The Swindler

A swindler is a person who cheats another out of money or property with fraudulent claims. Just about everyday, someone attempts to swindle me. Email arrives from a grieving widow whose late husband accumulated $millions which she now wants to give to the Lord's work. All I have to do is send her my bank account information and she will deposit the funds in my account immediately, before she dies of her own grave illness. Right, and the moon is made of green cheese, too! Can you believe that people fall for those emails? I cannot, but the fact is that there are $millions lost to these swindles every year in America and here's why: greed! The 'promise' of a windfall sounds so good to somebody desperate to make a change in life that they set aside caution and ignore conventional wisdom.

There is another swindle that starts in the Garden of Eden and continues to this day. Paul writes about it in his letter to the Romans.
"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. . . . .
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. . . .
They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen." (Romans 1:18-25, NIV)

Are you in danger of a swindle, friend?
Are you ready to trade away a rich relationship with the eternal God for a god like status, happiness, or pleasure?
Are you feeling so desperate that you are considering giving up your pursuit of the Holy One for the love of something or someone else? Don't say it cannot happen to you! If we linger long enough near temptation, gazing at the trinkets offered by the Swindler, they start to look like things of great value which we crave to own. Cheap pornography takes the place of real relationship. Pleasure from a glass of wine or a pill replaces genuine joy. The security of knowing God and being known by Him is set aside for the 'security' of wealth, which is no security at all.

So, how do we avoid the swindle? Two choices must be made daily.
First, glorify God. What does that mean? Worship Him. Acknowledge His supremacy. Make His Name great.
Second, give thanks. Thankfulness reinforces contentment. A contented person knows an inner peace that keeps the lies of the swindler from taking hold.

The Israelites were miraculously brought out of slavery in Egypt. They enjoyed the constant Presence of God in the cloud and fire and were fed by His hand each day. But, they complained against Him, fought with those God appointed to lead them, and resisted His will. And, they exchanged God's glory for a gleaming golden calf! That generation of people died in the desert blocked from the Promised Land by their faithlessness to the God who had called them. Alluding to their experience, Paul urges disciples to stay faithful.

Take this word from the Word to heart today.
"Don’t be so naive and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else.
Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.

So, my very dear friends, when you see people reducing God to something they can use or control, get out of their company as fast as you can." (1 Corinthians 10:12-14, The Message)
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Be in worship on the Lord's Day!
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Wow'em II

Applause is as addictive as any drug. Ask any ageing performer or politician. Long after prudence and any semblance of pride would dictate that it was time to get off the stage, they are still appearing, in smaller and smaller venues, craving the rush that comes when the audience responds with a standing ovation. That part of human nature lurks in the shadows to twist the Believer's desire to let the beauty of Jesus shine through him into a pathetic religious performance. The goal of that performance is approval and applause. If you think I'm off base here, consider these words from Jesus Himself.

"Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding. "When you do something for someone else, don’t call attention to yourself. You’ve seen them in action, I’m sure—‘playactors’ I call them—treating prayer meeting and street corner alike as a stage, acting compassionate as long as someone is watching, playing to the crowds. They get applause, true, but that’s all they get.

When you help someone out, don’t think about how it looks. Just do it—quietly and unobtrusively. That is the way your God, who conceived you in love, working behind the scenes, helps you out.

"And when you come before God, don’t turn that into a theatrical production either. All these people making a regular show out of their prayers, hoping for stardom! Do you think God sits in a box seat?

"Here’s what I want you to do: Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God. Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace." (Matthew 6:1-6, The Message)

You're not exempt from pride, nor am I! I confess that more than once when at neat turn of phrase emerges in something I am writing, the thought occurs to me: "Now, that should get somebody's attention!" Isn't that ugly? I am not above the temptation to evaluate a sermon's 'success' more by the remarks of those in the congregation than its fidelity to the Word of God! Ugh! With Paul, I say, "What a wretched man I am. Who will deliver me?" When we take the stage of life as "Good Christian actors," the beauty of Jesus disappears; the blessing of the Spirit evaporates; any glory to Heaven lost.

So the Lord tells us to make certain to include large chunks of secret service, extended time of quiet seclusion, and much solitary prayer in our lives. There, in the secret place, where the only audience is the One, our true self is revealed and, praise God, the Spirit changes us - from glory to glory! Remember, who you are in secret will most surely make its way into the light, sooner or later. Jesus tells us that "out of the heart the mouth speaks." Let's use that principle for good, learning the disciplines of discipleship, cultivating a deep relationship with God where others cannot intrude, where temptation to dance for the crowd cannot reach us. Then, when we emerge to public service and ministry, we will wow'em with the beauty of the Lord, but we won't notice or care if they notice because the incredible joy of receiving His approval will eclipse any need we might feel for men's applause.

Here's a word from the Word. May the Truth inspire you today.
"Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.'" (John 7:37-38, NIV)

Lord, flow from us. Make Your beauty known through our words and actions. May we never try to be what we are not and may we always be authentic so that - come rain, come storm - You will be seen in us. Amen.
_____________________

I'm calling out to You:
"There must something more,
Some deeper place to find,
Some secret place to hide,
Where I've not gone before.

Where my soul is satisfied
and my sin is put to death,
and I can hear Your voice
and Your purpose is my choice,
as natural as a breath.

The Love I knew before
when You first touched my life,
I need You to restore,
I want You to revive!

Could You place in my heart
a passion for Jesus;
A hunger that seizes
my passion for You?
My one desire,
my greatest possession,
My only confession,
my passion for You."

Passion For Jesus
Brian Houston
CCLI License No. 810055
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Wow'em!

Beauty abounds in God's Creation. From the colors splashed on the sky, to the span of the view from a mountain peak, to the mesmerizing song of a waterfall, to the engineering of the crystals of a snowflake, to the stupendous variety in aquatic life... the list of places to be awed in Creation is long. God loves beauty; not the plastic perfection we are trained to admire, but the truly awesome of grand design. Those who love and serve His purposes in this world are commissioned 'make all things bright and beautiful!'

In the 5th chapter of Ephesians there is an extended passage that compares two ways to live- one ugly, the other, beautiful; one the result of sin, the other the work of God. The opening lines are our commission. "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love." Imitators of God! Co-creators of beauty, beginning with our own hearts. The passage calls us to set aside immorality, impurity, and greed. "Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them." The Spirit urges us to reject the emptiness of drunkenness that deceives us to think of the coarse, the base, and the ugly as beautiful! "Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." Take a look at the aim of the Lord in loving us! "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless." (Ephesians 5, NIV)

• Are you bringing out the beauty in life by using your creative gifts, by loving deeply, by being the one-of-a-kind person God asks you to be?
  
• Are you letting the Spirit transform you from 'glory to glory?'

Let me encourage you today to let the beauty of Jesus Christ shine through. Just as a true work of art creates a 'wow' factor in those who take it in, pray that God will make your life a work of divine art. Then, others will know what an awesome Designer you serve, for the praise of His glory.

Here's a word from the Word for your meditation. "By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires." (2 Peter 1:3-4, NLT)
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He gave me beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise
For the spirit of heaviness,
That we might be trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord,
That He might be glorified.

Beauty For Ashes
Manzano, Robert
© 1976, 1979, 1983 Maranatha! Music (Admin. by The Copyright Company)
CCLI License No. 810055

Beware of dogs!

Leonard Sweet, in his book The Gospel According to Starbucks (Waterbrook Press, 2007), asks - "Is God a reality to be experienced or a belief to be remembered?" He goes on to point out that the Bible is less a book about how people thought about God than it is a book about how people experienced God. It is not my intent to set doctrine and experience against each other as though one or the other is unimportant. However, we must not allow ourselves to fall into the error of making Christianity a creed only, just a set of rules and/or statements to be memorized. Christ Jesus is not just to be described, He is to be known- experienced as a real Person!

Paul warned that "the Letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." His reference was to the practice of those who took the First Covenant and substituted its rules for the living Experience of the Holy One made possible in Christ Jesus. The glory of Christianity is that God has given His Holy Spirit to live in us, allowing us to know Jesus Christ.
He writes, "Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me." (Philippians 3:1-12, NLT)

Paul's astonishing claim is that he was a master of doctrine. He even had applied the doctrines nearly flawlessly to his own life and yet he did not know God! Then, he met Christ, through faith, and came to experience the life offered to him by the Spirit. He was writing to the church in Philippi to warn them about certain teachers who wanted to turn the experience of knowing Christ into a set of rules for behavior, substituting puny attempts at self-righteousness with the authentic relationship with the Lord that came through Christ, by faith. With high scorn he says, "Watch out for those dogs!"

Sweet observes that "Authentic Christian experience is not playing praise music on your car radio or placing your body in a pew to listen to a sermon. Authentic Christian experience is the process... of growing into Christ. The world is not impressed that people attend church on Sunday mornings. If anything, such a habit is viewed as a quaint waste of time. But, imagine if every Christian in the world were living as a little Christ." A passionate, transforming experience of the living Christ tantalizes those who live around a living disciple, drawing them towards Christ, causing them to desire to share that experience. Who wants more rules for living? Who wants a holy nag adding to their sense of failure, heaping guilt upon guilt? Few, if any, seek more religion. But, we all crave an experience that gives Life!

Believer, do you simply know about Christ, or do you know Him?
Those who know Him, experience the renewal of the Spirit and are 'becomers' exchanging death for life, filled with the evidence of the Spirit's life. Here's a familiar passage about the fruit of the Spirit, paraphrased in The Message. As you read it, believe.

"But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.

Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives." (Galatians 5:22-25, The Message)