Dumb Luck? Really?

I looked over the group in the room. There was a lot of pain there: poverty, addiction, multiple failed marriages, a couple of children born without an intact family. I pondered the why of those lives so marred with pain and sadness. Could it just be fate?  While I surely cannot know all the factors, I did know that the people had made some poor choices that were collecting a terrible toll on life's highway! At the very same time, I also realized that many of those who had chosen so poorly, had not enjoyed the blessing of a stable and loving home or solid, authentic spiritual training! 

Only God knows the full set of facts, seeing our lives in a context that begins before our birth. But, I also know that in Christ we can become new, the old slavery to sin broken by the arrival of the Spirit. Real and lasting transformation is possible for anyone who is willing to receive God's grace, accept responsibility, and make the choice for change.

The best life that God offers to us will not simply happen to us. We choose it with obedience- today, again tomorrow, and the day after that. Joshua, the wise old leader of Israel, called God's people together as he approached the end of his life and challenged them to 'choose today which god you will serve ... as for me and my house we will serve the Lord!'  Disciple, do not be passive!  We are not fatalists, we cannot just hope for a new destiny. 

 

However, the balancing truth is that there are situations beyond our control. The only choice is to trust - to actively surrender ourselves to the hand of God. The Word calls us equally to responsibility and trust, to acceptance and effort. "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts... and be thankful." (Colossians 3:15, NIV)  Where we read 'rule,' the original text has a word that includes the meaning of referee who makes the call in a contest. Players who compete well respect the call of the ref! We live best when we allow God to make the call!  When the Spirit whispers a corrective word how will we respond?  When He urges us to a specific course of action, will we obey?

Do remember this! Nobody gets it right all the time. Even with the best of intentions, we do not always hear His voice clearly. None other than Paul, the apostle, had some difficulty sorting out the will of the Spirit. "Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." After Paul had seen the vision, we (Luke, the writer of Acts had joined Paul there) got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." (Acts 16:6-10, NIV)  There was some trial and error before they got it right!

Is your true heart's desire to know and please the Lord? Are you living honestly before Him?  The prophet Hosea heard the voice of the Lord, speaking to sinful Israel. He called for change. "I said, 'Plant the good seeds of righteousness, and you will harvest a crop of my love. Plow up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.'" (Hosea 10:12, NLT)

How about it?

Are you ready to choose for change that leads to the blessings of our God in your life?

Here's a word from the Word. "Don't be misled-you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let's not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up. Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone-especially to those in the family of faith." (Galatians 6:7-10, NLT)

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Take Time To Be Holy

Take time to be holy,

Speak oft with thy Lord.

Abide in Him always,

And feed on His Word.

Make friends with God's children,

Help those who are weak,

Forgetting in nothing

His blessing to seek.

Take time to be holy,

The world rushes on.

Spend much time in secret,

With Jesus alone.

By looking to Jesus,

Like Him thou shalt be.

Thy friends in thy conduct

His likeness shall see.

Take time to be holy,

Let Him be thy Guide.

And run not before Him

Whatever betide.

In joy or in sorrow

Still follow thy Lord,

And looking to Jesus,

Still trust in His Word.

George Coles Stebbins | William Dunn Longstaff

? Words: Public Domain

Will you bless me, my Father?

God loves to bless His kids!  Do you believe that? Throughout the Old Testament wealth was viewed as a blessing given by God. In a passage much misinterpreted, but never the less, full of promise for us, God says "Fear the Lord your God as long as you live. If you obey all his laws and commands, you will enjoy a long life. Listen closely, Israel, to everything I say. Be careful to obey. Then all will go well with you, and you will have many children in the land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you." (Deuteronomy 6:2-3, NLT)

We do not serve God to get rich. We do not come to Christ is to join the ‘Bless Me’ club. However, as we learn to live in obedience to Him, as we discover the joy of belonging to Him,  the blessings of God will emerge as surely as fruit grows on healthy trees.  Are His blessings only wealth?  To think that is to miss many greater gifts!  

We find peace with God because of His grace in Christ.

We are blessed with joy because our eternal home is secured by Jesus. 

We live without condemnation and guilt because we are saved from sin by the Atonement.

We are loved by our God without reservation and are therefore able to love others deeply and authentically.

We are forgiven and forgive.  The list goes on.  

I am a father and few things bring me more happiness than providing good things for my children.  I love to help them in some small way.  I love to offer sincere praise, to provide support or encouragement, even to give them gifts.  Jesus said, "If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him." (Matthew 7:11, NLT)  Look at these passages that speak of the blessings of the who live near their Father.

"Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers." (Psalm 1:1, NIV)

"Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him." (Psalm 34:8, NIV)

"Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not look to the proud, to those who turn aside to false gods." (Psalm 40:4, NIV)

"Jesus replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:28, NIV)

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ." (Ephesians 1:3, NIV)

I am not a preacher of the prosperity gospel! Many wonderful Christians suffer terrible things in a world full of evil.  But, I also am firmly convinced that God desires to bless and His plan for us is good.  He has created the world so that when we live as He teaches, we generally prosper.  Curiously, that very prosperity can become a stumbling block in our spiritual development!  Moses warned Israel that the Promised Land, with all of the bounty there, would tempt them to forget the One who gave it to them.  "When God, your God, ushers you into the land he promised through your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give you, you’re going to walk into large, bustling cities you didn’t build, well-furnished houses you didn’t buy, come upon wells you didn’t dig, vineyards and olive orchards you didn’t plant. When you take it all in and settle down, pleased and content, make sure you don’t forget how you got there." (Deuteronomy 6:10-12, The Message)

Here is my counsel.  Do not chase the blessings, pursue the One who blesses! 
Listen and obey, as Moses taught Israel. And God’s blessings will follow.

This is the word from the Word.

"If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones.
But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.
And if you are untrustworthy about worldly wealth, who will trust you with the true riches of heaven?
And if you are not faithful with other people’s things, why should you be trusted with things of your own?
No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other;
you will be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money." (Luke 16:10-13, NLT)

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Joy In Serving Jesus

There is joy in serving Jesus,

Joy that throbs within my heart.

Every moment, every hour,

As I draw upon His Power,

There is joy, joy,

Joy that never shall depart.

There is joy in serving Jesus,

Joy that triumphs over pain!

Fills my soul with heaven's music,

‘Till I join the glad refrain.

There is joy, joy,

Joy in serving Jesus;

Joy that throbs within my heart.

Every moment, every hour,

As I draw upon His Power.

There is joy, joy,

Joy that never shall depart.

Bentley DeForest Ackley | Oswald Jeffrey Smith

© 1931. Renewed 1959 Word Music, LLC (a div. of Word Music Group, Inc.)

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So you want to go to Disney World?

Monday night I went to bed feeling a good kind of weary; not one created by stress, but coming from real labor.  Bev and I worked together and the  attic got sorted. I carted a load of accumulated junk to the dump. Some yard work was finished that needed to be done in early Springtime. My muscles ached but my heart was at rest! It was a good day off from my daily responsibilities. I slept soundly and peacefully that night.

Is your idea of rest the absence of labor? God made us to work.  Even before the Fall in Eden, Adam and Eve were commissioned to care for the Garden.  They were given a place under God to manage His Creation.  When their disobedience gave evil an entry into the world, the result was not that they had to get up from their hammock and start to work!  It was that the work they were doing was no longer as fruitful.  Now they had deal with weeds and crop failure. Their work became toil!  The work that had fulfilled them, now became a source of frustration.

When we place our faith in Christ, responding to His invitation to receive the life of the Spirit, the Curse is reversed. We do not retire from active engagement with the world of which we are a part, but we can enter into the rest of God, blessed by a release from the sense of futility that possesses so many people.  Our true rest is discovered in deep faith that brings the Kingdom (the rule) of God to life.  Here’s how the Word expresses it.  "Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, as long as it is called “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ." (Hebrews 3:12-14, NLT)  Pointing to the example of the ancient Israelis who refused to follow God’s lead into the Promised Land and died as wanderers, we are warned - "So we see that they were not allowed to enter his rest because of their unbelief." (Hebrews 3:19, NLT)  "For only we who believe can enter his place of rest. As for those who didn’t believe, God said, “In my anger I made a vow: ‘They will never enter my place of rest,’ ” even though his place of rest has been ready since he made the world." (Hebrews 4:3, NLT)

Do you know that God invites us into spiritual rest, to real serenity?  We will not discover it if we spend our time in endless pursuit of pleasure or diversion.  We cannot even experience it in fullness by getting wrapped up in endless church meetings and Bible studies!  We find His rest when we live obediently in the center of His will, doing His work in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Many of us (and I own my part in this) allow ourselves to complain about our work. We believe that joy is found in someplace other than where we are, that we could possess rest if only we could find a place where we would not deal with ‘those people,’ or ‘that boss,’ or ‘this situation.’  It may be true that the circumstances of our lives are less than ideal, but God’s promise is that we can live in His rest – anywhere!  The Psalm says, "You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. … My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever." (Psalm 23:5-6, NLT)

Brother Lawrence, who lived 3 centuries ago, is the author of Practicing the Presence of God, a Christian classic about living in God’s rest. He was uneducated and so could only enter the  monastery as a layman. He toiled in the kitchen all of his life, a dreary place of hard work. But, he found that the Spirit of God could not be shut out by heat, boiling pots, or sweat! He prayed constantly, rejoiced in every opportunity, and was sought for his kindness, gentleness, and willingness to care for others.  He lived with serenity!  We can too, and we don’t have to take a trip to Disney World to try to find it.

Here’s the word from the Word. May we live in the promise. "And so this is still a live promise. It wasn’t canceled at the time of Joshua; otherwise, God wouldn’t keep renewing the appointment for “today.” The promise of “arrival” and “rest” is still there for God’s people. God himself is at rest. And at the end of the journey we’ll surely rest with God. So let’s keep at it and eventually arrive at the place of rest, not drop out through some sort of disobedience." (Hebrews 4:8-11, The Message)

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Come As You Are

Come out of sadness from wherever you've been,

Come broken-hearted, let rescue begin.

Come find your mercy, O sinner, come kneel.

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't heal.

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't heal.

 (So) Lay down your burdens,

lay down your shame.

All who are broken,

lift up your face.

O wanderer come home,

You're not too far!

So lay down your hurt,

lay down your heart,

Come as you are.

There's hope for the hopeless

And all those who've strayed.

Come, sit at the table,

come taste the grace.

There's rest for the weary,

Rest that endures.

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't cure.

Come as you are,

Fall in His arms,

Come as you are.

There's joy for the morning,

 O sinner be still.

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't heal.

Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't heal.

Come as you are.

Ben Glover | David Crowder | Matt Maher

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