Fighting Fire with Bigger and Better Fire

24 07 2010

“A gift given in secret soothes anger, and a bribe concealed in the cloak pacifies great wrath.”
–Proverbs 21:14

I find myself too frequently trying to disarm sin without arming myself with righteousness.  I don’t know where I get this idea from.  It’s certainly not promoted in the Bible, which tells us to be properly equipped.  And it’s certainly not in any movie or book I’ve seen…no one goes into battle without a plan.  But attempting to fight off temptation without drawing upon the Spirit of the Lord is just that.

Solomon doesn’t say “Let the anger cool, and swallow it.”  He doesn’t say “Hide your malicious thoughts and ignore your evil desires.”  He doesn’t say “Give into your anger, and your journey to the dark side will be complete.“  He says to counter anger with humble generosity.  Because the truth is, you can step out of darkness without stepping into the light.  You cannot live the life Jesus has called you into simply by avoiding hell—you have to enter into heaven, too.  Fighting off temptation without stepping into righteousness is the best way to stay lukewarm.  So don’t fight the enemy with your weapons…fight with God’s weapons.

Fight greed with generosity.  Give.
Fight selfishness with selflessness.  Serve.
Fight pride with humility.  Honor.
Fight despair with praise.  Thank.
Fight hard feelings with forgiveness.  Forgive.
Fight apathy with action.  Go.
Fight with love, not with morality.  Don’t just seek to neutralize…seek to vitalize.

A defense of obligation is just an offense of jealousy or guilt in disguise.  Christianity isn’t about avoiding Satan—it’s about encountering God!  We will gain ground and grow in strength when we begin to counter darkness, instead of merely blocking it.

And never give into the dark side.


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Sent Out (Part 3)

21 07 2010

“He allowed them to wear sandals but not to take a change of clothes.  ‘Wherever you go,’ He said, ‘stay in the same house until you leave town.’”
-Mark 6:9-10

  1. You’ve got to be humble.  Jesus didn’t give His disciples the opportunity to assume they were entitled to anything…not even an extra set of clothes!  Humility is vital because it is the container in which our dependence upon God is kept.  Pride is one of the enemy’s most effective weapons…not because it’s more powerful, but because it’s more subtle.  The moment you become proud of the assignment given to you, or of the gifts God by His grace decides to bestow, Satan has a wide-open door to walk through and sabotage all that God has laid before you.  It’s easy to be humble and dependent on the Lord when it’s something you don’t have, or something you’re not good at…but when it comes to something as normal and within reach as having clothes, we’re rarely on guard.  Jesus showed His disciples how important humility is to be an effective vessel of the Holy Spirit with this command.  We’ve got to go to great lengths to protect our humility—because when we do, Jesus sends us out to do miraculous things!
  2. You’ve got to be dedicated and committed. Why was it important for the disciples to stay in one house the whole time they were ministering to a city?  Because dedication incubates revelation (Ps 46:10).  The call God places on your life needs to be nurtured and protected, and if you never stay in one place, you lose the ability to steward what the Father has given you because you have no solid ground to sow it into.  Jesus was emphasizing the importance of relationships and working together with others to bring heaven to earth.  It is only through unity that we will become strong!  Jesus also wanted to make sure that His disciples were maintaining integrity.  Being constantly on the move keeps the depth of one’s heart at a distance…but it is from the deep of our hearts that the eternal life of God flows!  By commanding His disciples to stay in one house, Jesus ensured that they would be held accountable for everything they were doing at all times—both empowering their testimony and guiding their journey.

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Separatists

2 07 2010

“Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kinds of sufferings.”
-1 Peter 5:9

One of the enemy’s strongest tools is separation, or loneliness.  He deceives people into thinking that their sin has cut them off from God, the church, and even their closest friends.  He tries to tell them that there is no one to help…no one who CAN help.  And these lies often motivate people to separate themselves…while they were NOT alone when the devil told them that they were, they make themselves alone because they believe the lie.

Satan must be fought with love, unity, and community. And it is vital that we understand that community is not just being around people.  Community is the communication of unity.  And when we lose communication with God that we are His people and He is our God, or with our friends that we are with them and they with us, we provide the enemy with a way into our hearts.  Remember that we are not alone; we have not been and cannot be cut off because of the grace of God by the blood of Jesus; that others are fighting and winning the same battles we are because they serve the same God we do; and that God knows, understands, and provides!

Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17:22-23, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”  Not only does community defeat the purposes of the enemy, but it lets the world know that Jesus is King, and His grace and peace trump every hand the world could ever play.  So challenge yourself over the next few days to communicate unity to those around you…and present the gospel in word AND power!


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Who am I?

29 06 2010

I was going to write about why I haven’t written recently, but I found that to be somewhat ironic and significantly insignificant.  Facts; I haven’t written recently, and I’m going to try to change that.  That’s all anyone needs to really know (myself included).

“Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.”
-James 1:22-25

There is an identity crisis epidemic in God’s church, because too many people are good at KNOWING and terrible at GOING.  I was in Barnes and Noble the other day, looking through the “Christian Inspiration” books (which I find to be a strange name for a section without any Bibles in it), and was astonished at how many books there are that are basically scripture-flavored self-help books.  Even in Christianity, there is obviously an incredible amount of insecurity and uncertainty that people are trying to keep at bay with these books.  And the funniest/worst part about it is that 99% of these books say the same things.  Which makes me think a few things:

  1. No one remembers what they read
  2. No one believes what they read
  3. No one follows through with what they read

I don’t think the first one is true.  I’m really forgetful about a lot of things, but I highly doubt every person forgets every part of every book they’ve read.  So it’s not an issue of knowledge.  And I don’t think the second one is true either…as evidenced by how MANY books there are about the same things, people clearly want these things to be true.  And as evidenced by how many NEW books keep being written about the same things, people don’t think it’s worthless information, or a trick or hoax.  So it’s not an issue of belief.

Of all the people in the world, Christians ought to be the most joyful, the most peaceful, the most hopeful, the most confident, the most secure — because we have a joy that is eternal, a peace that is unimaginable, a hope that is promised, a confidence that does not fade, and a security that lasts forever.  So why are there so many books outside of the Bible that try to guide us into these things?  Why is there such an identity crisis?

Because too often we collect knowledge without gaining experience.  Too often we know what God desires of us, but we want an easier way.  Too often we’re afraid of trading our preferences, free time, money, and habits for the work of the kingdom of God.  And so we read the Word and hear our pastors’ sermons and go to our Bible studies — looking in the mirror, as James says — and walk away already having forgotten who we are in Jesus.  Knowing of God’s promises and living in God’s promises are two vastly different things.  Knowing and believing aren’t enough to keep you inside God’s protection, provision, and power (James 2:19).  But when we do what we know, our ideologies become realities, and Christ’s freedom is poured out, and all the things we’ve heard but haven’t seen become the lens by which we see everything else.


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Growing Up

19 03 2010

The Bible talks a lot about growing.  The church grew, the gospel grew, believers’ faith grew, and God made (and still makes!) things grow.  Even science tells us that healthy things grow.  One of the best questions you can ask yourself is, “Am I GROWING in the things that are most important to me?“

We have become arrogant the moment we stop seeking growth.  By ignoring growth and progress, we are essentially saying that we have reached the pinnacle and have no need for anything more (which was the claim of the church of Laodicea in Revelation 3, which God wanted to spit out of His mouth because of how “wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked” they were).  If you are not progressing you are most likely regressing…there is no middle ground.

But we must also be on guard from putting too much emphasis on progress and not enough emphasis on purpose.  We have to know WHY we are growing before we can best answer HOW to grow in the greatest way.  And if we fail to remember the purpose of what we’re doing, no amount of progress will ever be satisfactory…because we are so focused on the mileage gauge that we miss the fuel gauge, and the pit crew waiting to fix things up, and we may even miss the finish line.  If you never ask yourself why you’re doing something, you’ll end up doing a lot of things for no reason at all.

We cannot allow our progress to overshadow our purpose.  Progress may be the gas pedal, but purpose is the gas, and if we never return to the “why” of something, the “how” becomes empty and irrelevant.


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Being and Doing

2 02 2010

“‘Arise! For this matter is your responsibility, but we will be with you; be courageous and act.’”
-Ezra 10:4

The Israelites vowed to be with Ezra…and for Ezra, it was time to get up and DO.

Sometimes life is risky, uncomfortable, surprising, wearisome, unclear, heavy, confusing, stressful, or emotional.  And it’s easy to overlook what other people are going through when you’re going through things yourself.  It seems to be too much work to involve yourself too deeply in the  lives of others.  You don’t have enough time to get what YOU need to get done, let alone helping someone else.  There is an emotional demand in partnering with the life of someone else.

But it’s time to stop overlooking.  It’s time to be with someone.

Be with them in their struggles.  Be with them in their victories.  Be with them in their questions and their answers.  We are called to love one another in humility…and humility is thinking less of yourself and making much of others.  You can’t solve the problem for them, but you can encourage them to arise, and to have courage, and to act.  You don’t have to put your life on hold and ignore everything that’s happening on your end of things.  But if you lead by example in being with someone and encouraging them to do what only they can do, not only will you bless their lives with the kindness and faithfulness of Christ, you’ll have at least one person who knows exactly what to do when you need someone with you!

Sometimes life is difficult, overwhelming, dangerous, scary, fast, exhausting, relentless, uncertain, or unexpected.  And it’s easy to come up with excuses for not doing what you know needs to be done.  There are some things that have been on your to-do list for weeks.  There are some things you’ve been doubting for no real, good reason.  There are some things that God has been burdening you with that you’ve been trying to ignore.

But it’s time to stop making excuses.  It’s time to get up and DO.

Do what you know you should have done awhile ago.  Do what has been keeping you up at night.  Do what you are called to do, even if no one else is doing it.  No one can live your life for you.  What is on your heart is your responsibility.  You don’t have to do it alone—the Lord is faithful to those who are zealous for His will—but you do have to do it.  Our God is a God of victory, and of hope, and of provision, and of redemption.  We have NO REASON to not go ALL OUT for HIS GLORY.


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No, Can Do

29 01 2010

Jesus is our Savior. Not just when we are raised to new life, but continually.  He saves us and protects us as we walk through life.  But He does not save and protect us from many of the things that seem to worry us most…when we get too focused on what lies before our eyes, we overlook what lies before our hearts—and it is what lies before our hearts that we really need saving and protection from.  You do not need rescue from a financial situation as much as you need rescue from insecurity.  You do not need saving from joblessness as much as you need saving from meaninglessness.  You do not need protection from pain as much as you need protection from misery.

Anxiety over what may happen TO you is a sign of what hasn’t happened IN you. Jesus does save us…but not from adversity—He saves us from abandonment.  He saves us from loneliness.  He saves us from insecurity.  He saves us from a state of spiritual emptiness.  He sustains us with everlasting love, rescues us with infinite grace, empowers us with unending joy, and restores us with prevailing peace.  He calms the storms within our hearts so that we can face the storms before our eyes, and point to His supremacy while we’re doing it!

But a lot of these truths are difficult to grasp when we don’t let Him prove them to us.  Though you may be raised to new life in Christ, sometimes we still live by the limitations of our old life, fighting against His guidance when we’re led toward something that we think we can’t handle.  But you cannot allow your past defeat to limit your future battles.  Everything that is over your head is still under His feet.  And until you really own the victory of Jesus for yourself, until you claim it and go forward in His promises, none of those truths will ever become a reality for you.

God cannot teach you to trust Him if you never let Him take you to the doorstep of your greatest fears.  You won’t believe He is with you always if you refuse to go where you would otherwise feel alone.  And until you step out of the boat, you won’t really believe that you can walk on water.  Your “No can do…” will turn into God’s “No, CAN do!” when you live by His love rather than your lack.

He may still take you through hard times…but He will always be with you in them.  Don’t despise the hardships God has ordained to minister to you!  Let go of what you can do and trust in what He can do.  He knows where you are, and what you’re feeling, and how impossible it is to make it out…

But Jesus is the incarnation of the impossible, and that doesn’t phase Him one bit.

He’s got it under control.


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Everything Everywhere All the Time

21 01 2010

“This is the answer they gave us: ‘We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and we are rebuilding the temple that was built many years ago, one that a great king of Israel built and finished.’“
-Ezra 5:11 (NIV, emphasis my own)-

No one knows the fullness of God.  He’s too big for us to get all of.  And that’s wonderful, because it means that we will never run out of things to love about Him, and we will never get bored with Him because we’ve found out everything about Him, and He will always know better than us and make the best decisions for us.  But just because we can’t know every characteristic of God doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know as much as we can, and a lot of people tend to tailor God to be only what they perceive Him to be.  But you do not define who God is…He defines who you are.  These Israelites in the book of Ezra knew that—they acknowledged that God is God of heaven AND earth.  It’s easy to get stuck on God only reigning over one or the other, but He is King over all of it.  And we’ve got to check ourselves and make sure that we’re serving Him as Lord of both, and not one or the other.

Are you serving the God of heaven, but not of earth? When you see God as Lord of heaven, and not also of earth, He becomes unreachable.  You forget that He wants an intimate relationship with you.  Because you’ve forgotten this, you attempt to live all of life on your own, and never feel strong, confident, or rested, because the world’s relentless attacks are deterred only by the power of the Holy Spirit.  God becomes a distant idea that should be adhered to because it is somehow for the greater good (though you’re not really sure how).  When God is not the God of earth, you’re left on your own.  You can’t know anything for sure.  But God IS the God of earth, and we CAN know Him.  You don’t have to sustain your own joy, or fight for peace in your heart, or find impossible strength within yourself.  The Holy Spirit does those things for you, when you acknowledge that God is King over all the earth and become His servantin the things that you do and the way that you love others.  He is near to you, and you can know Him, and He is actively moving in your life, and He has not abandoned the world to wait for its destruction but is in the world changing it through His people, who even today are “rebuilding the temple” all across the world.

Are you serving the God of earth, but not of heaven? When you see God as Lord of earth, and not also of heaven, He becomes “man-centered,” existing for your benefit rather than His own glory.  You forget that He is all about Himself—and how could He not be?  If God is perfectly good, would it not be unloving to the universe for Him to not make much of Himself?  Because you’ve forgotten this, you find no satisfaction in simply who God is and rather seek an ever-elusive experience in which your own desires are quenched indefinitely.  But earthly events are not eternal, and until you are satisfied in the being of God, you will never be able to sustain an awe and appreciation of the doing of God.  Your faith in God is dependent on your feelings towards God, and you feel rejected or abandoned by Him when things don’t go the way you wanted them to.  He becomes seen as a slot machine that you keep pouring your treasures into, not because you want Him to have them, but because you want the slots to line up and get a big reward back.  When God is not the God of heaven, there is nothing greater to live for than what you can see and understand, and the sense of His glory and majesty is lost.  But there IS something greater to live for, and His glory and majesty IS worth our sacrifice.  There IS more to life than what you and I can see, and God is in control of all of it.  And it is Him alone who is able to satisfy our souls for all eternity.  He is enough for you, and His glory is worth losing your life over.

God is lord of everything, everywhere, all the time.  Don’t let your sight determine His might.  The limitations you put on Him in your mind don’t keep Him from being all that He is, but they do keep you from seeing all that He is.


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Catch and Release

5 01 2010

All at the same time, Christ gives to us complete security and demands of us complete faith.  It is His perfect love that casts out all of our fear, and even so, that perfect love requires us to walk by faith and not by sight.  Total security and total faith, simultaneously.  An unconditional comfort and a perpetual dependence.

Security in the world is found in control.  When we start becoming unable to change or regulate something, our security starts to dwindle.  We know that the world is not perfect, and that people make mistakes, and that nothing lasts forever, and so we fight to make things as perfect as possible, protect against as many mistakes as we can, and prolong and enhance the little time we are able to keep something (or someone).

Yet in the kingdom of God, it is precisely the opposite.  Because while we are imperfect, God is entirely perfect.  While we make mistakes, God precedes all things and all things are for His glory and He never falters.  And while we are temporal and can know nothing on earth that does not pass away, God is even more certainly everlasting and eternal.  And so we do not have to fight for our security when we are covered in the blood of Jesus.  He is perfect.  He is flawless.  He is timeless.  And all these things become ours when we profess Him as our Savior and leave our insecure, earthly lives to follow Him.  We do not have to fight for them any longer.

But just as we do not have to fight for a security of our own, we also cannot cling to a security of our own.  When we follow Jesus we are not allowed to take anything with us.  He is enough.  He is all that we need.  And to try and carry things with us from our former life is to disown that truth.  When we refuse to let God have control over a particular area of our lives, we are insulting the Cross because we are saying with our actions that His sacrifice was not enough for us. We cannot accept both the security of Christ and the security of ourselves, because complete faith in Jesus is too great a thing to grasp if anything else is in our hands.  And so we must give up our control and accept His.  We have to trust God with everything we have if we desire to take part in everything He has.  And He has SO MUCH to give…we simply have to drop what we’re holding on to and allow Him to place His perfect, faithful, everlasting gifts of love, hope, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and joy in our empty hands!

The great thing about the fear of God is that when you have it, you don’t fear anything else.  And that’s why discovering the fear of God is so important: because it is only when all our other fears are released that we can be joyful about not knowing what’s coming next.


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One or Undone

21 12 2009

Jesus is the Prince of Peace, the origin of unity, and the manifestation of love.  Through Him, we are baptized into one body and one Spirit, made brothers and sisters in Christ, sons and daughters of the Most High God, and together part of the kingdom of heaven, where life has new meaning and deeper realities and overcomes all adversity.

Yet there is a world that has no hope in the Christian faith because many who follow it show no sign of life.  There are Christians who will protest war and uphold peace with their mouths, and yet be at war with others in their congregation.  There are people who rely more on their denomination than their Savior.  Church politics drive worship leaders to begrudge pastors to look down on small group leaders to disrespect elders to gossip about worship leaders.  And to a great extent, we Christians have lost sight of the healing mercies of God that are found in our ONE and ONLY Savior Jesus Christ, who draws each of us into His care by the same means, for the same reason, and to the same grace.  It is our failure to exemplify the peace that surpasses all understanding in our interactions with each other that takes away the legitimacy of our words and the power of our faith.

Every moment of our lives, we are faced with a decision.  We can bring the world together in unity, or we can drive it apart to division.  There is no middle ground.  Refusing to choose is choosing the latter.  And we must in every moment decide to love without condition, hope without restraint, and let our faith sustain every circumstance, for when we are unified we will see God.

“For where two or three come together in My name, there I am with them.”
-Matthew 18:20
“All the believers were together and had everything in common…praising God and enjoying the favor of all people.  And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
-Acts 2:44, 47


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