Newsletter

Remember Who You Are!!

by

Have you heard of those who suffer from temporary amnesia? Due to some trauma they have forgotten who they are. They have lost their identity. They also do not know where they fit, nor what to do. They have forgotten their family, their job, their joys – everything. They wander around aimless, asking who they are? 

This is in essence the modern dilemma. We do not know who were are, why we are here, where we fit. So, we grasp for some comforting identity, some meaningful purpose. 

What is mankind? What is our true identity? What were we created for? What is our purpose?  We are made in the image and likeness of God. To know him, reflect and enjoy his greatness and glory – we are made to like Him, and to be like him. 

Yet, instead of imaging him, we, in our amnesia, are trying to make God in our own image. We call the shots and make the rules. God must answer to us and submit to our sense of right and wrong, to our definition of meaning and identity. We end up attacking the image of God that is in us. We are fighting against ourselves, and our created purpose. 

We are fighting against our own biology, the way we are fashioned. God has already set the rules, the purpose and direction of life.  We can fight against it, but we can never win.

There is great rest and peace in knowing who we are created to be. Sin has given us delusions of grandeur. But God has created us in real grandeur.  

Psalm 8 proclaims, “what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet … O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

Do you know who you are? God does. He created you, in his own image, to know and delight in him and his creation. Wake up to your created glory! Remember who you are; and known true rest and peace.

Signals of Transcendence

by

To stop and smell the roses can be frightening thing – that is why we do it so infrequently. We often think of that phrase, ‘Stop and smell the roses’, as a call to forsake the busy rat race for a quick time of sweet rest and refreshment among the treasures of nature.  Pause, relax, let the stress drain away while you watch the waves or stare at a mountain peak.

So, how can that be a frightening thing? Because, to ‘stop and smell the roses’ can be a ‘signal of transcendence.’  Peter Berger coined the phrase to means hints and clues in life that awaken us to unseen realities. Os Guinness has a new book out by that title where he shares how ten people came to understand that there must be more to life.

Peter Berger described these hints and clues as “signals of transcendence” that awaken us to unseen realities.  Have you ever experienced a “there must be more to life” or a “signal of transcendence?”  Some thought that so stunned you as to change your perspective on life radically? It could be a deep disappointment, or a frustrated desire, or the scent a flower, or a death, or a sermon?  Anything can be a signal of transcendence calling you to reevaluate your assumptions in life.

You might think that I am talking about conversion, and that is in the mix, and it is often the end of a journey that begins with a ‘signal of transcendence.’

There must be more to life. Let me give you a taste of this from my own experience.  When, as a teenager, death stuck my extended family twice, I thought, there must be more to life.  When I learned about Corrie Ten Boom who survived the Nazi death camps, but her sister did not, forgave a guard from that camp.  When I went to L’arbi in Switzerland and knew the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit, when I was called to be ministry during a sermon, when I was called by God to my first church, when my children and grandchildren were born.  God can use any experience to awaken us to profound, and neglected spiritual realities.

The essential thing is to listen when God speaks in this way.  Heed the still small voice. Follow up on the signal. Don’t forget how the rose smells.  It may change your life. 

Fully Known and Truly Loved

by

Does anyone really know you? Does anyone really love you?  We are all created in the image and likeness of God in order to commune with God: to enter a relationship with him, to know and love God. We are made to know, love, and enjoy fellowship with God and with others made in His image. But, sin has really messed us up. Now, we have lost fellowship with God, and we fear to be known, but still long to be loved.

Does anyone really know you? Does anyone really love you? Now, the safest course is to hide ourselves and stoically refuse to acknowledge our need for loving fellowship. You cannot love is you do not play the game. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Those who are neither known nor loved tend to be sad, shriveled shells of broken humanity.

As a safer compromise, we will settle for being loved but not truly known. We will receive the love and attention that we crave, but it is not really “me” who is being loved. They are loving a sanitized image, a filtered projection of a self that is not really me. We fear that if we are really known we will not be really loved.

But our greatest fear is to be fully known, and not loved.  This, we think, is what ought to happen to us. We are broken, confused, rebellious people.  We don’t love people like that, why should others love me when I am like that. If they really knew me, they were reject me.

Our greatest need, our deepest longing, our highest joy is to be fully known and still sincerely loved. To be loved, warts and all. We are often seeking this relationship with others, but slowly, carefully. We receive initial indications of love, or at least potential love from another. Then, we risk unveiling a little more of ourselves and wait for the results. If all goes well, we reveal a little more, then a little more. Until finally, we reveal the dark stuff, the sinful and broken parts of who we are.  If they love us at that point, well, we have arrived.

God knows you. He knows everything about you. You cannot hide anything from God. And, in the Gospel, the good news, he tells us that he loves us. God can love even enemies and rebels.

God knows you  and still loves you. Will you rest in that love? Or will you continue to hide yourself and ignore your warts? Someone really loves you, the real you.  Through faith you can find shelter in the gracious love of God.  “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Dancing with God?

by

I don’t dance often nor particularly well. And I only dance when I have something spectacular to celebrate. I dance when I am happy. And also, because I am a fallen self-conscience guy, only when no-one is looking!  Still, dancing at its best is a spontaneous physical response to an internal unconstrained joy. And here is the punchline – God has invited us to dance with Him! To enter into His joy by receiving his undiminished happiness. God has created us out of the fullness of His love.

We are made in the image of an infinitely happy God. God is essentially a community of persons celebrating mutual glorifying love. From eternity past God has existed in a fellowship of love, light, and life. The three persons of the Trinity pour themselves out in love and honor and delight toward the other persons in the Godhead.

What does it mean to glorify someone? When we delight in another and praise them we glorify them.  When we enjoy the other for who they are we glorify them. When we pour ourselves into and for the other in order to see them radiate with joy we glorify them.

God – Father, Son, and Spirit – has always existed in a radiant community of pure, self-giving love. It is this God, this eternally and infinitely happy God, this full to overflowing God, that creates us in His own image. I am straining finite words in an attempt to stretch them around an infinite concept. These words may fail to do it justice, but they do, I trust, entice us.

We are made to be like the infinitely happy God. We are formed and fashioned to glorify another, as He does; to wrap our lives around another in order to make them happy, as He does; and to give others joy, as He does. That is how we bear the image of God well. We were made for community – ‘it is not good for the man to be alone.’ We were made to focus and aim at the joy of another. We are never more at rest than when we sacrifice for the contentment, fulfillment, and joy of other persons. We were made to give ourselves away in other glorifying love because we are made in God’s likeness.

If we have not received this message sooner, God shouts it to us clearly through our grandkids. Typically, grandparents find no greater delight than in their children’s children. They pour themselves into those precious image bearers, they glorify them! Later, I will show you pictures of my grandkids. Oh, what a delight to give myself away to them. We are never more ourselves than when we truly love others. But the main object of our love, the focus of our lives ought to be the God of glory himself!

God created us to know him, to enjoy him, to glorify him. God has invited us to the dance of life. When we give ourselves away to God in other glorifying love, we receive back the same, ten-fold. God has invited us to dance, not merely with other creatures made in His image, but with God himself.  We are called to enter into the community of self-giving love that is God himself. And the dance increases.

So, what is heaven anyway? It is dancing in delight with God and his people, forever. It is living the heavenly life now, and always. It is receiving and then reflecting back, the glory, the love, the fulness of God. Will you dance with me? Won’t you dance with Him?

A Relationship With God?

by

You can know God! You can have a real, vital, living relationship with the eternal God, the creator and Lord the universe.  You can talk to him. You can relate to him as father! Now that is an enticing proposition. We are all eager to have a relationship with God.

But, we too often think that we need to establish and maintain this communion with God just as we do other relationships.  We need to start the relationship. “Clean up my life and give my heart to Jesus.” I need an introduction somehow. I must prove that I am useful to God. I need to offer him something. “I will scratch your back, if you will scratch mine.” Most relationships are a means to another end. Friends are our ticket into the right crowd, or they will open doors for my career.

We think of relating to God in utilitarian terms. If I know God I will receive forgiveness and go to heaven when I die.  So, knowing God is useful, beneficial.  He gives gifts to me – blessings. He is a means to another end.

We think that we maintain our relationship with God with submission and obedience.  If I am good, God will bless me.  If I serve Him, he will have my back. If I make sacrifices for God, he will owe me one.  Too many have a cause and effect agreement with God. Or, so they think.

But truly knowing God turns this all around. It is God that initiates the relationship.  We are not ‘useful’ to God.  That is not why he befriends us. Early in Genesis when all men had descended deeply into sin and “the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Genesis 6:5, 8).  And, “Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” That word ‘favor’ means grace. God was not responding to Noah’s good works, faith, or sacrifice – he simply showed him grace.  That was the foundation of their relationship.

God asked Noah to respond to his grace, not earn it. The unmerited grace and one-sided favor of God transforms us.  Knowing God in this way we respond with joy and gratitude to his love and kindness but we do not merit it.  And therefore, we cannot lose it.  When God claims you as his friend, no one can take you out of his hand. Grace is forever. That forever commitment from God releases, calms, encourages, stabilizes, and empowers us to live a life of gratitude. It is God who begins and maintains his friendship with us – that is life in God’s Covenant – so that we respond in love, kindness, thanksgiving and praise to God for what He has done for us. 

Do you want to know God? He invites you to respond to his mighty grace.  You have found favor with God.

Work, Rest, and Retirement

by

We are made to work, to accomplish, to rule over God’s creation, to exercise dominion.  But, we cannot work forever, unceasingly. God commanded us to rest one day in seven.  God gives his beloved sleep, rest, every night. We are made to work 8 hours a day; 20 if you are a farmer or a mother. But we all need rest. ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ We should not work ourselves to death, but to work ourselves to life!

The purpose of life is not to go on vacation. Retirement does not equal 52 weeks of vacation. The purpose of vacation is to get back to work.  The purpose of retirement is re-tread-ment – you can retool for a different kind of work. Many are terrified of retirement – but what will I do? How will I invest my time? What will be my purpose? We are made to work, to accomplish, to build, to create. We rest, so that we can work without reaching the point of exhaustion.

Even Jesus told his disciples to take a break. In Mark 6:30-32, after he had sent out the 12 apostles and they had just returned,  “The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all that they had done and taught. And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.”

They were returning from work, from a missions trip and they needed rest and refreshment. Go to a desolate place beyond the reach of the busy, hectic chaos, and the many demands on your time. Don’t take your cell phone or your computer. Bring a book that you don’t have to read, and enjoy. “For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”  Go to a restaurant, leave a big tip, enjoy.  Rest. Be refreshed. 

So, get away from it all. Find a boat and go to a desolate place, alone. You will find God, rest, and refreshment there. And then, back to work!

The Sabbath Keeps You!

by

“Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy.” Exodus 20:8  Oh, no! Here is comes. A long list of things that I should not be doing on the Christian Sabbath, the Lord’s Day. Whatever you enjoy, stop doing right now. God demands it. Wrong! I am here, not to place a burden on your shoulders, but to grant you a blessed relief and to point you to pure joy. I am a hungry beggar showing other hungry beggars where I found bread.  I found bread for my soul and to spare on the Sabbath Day.

In Mark 2:27 we read, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” We do not serve God’s day by keeping a list of rules, God’s day serves us with rest, joy, and peace.  It is designed by God to be a blessed day of rest and worship.  It is the Market Day for the soul.  It is a whole day reserved to walk and talk with God, and to rest in what He has accomplished for us.

God has scattered his blessing throughout the day. He says to us, “I will give you rest.” “I have completed my work, and now you can rest, and look forward to greater rest.”  We are commanded to “Call the Sabbath a delight!” Isaiah 58:13  It is a day of blessing, joy, rest, worship, and delight.

But many people do not find it so. They call it a burden. They see it is a duty and not a delight. Over 150 years ago, J.C. Ryle said, “Our Sundays and how we use them is one of the most sure signs of our spiritual condition.” If it is the Market Day of the soul, and it is, we have too much supply and not enough demand.  We work 5 days a week, run errands on Saturday, but Sunday is finally our day – a day to do whatever we want, to pursue our highest pleasure.

Yes it is! And what is your highest pleasure? Knowing and enjoying God. Pursuing God on the Sabbath day is our delight. We find it a treasure. It conveys the greatest blessings. J. C. Ryle again writes, “The Sabbath is God’s merciful appointment for the common benefit of all mankind…It is not a yoke, but a blessing. It is not a burden, but a mercy…Above all, it is good for souls.”

So, call the Sabbath a delight, for the Sabbath was made for man.

Rest; it Helps you Get Things Done

by

Have you seen the patches of wildflowers that they planted in the median of the highway?  I have.  I have often wondered; what do they smell like.  I would like to spread out a blanket and rest there for a bit.

But, I am on the highway, moving at 70 – 80 miles per hour, and I have places to go, things to do, and people to please.  So, I don’t stop – I am too busy.

Well, stop and smell those wildflowers!  What a picture of modern life – go fast, go far, but never stop and smell the Roses.  We rush past some the best things in life because we do not hit the brakes.

Thanksgiving is a time to slow down, cross the river, and rest in the shade of the trees.  It seems that we do not have the time to be grateful – to notice the rich blessings that surround us every day.

Well, hit the brakes, get out the blankets, and allow your mind and heart to rest in the blessing that God has given.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

If pastoral permission will help you to pause and give thanks among family and friends, you have it.  God is good, all the time. And we can give thanks in all circumstances.

After you have paused and smelt the wildflowers, then you can crank it up to 70 mph again; but now, you carry the aroma of rest and gratitude with you.

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

The Mark of a Christian

by

How can you recognize a fellow Christian? What are the distinguishing marks of a sibling in Christ? Some claim that the Christian is known by what he says, others by what he believes, and still others by what he does? Who is right?

An argument could be made for three conclusions. A believer must confess with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in his heart that God raised him from the dead (Romans 10:9). So, what we say is essential to being a Christian. Also, our theology matters. What we understand God to be and to require makes an enormous difference in our lives. But the Christian also must act on what he says and turn his theology into deeds. What we say and believe comes to full fruition in what we do. So, the best method of discerning another maturing Christian is by what they do.

The Christian is known by what he does; what he hates, and what he loves. “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Romans 12:9-13).

Deeds of love are marks of the Christian – some say it is the mark! Our love, for brothers and others, must be sincere. You can’t fake real love or mimic a genuine heart for other people. The Christian’s focus is on the needs and wounds of the other and not on themselves. They give their time and concern away to the needs of others freely and with great joy. But, to love well also means to hate fiercely. Christians do not compromise with evil, nor make treaties with wrong. We abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good even if society disagrees.

Christians, readily and happily, show honor to others and freely praise them. Christians are whole and content in the love and provision of their God. It is not about them and their needs anymore. We can boldly honor and praise what is honorable and praiseworthy without taking any thought for ourselves. We are set free to work hard and serve sacrificially because we are resting in God as we labor for Him. Having God, we have hope even in difficult times. Our God is good to us all the time. We can pray at all times, and open our hearts and homes to others. Out of our fullness in Christ, our lives overflow in loving actions toward others. That is the mark of the Christian. And it develops, not by focusing on our good deeds, but rather on Christ, and the completeness of his love. We enter into the vast love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and carry others along in our wake. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). So, find someone to love and do it well; for Christ is working through you.

Conflict? In the Church?

by

 

Jesus died so that his children might live in peace, and multiply that gospel peace throughout the world.  There should not be conflict in the church nor among the people of God.  We are redeemed, given grace upon grace.  We recognize sin, we repent from it, and forgive it in others when they ask.  We should all be in one accord for the same Spirit fills us all.  We are to lay down our lives for one another, consider others better than ourselves, and honor our brothers and sisters. The congregation is a sanctuary, a place of peace and refuge from a fallen world and sinful conflict.  

We should not have conflict in the church. But we often do. We should not have conflict in our families, but we often do.  Likewise, we often have conflict in the church.  Why?  We still sin. James 4:1, “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”

Paul and Barnabas had a great conflict over John Mark (Acts 15:36-41). On the first missionary journey, John Mark had turned back in Pamphilia  We don’t know why he did so.  Was he troubled by the Gentile mission? Was he afraid? Was he homesick?  We only know that he turned back from the mission.  He had not gone with them to the work. Acts 13:13, “And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.” 

John Mark was Barnabas’s cousin. Mary, his mother, owned a large home in Jerusalem.  It was the home of the prayer meeting when Peter escaped prison and came to the door. John Mark was most likely the author of the Gospel of Mark. He was the occasion of the conflict.

Barnabas was the son of encouragement. He was the first to welcome Paul in Jerusalem (Acts 9:26-27) and he was quick to receive and restore John Mark. He had a conflict with Paul!

Paul and Barnabas had a sharp disagreement about taking John Mark with them on the second missionary journey.  They had a “paroxysmos” about his qualifications for ministry.  So they separated. And in their unfortunate divide, they doubled the missionary force!  God still used separation to forward his work.

Later, there was reconciliation. Paul had good words for both Barnabas and Mark (1 Corinthians 9:6; 2 Corinthians 8-18-19 (likely speaking of Barnabas); Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11, “Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry).

In a sinful world, we will have conflict. In a sinful church, we will have conflict. God rules and overrules our conflicts for good, provides for the future ministry of the church and opens the possibility for future reconciliation. (Paul and John Mark were apparently reconciled).

Walk with God through church conflicts. Learn from them and grow. “Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry in your conflicts. Don’t take things personally – it is not about you. If you are wrong, confess it – seek forgiveness. Pray, take a stand where you must knowing that you still might be wrong. Strive to honor Christ, even in separation and conflict.