This thing called – ‘communication.’

A sage observed there are three messages conveyed in any conversation; “what is said, what you think I said, and what I think I said!” Any married couple understands that one. As they are getting dressed to go to dinner, Sally asks Sam, “How does this outfit look?” The words seem to be inviting an opinion, but what she’s really asking is, “Do you find me attractive tonight?” If an inexperienced husband answers her question based on the words he heard, he risks a very lonely evening should he happen to think that the outfit is not that good looking on her. So he must skillfully answer in a way that answers the ‘hidden’ question that she meant, not the one she actually asked! Regardless of his opinion of her choice of clothing, he must affirm her sense of worth in his eyes. Yes, men are just as insecure, we just ask for affirmation in different ways!

The Bible’s lessons on communication are many.
First among them is Jesus’ requirement that we be people of plain and honest speech. He says, "Just say ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ When you manipulate words to get your own way, you go wrong. " (Matthew 5:37, The Message) In this day when lawyers are legion, as followers of the Lord of Truth, we must make integrity in communication our goal.

Scripture reminds us that there is another Listener in every conversation. Thus we pray, "May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." (Psalm 19:14, NLT) Knowing that He understands what we say and what we meant is both a comfort and a caution!

Let a person talk long enough and he will reveal his heart! "A good person produces good words from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil words from an evil heart. And I tell you this, that you must give an account on judgment day of every idle word you speak. The words you say now reflect your fate then; either you will be justified by them or you will be condemned.” (Matthew 12:35-37, NLT) If we listen to ourselves, we will learn much about our heart! Am I a person passionate about the things of God? It will show in my conversations. My emotions, fears, hopes, and dreams spill over in my words.

James warns us that our words are a powerful force – for good and for evil! With language rich in pictures, he says- "A word out of your mouth may seem of no account, but it can accomplish nearly anything—or destroy it! It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell. … With our tongues we bless God our Father; with the same tongues we curse the very men and women he made in his image. … My friends, this can’t go on." (James 3:3-10, The Message)

So we turn to the Spirit of God, desperately praying, “Change me! Work to make my heart pure, my motives pure – so that the overflow, the words that spill out of me, will be pure.” By His grace, our words will become a grace gift, leaving the fragrance of Christ wherever we go. "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." (Ephesians 4:29, NIV)
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You are God in Heaven and here am I on earth,
So I'll let my words be few; Jesus, I am so in love with You.

The simplest of all love songs I want to bring to You,
So I'll let my words be few; Jesus, I am so in love with You.

And I'll stand in awe of You, Yes, I'll stand in awe of You!
-and I'll let my words be few-
Jesus, I am so in love with You.

Matt Redman© 2000 Kingsway CCLI License No. 810055

Hope in God?

Yesterday as I was watching the news coverage coming out of Mississippi’s devastated coastal area, I saw an elderly woman returning to her home for the first time, a week after Hurricane Katrina. Her face noticeably brightened as she saw that her house still stood. As she peered through the broken windows at the furniture strewn around the rooms, at a home left ruined by wind and flood water, she declared, “We’ll rebuild. Life must go on. I am hopeful.” She had caught a vision of tomorrow that included a rebuilt home, a restored community. Hope had returned!

In another conversation, a woman said to me, “Did you hear that R. is getting married?” She said it with obvious delight. Why? Because a couple of years ago, R. entered a time of severe trial of her hope as the result of the death of her husband, leaving her a single mom with teenage children. In the darkest moment, she found hope in the Lord, persevered through deep sorrow, and now was ready to love again. Hope gave her a future!

Hope flickers and dims when life is filled with trials and sorrows and brightens when the crisis is past. Some days we even lose sight of hope. It can be strengthened by a friend’s encouragement, by an infusion of Scriptural truth, and even the dawning of a new day.

One of the most powerful forces in life is hope. The dictionary defines hope as:

• A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment,
• Something that is desired: “Success is our hope.”
• The theological virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but possible to attain with God's help.

We choose the object of our hope! Some people build their hope for a good life around financial security. Others shape their future around the love of their family. Some build their hope on achieving a level of recognition and/or success. Peter tells us to "set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:13, NIV) Hope that is built on the gift of eternal life through Christ will never be disappointed, nor lost! Financial security can be lost with a quick drop in the stock market. Death comes, sometimes unexpectedly, and takes away a family member. A position of influence and prestige can be taken away in an instant. But, nothing can take away God’s gift of salvation and the promise of a home in Heaven.

Choosing the right hope is critically important because what we hope for not only brings us comfort, our hope shapes the way we live day to day. John illustrates this wonderfully saying, "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." (1 John 3:2-3, NKJV) The hope of being received by the Lord Jesus, seeing Him in His glory, produces a single-minded focus that pulls us past the temptations to sin and the distractions from our godly purpose that present themselves to us.

Believer, on what have you set your hope? Give some prayerful thought to that today. Meditate on these words from the Word.

"Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." (1 Timothy 6:17, NIV)

"Why am I discouraged? Why so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again— my Savior and my God!" (Psalm 42:11, NLT)
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Feeling inadequate?

Representing Christ is a high calling for which I often feel only marginally qualified, if at all! Paul’s words, “who is equal to such a task?” (2 Cor. 2:16) are words with which I can easily identify. A Believer is called to live a life of love, but selfishness comes so naturally. We are taught to serve, but we find ourselves wanting to be served. My best efforts are so quickly tainted with expressions of ego. My highest intentions to do good are often sabotaged by sin that works against my aims. Paul laments this writing, "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out." (Romans 7:18, NIV)

Let me illustrate the sneaky way that sin creeps into my life. Last week a woman counseled with me telling of her husband’s cruelty to her for years, of the mean mind-games he plays, of the ways he finds to demean her day in and day out. Her anguish went deep and her dilemma – ‘do I stay in this marriage or do I call it quits after all this time?’ – was real and urgent. We prayed together that she would be led by the Spirit and guided by the Word. Good was accomplished, yet even in that situation, the sinful nature in me found an opportunity. After she left my office, pride expressed itself and I found myself congratulating myself on being such a good husband to my wife! “I am so glad I’m not like him,” I thought proudly. I repented for even making the comparison when the Spirit convicted me. No, it’s not a dramatic sin, but it is that kind of persistent ‘humanness’ that makes me long for the day when I am finally perfected in the Presence of God.

Keep reading, for there is hope! When we come to the end of ourselves and acknowledge the persistent power of sin at work in us, we are in the place where God can use us. Yes, ‘when we are weak, He is strong!’ John Ortberg, in his book, God Is Closer Than You Think, recounts a funny, simple little illustration. To make a point about being empowered by God, he brought an electrical engineer to church to conduct an experiment. Let me quote him. “We turned off all the lights, hooked up an ordinary pickle to some wires, and then passed an electrical current through it. The pickle glowed! It gave light to a room… Many people believe that the flow of the Holy Spirit is reserved for spiritual giants… but, throughout history God has caused His power to flow through the most unlikely people; a prostitute named Rahab, a con man named Jacob, and a cheat named Zacchaeus. … so the next time you’re feeling inadequate, remember that even a pickle can glow if it stays plugged in to the flow.”

Just before He ascended to Heaven, leaving a little group of all too ordinary people to carry on the work of declaring the coming of God’s Kingdom, Jesus told them; "I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." (Luke 24:49, NIV) Luke continues the story in the book of Acts where he tells that a few days later, the Holy Spirit flowed into that Upper Room and rested on those ordinary men and women in a life-transforming way. Were they made perfect in that instant? Hardly. As we read Acts we see them squabble, work through misunderstandings, and deal with sin. And, we see them filled with God’s power, again and again, taking the Good News of God’s love to their world. Because of the Spirit’s power, they turned the world upside down in a generation!

Christianity has not survived for 2000 years because of the greatness of Believers, but because of the faithfulness of God. Are you feeling inadequate for the calling of God in your life today? Have you failed Him in some way? Are you discouraged? Remember, even a pickle glows when it’s plugged into a current. Tell the Lord that you’re desperate for Him, that you are totally dependent on His power and see what He will do with you.

Here’s a word from the Word to keep in your mind today:
"Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!
He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
Glory to God in the church!
Glory to God in the Messiah, in Jesus!
Glory down all the generations!
Glory through all millennia! Oh, yes! " (Ephesians 3:19-21, The Message)

“I have done my best!”

For several days the news media has blasted the President and the Federal Emergency Management Administration for their failure in the relief efforts that followed Hurricane Katrina. What exactly does ‘success’ look like when an evacuation of an entire city is the goal? If 10,000 people died, in a city with a population of 1.5 million, is that a ‘failure’ or is that a ‘success’ since it means that more than 99% of the population survived a catastrophic natural disaster – well, actually two disasters; first, the hurricane, then the floods that followed? The answer depends on who you are. If you’re a FEMA manager who has worked 18-20 hours a day on bringing relief to a dying city, you will point to those who survived as proof that your efforts succeeded. If your son or daughter perished in flood waters for lack of rescue, you will conclude that the efforts failed. Ultimately, only God and the person who did his job know if what he did was accomplished to the best of his ability!

Every one of us is judged a success or failure by others, aren’t we? We recoil from the sting of criticism and embrace the soothing of affirming words, but does either really make us a success or a failure? We must always remember that a large part of the response of another person to us personally and to what we do is biased by his own needs and desires. So, if we base our sense of success and/or our sense of personal worth solely on the evaluations of other people, we set ourselves up to be pulled this way and that in desperate attempts to gain approval. No one will satisfy all the people all of the time. Trying to win the praise of all people is a prescription for frustration and fatigue!

True success is knowing that we did the best we could do given our opportunities and the resources available to us. As Believers we need to be challenged and comforted by the promise of God’s judgment of our lives. When He asks us to give account, it won’t be statistics that prove if our lives were worthy. It will be faithfulness! We won’t be able to polish the report to reflect our efforts in their best light. He will see our lives as a complete picture for He knows the gifts He invested in us, the people He brought to serve with us, the opportunities He presented to us. He will know the difficulties we wrestled to overcome, the challenges we worked to overcome, and the times when we decided to slack off and let ourselves be content with ‘good enough.’ He will know when we served because we loved and when we served because we wanted applause! I want to live in a way that gains the sweetest words I’ll ever hear – “Well done, good and faithful servant!” How about you, friend?

Samuel, the prophet, went in search of a king for Israel. He met Eliab, the eldest son of Jesse, who had learned to carry himself with authority and was impressive. He thought, “Surely this is the Lord’s anointed!” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do! People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.” (1 Samuel 16:6-7, NLT)

If we keep our accountability to God in mind, we will live freely and much more joyously. Rather than looking at our awards and accomplishments for significance, we will let His Presence and the sense of His approval satisfy our need. Knowing that we are loved by the Lord Jesus and that we have done what He asked of us will be success enough.

When Jesus first commissioned His followers to go out and do the work of the Kingdom, they met with earthly success. They came back to report their accomplishments to Him. His response is eye-opening! Meditate on His words. Take this thought with you through the day.

· "See what I’ve given you? Safe passage as you walk on snakes and scorpions, and protection from every assault of the Enemy. No one can put a hand on you. All the same, the great triumph is not in your authority over evil, but in God’s authority over you and presence with you. Not what you do for God but what God does for you—that’s the agenda for rejoicing.”(Luke 10:19-20, The Message)
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If the struggle you're facing is slowly replacing
Your hope with despair;
Or the process is long and you're losing your song in the night.
You can be sure that the Lord has His hand on you,
Safe and secure; He will never abandon you.
You are His treasure and He finds His pleasure in you.

He who began a good work in you.
He who began a good work in you, will be faithful to complete it.
He'll be faithful to complete it,
He who started the work will be faithful to complete it in you.

© 1987 Jonathan Mark Music ARR UBP of Gaither Copyright Management / Birdwing Music (a div. of EMI Christian Music Publishing) CCLI License No. 810055

Just being there…

I’m often asked, “When I am called on to comfort a friend who is going through a time of great loss, what should I say, Pastor?” My first counsel is ‘just be there.’ A young man died and his family called me to their home even before his body was taken away. When I arrived, I found the man’s father kneeling by his body silently crying. At that moment, he didn’t need me to quote Bible verses or attempt to mitigate his grief with poetry, so I stood there next to him with a hand on his shoulder for a long time. That is called the ministry of ‘presence.’ It is a way to say, “I will steady you; you’re not alone,” without being intrusive with an overflow of words that can be offensive or irritating to the one who is grieving or suffering. There is a time for wise counsel or comforting words, but without a context of genuine caring words do not mean all that much.

Job, the man who terrible suffering forms the context for a long discussion about the meaning of pain and suffering and God’s sometimes inscrutable purposes, had friends who came to be with him in his trial. We read that "When they saw him from a distance, they could hardly recognize him; they began to weep aloud, and they tore their robes and sprinkled dust on their heads. Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and seven nights. No one said a word to him, because they saw how great his suffering was." (Job 2:12-13, NIV)

God, the Holy Spirit, comforts us in the same way. Jesus said that when He returned to the Father’s glory, He would send the “Counselor” who would be with us, indeed, in us. “You will not be left as orphans,” the Lord promised. The Spirit is with us. The question is, ‘are we with Him?’ Yes, it is true that we cannot escape His presence, for He is omnipresent. The Psalmist exults in this singing: "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast." (Psalm 139:7-10, NIV) However, we can become so enmeshed in life, that we are unaware of His ministering Presence! We can bring ungodliness into our lives that grieve Him and break the closeness with Him. In those times, even though He is as close as our breath, we do not enjoy the steadying sense that God is near.

As our nation suffers, I plead with Believers to practice the ministry of Presence! Hold back the expression of opinions about why this has happened. We don’t know! Refrain from using easy clichés that dismiss the depth of pain that is being felt by hundreds of thousands of suffering people. Instead, be present with loving assurance. A simple, “I’m praying for you,” that comes from the heart is the best expression of caring while many are so raw, so sensitive in their pain. The time for evaluation, for counsel, will come.

For now – let’s be present, and as God, the Spirit, is present in us, His work will be done.

Jerry Scott
www.WashingtonAG.net
"Teaching People how to say "Yes" to God!"