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)

Anticipation

Anticipation

While watching portions of the Republican convention this week, I heard promises, a lot of promises.  “If you elect our candidates, they will make your life better.”  I was not born yesterday!  I’m not overly impressed by a politician’s promises, no matter his party affiliation. Perhaps they have good intentions, but much of what is said is never going to happen. So, I don’t hang too much hope on the rhetoric.  God’s promises are truths I live by! But, even then, I must take care not to force my idea on Him.  In a recent conversation, a woman repeated a ‘promise of God’ that she received years ago about a change in her financial situation. She has done nothing responsibly to address the challenges because she is convinced that “God is going to take care of me.”  So she continues to live irresponsibly, in vain hope that God will magically bring her prosperity. She has taken a real promise, that God does provide for His people, and forced her interpretation on it, which robs the promise of true fulfillment.

The Lord is at work in our lives and He promises to bring about a new and whole life in us, but not without a process that includes painful growth and development; and not without some patience and endurance on our part. We can become saints (read that as people who authentically know and love God) but not just with wishful thinking or formulaic prayers!  It’s a process, a way of life that emerges when we are responsive to the Spirit’s leading.

This passage is packed with promise. As I read it my faith surges, along with understanding that I am part of His greater plan to bring about the transformation of the whole of Creation. Read it thoughtfully. "Since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God’s curse. All creation anticipates the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. Now that we are saved, we eagerly look forward to this freedom. For if you already have something, you don’t need to hope for it. But if we look forward to something we don’t have yet, we must wait patiently and confidently. And the Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don’t even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words." (Romans 8:17-26, NLT)

There is an amazing destiny waiting for God’s children, we will be like Jesus, lifted to perfection, beyond the reach of suffering, free from sin and death.  When we came to Christ, when we were forgiven and restored to our Abba, we only tasted a little of what is to come.  Our anticipation of the full glory of God’s presence is almost painful, making us groan. But, the Holy Spirit sustains while we wait for the promise.  I am eagerly looking forward to that moment when I no longer have to resist sin or enter into the conflict with evil.  I am so ready to be given a new body that cannot die, that does not age, that is beyond the reach of sickness!  I live in faithful anticipation, knowing that I have not " yet taken hold of it. … I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 3:13-14, NIV)

Anticipate the promise of God, but keep it real.  Don’t give in to irresponsibility or foolish dreaming.  Prayerfully, maturely,  ask God to create a genuine vision in you.  Let it lead you to faithful obedience, to a discipleship that gives your life an ever increasing beauty, until the glorious day of the full realization of His promise.  Here’s a word from the Word.  "Let us do our best to enter that place of rest. For anyone who disobeys God, as the people of Israel did, will fall. For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are. Nothing in all creation can hide from him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done. That is why we have a great High Priest who has gone to heaven, Jesus the Son of God. Let us cling to him and never stop trusting him." (Hebrews 4:11-14, NLT)

The powerful effect of VISION

How vision effects this day

Costa, the trainer who is tasked with bringing me to fitness, faces a real challenge; and so do I!  As he coached me through my session yesterday, he kept reminding me that change is incremental, that expecting too much, too soon, creates disappointment and sets me up to quit the regimen. Almost in the same breath, he would talk about gaining increased endurance and strength, about new flexibility, and less risk of injury to joints. He wanted me to know why I was making the effort, submitting myself to the pain. The connection to the vital Christian life was obvious to me.  Stable, joyful, holy Christians build that life over time, with consistent practices of spiritual disciplines.  If they set up false expectations or try to compare themselves to another, they will likely become discouraged.  If they have a powerful, God-given vision for their future, they will remain hopeful and diligent in discipleship.

My trainer wrote down some measurements yesterday.  We will re-visit those on a monthly basis, adjusting my exercise program and diet as necessary to get the results I desire.  It is not easy to be faced with the facts of my physical condition!  It is much easier to pretend that “I am just fine.”  But, there is a powerful motivation to make a difference, when I see who am I and contrast that with what I can become. What would happen to us if we put our spiritual condition down on paper, facing the facts about the state of our soul?

What kind of person do you want to be, does the Lord desire you to become? 

Do you want to be a loving, encouraging, hopeful, joyful, positive, life-enhancing individual that brings light into every room?
Are you content to be a self-absorbed, TV-obsessed, critical, mean, miserable person, who sucks the life out of others?  Most of us are somewhere between those extremes. We have days when the sinful nature takes over and we are full of darkness and we have days when the Spirit is invited to fill us.  But, we are always moving towards light or darkness!

The letter to the Galatians offers us a succinct summary that contrasts the life controlled by sin with the life directed by the Spirit.
"The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit (the visible evidence) of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5:19-23, NIV)  What kind of motivation for change might we find if, like I did with my physical trainer, we did an honest assessment of the way we live? 

The change produced by daily prayer and meditation, by actively expressing worship, by confession of failure and acceptance of forgiveness, by entering into silence to listen to the Spirit, by giving even when we do not wish to do so, by choosing anonymous service in big and small ways, by learning and applying Scriptural principles;  is sure and certain – yet, incremental!   I want to be the person the Lord designed me to be.  So, I will live as this word from the Word teaches.  "I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it. I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back." (Philippians 3:10-14, The Message)

Got the vision, friend?  Let’s get on with it, encouraging one another, becoming all that Christ desires us to be.  Soli Deo Gloria!

The One Place you must not abandon

Through the eyes of the new convert

So, at Noon yesterday I walked into a ‘temple’ that was very strange to me. It had its own vibe, smells, sounds, and rituals. I went to the gym! When I entered, I felt myself begin to perspire. “Good,” you say. No, this was nervous sweat not the result of any physical exertion. I was acutely self-consciousness. Would I do or say something totally ridiculous? Would some muscle-bound kid smirk at me behind my back? What does one say, if anything, while pushing weights?  I hate to admit it, but this very uncertainty was a primary reason I avoided the gym for so long.

Have you considered that perhaps a person who walks into into our church for the first time might feel some of the same kind of discomfort that I just described?  Not so very long ago, almost everyone knew something about ‘going to church.’  Sunday morning worship, at least on Christian holidays, was the normal thing to do. Not in 2012!  For Americans under the age of 34,  one third seriously question the existence of God as a personal Being! An even higher percentage is deeply skeptical about the value of ‘organized religion,’ and particularly Christian church.  Overall, only 1 in 5 Americans attend church regularly. About half of adult Americans do not attend any kind of organized religious activity ever. For these people, a church building is probably a foreboding place, a mysterious place.

What does this mean?  Well, a lot of things, but two that I want us to be thinking about.

1. We’re kidding ourselves if we think that those who are spiritually hungry are just going to walk through the front doors of our church buildings all by themselves!  If Americans do not think of our local churches offer an experience of God they can understand, why would they come? Is it that they have nothing else to do? Are there no alternatives to which they turn to find spiritual meaning?  I have not written off the Church.  God calls people together and makes His Presence known in our gatherings, but too often we keep the Light locked behind the door.

2. A personal, warm invitation is required if we hope to introduce a friend to Christ and His Church! My nerves about the gym would have been tremendously relieved if just one person had said, “I’ll meet you there when you go for a couple of weeks.”  (I didn’t ask anybody to do that)  That person could have explained what to wear, where to go, the traditions and expectations for me.  We, individually and collectively, must recover our commitment to Jesus’ imperative to ‘go and tell!’

Why is this important? Can’t people just come to Christ on their own, or by watching media?  If we attempt to argue that one can be a vital Christian without a connection to a church we must ignore much of the New Testament. Being ‘in the church,’ is a baseline expectation for followers of Jesus.  Why?  Because, the power  of the Holy Spirit is amplified when we come together to share His gifts and Presence. Something happens there that simply cannot happen when we are going it alone. People like to point out that going to church does not make a person a Christian. True enough.  Yet, consider this wisdom. “Listen to the Church,” Henri Nouwen writes in Show Me the Way (Crossroad). “I know that isn’t a popular bit of advice at a time and in a country where the church is frequently seen more as an ‘obstacle’ in the way rather than as the ‘way’ to Jesus. Nevertheless, I’m profoundly convinced that the greatest spiritual danger for our times is the separation of Jesus from the Church. The Church is the body of the Lord. Without Jesus, there can be no Church; and without the Church, we cannot stay united with Jesus. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has come closer to Jesus by forsaking the Church. To listen to the Church is to listen to the Lord of the Church.”

Christians who are doing what our Savior demands of us, “going into all the world to preach the Gospel,” and living as those who are the proof of the Truth, will first lead people to know who Jesus is and what He has done for us in His birth, death, and resurrection. Then, they will take those new converts with them to church! 

Note what the Word teaches. "Although I am less than the least of all God’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Ephesians 3:8-11, NIV)   God’s plan is that all the wonder of salvation through Christ, the transformation of a broken, sinful world, would be demonstrated in the Church and that even angels would be impressed!  The Message says it like this:  “Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!”

If you're ‘in church,’  I pray you are a participant, not simply a consumer.
If you’re not ‘in church,’ I encourage you to find one where Christ is loved, where the Spirit is welcomed, and where you can grow deeper in the things of God –  ultimately for His glory.

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us,
to him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen." (Ephesians 3:20-21, NIV)