Friday, June 02, 2017

Jumping to Conclusions


After I reset the furniture in her room in about 15 minutes, my mother-in-law remarked, “You move so fast, Jerry. How do you get so much done so quickly?” I chuckled. She is 84 and does not move with speed. I got the work done while she was still thinking about which piece to move first. My quickness is both a curse and a blessing. I like things done now, finished well: wrapped up and presented with a bow, so to speak. But, that trait also makes me an impatient man. I like to get to the finish, resolve the issue, get the reward, enjoy the fruit of efforts. How about you?  

If I have learned anything in my 6 decades, it is that life is mostly process.  Our daily choices are woven into a complex network that involves the decisions of other people, with results that are affected by conditions outside of our control. Life has so many unforeseen consequences.  It is a twisting, winding path one despite my best efforts at efficiency and my aim at gaining best results.  That is why I try not to jump to conclusions about others or their situations, in a way I might have done as a younger man.  I realize that where they are today grows from roots that spring from the decisions made in days and years past, but that trying to connect straight lines of cause and effect  is largely beyond my wisdom.

That is one reason Jesus warns us against judging others. " “Do not judge, or you too will be judged." (Matthew 7:1, NIV)  Do not be quick to call others to account, to question their motives, to tell them that you know why they are in that situation. What a temptation we face in this regard sometimes, right? It just seems so obvious to us what our friend needs to change, how he should act, the choices he needs to make! “Come on,” we think, “what’s wrong with you? Why don’t you just get it together?”   I hear your objection, “So, Jerry, are you suggesting that we just ignore the poor decisions, the sinful choices that our brothers make?” 

My appeal is not for a lack of standards or an inability to see what is right. Rather, I urge a loving heart that comes alongside of the one that we seem to think is erring – first, in prayer, then in dialogue that seeks understanding, then with an offer to help. Encouraging is so much more costly to us than judging. Judgment allows us to step away, pointing the finger, and in essence throwing the blame back on the person who’s having a rough go in life. The loving heart that engages people living with sin is like Jesus. That love demands much of us – patience, willing to get involved, enduring pain, and yes; the risk of disappointment. Not everybody responds well. Some dig deeper into the mess, keep making poor choices, and spread their dysfunction and sin  all over us.

Ready to pounce, having jumped to conclusions?  Consider this wisdom of the Word. "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else, for each one should carry his own load." (Galatians 6:1-5, NIV)  That passage seems to be contradictory in regard to our responsibilities, doesn’t it?  

We are told to carry each other’s burdens, but then we read that everyone should carry his own load.  Digging deeper, we see that we must help one another with life’s crushing burdens all the while realizing that we must accept personal responsibility for ourselves.  It is a familiar theme in God’s Word. We are part of His Body, called into close community, as inseparable as eye and ear and foot! Yet, we are seen by our Creator with our individual gifts and opportunities which He desires that we use in the best ways.

Choose well, today, Christian. Hear the caution and promise of these words that continue from the passage above. "Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!— harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life. So let’s not allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop if we don’t give up, or quit. Right now, therefore, every time we get the chance, let us work for the benefit of all, starting with the people closest to us in the community of faith." (Galatians 6:7-10, The Message)  Wisdom!

Lord, help us to live the process, to wait for the results, not to rush to judgment. Amen.

Thursday, June 01, 2017

Becoming … somebody of significance





I see it too often these days – people just choosing to exist!  For too many reasons to name, they give up on life, letting things go. Disappointment and disillusionment replace hope. On Monday morning they are already dreaming about Friday afternoon, getting through the week. Without a real sense of ‘why’ we are alive, we tend to get eat too much, watch too much TV … drift through day after day.

You are asking, “So, Jerry, you are urging me to chase success?”   Yes and no. If success is measured by your store of stuff or your social status, you are chasing an empty dream. A million advertisements try to convince us that "If you get more stuff, you will enjoy a better and happier life."  Most of us have realized that the more stuff we have, the less time we have to  enjoy it because we work harder to keep it all. The wisdom of the Word challenges the lie of materialism. Jesus said, "Life is not defined by what you have, even if you have a lot!" (Luke 12.18 The Message)   On top of all that, even if we get a lot, someday we will leave it all behind. The government and our kids will divide the pile. The stuff nobody wants will end up at the Salvation Army or on the curb waiting for the garbage truck!

What if we focused on an entirely different goal?
What if instead of getting things we worked with the Spirit to become somebody of significance?

Real success in life is finding the smile of God, living within His plan. How?  Love! Not the syrupy, romantic thing that keeps Hollywood in business, but the bold, engaged, care for others shaped by the love of Jesus. Your day will end better if you work at helping another person feel the love of God, if you give worth and dignity to another, if you find a way to lift that person who is ready to give up. Remember, we do not stir up this love in our own strength. It is born in us by the Spirit when we accept God's offer of love by faith.  John reminds us that ‘we love because He loved us first!”

The best life is not a destiny but a path.  To borrow a word, we are ‘becomers.’  On a daily basis, we give away our prideful Self and surrender to the Spirit. Jesus says "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it." (Mark 8:34-35, NLT)

Believe me, there is real joy in that choice. John Ortberg (pastor and author) writes that "surrender is not passivity nor abdication. It is saying yes to God and life each day. It is accepting the gifts He has given to me - my body, my mind, my biorhythms, my energy. It is letting go of my envy or desire for what He has given to someone else. It is letting go of outcomes... Surrender is accepting reality ... the ultimate reality: I am a ceaseless being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe."  {When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back Into the Box, 2007, Zondervan}  The deepest surrender, Ortberg says, grows out of the profound realization that I am not master of the game, Another is.

In our choice of surrender, God is able to direct us and will make us His partner in building the Kingdom of God. Sound too lofty? Is that grandiose? Not at all. It is our privileged place as children of the Heavenly Father. Can you imagine a life more significant than that?  What would life look like if instead of working to impress others or building a network of power to defend our rights, we chose humble service without needing thanks or applause? What if we measured “success” as being content to be useful to God with no expectation other than to find the joy of obedience?  I want, by the grace of God and the help of the Spirit, to live as a “becomer,” meaning that I will not remain where I was yesterday, nor will I lose myself in fantasies about tomorrow. Instead, I will pursuing Christ to become like Him today, with but one desire – that He shines through me.

Here’s a word from the Word. "For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil (old sinful and self-centered ways) removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image."  (2 Corinthians 3:17-18, NLT)
_________

Take My Life And Let It Be (Hendon)

Take my life and let it be
Consecrated Lord to Thee
Take my moments and my days
Let them flow in ceaseless praise
Let them flow in ceaseless praise

Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love
Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee
Swift and beautiful for Thee

Take my will and make it Thine
It shall be no longer mine
Take my heart it is Thine own
It shall be Thy royal throne
It shall be Thy royal throne

Take my love my Lord I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store
Take myself and I will be
Ever only all for Thee
Ever only all for Thee

Frances Ridley Havergal | Henri Abraham Cesar Malan
© Words: Public Domain

Faith Discovery Church

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Between Broken and Brave




The gray skies overhead these last two days are a perfect reflection of my heart this morning. I am hesitant to complain since there is much in my life for which I should be deeply grateful, and yet – the sad remains. It is deeper than a mood, hanging on like a headache; you know the ones that do not keep you home in bed but that make your day miserable with the throbbing pain. Why the sadness? There is the ‘aloneness’ that is ever present since Bev’s death 17 months ago. Though I have many good friends, I am incomplete. And, there was the call last night, the woman's voice weak, to ask my prayer for her, the cancer not relenting before the attack of the chemo. Cancer, it’s a hated word!  And there is Death. Monday, I stood beside yet another aged Christian and prayed her through the valley. Despite her advanced age, my heart was ripped by the close encounter with the Last Enemy. 
I could add to the list … but you could as well. On this side of heaven we all know grief, don’t we?
In grief there is a place to let ourselves be broken, to sit down or kneel down, to release the reins on our emotions, to sob or scream or moan. Jesus did! In Gethsemane He begged His friends to pray with Him and cried to His Father for release, “if you are willing, take this cup from me.”  His emotion may be somewhat sanitized by our distance from that moment, but have no doubt - He was broken!  
Yet, He was brave. He did not run into the darkness or avoid the pain. He stood and faced His Cross with acceptance – of the will of God and the hope of the purpose wrapped in mysterious pain. 
Perhaps you, like I, are somewhere between broken and brave.
So often, there in the dark of the waiting, the Liar whispers that the joke is on us, that there is no purpose in it, that we struggle for good and God in vain. As he has done for ages, since the first Garden, he dangles the allure of another place, a new sensation, a place apart from service and faithfulness in front of us. "There," he hisses, "you will find some solace or at least some pleasure." 
He came to Jesus, too, in His lonely place and urged Him to use holy power to make stones into bread, to seek expedient solutions, and to demand God’s rescue. (Matthew 4) Jesus was broken by the tests, but brave, too. He stood on the Word and spoke with holy courage - “Get out of here, Satan,” Jesus told him. “For the Scriptures say, ‘You must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.’ ” Then the devil went away, and angels came and took care of Jesus." (Matthew 4:10-11, NLT) 
"Oh, Lord, send the angels!" I pray. Is that your cry, too?
Faith asks much of us sometimes, but there is a rich reward at the Completion. "So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised." (Hebrews 10:35-36, NIV)  Be brave today! We are loved and loving – not an idea – but a Man who knows our sorrows.
"And our God is not a God to merely believe, but to experience,not to only believe in, but be held by.A God who not only breaks for you — but breaks with you,|a God to not only have creeds about — but to have communion with, a God who not only who dies for you, but who cries with you, the God who touches you and binds you and blesses you and heals you and re-members you because He let Himself be dismembered and He is the God we not only believe in— but we know." - Ann Voscamp

Stand up, child of God. There is work to be done and the Promise of His Presence to give us strength for the day.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

A Treasure




In 2008, just a few months before he died, my Dad gave me a ring that he had worn since 1953! My mother had given it to him at the time of their engagement. A couple of years ago I lost it.  I was angry at myself. There was genuine sorrow at the loss, too. Though not of great value, to me that ring is an irreplaceable treasure because of the sentiment attached to it.  My search was frantic. A day or two later, the lost treasure turned up -in a shoe in my closet.  Apparently somehow I knocked it from the top of the clothes dresser and it fell into that hiding place. In the moment that it was presented to me again, my sadness turned into real joy. That episode revealed the depth of my attachment to me.

There is another treasure in my life of far greater value;  the relationship with my Father God that I am privileged to know because of the grace of Jesus Christ. On those occasions when I break that fellowship with sinful willfulness or careless choices, I feel a real sense of loss, truly sorrowful for treating that treasure with something less than the care He deserves!  I realize, in those moments, the richness of life that I find in knowing Him, living while enveloped with His Spirit, with love, joy, peace, and hope.

Jesus reminds us we are invited to make Him our King, accepting His rule. Being a citizen of that spiritual kingdom is not a duty, nor does it lead us to a constricted life. That life, wholly new, is a thing to be treasured! He says, “God’s kingdom is like a treasure hidden in a field for years and then accidentally found by a trespasser. The finder is ecstatic—what a find!—and proceeds to sell everything he owns to raise money and buy that field. “Or, God’s kingdom is like a jewel merchant on the hunt for excellent pearls. Finding one that is flawless, he immediately sells everything and buys it." (Matthew 13:44-46, The Message)

A treasure worth more than all others in life is how Jesus describes our knowing Him.  Is He that to you?  I implore you to think deeply about how much you value Jesus and the grace freely given to you.  For some, it would appear that Christ Jesus is more trinket than treasure, a mere trivial pleasure.

The word from the Word invites us into the richness of the kingdom, a place where we find the eternal treasure. The paradox is that in giving ourselves away, we find all we could ever need or desire – in Him!  "Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and he will give you everything you need. “So don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the Kingdom. “Sell your possessions and give to those in need. This will store up treasure for you in heaven! And the purses of heaven never get old or develop holes. Your treasure will be safe; no thief can steal it and no moth can destroy it. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be." (Luke 12:31-34, NLT)

“Immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:20) What a treasure.
___________

Jesus You Are My Life

You are my life
Oh precious Christ
You are to me
The pearl of greatest price

My love for You will never die
Jesus You are my life

I come to You
I run to You
There's no greater joy
Than knowing You

Oh holy fire
Love's purest light
Burn all desires till
You are my one delight

Oh conquering King
Conquer my heart
And make of me
A pleasing gift to God

My love for You will never die
Jesus You are my life

Steve Fry © 1994 Word Music, LLC (a div. of Word Music Group, Inc.)
Universal Music - Brentwood Benson Publishing (Admin. by Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, Inc.)
CCLI License # 810055