WORKS FOR ME XIII

PLEASING TO GOD

“In every brilliant sunrise and every beautiful sunset,

God says, ‘Listen to me!’.”

Psalm 50:1

This is an appropriate verse for my last ocean sunrise, till next time.  With each sunrise and sunset comes a new day.  Yesterday is passed away.  Last night I shared some of those experiences that at one time were very painful.  For the first time I noticed that they have no life energy in them anymore.  It seemed strange. 

This morning I wondered why I even brought them up with the people I shared them with.  Those experiences are part of the compost pile that helps my growth.  They have turned and no longer need to be considered.  They are all a part of what has made me who I am now so I need to learn to speak of them with grace, if they need to be spoken of at all.  And those who did them need to be handled with grace as well.  “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20).

More than anything I want to live a life that pleases God.

“The life that pleases me is a life lived in the gratitude of grace,

Always choosing to walk with me in what is right.”

(Psalm 50:23).

My mouth is a constant area of stumbling for me.  I want it filled with praise for what God has done for me in my life; then there will be no room for the empty words of past hurts or words of self defense.  I believe that will please God and that always works for me.

WORKS FOR ME XII

DOING THINGS THE RIGHT WAY

Ephesians 3:9, 10

How I do things is just as important as what I do.  I don’t subscribe to the idea that the end justifies the means.  This is very meaningful in how I treat other people, especially the poor and marginal people in this world.  It’s easy to just throw money or food to them and then think we’ve done what is necessary.  But life is more than money or food.  There needs to be an investment of time and energy in order to meet the true needs of the human soul.  The offer must be “a hand up not just a hand out”. 

The good Samaritan didn’t just help the man in need; he invested in him.  This work goes beyond the physical realm.  It reaches into the spiritual real, both within the people themselves but also the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.  These rulers and authorities are the true enemies and are in constant conflict with God and with God’s people.  They focus on feeding and satisfying the flesh which is where most of the problems of this world have their roots.  I need to be aware of my true enemies and know who I am really battling.  Then I will do what I do the right way.  That works for me.

WORKS FOR ME XI

WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?

Ephesians 1:7-10 & Isaiah 46:8-11

The question put forth to all the politicians who are campaigning in this upcoming election is, “What is your plan for…”  History shows me that those plans rarely go as planned so I know not to depend on them or put my hope in them.  But still, it is important to know what the intention of each of these men and women is.

God the creator of the universe has had a plan since the beginning of time clear through to the end of time.  His plan will be fulfilled so it behooves me to align myself with His plan, His purpose.  It puts my feet on solid ground, keeps my hope high and frustration low, and it gives me direction and purpose to my life, here and now.

That plan…To unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.

That plan…That declares the end from the beginning can only be accomplished by God, the One God who is like no other and declares with absolute authority that, “My counsel will stand, I will accomplish all my purpose, and I will do it.”

In that security I can align myself with Him and cease my striving.  In that security I can yoke myself to His Son and do the work set before me.  In that security I can rest as I follow his lead.  That works for me.

WORKS FOR ME X

THE ORIGINAL REFORMATION

Life isn’t about me and what I do.  It’s all about God and what He did and continues to do.  I am His handiwork, His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that I should walk in them. (Ephesians 2:10)  I can’t make more of myself or lees of myself.  I am what I am.  I am His creation to do with as He pleases.  “This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent.  Those who believe in him are joined together and GROW into a holy temple, a dwelling place for God.”  This is not a static building but a living organism made up of those who believe.

I think a lot about the Church, not the man made institutional church but Christ’s Church the he is still building.  That Church begins with the confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  This confession is the Rock, the foundation of His Church that the gates of hell will not prevail against.  Christ’s Church consists of people who have entered into a covenant relationship with God through grace and faith in the work of forgiveness and reconciliation that Jesus completed on the cross in the shedding of his blood.  In this Church there are no barriers, boundaries, or buildings.  This Church is a communion of saints from the beginning of time throughout the end of time and beyond that into eternity.

There is no church without the Gospel.  There is no Gospel without Jesus and the cross.  There is no Gospel without the resurrection.  A gathering of people can be a Social Society, a community, a cult, a denomination…but it cannot be the Church without the Gospel of Jesus Christ, his work on the cross and his resurrection.  As people hear, believe, and receive the Gospel and receive it as a gift of God, He Himself begins to add to their numbers.  He grows His Church.  There is nothing man made about this work and only God is to receive the honor and praise through worship. 

The Bible reveals the truth that human beings are slow to learn and quick to forget.  Church history reveals the same truth.  A century hadn’t past and already the Church of Christ that began soon after his resurrection and ascension had already gone off track enough that God Himself gave Jesus  a revelation of things to come and the issues that needed to be reformed in the Church.  Jesus made this known to John through his angel.  This was the Original Reformation and unfortunately would be followed by several more as the years moved on.

This Original Reformation reveals a consistent pattern of actions of God’s people since the beginning of time.  God’s people abandon God, in their pride build their own cisterns, the cisterns break and people fail and turn to their idols, who fail to fix them.  God sends a revival, people repent, and begin anew, only to fall back into the same pattern.  In my pride I ask why this continually happens with God’s people.  In my humility I ask why this continually happens with me.  In His great wisdom God answers me.

“God made man upright, but they sought out many schemes” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).  Another translation is even more convicting.  “God made man simple; man’s complex problems are of his own devising.”

I believe that time is running out and I wonder how many more warnings and words of reformation God will graciously give.  I want to stop, look, and listen and get it right.  I want to go back to the Original Reformation that Jesus undertook, recorded by John, his beloved disciple.  Those issues are the roots of all the issues that came after them.  If those can be dealt with and corrected the pattern can be broken.  It works for me.

WORKS FOR ME IX

TRUST & OBEY

“There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

The holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;

God will help her when morning dawns.

Psalm 46:4,5

Is God in the midst of His people today?  Or have the people of God followed in the footsteps of some and abandoned God and built their own cisterns?  How can we with any integrity claim the presence and promises of God when we have excluded Him and leave Him on the outside of His city looking in?  As a nation, a church, as individuals, we have failed to keep our part of the covenant and yet we expect Him to keep His.  The thing is…He does…faithfully and completely, time after time.  That truth humbles me, makes me sorry for my waywardness, and causes me to be still and simply know that He is God; to know that He alone deserves all of the praise and worship that my heart can give.

“All that I can do is thank You

All that I can do is pray

All that I can do is lift my hands

And sing Your praise.”

I have spent much of my life striving after something that was already given to me.  In my desperation, or perhaps my arrogance, I thought, “It can’t be this simple.”  But it is…

”Trust and obey, for there’s no other way.

To be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey.”

Finally after all these years, this works for me.

What Will Our Children Ever Know?

Too much too many

More more more

Are we ever satisfied?

Every empty space now filled

With condos, hotels, restaurants

Can our eyes and ears have no rest?

Small town feels now like big city

Sand and ocean are inconsequential

More commerce, more shopping, more greed

The glory of God

Replaced by the ‘bling’ of man

The awesomeness cheapened

Shopping bags filled with merchandize

Replace the pockets filled with shells

Manufacturing replaces memories

What will our children ever know

Of lovely beach days

Simply filled with waves wanting to play?

What will our children ever know

Of lovely beach days

Simply digging holes and building castles in the sand?

WORKS FOR ME VIII

A DEEP CHANGE WITHIN ME

More than ever I feel more and more like a stranger and an exile on this earth.  I am an alien in this world, seeking a homeland not of this world, like many of the folks that have gone before me spoken of in the Bible.  The Kingdom of God has captured my heart, mind, and soul and I have no desire to be anyplace else except in the Presence of God on His Holy hill.

          “The zeal of God has consumed me, it burns in my soul.

            A driving force that cannot be stopped,

  A fire that cannot be quenched.”

Sometimes I just want to avoid this world altogether.  Sometimes I get angry at the way the world is and want to fix it.  I identify with Jesus when he went raging through the temple expelling the money changers, or when he addressed the hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees.  I have spent many years being mad at the church for all the same reasons, and then some.  I have come to see that much of that is a reaction to being wronged by people in the church, and I need to repent and forgive those folks.

Something deep within me is changing.  Spending so much time with God and reading through the Bible, it is becoming clear to me how much God loves His people, even when they mess up.  Spending so much alone time with me, it is clear that I have allowed the bad church experiences of my past to build up calluses caused by those hurts rather than allowing them to heal.  What is coming from these revelations is an opening up to a healing of past wounds and a new vision of the Church of Jesus and my relationship to it.  What better time for this work than this week at the beach and time spent with ole Fellowship friends?  It works for me.

WORKS FOR ME VII

IN AWE AT THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD

When I return to places I have been before, memories of the person I was back then surface.  Sometimes that can be overwhelming.  I find myself uttering, “What was I thinking?”  I was adventuresome in my life and went down a lot of different paths; some good, some bad.  I learned by experience what was good for me and what was bad for me.  Looking back I see many instances that I wished I had made different choices.  At times I was my own worst enemy.  Thankfully I never hurt anyone else except me, and I am grateful for that.  I have had to repent for a lot of things but I look back and I don’t have any regrets.  All of those paths eventually led me to the right one and all of those experiences of finding only dead ends give me assurance that the path I am on now is the one I am meant to be on.  It adds a sense of authority to what I say.

As I sit in God’s Presence these days it continually amazes me how faithful He is in His love for me.  He knows every bad thought, word, and deed I have ever thought, said, or did and still loves me.  Who else loves like that?

The other thing that amazes me is that He was always there with me, giving me a long lead but never letting any real harm come to me.  Who else loves like that?

I am continually in awe of the faithfulness and love of God and I continue to live my life in that sense of awe.  It works for me.

WORKS FOR ME VI

MAN’S WORLD VS GOD’S KINGDOM

After watching the hearings and the testimony of Hillary Clinton, I find myself not liking this world that mankind has built.  It lends itself to false power and corruption; to mean spiritedness; to the devaluation of people, and a disrespect of life.  It congers up blame and shame; it distorts responsibility and integrity.  The real evil is dismissed and the hunt begins for those who allowed it to happen, to those who breached the illusion of safety and security.  The ones who plotted, planned, and executed the evil by pulling the trigger or throwing the bomb become inconsequential.  It’s the fault of the government who is looked to as a god and savior of the world.

I don’t like this world that mankind has built.  It doesn’t work for me.

Fortunately there is another option; the world that God created, the Kingdom of God.  That is the world that Jesus proclaimed.  That is the world he gave us access to through his death on the cross and his resurrection. It is necessary for me to turn my allegiance from the one man has built and begin to walk and live in the one God has created.  It is the way I choose and it works for me.

WORKS FOR ME V

GOD REPAIRS & RESTORES FROM THE ROOT

Two major snares in my life have been betrayal and disappointment.  I put my heart and soul into what I do; I give it my all.  So when things fall apart I take it very personally.  Separating who I am from what I do has never been one of my strengths.  This is true in personal relationships, in churches I have been committed to, and in jobs that I have been employed by.  I enter in with high ideals and great enthusiasm that usually end up shattered and leave me feeling defeated, betrayed, and disappointed for some time afterwards.

I believe in aiming high and working to achieve the best that can be done, by me and by those around me.  When forced to lower those standards I hold dear, a piece of me dies.  I only have so many pieces.  When they are gone I gave up; not on the ideals but the places and people who refused them.  Rather than compromising, I left, always feeling sad, betrayed, and disappointed.

I have been told that my expectations are too high, and maybe they are.  It’s not that I expect success at meeting high standards but I firmly believe they should be continually reached for and not dummied down.  I’ve seen the look on the faces of too many kids when they have achieved something that they believed impossible but continued to reach for until they got there.  I have experienced that pure delight myself.  It does something inside a person that makes the effort worthwhile and can never be taken away.  So I am committed to reaching for high expectations for myself and for others.

I have had to work through my sense of betrayal and disappointment, and still do.  It has an undermining effect on the people and places I was involved with and that never feels good.  I try to understand, act with grace, and forgive.  But it is difficult and one sided work so it remains incomplete.

Recently God has been faithful in His work within me and has obviously been at work in others as well.  It started with apologies from my mother as she was nearing death and reflecting over her life.  Then an apology from a friend involved in a very hurtful experience from a Christian community I was shunned by over 30 years ago.  Just recently I received an apology from someone in leadership at a workplace where I experienced harsh and abusive treatment. These unsought apologies were simply words but they were salve to my soul.  They not only healed but they softened a hardness that had grown and had kept me from a sense of graciousness toward those who had hurt me deep within.  No one would be aware of that hardness except for me; and even I was surprised to experience a release of freedom that had been bound up, a release of grace and a genuine forgiveness towards all that had been done.

God has been at work since the beginning of time, continually repairing and restoring that which was broken between Him and His creation, at the root of things unseen.  God is at work, continually repairing and restoring me, at the root of things unseen.  Thankfully that works for me.

WORKS FOR ME IV

THE WORK OF GOD

“The work of God is that you believe in him whom He sent.”

John 6:29

A friend of mine wrote a beautiful song that comes into my head a lot during my morning Quiet Times.

“The most precious one in my life is Jesus.

The most precious one is the Spirit, who’s living in me.

Oh how I treasure our quiet times together.

You’re the most precious, most precious one in my life.”

         

Some people have commented to me that they find it hard to find time for devotions, or other spiritual disciplines that are a suggested part of the Christian Walk.  I must confess, I don’t.

These morning times are my favorite time of the day.  Undistracted and devoted times with just God and me, sitting in His Presence, listening to one another speak or simply sitting in the Silence.  It is a time of awakening for the Spirit who lives within me.  Everything seems new, fresh, and wonderful.  I somehow believe this is how all my days and nights should be; simple, sincere, and substantial.  God loves me and provides all that I need; I respond by loving Him, being thankful for all He provides, and wanting to do what pleases Him.

God is pleased when I listen to His Truth, follow Him in His Ways, and live my life as He designed it to be lived.  My fallen nature, my fleshly mind and body tend to balk at the idea of that submission and so I weary myself by being self directed and self sufficient.  I labor at constantly reinventing the wheel and making my own way through this life.  Those creations of my flesh always turn out to be fruitless and futile.  That is not how God designed life to be.

I was designed to be in a relationship with God; looking to God the Father for direction, yoked with Jesus, His Son for assistance, and indwelt by the Holy Spirit for energy and sustenance.  Then my labor will be grounded in steadfast love and will produce fruit that last forever.

God sent His Son to reconcile my fallen nature back into a relationship with God, to turn my flesh into Spirit as he turned water into wine, and to replace my self image with the image of God that I was born to reflect.

Commandments, spiritual disciplines, and devotions are not chores to be done.  Commandments reveal what pleases God; spiritual disciplines and devotions provide time to find how to incorporate those things into my life.

What pleases Him most is that I come to know His Son, believe in his name, and learn from him about the relationship God desires with me.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Works for me.

WORKS FOR ME III

LOOKING AT NOW IN THE LIGHT OF THE END

“Oh Lord, make me to know my end and what is the measure of my days;

Let me know how fleeting I am!  Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!”

Psalm 39:4,5

The request could work either way.  If I see how short my life on earth really is I will run around quickly trying to experience and grab all that I can.  The other way I could respond would be to find out the few things I really love and simply hone in on them.  In my life I have done both and I found the second response the most fulfilling.

In my youth I was very inwardly competitive and wanted to be the best that I could be at what I did.  There was a sense of self importance, that whatever I did mattered to the world and I wanted the acclaim and reputation of excelling in what ever I put my energy into.  Somehow I wanted to make a mark and let the world know that “Pat was here”.  Of course I cloaked that in great humility, which I also wanted to excel in.  Unfortunately my sense of self importance didn’t match my skill set and ability and I didn’t leave the mark I was meaning to.  But in the end it worked well for my quest for great humility, time and time again.

As I grew older I honed in on the things I loved doing and lost my concern for acknowledgement and reputation.  I wanted the inner peace and satisfaction of doing few things and doing them well.  I grew more contemplative.  I was less stressed, less busy, less concerned about what others thought about me, less concerned about a reputation and making a mark.  Now I do what I love which is more on the path that I believe God planned for me to begin with.

What I love is God and all of His creation.  Honing my relationship with Him and with all of His creation is all that truly matters to me these days.  Once I got that right all else simply fell into place; my relationship with other people, with nature, and with the world in general.  God is a God of relationship.  He begins in the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that flows out into His relationship with all of His creation.  It is simply the way things are meant to work.

When I see the end of His Story it helps me work out my life story in the moments of here and now.  In the end I will dwell in relationship with God in the spirit of worship of Him and unity with others who have received and believed in His name.  Why not start that now by worshipping God and developing those relationships with those one anothers, those who now are and those who are yet to be?  God created His people to be one another to one another.  The older I get the more I see this simple truth.

Sometimes I wish I lived backwards, being born older and wiser.  I certainly would have eliminated some foolish choices I made.  Maybe the best advice I can give to the young ones today is to consider David’s prayer.  “Oh Lord, make me to know my end…”.  It works for me.

WHO WILL THEY TURN TO?

For those who know God, believe in Him, and live their lives in the light of His Word, He promises to be with them in tough times, when it all seems to fall apart.   He promises to turn their mourning into dancing and bring them to a place of joy once again.  But what of those who reject and deny God?  When their dancing turns to mourning, when the music stops and the good times turn sour, who will they turn to?  Life is not a fairy tale where people live happily after.  When God’s commands are flaunted, disregarded, and denied there will be eternal consequences.  God would not be a righteous, just, or fair God if there weren’t.  Who do those who don’t believe in or honor God turn to?

God warned from the very beginning that sin crouches at the door, waiting to devour those who disregard God’s commandments.  Those who flaunt God’s words of warning will suffer the consequences of that choice.  In one way they have themselves to blame.  But God also levels blame to those who cause others into the temptation to sin.  These are sobering words.

          “Whoever causes one of these little ones to sin, it would be better

            for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were

            drowned in the depth of the sea.  Woe to the world because of

            offenses!  For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom

            these offenses come” (Matthew 18: 6,7).

Isn’t this the result of clouding the distinction between right and wrong, between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who don’t?  Isn’t this the result of the established representatives of God in the church, those who are called to teach and shepherd God’s people, breaking the covenant God made with Levi and the priesthood, spoken of in Malachi 2:4-10?  “True instruction was to be in his mouth but he has turned aside from the way, from the fear and awe of God and speaks lies, causing many to stumble.”

Those who sin by disregarding God and His Word and those who opened the pathway to sin must repent or they will suffer the consequences and have no one to turn their mourning into dancing. Sadly they will not experience the true joy that flows from forgiveness from God and obedience to God.

Mystery Has No Form

There is no form in Mystery

Nothing to cling to or hold on to

The Mystery transcends form

So that all can recognize it

But never claim or possess it

The Mystery claims and possesses me.

The glory of God has consumed me

It burns in my soul

But like the bush on the mountain

I am not destroyed but fulfilled

God is Mystery

He doe the clinging and holding on to.

Jesus came in form

But the form is no more

He sits high above on the throne of God

That he left awhile to come and die for me

He was who he was while in the form of man

The form is no more but the I AM is forever.

There is no form in Mystery

Nothing to cling to or hold on to

Nothing to grasp, label, and comprehend

Nothing to gather and put into a box

Nothing that humans can take pride in mastering

Only there to be lived in and in awe of.

Pleasing to God

Jesus is the law of God

He speaks wisdom

He speaks justice

He is a worthy counselor

Jesus is the law of God.

When the law of God is in my heart

I will then speak wisdom

I will then speak justice

I will then be a worthy counselor

When the law of God is in my heart.

When I delight in the law of the Lord

I will be like a tree planted by streams of water

I will yield fruit in season, I will not wither

I will prosper in all I do

When I delight in the law of the Lord.

Jesus is the law of the Lord in whom I delight

Jesus is the stream of water where I drink

Jesus produces His fruit in me

Jesus gives me everlasting life

Jesus is the law of the Lord in whom I delight.

Jesus trusted in His Father

Jesus delighted in His Father

Jesus committed Himself to His Father

Jesus waited patiently for His Father

God said, “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased”.

When I trust in the Lord God, my Father

When I delight myself in the Lord God, my Father

When I am still before the Lord God, my Father

When I wait patiently for the Lord God, my Father

God says, “This is My daughter in whom I am well pleased”.

WORKS FOR ME II

MOURNING TO JOY

I find myself with a sense of mourning for a broken world today; mourning a man I never met; mourning a species of extinct bird that I never saw; mourning a world that is so broken and yet continues to reject God, the only One who can fix it.  Human beings were created in god’s image but because God is rejected and the choices are made to do things on our own, that image is marred and has been replaced by the ugliness of sin and the image of the enemy of God and all that God created.  I know how the Story ends but still, in its unfinished copy I feel a sense of mourning.

A man I never met but know about through a friend shot himself to death.  The preparation to take one’s own life is the darkest of darkness.  To leave people behind who are devastated and filled with mixed feelings of loss and hate for what he did is a gross injustice to a family.  What causes a human being to go so far off the mark of what he was created to be is something truly evil.  It is a waste of potential that will never have been fulfilled nor now never has a chance to be transformed.  It leaves a huge wake that will have to be navigated by all those who are left behind.

I read about the extinction of the great auks of Newfoundland.  The senseless slaughter of a species of birds that God created is truly evil.  Rather than seeing the beauty of these creatures, those who look through eyes of greed saw a delicacy to the palate and feathers to fluff their pillows with.  This mass killing was not the fulfillment of a need for survival, but simply a whim to fill pockets with money.  These creatures were beautiful, harmless, and deemed by God as good as He added them to His creation.  Human beings saw them as worthless to the world but beneficial to their wealth, probably figuring that no one would ever miss them.  God, who watches over every single sparrow and counts the hairs on every human head certainly grieved over these innocent birds and the world at large misses them as their designated space now stands empty and void.

God in His steadfast love for all human beings, even the ones who refuse to acknowledge Him, gave the world the greatest gift of all, His Son.  Jesus was sent to love the world and reconcile the people of the world back into proper relationship with the One who created them.  The gift of forgiveness and reconciliation was freely given to all human beings at the high cost of the life of His Son.  That gift has been rejected, reproved, and remains unopened by much of the world.  All the brokenness suffered by human beings could be healed; all their needs met; all the emptiness filled; all the love and wholeness that is asked for freely given.  Human pride and belief in the lies of the enemy are the evils that keep this gift sitting unopened.

I find myself mourning today, but the mourning moves me to prayer and to look with hope to the God who is Sovereign over all the earth, even these individual circumstances and situations.  The mourning moves me to look with hope to the God who works all things together for the good and for His glory.  The mourning moves me to look with hope to the God who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things.  The mourning moves me to look with hope to the God whose thoughts and ways are much higher than mine for answers and condolence.

In the Kingdom of God Jesus says blessed are those who mourn.  God says blessed are those who mourn now but He promises that He will turn the mourning into joy.  The day is coming when “God Himself will be with His people.  He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore”. That works for me.  My heart rejoices at His promise...

“Surely I am coming soon…Amen. Come Lord Jesus.”

WORKS FOR ME I

NEW EVERY MORNING

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.”

Lamentations 3:23

Sometimes I have a tendency to get bored of doing the same thing over and over again.  I feel like I am stuck in a rut.  Day after day I do the work but after awhile it becomes rote and the heart and soul energy dries up.  This can happen in my religious practices as well.  Same ole same ole thinking can eventually numb me and the emptiness sets in. 

This is one of the criticisms gave to his Church; he was referring to his Church in Ephesus, once a very alive and vibrant Church.  They were continuing the work but their love of God and the people they were working for and with had grown cold and non existent. Jesus was clear to them that the love was more important than the work itself.  He commanded them to repent or he would remove their lamp stand altogether. This is a strong admonition to be taken seriously.

I’ve seen the pattern in many churches I have worked in and been a part of.  It’s an innocent sort of deception that goes unnoticed at first.  The weightiness of the work overtakes the who the work is for; the program becomes more important than the people; a spirit of self righteousness replaces the spirit of servant hood; the focus falls on success, reputation, and praise for the good things we are doing rather than the Spirit of God who we are working for.  Then the Spiritual energy dissipates all together and we are left busy, running on empty.  We get stuck in a mindless, heartless routine that eventually drains us and becomes the grounds for grumbling and complaining.

I have seen this pattern over and over again, not only in church work but in my life.  How can I keep things new and fresh everyday so I don’t lose that first love energy that gives what I do life?  God certainly does it.  His love is fresh and new every morning.  That is evidenced in my heart and in the world of nature that surrounds me.  A sun rise is a sun rise but I have never seen one sun rise the same as another.  Every dawn is a clean slate that is filled everyday in a new and fresh way.  Everything is the same and yet everything is new and different.

I am continually surprised and awed by the beauty of each new day.  The same is true of sun sets.  Neither grows boring to me in their rising and setting and the displays that accompany them.  That’s how I want my life to be; routine but never boring.  I can do that by keeping a sense of delightful expectation as I do my work. What will come of this day?  I can do that by consciously connecting with God and His creative Spirit in everything I do.

When I begin the day and begin my work in an atmosphere of worship and praise, it invites a new and fresh energy of love to be imparted into everything I do or say.  I start everything with a new and clean slate ready to be filled in a new and fresh way.  That works for me. 

DO UNTO ONE ANOTHER

“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have given you an example, that you also should do unto one another as I have done unto you.

John 13:14, 15

There was a time when I loved being part of a church.  It was a place of warmth and comfort, a place where people knew one another well and spent time with each other, not only on Sundays but during the week at school functions, picnics, and my favorite, pot luck dinners.  I volunteered as a youth counselor at MYF and led a folksingers group, Colossians 3:16.  We became a part of one another’s lives and we watched out and cared for one another.  It was a natural growth of community and I still keep in touch with some of these folks, even after 40 years have passed.  They, in many ways, are family to me.

Time moved on and so did I.  Changes began to happen in the world, in the church, and in me.  My church experience became one of conflict instead of comfort. One by one the churches I got involved in got bigger, needed buildings and got more corporately organized.  Eventually the internal battles and politics became something I did not see as what a church should be, so I left and carried on my own relationship with God.  After many years I ended up following my desire to be a writer and found myself in a seminary.  Church once again entered my consciousness.  But something very strange had happened in time and space.  When I tried to renew my association with church, I found it to be a very different place than I had experienced.  The world had entered a Post Modern phase and the church followed in its footprints.  Everything had changed.  I felt like Rip Van Winkle, who had fallen asleep for many years and woke up in a very different world.

Besides the big changes of de-goding God, denying the Bible, and de-deifying Jesus, there was a huge change in the way people were with one another.  The do unto one another as I have done for you pattern that Jesus demonstrated was all but gone.  There were committees, ministries, and hired employees set in place, each one carrying out their assigned function like a well oiled machine.   I remember going to lead a workshop at a church and there was to be a lite dinner served.  I went in, introduced myself to the folks there and started to help set the tables with them.  Someone quickly came up to me and actually took the plates out of my hands and told me, “This is the job of the hospitality committee.  You are leading the workshop so you can go and prepare”.  I felt sad that some how a barrier had been put up because of what our function for that meeting was.  I also felt sad because as I sat by myself in the room where the workshop was to be I could hear the talking and laughter going on in the room where the dinner was being set up.  I felt like I was missing out on the fun.  I missed my pot luck dinners where everyone just pitched in and joyfully did what needed to be done, enjoying one another’s company while they were working.

The saddest experience came with my mom.  She was legally blind and in her 80’s but very independent.  She wasn’t able to get out and about anymore.  After talking to her one night on the phone and hearing about her dinner of saltine crackers, I called the pastor of her church (my home church) the next day to see if something help could be available.  The minister contacted the head of the Stephen Ministry and she said they could be of some assistance.  A group visited mom, explaining what assistance was available through their ministry if she wanted it.  Mom was embarrassed and insulted and refused help, saying she didn’t need it.  The key to this story is that the people who came were folks my mom had known and worked with for over 40 years, as a Sunday school teacher, a your counselor, a preschool teacher, and a member of the congregation.  They approached her as an object of the ministry, not as a friend or an one another.  They left and told her that they couldn’t help her if she refused and in refusing them she was refusing God.  When I heard about this interaction from my mom I felt in my heart that something is horrible wrong with this picture.  I have gone on to observe that this is not an isolated incident but is where the church is at in many ways.  In professionally organizing things we have forgotten about the humanity of what is being done.  People we are helping become our clients or our job, our example of doing for one another.

The division used to be the world and the church.  But now the church is now divided into different functions, ministries, jobs, and cubby holes that wind up in conflict with one another.  Meanwhile people inside and outside of the church are broken and hurting while the planning and arguing against one another continues.  I am convinced that this is not what Jesus had in mind when he said, “Do unto one another as I have done unto you.”

I propose we lose the titles, the labels, the things that divide us and make us more or less important than one another or more spiritual or holier than one another, and simply be one anothers to one another.  I would also propose that this is how we should be outside of the church as well. 

NOW IS THE TIME

True discipleship to Jesus will yield the fruit of true stewardship to what God has created; the earth and everyone and everything that inhabits it.

Because I love God I will love all of His handiwork, all of which He loves with a steadfast love.

In the loss of God centeredness the earth has suffered, people have suffered, all of God’s creatures have suffered.  In the awe and the fear of God human beings were to be stewards of the earth and all of its inhabitants.  In the greed of human beings the earth has been raped, robbed, and pillaged; its inhabitants have inherited the consequences of that greed and end up raping, robbing, and pillaging one another.  And yet we still ask why.  Why all this violence?  Why all this hate?  Why all this injustice?  Why all these wars?  Why?  The answer is plain and clear.

          “For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give

           thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their

           foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21).

To top it all off we are without excuse no matter how hard we try to find someone or something to blame.

In many places worship and praise of God have gone extinct.  Mankind is glorified, honored, and applauded.  His words and deeds fill the air.  His plans are developed and worked out in repairing and ruling the world, the governments, and even the churches.  His former interventions didn’t work so a new one is brought forth.  But it will fail as well.  Human words, deeds, and plans have no substance and they will never succeed.

We have no excuse.  We are now in the eleventh hour.  We have raped, robbed, and ruined the earth that God created and commissioned us to attend to and care for and time is running out.  We have no other hope than to humble ourselves and repent of our ways.  Now is the time to turn with breathtaking wonder and worship God in awe and fear.  Now is the time to praise this Creator who spoke this world into being and thank Him with all that is within us.  Now is the time to let God rule in all His Glory and bring a rebirth to this earth and to His people.

Now is the time to stop, be still, and know that God is God.

WHY WOULD I WANT TO BE SELF RIGHTEOUS?

Self righteousness is an easy state to slip into.  It is a double edged sword that has two dangers.  When a person does away with God, that person will become his or own god and then eventually try to be god to others.  When a person spends so much time trying to be like God, it can slowly develop into a sense of self righteousness.  I have experienced both sides of the sword and neither one is sensible or sustainable.

I am already all that I can be.  God did the initial work at birth and the restoration of that work through His Son’s death on the cross.  I need to keep who I am and whose I am always at the fore front of my thinking.  Then I will relax and simply flow in His fountain of living water, riding the current of the Holy Spirit within me.  It is a beautiful ride and it freely takes me to where I am to be; always in His Presence.  I don’t need to do anything other than obey and become one with the wave and the wind of His Spirit.

Life was designed to go with the flow of energy running through it and around it.  It was not designed to resist that energy or try to manipulate than energy.  Life was designed in perfect balance and harmony and that is the way it works best.  That required some yielding, bending, and bowing on my part.  It is only hampered by resistance and barriers.  Watching nature simply go with the flow provides me with these lessons and I do well to heed them.

It has taken me forty plus years to understand the ramifications of self righteousness, self defense, and self reliance.  They are still easy habits to fall back into.  But I have learned to read the signs of that fall and quickly make the necessary readjustments to my thoughts and actions.  When my heart is overwhelmed I don’t look to my own thoughts on the matter, or my own ways of solving the situation.  My point of view is bias and limited.  I have learned to do as David did.

“Hear my cry, O God, listen to my prayer;

from the end of the earth

I call out to you

when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”

Psalm 61:1, 2

I enjoy a personal and intimate relationship with God but I do not see Him as my equal; nor do I want to.  I want someone watching over me from above, with a higher view and perspective.  I want a God whose thoughts and ways are higher than mine.  I want a God who is full of Glory and Majesty and is sitting on a throne and lifted up; a God who that when I am in His Presence my only response is Holy, Holy, Holy art thou and I am undone, lost, a woman of unclean lips who is made clean and whole only by His grace.

I enjoy a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus as well; but neither do I see him as my equal; nor do I want to.  He gave his life for me so I could enjoy a life with him.  But he is also sitting on that throne as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and it is him I bow to and worship.

I don’t want to resist or rebel; I don’t want to be self defensive or self reliant.  I am glad to serve a personal and loving God who created the world and everything in it, who makes Himself available to me at all times.  This fills me with awe and causes me to bow and to be overcome with love.

GOD DESERVES MY WORSHIP & PRAISE

I can see many consequences of the post modern view of God that this world has chosen to proclaim.  I can see them in the secular and religious expressions of who God is and who God isn’t that are spoken by people from all branches of life.  The belief that God is Glorious and Majestic above all other things and is to be a sense of awe and fear to us has in many places been replaced by a more human god, a god created in our image.  It is felt that this makes Him more accessible, friendlier, and easier to package and sell to nonbelievers.  The last church service I went to in my family denomination proclaimed that Jesus was a beach boy.  Everyone was dressed in Hawaiian shirts and a surf board was on the altar. 

I certainly know God as a personal God, as a friend, and a constant companion; but I never forget that He is God, who created all things and is to be held in awe and fear.

The post modern view has had an affect on the act of worship, especially corporate worship in many churches.  I go and sit, listening to poems being read and encouraging words being spoken about how good humanity is and how we should pat ourselves on the back because of all the good things we do as ministry.  People walk out feeling uplifted and happy, but I sit and wonder, where was the worship; where was the praise?  God was never mentioned, much less honored or esteemed for who He is and what He does; humanity was.  In the old days that would have been considered idol worship.  I carry the eyes and heart of the old days.

I for one miss God being a real Presence in the world and in so many churches.  There is simply no God consciousness observed in the things done, the words spoken, or the lives lived.  That becomes obvious when bad things happen and suffering surfaces.  Grumbling, complaining, blame, and a lot of questions come about, some of it directed towards God, who all of a sudden comes to mind as someone who should have done something about the situation.

These are all consequences of not seeing God for who He truly is.  It makes me sad.  I’ve been accused of being to God minded, too fanatic in my beliefs in God’s total Sovereignty, too foolish because I don’t buy into the “new and improved” worldview, whatever that is this week.  The truth is I wouldn’t trade my awe and fear of God for any of the foolishness of humanity.  That doesn’t come out of a spirit of pride or self righteousness.  That comes out of a soul of a sinner that knows the forgiveness, the grace, and the steadfast love of a glorious and majestic God, who I want to worship and praise in all I am and in all I do.  I am eternally thankful and He will be the One that fills my heart, soul, thoughts, and speech forever.  He will be the One I will worship and praise forever.

WHERE IS THE WORSHIP & PRAISE?

Where is the worship

The reverence accorded to God

The awe, respect, and devotion He deserves?

Where is the praise

The expressions of admiration

The honoring and exalting of God?

Have they become extinct

Or simply lost in the flowing gowns of

Human self righteousness and pride?

In the end only He and the Lamb

Will sit on the throne

And His bondservants will worship Him

And Him alone.

In the end He will dwell with His people

He will be their one and only God

And His bondservants will praise Him

And Him alone.

But why wait until the end

Why not see now that only He

Is worthy of all worship and praise?

XII. HOW SHOULD I THEN LIVE?

The more difficult the days become

The easier God’s Way becomes

The darker the days become

The easier it is to see that one eternal light

The chaff burns away

The human additions fall away

The absolute remains, standing alone

Beckoning me to “Come and follow” Him

I love the simplicity of the Gospel invitation

No doubts, no debates, simply a call

To “Come and follow”

And I simply do.

Human pride and arrogance are abominations to God.  They stand in direct conflict to the fear of that Lord that I am rooted in and desire to live by.  Because of human pride and arrogance nations will fall, as history has clearly shown.

It is easy to fall into the trap of the two evils, through self righteousness as well as doing evil.  A repentant sinner trumps the ‘more holier than thou’ religious person in God’s kingdom.

God wants me to BE well and DO well.  He provides all I need in able to BE well and DO well.  When I keep that Truth foremost in thinking I will be constantly aware that it is only by the grace of God that I am who I am and do what I do.  That brings the glory to Him and then He smiles down on me and is pleased.  This is all I seek.  This is how I shall then live.

I WILL REAP WHAT I SOW

Galatians 6:7

It is a law of nature that I will reap what I sow.  This law applies to me as an individual as well as to society and nations.  There is no one to blame other than myself when what I have sown begins to grow and mature.

Jesus said

“I am the light of the world”

Without him

I walk in darkness

Jesus said

“I am the good shepherd”

Without him

I am uncared for, and unattended

Jesus said

“I am the resurrection and life”

Without him

I will die forever

Jesus said

“I am the way, the truth, and the life”

Without him

I have no way, no Truth, no life

Jesus said

“I am the true vine”

Without him

I am chaff

XI. HOW SHOULD I THEN LIVE?

As I am reading about global warming and seeing the effects in the extreme acts of nature that are happening more and more, it strengthens my belief that the power of nature will overwhelm and overcome anything that mankind can manufacture.  God made this world with a delicate sense of order and whenever we human beings tamper with that delicate order or try to master it, we will fail.  And when we fail we will suffer the consequences of that failure. 

I remember going to Great Falls after one of the big hurricanes and seeing the destruction of walkways made out of cement and iron, just crumbled and twisted as the raging water ran through its pathway.  Now in South Carolina watching roads, bridges, and dams crumble by the raging water brings the force of nature to the forefront.  In the end nature wins and we can do nothing against its might and strength.

The native of old learned to live with nature, not try to control it.  They saw nature as gods to be appealed to.  That is idolatry, but the principle is a good one.  Nature deserves our awe and respect.  It always wins.  We need to appreciate and learn from it; we need to live within IT’S rules and boundaries, not try to force it to live by ours.

Some say the damage is too far gone and we will live in the consequences of that.  That means we need to adapt to what we have done to this world in our pride and arrogance.  More than anything else we need to stop, repent, and recalculate how we live on this earth that God freely gave us to live on.

How should I then live needs to be an important focus of my daily self examination.  For that I can go back to the Source, to the One who created the world and knows it so well.

es'>  They are the gifts of God that He installed within me at birth, to keep me safe and secure.

GOD SATISFIES MY NEED NOT MY GREED

Human beings were commissioned by God Himself to attend to the earth.  Instead we have attacked the earth and robbed it of all it has in order to satisfy our greed that we disguise as need.  God promise to provide for all our needs but not to satisfy our greed.  So we took things into our own hands and developed and developed a world of technology that is now attacking not only the earth, but has turned on its maker and will eventually rob and destroy us.

Compare the creatures of the earth to humans and one can clearly see human beings are out of order with the original idea of creation.  Human beings are not satisfied with life itself.  The basics of food, water, and shelter are not enough.  Simply living in the beauty of God’s Presence and with one another is not enough.  The demand is for more stuff and so we take it upon ourselves to manufacture more, at the expense of everything we have been freely given.

We are not content with the freely flowing fountain of living water.  We build our own cisterns and fill them with stuff that we think makes us happy.  But the cisterns break so we build more and continue to try and fulfill our greed.  The result is full hands but empty souls.  We destroy in order to build and eventually we will end up with nothing but destruction all around us.

X. HOW SHOULD I THEN LIVE?

One of the results of being over inundated with constant noise and words is that it is very easy to shut them out.  At some point I just stop listening.  I have learned to take a different approach.  I limit the amount of noise and words so I can truly listen and hear what is important; the person right in front of me who is speaking gets my undivided attention.

Listening has become a lost art and we are paying the price.  When I fail to listen I miss cues.  I would venture a guess that the young men in the news who are doing these mass shootings are not being listened to by parents, teachers, or anyone in their lives.  These senseless acts of violence are their ways of being heard and paid attention to.  It’s not the only reason, but it is a big one.

I remember back in the 60’s learning about “Throw Away Children”.  Parents were beginning to break from traditional values and were turning their kids over to other people to be responsible for.  Day Care Centers, schools, after school programs, organized team sports, and even camps became receptacles for kids to be put and watched after all day.  Other people began the ones raising these kids then sending them home to parents who were exhausted from working all day at their jobs.  This left little time for learning or listening between parents and their children.  Social media has only exasperated the problem even more.  Kids aren’t stupid.  They know that feeling of abandonment and alienation, even if every physical need is met in abundance.

When things go wrong with their kids everyone else is blamed; the schools, the gun laws, the world situation, are where the fingers are being pointed.  But as I heard a minister once say, “When one finger is pointed at someone else, there are three pointed back at you.”  When I heard the father of one of these mass murders say, “How come he was able to buy so many guns?” my response was “How could you not know your son had all those guns?”  We as a nation have not done well by our children.  We all stand guilty.  We can argue forever who is to blame or we can stop, repent, and change our ways.

God gave human beings the responsibility of tending to His creation; first the plants and animals in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 1:28) and then the children (Deuteronomy 6:7).  This nation has failed at both.  Let’s buck it up, realize where we have gone wrong, and change our ways.  Let’s begin by listening to God and then truly listening to one another; those who are needy, those who are marginalized, and especially the children.  It is the children that will become our future.  It is with this vision placed before us that we need to decide how should we then live.