REBUKE FROM A PROPHET

"A man who says he loves God..."

One time, twenty or so years ago, I was in Japan on a speaking tour with a close personal friend. He was a number of years older than I was. As we walked down the street in Yokohama, Japan, the name of a common friend came up, and I said something unkind about that person. It was sarcastic. It was cynical. It was a put-down. My older friend stopped, turned, and faced me until his face was right in front of mine. With deep, slow words he said, "Gordon, a man who says he loves God would not say a thing like that about a friend."

He could have put a knife into my ribs, and the pain would not have been any less. He did what a prophet does. But you know something? There have been ten thousand times in the last twenty years that I have been saved from making a jerk of myself. When I've been tempted to say something unkind about a brother or sister, I hear my friend's voice say, "Gordon, a man who says he loves God would not speak in such a way about a friend."

Prophets do that. They remind us of the truth and where we are falling short. If you avoid prophets -- and a lot of people do -- you do so at the peril of your spiritual journey. You and I need [friends who are] prophets.

-- Gordon MacDonald in a sermon titled "Feeling As God Feels"

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WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS

“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.”  (John 15:5 NKJV)

When Jesus began His ministry to make the invisible God visible, He wasted no time gathering disciples, whom He called friends (John 15:15). In fact, Jesus was criticized for some of His friendships (Luke 7:34). But He persisted – and still persists – in embracing those who would embrace Him (John 15: 14, 16). What greater honor can there be than publicly to be called God’s friends?

God calls us to be His friends. What does friendship entail? Surely it involves spending time, sharing delights, bearing problems, and divulging intimacies. It requires common interests and shared values, similar objectives and unity of heart. Most of all it involves laying down your life for your friends (John 15:13) – and that is exactly what Jesus did for us. It is true that “there are ‘friends’ that destroy each other” (Proverbs 18:24a). They do it by controlling, demanding, betraying, and abusing. They are friends in name only. But a “real friend sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24b). And that is the kind of friendship God extends to us – incredibly – and expects from us in return. 

– Excerpted from “Daily Study Bible for Men” with daily studies by Stuart Briscoe

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WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS…

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display His perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in Him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.”  (1 Timothy 1:15b-17 NIV)

Perhaps the answer to church decline is not to become more like the world, but to challenge its assumptions and offer a different narrative of what life should be like. At least one part of the answer should be to preach what Jesus preached: “Repent and believe in the Good News!” (Mark 1:15b NIV) I suspect that most people know there is something wrong with their lives, something that needs to change. Jesus knew it too. He gets us. He did not say, “Follow your heart,” but, “Come, follow Me.” Until we do, the fullness of life will evade us. It is not mercy to preach Jesus without repentance and new life. It is cruelty.

To reach people for Christ is a noble task, but who is this Christ? Most will agree that He was a wise teacher, a friend to sinners, a misunderstood prophet, a refugee. But He is also God-made-flesh, the embodiment of perfect humanity, the bearer of new life, and, yes, a judge. He gets us. After all, He became one of us, though not for free hugs and vague sentimentality, but to save us. Sin and death abound. The devil is loose in the land. What Western culture needs is not another bearer of its common values with a bit of religious window dressing, but a savior.   

-- David F. Watson, Lead Editor of Firebrand, and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio

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FREEDOM IN CHRIST

We can serve God out of a cringing feeling of failure to measure up, or we can serve Him out of gratitude for the work of grace He has fully brought into our life. Grace is by far a superior motivation to guilt. God doesn’t want us running holes in our shoes on some guilt trip. He doesn’t want us living life by some Levitical checklist of rules and regulations. He wants us to be free -- not just from sin, but from the chafing collar constraint that the Law clamped around our necks.

God wants us to be free, He wants us to live free, as Hebrews 10:15-18 indicates: “The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First He says: ‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put My laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’  Then He adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’ And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary.”

Having the Law in our hearts as opposed to an external standard of stone is the primary difference between the New Covenant and the Old (Jeremiah 31:31-33). The power of God’s Spirit residing within us is sufficient for us to live fully, to live fruitfully, and to live freely, unfettered from the shackles of sin and from slavery to legalism…

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free, therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”  (Galatians 5:1) 

-- Charles R. Swindoll in “The Preeminent Person of Christ: A Study of Hebrews” 

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THE ABUNDANT, FLOURISHING LIFE

Jesus said, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (John 10:10b)

I've often considered this one of Jesus' most important teachings, and I've spent years trying to understand it. What does Jesus mean by life? Obviously, life for Jesus means more than physical life, the heart pumping blood through the body and the brain pulsing waves detectable by the sensors of an EEG.

The life Jesus came to give us involves more than adding years to our earthly existence. The fact that the person who reveals to us what our life can be died at age 33 indicates that living involves more than extending the timeline of our days a little further. Life in God, eternal life, involves a deepening, not merely an extending. It is a life of unending depth and meaning rather than of unending [earthly] days. It involves richness, fullness, grace. The flourishing life involves knowing what it means to love and to be loved, to find a sense of meaning and satisfaction from our contribution to others, to discover purpose, connection, community, God. There are people who enjoy a vigorous physical health while missing out on abundant life altogether, just as there are people in hospice care with severely limited prospects physically and certain prognoses who nevertheless live fully, gracefully, and perhaps even joyfully.

What does abundant life mean? What does the gift of life in Christ give us? What makes for eternal life? These are questions stimulated by Jesus' single line, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." 

-- Robert Schnase, from his blog “The Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations” 

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AN EVERPRESENT HOPE

“Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forevermore.”  (Psalm 131:3 NIV)

Hope is a response to the future, which has its foundations in the promises of God. But hope is not a doctrine about the future: it is a grace cultivated in the present, it is a stance in the present which deals with the future. As such it is misunderstood if it is valued only for the comfort it brings, as if it should say, “Everything is going to be alright in the future because God is in control of it. Therefore relax and be comforted.” Hope operates differently. Christian hope alerts us to the possibilities of the future as a field of action, and as a consequence, fills the present with energy. 

-- Eugene Peterson

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THE MOST HIGH GOD – Part 2

“I will give thanks to the Lord because of His righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.”  (Psalm 7:17 NIV)

When a subject comes before a king, he kneels down. He is acknowledging that he is in the presence of his master. When a believer -- in any religion -- prays to his god, he kneels down. He is acknowledging that he is in the presence of his master. When a young man asks a woman to marry him, he gets down on one knee. He is acknowledging that he is in the presence of his master.

One of God's most important names, used some fifty times in the Bible is "Most High." All the signals of transcendence point toward Him. He is over all. In Him we come to the mountain that cannot be conquered or measured.

-- John Ortberg in “Faith & Doubt”

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THE MOST HIGH GOD – Part 1

“Let them know that You, whose name is the Lord -- that You alone are the Most High over all the earth.”  (Psalm 83:18 NIV)

Mountains have always been God-places. A mountain, if you think about it, is where heaven and earth come closest to each other. And there is something transcendent about a mountain. A mountain is a place of vision. In ancient times the remoteness and inaccessibility of mountains gave them an aura of mystery and power. Still today they produce a sense of wonder and awe that there is a higher reality. We are mountain climbers. We are mountain seekers.

Height is always suggestive to us of transcendence and power and vision. We venerate height. In the ancient world, altars were generally built on "high places," where sacrifices would be offered by high priests. Even today we speak of high ideals and high achievements, and politicians run for high office. People of greater height actually make higher salaries than shorter people. When someone becomes pretentious, we tell him to get off his high horse. We use drugs to give us a sense of temporary transcendence, give them names like "ecstasy," and say they make us "high." When we become addicted, we seek the help of a higher power.

Great heights inspire us, but they also humble us. They speak to us of our own smallness. No matter how hard we try, human beings are unable to refrain from worship. [Dostoevsky  wrote,] "The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great."

-- John Ortberg in “Faith & Doubt” 

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THE OBJECT OF OUR FAITH

“This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."  (1 John 4:9-11 NIV)

“God loves me” is not the essence of biblical Christianity. Because if “God loves me” is the message of Christianity, then who is the object of Christianity? God loves me. Me. Christianity’s object is me.

Therefore, when I look for a church, I look for the music that best fits me and the programs that best cater to me and my family. When I make plans for my life and career, it is about what works for me and my family. When I consider the house I will live in, the car I will drive, the clothes I will wear, the way I will live, I will choose according to what is best for me. This is the version of Christianity that largely prevails in our culture. But it is not biblical Christianity.

The message of biblical Christianity is not “God loves me, period,” as if we were the object of our faith. The message of biblical Christianity is “God loves me so that I might make Him -- [His Son,] His ways, His salvation, His glory, and His greatness – known among all nations.” Now God is the object of our faith, and Christianity centers around Him. We are not the end of the gospel; God is. 

-- David Platt in “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream”

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WALKING IN INTEGRITY

"Whoever walks in integrity walks securely, but he who makes his ways crooked will be found out."  (Proverbs 28:6)

Any time you commit to living a more godly life, you are entering enemy territory. Expect spiritual conflict. Whether it is fashionable or not, integrity involves a price, but the cost pales in comparison with the cost of compromise. People can ruin your reputation, but no one can take away your integrity. 

-- Paul Kroger, from an article entitled “Integrity at Work” in “New Man” magazine, Nov/Dec, 1994

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ANYTHING COULD HAPPEN

Our family has a handful of sayings that have been passed down from generation to generation.  They are part of our family folklore.  I'm not sure where this one originated, but I remember my grandma repeating it more than once:  You can't never always sometimes tell.  That tongue twister is a mind-bender, so you might need to read it twice.  Here's a translation:  "Anything could happen."

Let me redeem that saying and give it a prayer twist.  When you circle a promise in prayer, you can't never always sometimes tell.  Anything could happen!  You never know when or how or where God will answer it.  Prayer adds an element of surprise to your life that is more fun than a surprise party or surprise gift or surprise romance.  In fact, prayer turns life into a party, a gift, a romance.

God has surprised me so many times that I'm no longer surprised by His surprises.  That doesn't mean I love them any less.  I'm in awe of the strange and mysterious ways in which God works, but I have come to expect the unexpected because God is predictably unpredictable.  God always has a holy surprise up His sovereign sleeve!  The only thing I can predict with absolute certainty is this: the more you pray the more holy surprises will happen.  

-- Mark Batterson in “The Circle Maker”

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THE ARGUMENT FOR PRAYER

“One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When He finished, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.’  Jesus said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Your name, Your kingdom come…’”  (Luke 11:1-2 NIV)

Jesus never argued the validity of prayer any more than He argued for the existence of God. God was not something to be proved by argument; God was simply there, the beginning and the end of experience. Just so, prayer was not something to be proved by argument; prayer was there, the native breath of the soul. Prayer was mankind’s instinctive tendency, wrought into the very constitution of our nature. Its well-springs lay deep down beneath the region of argument; they lay in hearts which God has made for fellowship with Himself, which therefore (as Augustine at a later day expressed it) would always be restless until they found rest in Him. Hence Jesus never argued the matter.

But certainly there was a sense in which His own prayer life was the one unanswerable argument. Did any disciple -- Thomas, for example -- have doubts about prayer, genuine, honest doubts? Nothing was more likely to vanquish his doubts than the sight of Jesus upon His knees, for knowing Jesus and realizing what an utterly sure and reliable insight Jesus had into all the deepest things of life, such a disciple would feel it better to trust Jesus’ certainty rather than his own uncertainty. He would think it wise to attach more importance to Christ’s conviction than to his own doubts. In all matters of faith this is an enormously valuable principle, and certainly it carries weight here. Doubts are dispelled and dissolved before the shining prayer life of the Christ. The praying Christ is the supreme argument for prayer. 

-- James S. Stewart in “The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ”

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THE CALL TO DISCIPLESHIP

Then Jesus told His disciples, “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.”  (Matthew 16:24 ESV)

And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we shall have to go to [Jesus], for only He knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow Him, knows the journey’s end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy. 

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer in “The Cost of Discipleship”

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SALVATION HISTORY

“I long for Your salvation, O Lord, and Your law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise You; and let Your judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, for I do not forget Your commandments.”  (Psalm 119:174-176 NKJV)

The Bible is the record of those divine breakthroughs into human history. “God’s search for man,” it is described, rather than being our search for God. And its accents are considered a key for discerning the continuing divine activity in the present. Unlike most religious literature, it is not chiefly a collection of noble sayings, but a drumroll of events, people, struggles, great and terrible; of frailty, doubts, and heroism; of the ultimate might of right. Scripture isn’t meant as scientific exposition or as mere history. It is “salvation history,” a universal spiritual drama of an overarching compassion and concern for human integrity, of an unwavering love [on God’s part] that seeks an answering affirmation [on our part]. It is a vivid, sometimes parabolic account of God’s persistent, unrelenting quest for us and our stumbling, often faithless response. 

-- George Cornell in “The Untamed God”

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CHOOSE FOR YOURSELVES

“But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”  (Joshua 24:15 NIV)

It is amazing, the lengths God will go to get our attention. God will touch. He will tug. He will whisper and shout. He will take away our burdens. He'll even take away our blessings. If there are a thousand steps between us and Him, He will take all but one. But He will leave the final one for us. The choice is ours. 

-- Max Lucado in “A Gentle Thunder” 

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UNSELFISH LOVE

“God is love. This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”  (1 John 4:8b-10 NIV)

John says, “God is love,” not “Love is God.” Our world, with its shallow and selfish view of love, have turned these words around and contaminated our understanding of love. The world thinks that love is what makes a person feel good and that it is all right to sacrifice moral principles and others’ rights in order to obtain such “love.” But that isn’t real love, it is the exact opposite -- selfishness. And God is not that kind of “love.” Real love is like God, who is holy, just, and perfect. If we truly know God, we will love as He does. 

-- From the “Life Application Study Bible”

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GOD’S PRESENCE IN THE VALLEYS

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”  (Psalm 23:4 NKJV)

With a heart cry to God, I have thanked Him that He is with me and knows the extent to which this frame can be bent, but not broken. I often need His resiliency in my life, so that the branches of my mind will not snap, when times come that make life difficult to bear.

Understanding the Psalms helps us see we no longer need to feel guilty for the impassioned feelings that sometimes sweep over us. When David wrote those masterpieces, he created a place of refuge for us to follow. Anyone suffering mental anguish could look to them and find comfort. He knew the deepest valleys and was not afraid to tell God the truth about himself.

If we were always on the mountaintop, we would miss what God would teach us in the valleys -- that even on days when we feel He is unreachable, He is there. It is at this time we have to rely completely on faith and say, “Lord, I do not feel Your presence with me, but I know that You are there and this wilderness is only temporary in my life.” 

-- Joan Winmill Brown in “The Shelter of His Wings: A Book of Hope and Comfort”

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BUILDING ON THE ROCK

“Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”  (Matthew 27:24 ESV)

There are lots of competing ideas about what the good life entails. It might involve wealth, power, and sex, or, on the other hand, simplicity, family, and fidelity. The good life, from a Christian perspective, is one lived in harmony with God’s will. Jesus shows us which values lead us into keeping with God’s will, and which do not. If we trust in His teachings to guide our lives, we will learn that a life lived in keeping with God’s will is truly good. Jesus teaches this point using a parable about building a house on a rock or on sand (see Matthew 7:24-27).

Entrusting our lives to Jesus is like building upon a rock. Jesus’ teachings provide a sure foundation for our lives. He teaches us to deal compassionately with both friends and enemies. He teaches us to give of ourselves. He teaches us to be humble and, above all, to seek God in every aspect of our lives. Imagine a life well lived in this way. What a life of peace it would be! Imagine a world living in keeping with these teachings. What a different and wonderful world it would be! 

-- David Watson, in an article entitled “When Jesus Is Lord” from the book “A Firm Foundation” 

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FREEDOM IN CHRIST

“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”  (Romans 8:1-2 NIV)

Grace, the gift that cannot be earned, has set us free from being slaves to the law. Because we have felt God's love -- that amazing grace -- we are free from the world's silly games. We can step outside the ways of the world that say our worth is measured in power and possessions and prestige. We are free because we know who we are – children of God. Freedom for us is not about creating yourself in your own image, but about finding the Creator's love for you in your own soul.

We are set free from the anxiety of the world to love one another as Christ loves us, which means that the love that sets us free binds us to our brothers and sisters. Therefore, the sign of our freedom is finally the sign of the cross. Because Jesus was free, He was not afraid of what the world could do to Him. He would not bow down to Pilate or play the political game. He would not cut a deal so that someone else would suffer and He would keep His resume intact. He was free to love without fear and to live and die for us.

Once we know Christ's love for us, everything changes. That love changes how we see and act toward other people …

We are to serve one another not because we have to, not because we are trying to win God's affection by doing the right thing, but because the nature of love is to love. 

-- Excerpted from “From Anger to Zion: An Alphabet of Faith” by Porter Taylor

TRUSTING IN GOD’S PLAN

"So keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told. But we will have to run aground on some island." (Acts 27:25-26, in reference to Paul's shipwreck on the Island of Malta)

Sometimes it takes a shipwreck to get us where God wants us to go.

I believe in planning. Failing to plan is planning to fail. But when we trust our plans more than we trust God, our plans can keep us from pursuing Him and His will. And sometimes our plans have to fail in order for God's plans to succeed.

Failure (or what at the time looks like failure) can become a cage if you let it. It can keep you from pursuing the passions God has placed in your heart. But there's life after failure. The door of the cage swings open, and the Wild Goose [the Holy Spirit] calls you to a life of new adventures. 

-- Mark Batterson in “Wild Goose Chase: Reclaiming the Adventure of Pursuing God”

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