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Compassion

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

How many times do we find ourselves in a situation, and think, “I deserve this. I brought it on myself,” and find ourselves ashamed to ask for help and strength from God?

I know I have felt this way.  Because of failure, sin, or downright ignorance I get myself into a tight spot, and feel like I should not receive help from God because I knew better, or at least should have.

It is easier to accept that God is merciful and will forgive us, but it is sometimes hard to believe that He wants to aid us after our own mistakes.

That is when we need to realize and remember the compassion of God.  Psalm 145:8 (NKJV) states, “The LORD is gracious and full of compassion,     Slow to anger and great in mercy.”  Also we find in Lamentations 3:22 (NKJV), “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not.”

Just like God’s mercy, His compassion is greater than our sin, greater than our errors, greater than our flaws.  In the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) the father not only receives his wayward son, and forgives him, but also begins to take care of every need.  Even though this son had failed miserably, his father not only forgave him, looking at his repentant son through eyes of mercy, he began to provide for his son’s needs, looking at him through eyes of compassion.  The wrongs had been forgiven.  The only thing the father saw now was the need.

There is a very old song which comes to my mind, entitled “He Looked Bey0nd My Fault and Saw My Need.”  This is the compassion of God.  He forgives the fault, then deals with the need.

If you believe in God’s mercy, and have faith in His ability, then trust in His compassion in your time of need, even if it was caused by your own doing.  He has not changed, and wants to meet you at that point of need.

Be blessed and have a great day.

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Hope

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Hope is an important part of who we are.  Without a feeling of hope, we wither away.  Without hope, we give up. And, hope is the groundwork of our faith (Hebrews 11:1).

Where we place that hope is important.  We all know the feeling of having hope destroyed, that feeling of being let down.  Sometimes our hope is misplaced, and we are pinning our hopes to something that will fail.

Individuals, institutions, and situations ultimately will fail us.  Everyone experiences loss when hope is placed in these things.

The one place that we can place our hope, the one in whom our hope truly rests, is God. In Psalm 38:15, it says,  “For in You, O LORD, I hope;  You will hear, O Lord my God.” (NKJV)  When our hopes are placed elsewhere, we run the risk of great disappointment.  When our hope is in God, we are hoping in someone who has been proven over and over, many times before.  Nobody else, nothing else, has that track record.

When we have hoped elsewhere, and get let down, it is important to remember where our true hope lies.  Psalm 42:5 states, “Why are you cast down, O my soul?  And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.”  (NKJV)

Our true hope is in the true Source of life, the Giver of what is good and perfect (James 1:17).  When everything and everyone else fails, even that in which we believed strongly, and defended adamantly, fails, we know that we can return to our true hope.  We need not be destroyed and despairing (”Why are you cast down, O my soul? “) but we can hope in believe in someone who wants to see our greatest hopes realized (”Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him For the help of His countenance.”)

Be blessed and have a great day.

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Thieving Foxes

Monday, July 27th, 2009

There is a verse in the Song of Solomon that I heard quoted a lot when I was a kid.  It was being stated in a context that was very applicable, and the further I go in life the more I begin to see this application of the verse is really helpful.

The verse is found in Song of Solomon 2:15 - ” Catch us the foxes, The little foxes that spoil the vines, For our vines have tender grapes.” (NKJV)

I often hear people discussing their opinions on certain activities and behavior that they “have no problem with” or they “see nothing wrong with.” Without sounding too conservative or preachy, and without getting to the point of condemning specific actions, I would like to point out that some things do need to be examined in light of the effects that they have on our lives.

It is often found that the habits, activities, behavior, and attitudes in our lives can be counterproductive.  Even though it may not be “wrong”, or “evil”, “wicked” or “sinful”, it is still an issue for us.  It may be something small, even seemingly benign.  No matter what it is, the litmus test for it is this: Is it robbing our lives of Godly fruit, and the blessings of God?

Just like the little fox in the aforementioned verse, it is destroying the vineyard.  The fruit that should be there is not.  We show no increase, no bounty, in what our lives produce.  The blessings and the bounty dry up,  and we begin to wonder why.

That is the situation that requires a self-examination, looking at our lives humbly and honestly, to see if some “little foxes” that we all too often choose to ignore are getting into the vineyard, tearing up the vines, and destroying the fruit that should be there.

Just because something is small and seemingly minor and unimportant does not mean that it is not destructive.  The most successful thief is the one who can go about robbing unnoticed.

If we truly want good fruit and the blessings of God in our lives, we need to be on the lookout and catch the little foxes that enter our lives before they begin to do big damage.

Be blessed and have a great day.

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Pleasure and Passion

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

There are many activities in life that bring us pleasure.  There are many things that we enjoy, and that bring us a measure of satisfaction.

Then there are the things that we are truly passionate about.  The causes, activities, ideas and ideals that we are committed to long after the fun part is over.

For example, I enjoy the writing that I do.  Overall, I derive a great deal of pleasure form the activity.  There are times, though, that I write about topics that are not so easy and pleasant to write about.  When I write such things, it can be difficult, but I do it more form the conviction of my heart than for the pleasure of it.

Sometimes we can confuse pleasure with passion.  We enjoy what we are doing, and we derive satisfaction, and we think that we are truly passionate about it; however, when the going gets tough, or we simply become bored, we find that we really didn’t have the passion we thought we did.

Spiritual passion is coupled with deep conviction.  If you want to discover what you are truly passionate about, it is found in the depths of the heart.  It is found alongside the deepest rooted convictions.

There are also times that pleasure is substituted for passion.  Pleasure comes much more easily and doesn’t require conviction and sacrifice.

It is my fear that many people get so wrapped up in personal pleasure that they fail to discover their passion.  2 Timothy 3:1-5 deals with many things that will appear in the “last days” in peoples lives. One of these things (mentioned in verse 4) is that people will be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God”.  The deep rooted conviction that brings about a passion for God becomes overridden by what pleases the carnal man.

I believe that Paul was speaking to Timothy about not so much the way nonbelievers would behave as he was the way the believers would behave.  After all, the unbelievers always acted this way. Paul seems to be addressing an attitude that would be seen in the culture of believers who have lost their conviction and passion.

I can honestly say that I have been there.  It is very easy to let conviction and passion slip away, then move on to allowing committment to erode, and finally compromise and settle into pleasure above passion.  Our society, with its continual sensory bombardment, gives us every option we can think of to distract us.  It is easy to forget that there was life before modern technology, and that we should not allow these things (which are wonderful tools for many purposes) to distract us, and to pummel our senses into numbness.

Hopefully we can all strengthen our convictions and allow God to restore the proper passion to our hearts when we miss the mark.  The worst thing of all would be to become hedonistic, seeking only pleasure.  This leads to a life of mediocrity in the best cases, and spiritual shipwreck in the worst.

Be blessed, and have a great day.

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Hello, Young Lovers! (And the rest of you single folks. And the not single, too.)

Friday, July 10th, 2009

I recently was reading an article in a well known magazine dealing with relationships between the genders (romantic relationships primarily, but to a degree others as well.)  You can check out the article here.

It brought the point up that there seemed to be e sense of extremes in the Christian community, especially among the twentysomethings.  The writer spoke of the guys who dated their way through every single girl in the church, and also of those who were focused so strongly on the “courtship-not-dating” paradigm that they really could not develop friendships with the opposite sex, thinking that for some reason or another it might lead to something “wrong”.

I find that over the years hearing many of the opinions concerning dating and relationships among Christians that the consensus is that there is no consensus.  The opinions are as diverse as the people.

So that would mean that there is no “one-size-fits-all”.  Let’s face it, dating and relationships for a teenager are different than dating and relationships for a twentysomething and it becomes even more different for a thirtysomething, especially if that person has been previously married, etc.

Some people do well living a single and unfettered life within the church (not everyone is meant for this Matthew 19:12 lifestyle) for either the short or long term.  And this is fine, there is not one thing wrong with it.

For everyone else, there is one question of self-examination that needs to be asked: Am I seeking a mate ahead of seeking God?

God must be put first.  Everyone says that God has first place, and that God governs their relationships.  Wonderful, no one ever makes a mistake in their relationships, gets into a bad relationship, or gets involved with someone who is not right for them.  Everyone is super-spiritual, right? (I know, I don’t usually employ sarcasm.  I think sarcasm is justified when it drives home a valid point.)

Of course, even if we do put God first, and try our level best, it doesn’t guarantee success.  There are two people involved, and they must be on the same page in order for that to happen.  What putting God first guarantees us is that God will be there for us, that when things do go wrong we can have a clean conscience before Him, and that He will give us the strength to face those issues.

The main point I am trying to make is that each person needs to have a pure heart before God, and let His Spirit and His word guide our decisions.  That is not just true concerning relationships, but everything.  Following God is not that complicated.  All we have to do is to let Him lead. (Check out Proverbs 3:6 before you go.)

Be blessed and have a great day.

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Honoring the Prophets

Monday, July 6th, 2009

There is something Jesus said in Mark 6:4 (and for once I will quote from the NIV rather than the King James - just to keep you on your toes.)

Jesus said unto them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.”

Sometimes it is possible to disregard a message from God because we are so familiar with the source; we know the messenger too well.

We hear the pastor all the time, the teacher of the Sunday school class, the leader of the small group, or even the friend who has been praying for us.

While it is true that sometimes people say things to us, words of encouragement or advice, that really are just the thoughts and feelings of their own hearts, sometimes we miss the message because of the messenger.  If we were to receive the same message from someone more “prominent”, we would receive it gladly, even be in awe.

I believe that God places people around us that can speak His word into our lives, and that we should never feel that just because someone is our friend, or because we know them well, or because we hear them all the time, that we should disregard what is said when it is truly from God.

God has generously blessed me through the people in my life.  I have to say that there are many great and awesome servants of God among my friends.  (One prime example of this can be found in the links on the right hand side of this blog.  Check Erin Gripper’s blog out, she really is honestly one of my heroes. Not to say that there are not others, because there are many.)  I hope that I can always honor them properly. (Check Romans 13:7)

There have been great pastors and leaders throughout my life, many of whom I have been very close with.  Being close to leaders is a good thing.  That closeness, however, should always lead to a respect that allows them to speak truth into your life, not to a familiarity that causes you to take them lightly.

If we stay humble and obedient, God can use those around us to speak to us and lift us up in infinite ways.

Be blessed and have a great day!

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Get Out Of The Way

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Sometimes we make it difficult to get to God.

I was looking at the woman in Mark 5:24-34 who had to press her way through a crowd to get to Jesus when she wanted healed of a bleeding disorder.  There were a lot of people pressing around Jesus.  Some just wanted to be near Him.  But maybe there were those who had their own personal agendas, something they wanted, and their selfishness prevented someone with a genuine need from being able to get to the Lord.

We do this often today.  We become involved with our own agendas and our own desires so much that we refuse to acknowledge the needs of others.  We have our own issues to address, and that takes precedence over everything else.  We (or read that as I, take your pick; it pertains to each of us individually) have to look out for ourselves, develop our own relationship with God to a greater level, or (look out on this one) further our own ideas to the pastor/leader/church board.  Make the phone call, get that meeting, advance that idea.

Don’t get me wrong on this.  There is a time for those things.  Good ideas should be advanced, but not at the expense of more urgent needs.  Sometimes that is what happens, though.  God’s work gets sacrificed by us when it is the very thing we claim to be doing, even aim to be doing.

In Mark 7:7-8 Jesus addressed the advancing of traditions of men as something that was negating the commandments of God.  A personal agenda had been advanced that made it difficult for people to reach God.  It was an inhibitor of faith, and a stumbling block.

We don’t always recognize the urgency of need, as the disciples in Mark 10:46-52, when Bar Timaeus, the blind beggar, was crying out to Jesus, and the entourage that was there tried to get the beggar to be silent. (He then yelled louder, and got what he needed.  Good advice for those being blocked: Keep going after God anyway.  Make more noise, be determined, persevere.  You can make it.)

It isn’t so much a case of not doing good, but a case of not following the proper priorities in doing so.  We need to be very cautious not to diminish the needs of others while trying to follow God and do His will.  We don’t want to be so wrapped up in ourselves that we forget those around us.

We not only make it hard for others (even though it may not be our intention to do so) but we also make it difficult for ourselves. Romans 8:5-8 addresses how our own sinful human nature, our own carnality, sets us at odds with God.   Our own wrong thinking keeps us from Him.  Fortunately, His grace can set us free from that, His mercy is infinite and eternal, and if we are willing to let go of our own desires, He is not out of reach, but near to us when we reach out in faith.

When we set others as a priority, God is faithful to make sure we are taken care of as well.  Trust Him in this.

Be Blessed, and have a great day.

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A Matter Of Death And Life

Friday, June 26th, 2009

As I write this, we are finishing out a week that has seen three celebrity deaths, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and the most shocking of these, Michael Jackson (due to his young age, being only 50).

The public is saddened by these losses, and the hearts and prayers of America and the world at large go out to their grieving loved ones.

It brings to my mind the brevity of a human’s time on earth.  Psalm 144:4 comares the shortness of one’s time to vanity (in the King James Version) or a breath (New International Version), and a shadow (both versions).

The time from cradle to grave is short compared to the measure of all time, and even briefer when compared to eternity.  My friend (phenomenal youth pastor, speaker, and all-around godly man) Tommy Baron (of Trinity Assembly of God, my home church)  recently brought up these things in a message on the subject.  He pointed out that on a tombstone (perhaps I should say “monument”,  or “memorial”, or “headstone”, but I don’t think anyone will be offended) that the date of birth and the date of death are often separated by a “dash”.  He pointed out it is not so important as to the time of birth or death (we have no say in those things) but it is what you do “with the dash.”

The celebrities who have passed have three things in common with all the human race.  They had a date of birth, a date of passing, and of course, a “dash”.  We have things to do with ours as well.  What will it be?

Odds are we will not be selling millions of recordings, make several films and television shows, become a pop culture icon, or go door to door giving out million dollar prizes.  We will, however, live a lifetime, impact our friends, family, and neighbors.  We are given a world of opportunities each day, to not only do good things, but truly follow God.  We have the choice every day to serve God or to serve ourselves in our attitudes and behavior.  We have a choice to follow God or to follow our own whims.

Whether or not we do great things is not the point.  It is that we realize that no matter what we do, it will have an impact on someone.  That impact can ripple throughout society, like the water does when a stone is tossed into a pond.  In the time of our “dashes”,  we should all make good “ripples” in the lives of others and the world around us.

And have an awesome  “dash” when it is over.

Be blessed, and have a great day.

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Spiritual Disengagement

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

I don’t have a snappy intro here. This is a topic of such seriousness that no tagline could address it properly.

It happens to a lot of us.  We find ourselves in a rut, going through the motions, and getting nowhere.

Jesus himself spoke of spiriual disengagement in Matthew 15:8 (he was referencing Isaiah 29:13), saying the people “honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.”

This would be the most extreme case, one of willful disengagement.  However, it provides us with a good point of reference for self evaluation.  Are we offering lip service to God while our heart is elsewhere?

If the answer to that question is even “occasionally”, then we have work to do.  Is our worship, our prayer, and our service to God not wholehearted?  We may be seeing warnings of spiritual disengagement.

What I am referring to does not even have to be intentional.  To the contrary, we may be doing everything right, abstaining from evil, yet still not have the heart totally in what we are doing.

It is possible that one of the greatest causes is simply the distraction of life.  In the parable of the sower and its exposition in Matthew 13, some of the seed fell among thorns, and was choked out by the cares of this world.  We sometimes find ourselves distracted by life, family, career, or whatever, and if the distractions are not overcome, they lead to a choking out of what God has placed in our lives, and we can become disengaged.

I look at this disengagement like a car that has the engine running, but is not in gear.  It can sit there and idle until it overheats and the engine blows up but it will not go anywhere.  Everything is ready to go, but until the transmission is engaged, it does nothing but make noise and pollute the atmosphere.

I believe that is important to state here that I am not saying that we will necessarily always feel or exhibit a deep emotional response in prayer or worship or even in acts of  service to God.  There are times when we continue to go forward on faith when feelings are not there, as long as the heart is right.  It is when the heart is drawn away from God that we begin to become disengaged.  Our relationship to God and with God begins to lessen in importance, and we begin to leave our first love.

The things we do start being more out of obligation and duty rather than out of a loving heart.  Maybe prayer becomes more of a ritual (see Matthew 6:5-7) or worship becomes more of a routine (Matthew 15:8, again).

One cause might be that we have left our first love (Revelation 2:4).  In this case we need to get back to basics (first works, Revelation 2:5) and renew and rekindle that relationship we had at the beginning.  Or possibly we have grown lukewarm (Revelation 3:15-18), allowing time and distractions to get the best of us, and we need to be challenged (verse 18 from the previous reference) to return and rekindle our passion for God.

No matter what the case, we have to make a move.  Disengagement is about us not moving.  We need to be active, and quite possible desparate, to get this change in us.

Although there are quiet times when God seems distant, that is when we need to pursue Him, not settle back and go through the motions, but earnestly open up the heart to Him.  We need to continue in what we are doing, but remember to keep focused on God, not to become distracted or disengaged.  It is much easier to keep going forward than to stop and then try to get started again.  Momentum is much more easily maintained than regained.

Be blessed and have a great day.

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True Fellowship

Monday, June 22nd, 2009

In my previous post, Bearing the Burden, I addressed the concept of truly sharing the burdens of others.  This is actually a continuation of that concept, and I would like to address a few thoughts along the same lines and expand somewhat upon the theme.

We often use the term “fellowship” to describe any point in time in which believers are gathered.  We refer to a believer who is not engaged in regular attendance at a church as “not in fellowship”, we refer to having dinner or spending time with Christian friends as “a time of fellowship.”

I am not knocking going to church or having dinner with friends, as I do both of these things; however, I believe that true fellowship involves something more.

It involves the very thing I addressed previously, concerning bearing one anothers burdens as Galatians 6 commands.  It involves relationship at a deeper level.  It involves personal investment.

The term “personal investment” that I use here means a little more than just the spending of time.  The term, as I am using it, means we have a vested interest in the spiritual success of others, as well as their spiritual, physical, and emotional well being.

To put it more simply, when they fail, we fail.  When they hurt, we hurt.  When they have a need, we have a need.  We are joined to them, just as our limbs are joined to our body.  Indeed, we are all part of the same body (See 1 Corinthians 12:20-27).

There is a point at which situations demand more than just friendship, and God wants us to be truly joined to others.

To use a baseball analogy, sometimes when we step up to the plate in the bottom of the ninth, the team doesn’t need us to hit a home run.  The winning run is already at third base, and what is needed is simply a sacrifice.  It’s not about us, it’s about the success of the team.

I mean these things not as a condemning message, but as an encouragement.  The world can be a frustrating place.  Let’s stick together.

Be Blessed and have a great day.

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