Be the salt, what's that mean?

Be the salt

A frequent phrase in my prayer, both public and private, is “Lord, by your Spirit working in me, help me to have a measurable influence on those with whom I work today.”  I see that as a response to Jesus’ words in which He asks us to be the ‘salt of the earth,’ and the ‘light of the world.’  Both require getting involved, speaking up, using our head and hands to serve others.  Sometimes that is accomplished with just a bit of concern.  I took note of the weary face of the woman who took the payment for my coffee and asked her if she was OK.  A hesitant smile crossed her face and she told me that life was tough for her right now. Life-changing? Probably not, but an influence. I spent a few moments on the phone with an elderly woman, listening to her complaints, then gently turned her thoughts to God’s love.  That’s a way to shed a little light into her world.

Being an introvert, my natural inclination is to keep to myself, to stay ignorant of need, suffering, and sin around me; but my Lord demands that I care. Speaking out, extending a hand, urging change can be costly.  If I am pro-active, others will often be reactive!  Jesus, who was Love Incarnate, provoked reactions ranging from adoration of a woman who washed His feet with her tears to hatred of Pharisees who plotted His death. Salt brings out the flavor of the soup and it stings when used to cleanse a wound. Light shows the way through the dark and it reveals hidden sins.  Some Christians mistakenly believe that being inoffensive is a primary aim of living in this world. I understand why. There are those confused saints who go out of their way to be offensive, who only feel their faith is valid if they have managed to make the world around them angry with their insensitive, rude applications of what they believe is Truth.

The Bible urges us to ‘speak the Truth in love.’  The result is that we grow up in Christ. While I have no appetite for confrontation, I know it is part of the calling of being committed to the life of the Spirit. It is so very important for us to speak from a solid foundation of integrity. If we don’t live what we say, we’re easy targets for ridicule, like "clouds without rain, … autumn trees without fruit." (Jude 12, NIV)  When we are open to the Spirit, quickly repentant when we fail, and ready to deal with life as we find it – we can be amazingly effective transformational agents in the world. 

So, are you having a measurable influence on your world?
When you’re around do people feel the love, see the light, and react?

Some will love you, some will hate you. That’s as it will be. Jesus was clear about this. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." (John 15:18, NIV)

Here’s a word from the Word.  Go make a difference as you obey His call!   Jesus says, “Let me tell you why you are here. You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You’ve lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand." (Matthew 5:13-15, The Message)

Taking responsibility

Stephen Covey (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) tells the story of a student who told him, “I cannot come to class tomorrow. I have to go to tennis.”  Covey clarified, “You have to go to tennis?”  The student insisted that he did but after much probing came around to realizing he was choosing to go to tennis to avoid the consequence of being put off of the team.  The young grasped that he could go to class or he could go to tennis. The choice was his and he alone would bear the consequence. Once he accepted responsibility to make the choice, Covey told him, with a wink, “I’d go to tennis, too.” 

Are you willing to take responsibility for the choices you make?

A basic building block of success in life; emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually, is taking charge of your life. Are you in the habit of excusing the circumstances in which you find yourself while pointing to your spouse, your parents, your boss?  Playing the victim and waiting to be rescued are a recipe for failure.  We all have all the excuses we need to remain as we are. We can find a hundred reasons to avoid stepping up to make a change. Why? Because accepting responsibility for ourselves is hard. 

I can hear your objections. 

·         “Jerry, my parents were absent and I have terrible emotional scars.”  That may be true enough, but how long will you blame your choices on their failure?

·         “I lost my job in a cut-back and it devastated my financial situation.”  That happened to many people.  So, are you going to go on trying to hang onto the life you had, or are you going to realize that change has come and you’re the one in the driver’s seat to create that new future? 

·         “My spouse of 25 years walked out and left me a mess.”  That’s incredibly sad. Now you have a choice to use their sin against you as a reason to quit on life, or you can redefine life and find a future that does not include him. 

We cannot control the wind and weather. We will go through things we would not choose for ourselves. People and circumstances will, from time to time, become terribly tumultuous. There is but one God and neither I nor you are Him!  And yet … we have been given the power to choose our response.

In August, 2010, my mother’s physician told her in stark terms, “you have an advanced form of lung cancer.”  Her response inspires me to this day.  She crumpled into tears, sobbed as the reality sank in, then she went home and sought the Lord in prayer. She actively prayed for healing, asked for His guidance about treatment, and continued to live her life around a new reality. In 16 months that she lived after that diagnosis, she seldom, if never, complained; never played the victim, and choose to trust God – come what may.  As the disease advanced, she adjusted to the course, taking responsibility for each new day.  She, by the way, did not attempt to navigate those waters alone. She took responsibility to build a team of support for herself and her family.

The foundational choice that faces us each day of our lives is this:  will I accept the grace of God, given through Christ Jesus, and make Him Lord of this moment?  That very first sin involved a choice to listen to a lie and was followed by an excuse to avoid responsibility.  Let’s break the pattern! 

Here’s the word from the Word - "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39, NIV)

It's not your IQ, it is your SQ.

It’s not your IQ; it is your SQ.

SQ is not something I made up. Spiritual quotient is a way to talk about awareness of the needs of others, about compassion, about our responsiveness to God. IQ, a way of measuring a person’s ability to reason, to solve problems, and to learn began to be studied in earnest about a century ago.  Educators use IQ measures, among other indicators, to provide the best kind of learning environment for students of varying abilities.  While some make much of innate intelligence as a predictor of success, SQ is what we really need to understand.  A person high on the IQ scale, but low in SQ, may well be smart, but is he wise?

The Bible says "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge." (Proverbs 1:7, NIV) “The LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones." (Proverbs 2:5-8, NIV)  IQ may be largely fixed by our heritage, early development, and/or nutrition. SQ is a gift of God that each of us can enjoy if we are willing to let Him work in us!

The beginning point is, in Jesus’ words, “new birth.”  We are incapable of responding to God apart from the Spirit giving us life.   In faith we "accepted him,” and “He gave the right to become children of God." (John 1:12, NLT)  But, the work of developing a high SQ, only begins at the Cross of Christ Jesus.  Just as a child must be educated to develop his innate intelligence, we must be discipled to grow in grace, to become people of the Spirit.  This is not about learning to be religious.  A smart person can argue fine points of dogma.  Only those who are filled with the Spirit can be wise in the ways of God. So a high SQ is developed in those who look higher, who let God teach them to love, who practice the disciplines of the Spirit that open their minds and hearts to be receptive to spiritual truth.

Are you content simply to take care of your daily needs, to find food, to build a store of financial resources, to build a few supportive relationships that allow you to live in relative comfort? That is the focus of IQ and those who live with that focus are natural creatures.  God whispers to us, “you were made for more than this.”  He offers to love us, lead us, and allow us to share His life.  When we respond with faith, when we open up to Christ, the Spirit comes and in Him we find SQ!  

Here’s a word from the Word.  As you read it, ask yourself about your SQ – spiritual quotient. "The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ." (1 Corinthians 2:14-16, NIV)

Abba, I am grateful for your gift of love.

Develop the fruit of Your Spirit life in me.

Lead me through the exercises of Your holy classroom

To develop love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,
goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control –

So that others will know that You are my Father,

And so that I will enrich those among whom I live.

Christ Jesus, be Lord of my mind and my heart!

Amen

What does the Spirit say to you?

What does the Spirit say to you?

Does everything you know about Christ and the Christian life come from your pastor, your favorite Christian author, your small group leader?  Teachers are important! The counsel of our Christian community is of great worth, but we are people of the Spirit who have the privilege of knowing the Lord’s voice.  While talking with a couple about a major decision they faced, I counseled them to ask the Lord for His guidance, not a general way, but specifically. The way forward for them is not simple, yet God has a way.  He knows which choices will let the radiance of His joy shine most brightly through them.  Will it be easily discerned? Perhaps not. Will it be the path of least resistance? Literally, only God knows. He will lead if they will listen, for they are His children.  His will discovered is always “good, pleasing, and perfect.”  (Romans 12:2)

Read this promise with faith and with an open mind. "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God." (Romans 8:11-14, NIV)  Jesus calls the Spirit our “Counselor.”  (John 14:26) The word in the original text, “parakletos” was one used to describe a person on whom you called with things went wrong or when you had a big choice to make – an advisor, a best friend, a spokesperson.  Those who come to Christ in faith receive the Spirit who lives in us and gain the privilege of walking in the wisdom of their Heavenly Abba!

It is probably the most neglected privilege of the Christian life. Many Christians in America are virtually deaf to the voice of the Spirit.  Some fear becoming a ‘charis-maniac.’ They refuse to be one of those people who claim to be led of God’s Spirit who make subjective, emotion-laden, even silly, choices.  “God told me” is a much-abused phrase in some corners of the Church. Others are captivated by the rational world-view in which we are all trained. They live by their own wisdom alone, discounting the realm of the supernatural.   As we read in the Word, if we are alive in Christ the Spirit lives in us and He is speaking, leading, guiding, teaching us all the time.  And many of us are deaf to the Lord’s leading because we just do not listen.  We pack our lives full of things from early in the morning until late in the evening.  Ringing phones, multiple responsibilities, and all kinds of distractions create so much clamor around us that the ‘still, small voice’ of Heaven is lost in the din!  We are so addicted to all of this, that we get anxious if we attempt to put it all away for a season of contemplative silence.

The Spirit will lead us and when He does, He will make us into gentle, loving, joyful people.  Being Spirit-led is not a hobby.  We cannot learn to know His voice in an hour on Sunday morning. This is a way of life, born in humility, fed by time in silence, alone with God. He will make you other-worldly.  He will likely even diminish your ability to know the kind of success that many value. Where He is leading, people will matter more than profit, mercy will triumph over justice, love will be the rule.

Take a lesson from little Samuel, when he was entering the service of God. As he lay alone on his bed, he heard a whisper but did not understand the origin of it. He ran to Eli, thinking it must be the old prophet calling him.  Eli knew it was the Spirit’s voice and sent the boy back to his bed with this counsel. “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place. The LORD came and stood there, calling as at the other times, “Samuel! Samuel!” Then Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:9-10, NIV)  That little boy became a leader in Israel, a man of powerful influence.

The open secret of Christians who influence their world is not personality nor intelligence.  It is knowing the voice of the Spirit and living by His word. Jesus’ promise is ours.  Will you learn to receive Him? "When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, NLT)

__________

Spirit Of God Descend Upon My Heart

Spirit of God descend upon my heart.

Wean it from earth, thro' all its pulses move.

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,

And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies;

No sudden rending of the veil of clay,

No angel visitant, no opening skies.

But take the dimness of my soul away.

Hast Thou not bid us love Thee, God and King;

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.

Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,

One holy passion filling all my frame.

The baptism of the heav'n descended Dove

My heart an altar and Thy love the flame.

Frederick Cook Atkinson | George Croly

Public Domain

Hard Preaching

Hard Preaching

Chris was only half-kidding when he said, “Pastor,  you were like Jonathan Edwards, dangling us over the pit of Hell.” The comment caused me to reflect on the sermon I had preached. I thought to myself,  “If only I could approach the preaching power of Edwards!” 

Yes, the text was hard to preach and hard to hear!  Based on the story of Achan, found in Joshua 7, whose disobedience to God’s directive cost Israel a victory and led to his death as well as the deaths of 36 soldiers, it brought a core lesson about the open consequence of secret sin. An individual who sins in secret brings harm to his community.  This is not an isolated idea in the Bible.  Many passages bring the same concept – that we are tied together, our blessings shared, our sins rippling out into family and congregation with often devastating results.  What a joy for me to bring the sermon home by going to the Cross, the place where my sins, your sins – our sins – are forgiven,  the curse lifted by the gracious gift of Christ Jesus.

Some preachers might enjoy making their congregations feel guilty. I am not one of them. The caricature of fundamentalist preacher, long on emotion and short on education, waving his hands, shouting about the wrath of God, his face reddened with exertion, is never far from my mind.  I realize there are little congregations scattered across the land who don’t feel they have been “in church” unless they hear a tirade from an angry man!  I am neither angry, nor in need of venting my frustration with this present world.  Never the less, there are times when hard preaching is required.

Jesus loved people intensely. His Presence was encouraging and people who were bruised and broken by life came looking for Him.  Can you find more inviting words than these? “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." (Matthew 11:28-29, NLT)  However, He was capable of taking the Truth to those who refused God. He spoke uncompromisingly to the Pharisees who trusted in their own goodness, challenging them to look inside, to see that polishing the outside of the cup was not enough! He told them that Hell awaited them unless they repented. Hard preaching, indeed.

At the end of his life, Paul wrote to Timothy and urged him to preach the whole truth even when the crowd turned away. He said, “the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." (2 Timothy 4:3-5, NIV) Are you capable of hearing the truth?  Can you move beyond the initial emotional responses to process the challenge, to invite the Spirit to do His work?

Truth, even the hard things, transforms us.  Jesus said that ‘knowing the truth will set you free.’  Here’s a word from the Word. Let it encourage you to live in the truth, even when it’s a hard one to face.  "This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:19-21, NIV)