A Spirit thing

Anthony spills over with enthusiasm every time we talk. Not so long ago, he was a typical American man; focused on making money, getting the cute girl, and driving his Hummer to impress. But it wasn't returning the happiness he wanted. He was like a man with a thirst who couldn't find water! Then a woman who was suffering took note of his spiritual need, caught his attention, and simply told him to start praying. Jesus met him and the Spirit started to work in his life. Over a period of about six months everyone around him noticed a profound transformation taking place, a sense of serenity, a love for others, a hunger for God. Anthony is not quite a saint yet. By his own admission, he is a work in progress. The part of his story that captivates me is that he did not start down this path by learning 16 fundamental truths of a church or by joining a class that taught him Christian doctrines. He pursued a relationship with God, met Jesus, and is being changed by the Spirit.

Do we too often try to make converts by convincing others of our 'truth,' instead of introducing others to Jesus? Yes, let it be known that sound doctrine is important. Anthony realized that a few months into his journey and started searching for a church where he could be taught about serving the God he already had come to love so deeply! That's how I met him when he started to attend the church with his girlfriend.

Friend, do you love Jesus or do you 'love' an idea?
Is your faith a true walk with God or is agreement with a set of truths and a set of behavioral values?

In the average American church this Sunday a 'worshipper' will encounter little in the way of the 'mystery of faith!' The wonder of knowing God has been screened out, replaced with rational, reasonable, and practical programs and talks designed to help people cope with life. Spirituality, as presented by most of our churches, is fixed around being morally upright citizens, respectable people who make token references to a Jesus that lives only in an ancient Book and/or in the pictures on the Sunday School walls. Instead of embracing the pain, the struggles, the doubts that make us desperate to know God, we carefully air brush those things out of our church lexicon and work out neat explanations for life which we ardently believe - until they don't work anymore - and then we become churched agnostics. Genuine spirituality is messy, mysterious, and uncontrollable and that's simply too risky to encourage!

The true Christian life is a Spirit thing!
Jesus described the work of the Spirit to a man hungry to know God this way; "Unless a person is born from above, it’s not possible to see what I’m pointing to—to God’s kingdom." . . .
Unless a person submits to this original creation—the ‘wind-hovering-over-the-water’ creation, the invisible moving the visible, a baptism into a new life—it’s not possible to enter God’s kingdom. . . . the person who takes shape within is formed by something you can’t see and touch—the Spirit—and becomes a living spirit. . . .
You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it’s headed next. That’s the way it is with everyone ‘born from above’ by the wind of God, the Spirit of God." (John 3:3-9, The Message)

A couple of decades later, when there were Believers all over the Roman empire, men and women whose lives were wondrously changed by the Spirit, along came religious teachers who tried to kill the mystery and substitute their systems and rules. Amazingly, those who truly knew God, the Holy Spirit, often were deceived by the religious tone and seemingly rational presentations. This led Paul, the messenger of the Spirit, to something like rage! To one group of Believers who had traded their relationship with God for a religion he wrote --
"You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.
Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.
If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!" (Galatians 3:1-4, The Message)

It's a Spirit thing. Our faith is first relational, then propositional; knowing Jesus by the Spirit, and then learning the foundational Truths about life from Him.

A Beloved son

One of the demons that I deal with on a regular basis is one that tries to make me feel worthless! My life is filled with good things. I work diligently at my call. I enjoy wonderful friendships and opportunities. Yet, I still often feel like junk! The thought process goes like this: "Pastor Smith's church is really growing and people in his congregation are excited about serving the Lord. If you were a better pastor, the Assembly would be like his church." Or, "If you had real self-discipline you would lose weight, but you're too lazy to do it." Or, "Did you notice that Sam didn't talk to you today? He doesn't like you because he thinks you're stupid." Or, "It's all your fault!" IF I listen to those suggestions, my day goes sour very quickly and I really do become a miserable man. So, where do those things come from? Is it some broken part of my psyche or is it a messenger of the Evil One? I am not sure, but this I know - it is not the Spirit of God!

God tells me that I am a person of incredible worth, a beloved son, for whom He gave His Son. The intimate love with which God sees me is spoken of with a curious little phrase in the Old Testament. Numerous times God refers to those He loves as 'the apple of my eye.' Whatever does He mean? That expression, “apple of your eye,” in the Hebrew text is literally “little man of your eye” and refers to one’s reflection in the eye of another. It refers, then, to constant attentiveness and care. (New Geneva study Bible. 1997, Nashville: Thomas Nelson) God gazes at me and I am so close to Him that I become the little man reflected on the pupil of His eye!

In another passage, the Lord speaks of His love for us, with a very romantic turn of words.
"No more will anyone call you Rejected, and your country will no more be called Ruined. You’ll be called Hephzibah (My Delight), and your land Beulah (Married), Because God delights in you and your land will be like a wedding celebration. For as a young man marries his virgin bride, so your builder marries you, And as a bridegroom is happy in his bride, so your God is happy with you." (Isaiah 62:4-5, The Message) God loves me like a groom loves his bride!

When I listen to that Truth, the feelings of worthlessness give way to joyfulness. My heart sings, "I am loved!" Nothing in the world makes a person feel better than being loved. Poets have written countless words to celebrate love. Songs are sung about being in love! Granted, most of those words are about human love, about romantic attraction, or about sexual stirrings of desire. God's love is even better - of selfless quality, of great depth, and extended even when the one loved is still resisting His love.

Are you tempted to feel worthless, Believer?
Do you compare your situation with that of another and conclude that you are junk? Are you listening to the hiss of the father of lies?

Meditate on the word of the True Father, who is gazing on you with deep love - holding your reflection in His eye! When you believe that He loves you, you will be freed to love those around you, with an extravagant love that does not calculate, manipulate, or even seek reciprocal love.

Here's the Word to take with you today...."God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other." (1 John 4:9-11, NLT)
__________________

Lord, I come to You,
Let my heart be changed, renewed;
Flowing from the grace
That I've found in You;
And Lord, I've come to know,
The weaknesses I see in me,
Will be stripped away
By the pow'r of Your love.

Lord, unveil my eyes,
Let me see You face to face,
The knowledge of Your love
As You live in me.
Lord, renew my mind,
As Your will unfolds in my life,
In living ev'ry day
In the pow'r of Your love.

Hold me close,
Let Your love surround me;
Bring me near,
Draw me to Your side;
And as I wait,
I'll rise up like the eagle,
And I will soar with You,
Your Spirit leads me on
In the pow'r of Your love.

Power of Your Love,
Geofff Bullock© 1992 Word Music, Inc.
(Admin. by Word Music Group, Inc.) / Maranatha! Music (Admin. by Word Music Group, Inc.)
CCLI License No. 810055

Greater than you

Nehemiah listened to the men tell about what they saw on their long trip to Jerusalem, or what remained of the city. He remembered the stories his mother told of the splendor of God's Temple, of the shining city on the hill, which was called God's own city! Now he heard of broken down walls, ruins where the temple had once stood in honor of God, and something deep inside of him stirred. The Bible says, "When I heard these things, I sat down and wept." We know something else happened, too. Nehemiah was seized with a vision to rebuild Jerusalem. A man living in a foreign capital that was more than a month's long travel from Jerusalem 'saw' a new city arising from the ruins. The rest of his life was consumed with making it happen. That's what we call - vision!

We all get excited about a dream, don't we? But we need to remember that dreams are usually, born out of great need and/or deep sorrow. Neither need nor sorrow are things we willingly experience. But, if we will not feel or see the pain that is around us, or even allow ourselves to experience our own sorrow, it is not likely we will dream large. Left to ourselves we will choose the safest route, the way that is well traveled, and take it! We need to be disturbed. In the upheaval, God finds an opening to plant the seed of a dream in us. A growing vision pulls us off the road into the pits of life. Vision makes us dangerous! And, vision is very costly. Nehemiah's good life in the palace of King Artaxerxes was over the moment he started to dream about Jerusalem. He left a safe city to journey in the places where bandits roved, to work harder than he had ever worked before in his life. He exchanged good for great!

Are you in a situation that causes you great pain? Or is there some circumstance that you see, day after day, that breaks your heart?

Consider that from that very soil God may be wanting to grow a vision for transformation in you!

Joni Eareckson Tada was an athletic young women who dove into the Chesapeake Bay and broke her neck. She survived, but without use of her body due to paralysis! Surrounded by other people in similar circumstances, she hated what she had become and wished for death. But then God broke through and gave her a vision. She went on to become the founder of a national ministry of encouragement, has spoken to hundreds of thousands of people over the last 30 years, and written about knowing God's hope in the middle of devastation!

Don't be one of those people who focuses his dreams on Self: who looks for a way to escape 'real life' with some quick fix, instant access to money, a new lover, or something equally selfish! That is not at all what God wants for you. Instead, take the situations of your life - good and bad, desirable and not so wonderful, 'hopeless' and promising - and lay them out before God. With faith like that of a little child simply ask Him - "Lord, what can you do with all of this?" Declare Christ the Lord of all and start to serve Him, right where you are, doing the things you know are right. Love, serve, worship, give, pray, love more... and allow God to lead you into His purposes. If you're looking for easy, don't even start! Easy is not what God is about. Leave that to Staples!

Take to heart the words that Paul gave to his spiritual son, Timothy- "...fan into flames the spiritual gift God gave you ... For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:6-7, NLT) And expect Him to fulfill this promise: "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." (Ephesians 3:19-20, The Message)

Got problems? Start looking for that emerging vision that God can give, to make a change - first in you, then in your world!
_________________

Fill all my vision, Savior I pray.
Let me see only Jesus today,
Though thro' the valley
Thou leadest me,
Give me Thy glory and beauty to see.

Fill all my vision, Savior divine.
'Til with Thy glory, my Spirit shall shine.
Fill all my vision that all may see,
Thy holy image reflected in me.

Fill all my vision,
Every desire keep for Thy glory.
My soul inspire with Thy perfection,
Thy holy love flooding my pathway

Fill All My Vision
© 1940 John T. Benson Publishing Company (Admin. by Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, Inc., 741 Coolsprings Blvd., Franklin TN 37067) CCLI License No. 810055

A Dream Realized!

Wow! At the end of the Lord's Day last night, walking across the church's parking lot, I raised my hands and my voice in praise. "God, You have blessed me beyond measure, poured good things in great abundance into my life, given me a place to serve You that is wonderful! Thank you!" It was, as you might conclude, the conclusion of a good day! We enjoyed good times of worship, shared in Communion, and dedicated the new cafe area last night. That last item is one reason I was praising Him. It isn't really a big deal, but it was another God-given dreams realized. I wanted to create a place in our church building that would be inviting, where people could sit and talk, strengthening our sense of community. And after a couple of years, or more, the "We Believe Cafe" is finished.

If you're a faithful reader, you know that I am long on duty, that I believe in pressing on, being faithful even when the going gets tough; but I am also dreamer. No, I do not waste time on the fantastic escapist dreams that some develop to avoid dealing with the gritty stuff of everyday life. God has set vision in me that I cannot push aside. He causes me to hope for changed lives, to see things that do not exist yet, and to work to bring them to reality. Many things conspire to keep those God-given dreams from being born - focus on my own resources instead of God's promises, fatigue when others just 'don't get it,' physical weaknesses, people who say 'it can't be done,' and spiritual forces that are always working against God and good! And yet, in the course of life, as I remain faithful to Him, He has allowed me to birth so many of my dreams; and for that I praise Him.

Do you dream? Do you know that God dreams great and glorious plans for you, dreams that He wants to pour into your life? In Ephesians 1, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exults: "God thought of everything, provided for everything we could possibly need, letting us in on the plans he took such delight in making. He set it all out before us in Christ, ... It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, He had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone." (The Message)

Hebrews says that through Christ, it is God's plan to "bring many sons to glory!" His plan includes a mature faith, deep devotion, developed spiritual gifts, and a fruitful life. It is a unique plan that uses your personality, your experiences, your situations along with the resources of Heaven to create a life that glorifies the Lord! And, His vision for you culminates with your reception into the Father's house, where you will spend eternity enjoying His Presence and love.

In your times of prayer and meditation, invite the Lord to inspire (the word literally means 'breathe into') you with new vision! Pray that He will allow you to dream. People of the Spirit need two sets of eyes: one they are born with that sees the world as it is and another that are God-given that lets them see the world as God wants it to be! That, Believer, is vision! The prophet Joel spoke of the Lord's work in our lives with these wonderful words of promise. "I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters. Your old men will dream, your young men will see visions. I’ll even pour out my Spirit on the servants, men and women both." (Joel 2:28-29, The Message)

Years ago, when my children were teenagers resisting the direction I was giving them, I would try to instill a vision in them of the kind of person I was trying to help them to become. They didn't always 'get it.' My hope was that by helping them to see past the moment, they would be motivated to choose to engage with life instead of just drifting with the crowd, that they would choose to resist the temptation to live in sloth and self-indulgence and work toward building a life that glorified God. Inspiring vision was a part of my godly duty as their father. Our Father in Heaven asks us to look higher, too. If we can catch glimpses of the glory He's planned for us, we will more readily say "yes, Lord" to the rigorous discipline that brings us to share in His purposes. Living to our full potential, becoming a child of glory, is not inevitable! 'But,' you say, 'it is the plan of God!' That is true, but He allows us the freedom to choose to embrace that plan.

Today, ask God to help you understand His purposes. Let Him paint a picture of the glory He's planned for you. It will not likely be the 'glory' that an earth-focused life envisions - great wealth, fame, celebrity. It will the glory of a well-developed character like that of Christ. It will be the glory of a worthy life that honors Him, that is filled with the mature fruit of the Spirit including love, joy, and peace in abundance. Then, "God will rejoice over you!" And, you too will know greater joy as He takes the situations and circumstances of life where you are, and shows you how to make those things into something of worth and value - living the dream!
_________________

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
All else be naught to me, Save that Thou art.
Be my best thought Both by day and by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my breastplate,my sword for the fight;
Be my whole armor, My source of true might;
Be my soul's shelter And be my strong tower;
Heavenward raise me, O God of all power!

High King of heaven, And heaven's bright Sun,
Grant me its joys When my journey is done;
Heart of my heart, Lord, Whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O Ruler of all.

Be Thou My Vision© 1964, 1994 Selah Publishing Company, Inc. / Abingdon Press
CCLI License No. 810055