PEOPLE ON A PLANE AND PEOPLE IN A PEW

EDITOR’S NOTE: Recently I received this photo of my great-nephew in the cockpit of a commercial plane with the pilots behind him. It reminded me of this story from Max Lucado…

 

PEOPLE ON A PLANE AND PEOPLE IN A PEW

People on a plane and people in a pew have a lot in common. All are on a journey. Most are well-behaved and presentable. Some doze, and others gaze out the window. Most, if not all, are satisfied with a predictable experience. For many, the mark of a good flight and the mark of a good worship assembly are the same. "Nice," we like to say. "It was a nice flight / It was a nice worship service." We exit the same way we enter, and we're happy to return next time.

A few, however, are not content with nice. They long for something more. The boy who just passed me did. I heard him before I saw him. I was already in my seat when he asked, "Will they really let me see the pilot?" He was either lucky or shrewd because he made the request just as he entered the plane. The question floated into the cockpit, causing the pilot to lean out. "Someone looking for me?" he asked.

The boy's hand shot up like he was answering his second-grade teacher's question. "I am!"

"Well come on in."

With a nod from his mom, the youngster entered the cockpit's world of controls and gauges and emerged minutes later with eyes wide. "Wow!" he exclaimed. "I'm glad to be on this plane!"

No one else's face showed such wonder… I mostly saw contentment: travelers content to be on the plane, content to be closer to their destination, content to be out of the airport, content to sit and stare and say little…

Do you see why I say that people on a plane and people on a pew have a lot in common? Enter a church sanctuary and look at the faces. A few are giggly, a couple are cranky, but by and large we are content. Content to be there. Content to sit and look straight ahead and leave when the service is over. Content to enjoy an assembly with no surprises or turbulence. Content with a "nice" service…

A few, however, seek more. A few come with the childlike enthusiasm of the boy. And those few leave as he did, wide-eyed with the wonder of having stood in the presence of the pilot Himself…

"Seek and you will find," Jesus promised. (Matthew 7:7)

-- Max Lucado in “Just Like Jesus”  [2000] 

#6449

THE RISEN CHRIST IS WITH US – Part 1 of 2

“Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’”  (Matthew 28:18-20 NKJV)

At this very moment when I write and at the very moment when you read these words, you and I are in the presence of the living Christ. To remember this truth is to be shaped constantly by the presence of God in Christ in our lives. We often forget this central truth of the Christian faith, and when we do [forget], we are easily overcome by the troubles of the world.

For me, what I write will pass before the eyes of the One about whom I write. As I write, I hope that my ordinary capacity will be energized, directed, and used by the One who gives me life and has called me to this ministry. If I allow myself to think that this ministry… is all up to me, I risk feelings from despair to arrogance. However, if I remember that I am not alone, but think, work, and live in the presence of the living Christ, I remain hopeful that even the most simple and ordinary task carried out in that presence and with the assistance of Jesus Christ is sacred, meaningful, and useful.

For you, what you read comes not from the word processor of someone full of years and short of energy or imagination. For these words are now read and heard in the presence of Jesus Christ who is able to use the most simple and ordinary words and events to enlighten, comfort, heal, and direct the seeking heart. 

-- Rueben P. Job in “A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God”

#5832

FEAR OF CHANGE

“Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there [by the pool], and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, ‘Do you want to be made well?’”  (John 5:5-6 NKJV)

Who wouldn’t want help? Someone afraid of change.

This man was sick for quite a duration. At a point approaching four decades, it was the only life he knew. He may not have liked it, but he learned to survive as a beggar. Times were tough, but on the upside he hadn’t had to learn a trade or put his back into hard work. His home was his mat. His community was the pool, and he was who he was. It’s amazing what people can learn to endure.

And isn’t there a touch of this man in all of us? We accept a lot of things that we know could be better. We say, “Well, that’s just my life,” as if it’s engraved in stone. We decide God must want us to be here, because if he didn’t, he’d make something else happen. In other words, we blame God. And if it’s God’s fault that we are in the situation we are in, then why would we ask Him for help?

After a while we get used to things, and a limited life is less frightening than the thought of change. Resignation is better than disappointment. 

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins”

#5342

SEEKING GOD

“Then you will call on Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord.  (Jeremiah 29:12-14a NIV)

Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God.  They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking. 

-- A. W. Tozer in “The Pursuit of God” 

#5167

“HELPING” BUILD THE KINGDOM

As I feverishly pushed the lawn mower around our yard, I wondered if I'd finish before dinner.  Mikey, our 6-year-old, walked up and, without even asking, stepped in front of me and placed his hands on the mower handle.  Knowing that he wanted to help me, I quit pushing.

The mower quickly slowed to a stop.  Chuckling inwardly at his struggles, I resisted the urge to say, "Get out of here, kid.  You're in my way," and said instead, "Here, Son.  I'll help you."  As I resumed pushing, I bowed my back, leaned forward, and walked spread-legged to avoid colliding with Mikey.  The grass cutting continued, but more slowly and less efficiently than before, because Mikey was "helping" me.

Suddenly, tears came to my eyes as it hit me: This is the way my heavenly Father allows me to "help" Him build His kingdom!  I pictured my heavenly Father at work seeking, saving, and transforming the lost, and there I was with my weak hands "helping".  My Father could do the work by Himself, but He doesn't.  He chooses to stoop graciously to allow me to co-labor with Him.  Why?  For my sake, because He wants me to have the privilege of ministering with Him. 

-- Rusty Stephens

#5123

A HEART-CONNECTION WITH GOD

"Be still, and know that I am God.”  (Psalm 46:10a)

God will give us a fresh vision of Himself each day if we take time to be with Him, if we will approach Him with a quiet and expectant heart…

True life change is the result of extended periods spent sitting at our Lord’s feet, listening to His words, and seeking His face. “Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always,” Israel’s poet said (Psalm 105:4). We cannot convince ourselves of His presence; we cannot make our hearts believe and make our eyes see. He must make His reinforcing presence real. “If you seek Him, He will be found by you” (1 Chronicles 28:9).

Something very significant happens through these established times of worship: we begin to gain a heart-connection with God. We come to love what He loves. We come to hate what He hates. We come to think what He thinks. We come to see what He sees. We begin to concern ourselves with His concerns.

-- David Roper in “A Beacon in the Darkness”


#4763

THE CHURCH

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."  (Luke 19:10 NIV)

In God's benevolent economy, the church… provides a place of solace, a hotbed of godly values, a stage for spirited worship, an organism of relationships, and all the bountiful benefits Christians enjoy. But the church isn't the church so that we Christians can experience those perks. The church is the church so that other people can meet Jesus Christ and be captured by the Spirit and be incorporated into the Kingdom for eternity. A church exists, like Jesus, "to seek and to save the lost." The church is not in the business of coddling the cozy but rather of finding the fallen, and will inconvenience itself in order to reach out. The church exists to do what Jesus valued -- and did, Himself.

-- James D. Berkley in a sermon at First Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Washington


#4614

DOES IT MATTER HOW WE LIVE OUR LIVES?

“Then Jesus said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for Me will save it.’”  (Matthew 16:24-25)

As Christians, it does matter how we live our lives... Once we accept Christ into our lives to be our Savior, God through the Holy Spirit immediately begins working in us so that we will have the power to live for Him. However many Christians, including us, often find ourselves struggling to live righteously because instead of relying on God’s power, we try to change from our previous lifestyles on our own.

Properly living the Christian lifestyle may also be difficult to some because we are not fully seeking and thirsting after God with all our hearts. To live God’s way we would be forced to deny ourselves many of the things that we may enjoy. We would have to stop being self-centered and commit ourselves to following God, His Word and His commandments completely. We would not be able to just live for Christ sometimes or for only certain parts of the day, but all day, every day.

-- Danita Evangeline, Danae Mary Louise, Daniqua Grace, and Danyelle Elizabeth Whyte from their blog virtuousgirls.wordpress.com 

#4551

WHERE THERE IS NEED, THERE IS GOD

Just as water is ever seeking the lowest depths in order to fulfill them, so is Jehovah ever seeking out [our] need in order to satisfy it. Where there is need, there is God. Where there is sorrow, misery, unhappiness, suffering, confusion, folly, oppression, there is the I AM, yearning to turn [our] sorrow into bliss whenever [we] will let Him. It is not, therefore, the hungry seeking for bread, but the Bread seeking the hungry; not the sad seeking for joy, but rather Joy seeking the sad; not emptiness seeking fullness, but rather Fullness seeking emptiness. And it is not merely that God supplies our need, but He Himself becomes the fulfillment of our need.

-- Roy and Revell Hession in We Would See Jesus


#4044

SATISFIED WITH SUPERFICIALITY

We all want to spend eternity with God. We just don’t want to spend time with Him. We stand and stare from a distance, satisfied with superficiality. We Facebook more that we seek His face. We text more than we study The Text. And our eyes aren’t fixed on Jesus. They’re fixed on our iPhone and iPads -- emphasis on ‘i.’ Then we wonder why God feels so distant.

-- Mark Batterson in All In

#3633

IN THE TANGLEDNESS

Spirituality is not about perfection; it is about connection. The way of the spiritual life begins where we are now in the mess of our lives. Accepting the reality of our broken, flawed lives is the beginning of spirituality not because the spiritual life will remove our flaws but because we let go of seeking perfection and, instead, seek God, the one who is present in the tangledness of our lives.

-- Mike Yaconelli


#3278

A Personal Quest

"Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, 'Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw His star as it rose, and we have come to worship Him.'" (Matthew 2:1-2, NLT)

We need our God; He is to be had for the seeking; and He will not deny Himself to any one of us if we personally seek His face. 

-- Charles H. Spurgeon


#3135

WHAT DO I SEEK?

I do not seek, O Lord, to penetrate Thy depths. I by no means think my intellect equal to them: but I long to understand in some degree Thy truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand that I may believe; but I believe that I may understand.

-- Saint Anselm

 
#2774