is still scarred. Some of my dreams remain out of reach. There are some failed relationships of which I cannot think without grief. When people for whom I provide pastoral care walk away from the church, without explanation, I ache with disappointment even though I know that it not entirely, perhaps not even marginally, my ‘fault.’ I write those things without self-pity.

One of Job’s comforters observed that "People are born for trouble as predictably as sparks fly upward from a fire." (Job 5:7, NLT)  This thing we called life is, for all who are honest enough to admit it, an experience that mixes incredible joy with unbearable sorrow, great expectations with terrible disappointment, success with failure. Christians live in loveless marriages, work in terrible jobs, have children who leave them alone or have parents who are unloving. Some endure daily physical pain. Yes, disappointment comes, even to the faithful. Let’s admit it.  And yet … we can live as ‘more than conquerors through Christ’ the Word promises.

The 84^th Psalm is a song of hope that teaches the godly about dealing with the inevitable disappointments of life. 
I especially love the middle verses. 

"Blessed are those whose strength is in You,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
As they pass through the Valley of Baca,
they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
They go from strength to strength,
‘till each appears before God in Zion." (Psalm 84:5-7, NIV)

The song reminds us that we find ‘blessed’ contentment when we consciously choose to make God, not our own happiness, our strength!  We are not home, we are on our way to our true home. Peter teaches us that we are remember that we are aliens in this present world who will settle forever in God’s home.

As we pass through valley of Baca, the place of tears literally, we dig springs to find refreshing. Ah yes, friend, we will find ourselves in dry barren places, valleys where we cry, our hearts broken by disappointment and grief. There we can dig into the depth of God and He will be for us a ‘place of springs.’  The ancient travelers dug wells along the trails which they left behind to provide for others.

If we refuse self-pity and bitterness, choosing instead to worship even in tears, there will be a quality of the life of the Spirit that becomes a refreshing place for those who travel with us and behind us!  I fear that one reason there are so few deep Christians who know the strength of the Lord is that they refuse to dig springs, choosing instead to run for the hills to seek other comfort!

God, in His sovereign provision, is capable of sending the rain that renews us, too.  I have found wonderful friends, special books, songs that minister to my heart - experiences that are like rainfall that leaves little refreshing pools along the way.  Even though his life may bring real disappointments, the bold Christian goes ‘from strength to strength’ - the milestones of God’s provisions. He remembers the goodness of the Lord in the past and anticipates the faithfulness of God for his future – ‘from strength to strength!’   And, ultimately, he arrives at HOME.

Is eternity your true home, dear friend? Have you made God the center, trusting Him for life and salvation?  IF not, then you are set for one big final disappointment for death will inevitably find us all.  It is a beautiful thing to see an old Christian who has lived life fully, who has known joy and disappointment and the Presence of God. They move towards the last breath here, not with dread, not kicking and screaming for another day, but living ‘strength to strength’ until God says, “Come on home.”

The song concludes on this note, our word from the Word today. Read it prayerfully, hopefully, in faith.

"Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere;
I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God
than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor;
no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.
O LORD Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you." (Psalm 84:10-12, NIV)

May the Spirit use these words to change disappointment into joy, to fill the Valley of Baca with springs that refresh and rains that renew.

_________________

Lord I Need You

Lord I come I confess
Bowing here I find my rest
And without You I fall apart
You're the one that guides my heart

Lord I need You oh I need You
Ev'ry hour I need You
My one defense my righteousness
Oh God how I need You

Where sin runs deep Your grace is more
Where grace is found is where You are
And where You are Lord I am free
Holiness is Christ in me

Where You are Lord I am free
Holiness is Christ in me

So teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
And when I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus You're my hope and stay
And when I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus You're my hope and stay

Lord I need You oh I need You
Ev'ry hour I need You
My one defense my righteousness
Oh God how I need You
My one defense my righteousness
Oh God how I need You

Christy Nockels | Daniel Carson | Jesse Reeves | Kristian Stanfill | Matt Maher

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