Walking With Jesus

Peace and Purity

“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:11-12 NLT)

The role of the local church is clearly defined in Scripture, but because it’s governed by human beings, there are often conflicts that threaten its health. Two key elements must be present for any church body to be healthy and effective – peace and purity.

Peace doesn’t necessarily equate with everyone being on the same page, theologically, methodologically, or even philosophically, it mostly depends on how people perceive what is happening in the church and why. What does that mean? It means that if the leadership Is following Christ’s mandate, and is open and honest about the direction they’re seeking to lead the church, most of the time the people will follow their leadership.

The church of which I’m a part in this season of my life does an outstanding job of keeping people informed and giving us an open door to speak with the leaders about anything on our mind. They’re as Scripturally devoted and Spirit led as any pastoral team I’ve ever known. They are transparent and honest about every aspect of the budget; where the money is going and why; every direction in which they’re leading the church and why; and most importantly, they’re transparent about their own dependence upon Jesus and their need for our prayers and support.

Is it a perfect church? It is in my heart and mind, but I’m sure there are people who have issues with the way some things are done. But having seen a lot of church leaders’ function in a lot of churches, I praise God every day for the gift of my church. And just so you know, I’m not on staff and receive no compensation from the church except the joy of being a member.

So, a couple of questions – first, how do you preserve the peace of the church? And second, how do you preserve the purity of the church? Matthew Henry speaks to these issues when he wrote: “The way to preserve the peace of the church is to preserve the purity of it.”

So, let’s look briefly at how to preserve the purity of the church. In my opinion, purity has to be rooted in Jesus and led by the Holy Spirit. How is that accomplished corporately? Primarily through prayer – individually, as each member holds the church as a body up to the Lord each day. Those in leadership bring the Body together specifically to pray for the guidance of the Spirit in leading the pastors and other leaders in the ways they should go – individually and corporately.

My responsibility as a part of this specific church family is to pray for them every day. We have several pastors who lead ministries in and through our church. I’m trying to learn their names so I can pray for them and their families by name every morning. Why do I do that? Because without the guidance of the Holy Spirit none of them can do anything of eternal value.

One of the pastors with whom I’m close asked me to pray for his purity, which I do every day, not only for his, but for each of the pastors. Why? Because for anyone to lead others in the ways of the Lord without purity of heart, mind, soul, and body is to be limited in their effectiveness. That’s why purity is so key to peace, not only in the church as a whole, but in our individual lives.

To seek to walk closely with the Lord while harboring wicked, evil, or impure thoughts, attitudes, or behaviors is to cripple our effectiveness in not only being at peace ourselves, but in helping others maintain any semblance of peace and purity.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Don’t Waste Your Grief

“I am worn out from sobbing. All night I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears. My vision is blurred by grief; my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.” (Psalm 6-7 NLT)

The pain and trauma of grief is multidimensional in its crippling effects on us. Grief primarily is associated with some form of loss, be it the loss of a loved one, friend, or pet in death; the loss of a job or significant role in which we felt the part we played was important; the loss of stature or prestige we once treasured; or the loss of a physical, mental, emotional, financial, or relational position.

Whatever grief means to you the result is or can be crippling. It can rob us of the potential we once thought we had or would have had if the loss hadn’t occurred. As is often the case, the battlefield upon which we engage our grief is between our ears. Yes, of course, our emotions take their cues from our thoughts and engage virtually every avenue of our lives, but how we think about our grief is critical.

Satan’s primary weapon of choice is discouragement, and he uses that tool powerfully at a time of loss in our lives. Depending on the nature of our loss, it’s not uncommon to blame ourselves in part or in whole for the loss. When I went through my divorce it became clear to me that if I’d been a better husband my wife wouldn’t have left, and that may well have been true, but it’s never the whole story.

We can always find ways we could have been better, more attentive, more conscientious, more _______ and you can fill in the blank. But none of that explains why we incurred the loss, and none of it will change the outcome. So, what do we do? We must determine not to waste our grief! But how?

As a Jesus follower we need to understand that God never wastes a problem and there’s always purpose in pain. God’s primary goal for each of His children is to enable us to be conformed to the likeness of His Son. One of the most mind-boggling verses in Scripture to me is found in Hebrews 5:8: “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered.”

The verses following the one above describe how God qualified Him to be the Savior and “perfect High Priest, and He became the source of eternal salvation for all those who obey Him.” How does that contribute to our understanding in an effort to not waste our grief?

No one has ever suffered to the degree that Jesus suffered. A human being can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for Him to bear the weight of the world’s sin as He hung on the Cross. To bear the hell of every person who would one day yield their lives to Him is incomprehensible. There’s no way to measure the agony He endured, yet that’s what qualified Him to become our Savior.

In a similar way, the agony we endure in our grief will, if we submit to the Lord and allow Him to teach us through it, will one day qualify us to participate in something sacred. It can lead to something God-honoring, helpful to others, and enduring, not only for us, but for those whose lives are touched through our suffering.

By God’s grace I’m learning that pain can be my “friend,” alerting me to areas of need in my life. Without physical pain I can seriously injure myself, but not be aware. I can continue with damaging habits that have the potential to literally cripple me unless I seek the help needed to correct my course.

Similarly, we can learn lessons through grief that can equip us to be useful to others who are going through similar things that we endured, primarily, to learn to trust God’s wisdom and to walk faithfully with Him despite our pain. Through my pain I’ve learned that the God of the Bible is trustworthy and, as He promised, will never leave, or forsake me. That He is, and will always be, a very present help in my times of need…and yours!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Our Past

“You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil – the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.” (Ephesians 2:2-3 NLT)

You may want to sit down before you read this next line. You ready? We all have a past! Yep, told you! Staggering! But the irony is, we often go to extreme lengths to not share that part of our walk with others – often to our own demise!

As Jesus followers there are three primary ways we deal with our past. First, we try to avoid disclosing it at all costs. We’re so ashamed of who we were, we’re concerned if anyone really knew what kind of person we were, they’d shun, forsake, ridicule, label, or deny us the privilege of being embraced as a brother or sister. Never stopping to consider we’re all – every single one of us – sinners saved by grace.

Your sin may have looked different than mine, but it all separated us from Jesus and seeks to continue to separate us from one another.

The second way we seek to deal with our past is to use it as a crutch or excuse for who we are. My sense is this is the person who doesn’t really want to walk with Jesus, they just don’t want to go to hell. They continue in a lifestyle of sin but use their past as an “explanation.” “I can’t help but __________, because that’s just ‘who I am!’”

That’s what Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 6:11 when, after sharing a long list of sins in the earlier verses, he writes: “Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

The Bible doesn’t teach repentance to enable us to stay the same, but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. When we learn to think differently, we’ll learn to act differently. We want to follow our feelings that lead us straight to hell, rather than discipline our mind to know God’s Word and apply it to our lives through the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

Crawford Loritts wrote: “Your past may explain you but it doesn’t excuse you.” To be born again of the Spirit of God is to be put on a new life’s track. To profess faith in Christ and continue to live in habitual sin is to deny the power of the Spirit who cleansed us and freed us from sin’s grip.

That relates to the third path that can enable us to deal with our past – by God’s grace and with the help of His powerful Spirit – we share our struggles and learn together, with dependence upon one another and God’s Spirit, to live a life of victory over our past. None of us is perfect, except in the eyes of our heavenly Father who views us through His perfect Son’s robe of righteousness.

We all struggle to walk in holiness and faithfulness to our Savior, but to the degree we share openly our need for help and support, to that extent we’re able to walk, not only in nearness to our brothers/sisters, but also nearness to our Father in heaven.

Just as two very imperfect people will never unite to make a perfect marriage, so in the Body of Christ, when people who are seeking with all their heart to please God, but too often fail, join with others who are in the same boat, by some miraculous, transforming act of God, He makes us a family who can love one another, sharing our lives and working together to glorify and honor our Savior.

That’s why I love the Church, the Body of Christ, to whom every blood-bought soul belongs, and with whom every one of us can let the past be past! “Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future!”

Hallelujah! What a Savior!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Partners of Competitors?

“This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13 NLT)

Does it bother you that many who profess “maturity” in their faith hold such rigid standards it only leads to further division, not unity? It seems if others can’t live up to the measure of maturity they have created for themselves, there’s no basis for unity. And what’s troubling to me is that that isn’t what Jesus taught.

And please don’t misunderstand, the Lord set very high standards for us to pursue while in this body, but the fact we’ll never achieve full maturity in our faith this side of heaven should encourage us to be more open to each other, not less open. Realizing that none of us have it completely “right” should open lines of communication, not close them.

To believe I have mastered all truth is to essentially say I’ve become completely like Christ in every way. That’s not only ludicrous, it’s also blasphemous. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote: “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.” As followers of Christ, we’re not only compelled by our commission to love one another, but to work cooperatively with one another.

It’s interesting to me that denominational lines get blurred very quickly when you travel to overseas missions. Missionaries work together across denominational lines, not to make one another believe like they do, but to help those whom they’re seeking to reach love the Jesus they both love and are seeking to serve. Does it seem strange that Jesus followers who love well work well together? It shouldn’t, because that’s the Lord’s plan.

Thom Rainer nailed it when he wrote: “Other local churches are your ministry partners, not your ministry competitors.” Not many lost people care what the shingle over the door says if they can find acceptance, love, and guidance in finding their way through the frightening circumstances we’re now experiencing.

Having said that, I’m well aware of counterfeit groups who use similar terminology, but with completely different meaning, that are leading people away from the God of the Bible. Pray for them and seek to build bridges of communication in an effort to reach them, but don’t follow their theology.

Open lines of communication with those of different denominational preferences who are walking faithfully with the Christ of the Bible, because they are our partners in ministry, not our enemy. If we’re willing to sit together and pray together, we’ll likely find that we have far more in common than we’ve allowed ourselves to realize.

When I was active in pastoral ministry my closest friends and co-laborers we’re brothers and sisters who pastored churches who may have emphasized different teachings from the Bible, but whose hearts and minds were centered squarely on Jesus. We often worked together to reach our community for the Savior.

The sad reality is, especially in small churches, there’s a fear that if we cooperate with other churches in our community “my” people might like that other church (or pastor) better than me and “my” church. Even more frustrating is when a pastor would deliberately seek to draw the members of another church to theirs, but, gratefully, in my experience, that was extremely rare.

So, what’s the bottom line? Get to know believers who believe differently than you. Listen to one another without judgment or a critical spirit and allow the Lord to melt your hearts with love for those who love the same Jesus you love, but maybe in a little different way.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Do You Like Jesus?

“If you want to be My disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison – your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot by My disciple.” (Luke 14:26 NLT)

Some reading the above verse may be thinking: “Whoa! I don’t remember ever reading that verse!”

You see, that’s the thing we must at some point learn about following Jesus – it’s all or nothing! We’re either in or were not; we’re either committed or confused; we’ll either serve Him as Master or ignore Him as irrelevant. And that’s exactly the way He planned it.

C.S. Lewis wrote: “Jesus Christ was either a liar, a lunatic, or He was who He said He was.” In his book Mere Christianity, Lewis also wrote: “A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg – or he would be the devil of hell.”

Jesus never intended to be a “good ole boy!” A likeable man whom everyone loved and admired. He was and is the Lord of heaven and earth, Creator, Sustainer, Ruler of all that is or ever will be. This is the One who not only created the billions of stars but knows them each by name. He’s the One who gave you life and not only knows every detail about you – including every thought you have, but the day you’ll have your last thought on this earth.

We don’t hide anything from Him because He is THE Light – He sees everything, and, oh yeh, He sees as clearly in the dark as He does in the light. There’s no such thing as concealing anything from Him. He knows it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly, but you know what?

Amazingly, He still loves you, so much so, He willingly laid down His perfect, sinless, life to die on a cross, not because He deserved to be there. He didn’t. But He knew you did, so He died in your place to pay the penalty for your sin that you could never in eternity ever pay yourself. And all He asks in return is your unrivaled love and allegiance.

Who does that? Only God – the Lord Jesus Christ! Fully God and fully man. John 3:16, says: “For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” The phrase translated “one and only Son,” is the word “monogenes” (mon-og-en-ace) and it means: “single of its kind, only.”

What does that mean? It means there never has been, nor will there ever be another Jesus. He’s the only One of His kind – the Only begotten Son of God His Father. The only One qualified to lay down His life on our behalf. And you want to know what’s crazy about that? He didn’t have to do it. He chose to obey His Father and trade His perfect life for our life of sin and degradation. Who would do that?

Only Jesus! He’s the One you turn your back on when you choose your way instead of His way. He’s not the Person you like, get chummy with, then continue to live life as you choose. Tim Keller wrote: “Jesus cannot simply be liked, you either kill Him or crown Him in your life.” You either walk away from Him or give Him everything you are or ever hope to be.

Where are you in your life? Do you like Jesus? Or do you hate everyone else in comparison? You choose! But remember, whichever choice you make, you’ll live with that choice for all eternity. And you know what? Eternity is a very long time!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Is Your Profession of Faith Making a Difference?

“And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.” (Jude 22 NLT)

In our enthusiasm to see lost people come to Christ and be saved, we sometimes forget the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ who are struggling. I have to ask myself, and you, are we making a difference? Are we seeing lost people come to the Cross and leaving their sins there? Are we walking in newness of life that is contagious to our friends who don’t yet know Jesus?

But equally important, but often overlooked, is our ministry to our friends and loved ones who already know the Lord. When they’re struggling are we their strongest and most dependable ally? I must confess that I’m often found lacking in that category, especially in my own home. May I confess that I struggle? Not so much with my faith in my risen Lord, but in the application of that faith in a meaningful way, especially in the lives of those I love the most.

So, I’ll ask the question again: “Is your profession of faith in Jesus making a positive difference in the lives of those who live under your roof and/or those in your immediate spheres of influence?” Is your spouse, your kids, grandkids, parents, nieces and nephews, cousins, uncles and aunts and other relatives happy to see you coming or do they tuck tail and run in the opposite direction.

And I understand, some of that has nothing to do with you, it’s just their adamant protest against the Savior you now hold dear or, perhaps, how you model that relationship in and through your life. Some of my relatives are good with me as long as I leave Jesus out of the conversation, but I find that very hard to do at times.

How do you not tell a cancer patient you have a cure? How do you not tell an alcoholic, drug addict, or any other kind of addict that you’ve found deliverance and freedom in Jesus? It’s counter to our new nature, but may I suggest another approach?

I’m challenged by A. W. Tozer’s words: “A Profession of faith that doesn’t make a difference, doesn’t make a difference to God either.” What does that mean to you? At first glance I’m tempted to believe that if I’m not constantly talking about Jesus to EVERYONE, I’m not making a difference. But is that really what he’s saying?

What if we “spoke” about our deep and abiding faith in Jesus with more than words? And I can “hear” the hardy “AMENS” from those who are shy or find it difficult to share their faith. My point is, it’s not either-or, but both-and. We must mix our conversations about Jesus with compassion and genuine affection through our support when our loved ones, both lost and saved, are hurting.

Bob Goff wrote: “It will be the people with the greatest love, not the most information, who will influence us to change.” I also love his quote: “The best advice I’ve been given when I’d failed was a hug.” After my divorce, at my lowest, when words failed, I collapsed into my friend’s arms, and he just held me as I sobbed. I’ve rarely felt that loved.

Our words will never do the job of blessing and helping others until our hearts and lives become invitations for them to be loved. We’ll make a difference to the degree we follow God’s promptings to love others as we love ourselves.

Blessings, Ed 😊

The Cross and the Porn Store

“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!” (Matthew 6:22-23 NLT)

Reading a Family Life devotional, I came across a reference to something that I’d seen many times when I lived near I-75. Ed Uszynsk writes: “Driving on I-75 near Exit 141 in Caryville, Tennessee, you’ll see a 101-foot cross greeting you from a distance, a massive silver structure that fills your windshield as you get closer. Arriving at its base, you’ll also see a huge ranch house structure with a sign on the front saying ‘Adult World.’

The cross rises up out of the ground right at the edge of a massive parking lot surrounding the long-standing porn store. It’s a bizarre juxtaposition, a stand-off in place since 2003 when a local preacher put the cross there. Fitting, because the metaphor it represents is a preacher’s gold mine: The cross is much bigger than our worst sins. The only answer to the darkest parts of our mind is the cross. Bring your personal evil and lay it at the foot of the cross.”

As I pondered these powerful words it caused me to realize that we have a “Porn Store” between our ears and our eyes are the windows. I’ve never visited a “Porn Store,” whether a literal structure or a site on my computer, but I’ve nonetheless wrestled with thoughts I’d never want anyone to know about.

The irony is, these thoughts are common to mankind, but everyone seems to believe we’re the only one who wrestles with inappropriate thoughts. A recent survey indicates that as many as two-thirds of professing Christian men have or do view porn. Is that shocking to you? It was to me. Why? Because “The cross is much bigger than our worst sins. The only answer to the darkest parts of our mind is the cross. Bring your personal evil and lay it at the foot of the cross.” There’s a cure for sin, why don’t Christian men, of all men, have the courage to pursue it?

Porn is as old as mankind. Remember Adam’s words once he and Eve had tasted the fruit of the tree of good and evil, when the Lord found them with their “fig leaves” on? “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” (Genesis 3:10) The troubling part of, not only porn, but any obsessive, God-devoid activity, is that we think no one should know. Duh! God knows, and truth be told, others very likely know as well.

We can’t hide our sin and trying to keep it secret only magnifies the harmful effect it has on us and others. I appreciate and admire what Ed Uszynsk wrote: “Because I hate the garbage dump that hides inside me. It’s not unlike that windowless store: Embarrassing stuff. Relationship-killing stuff. Broken stuff that stays hidden most of the time. But when the darkest parts of me make their way to the surface, I need Amy’s (his wife) help to get to the cross. When her darkest sins rear their head, part of my stewardship in her life is to help her get to the cross.

If something evil like pornography or any kind of deviance has come to light, don’t turn against each other. Instead, turn to the cross together. Believing the cross is truly our only answer for sins like pornography can sometimes seem—well, scandalous. But it’s not. Because only the cross can disarm and absorb the power of real sin. Only the cross can bring the healing you both need. So don’t turn on each other. Help each other get to it.”

Food for thought!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Are You Settling for Crumbs?

“Then they scoffed, ‘He’s just the carpenter’s son, and we know Mary, his mother, and his brothers – James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas. All his sisters live right here among us. Where did he learn all these things?’ And they were deeply offended and refused to believe in him.” (Matthew 13:55-57a NLT)

The Lord will not force you to believe in Him, though one day, if you don’t come to Him, you’ll wish He had. If you haven’t given Jesus your life, what are you waiting for? A better offer? It ain’t happening! There’s only one way to get into heaven and that’s by placing your trust in Jesus and committing everything your are to everything He is!

It occurred to me to say: “Only one way to eternal life,” but that wouldn’t be accurate, because every human being is going to live forever. So, the only question is where? Only those who have been forgiven and cleansed of their sin by the risen Savior, Jesus, will live forever in the bliss of heaven.

But that still doesn’t cover everyone. What about those who profess the holy, righteous, matchless name of Jesus; those who have sought forgiveness of their sin, they may even attend church regularly, and go through the proverbial “motions” of being a believer, but they have no joy, no delight in knowing Jesus. They’re living on the proverbial “crumbs” when Jesus wants to serve them an extravagant feast!

Photo by Rafael Classen rcphotostock.com on Pexels.com

Jesus said in John 10:10: “The thief’s (Satan’s) purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” And please don’t confuse the riches of the life God gives us with the passing presence of the trinkets of this earth. The word used that’s translated “riches” means: “beyond measure, vehemently, exceedingly abundantly above number or measure or rank or need.” It goes on, but hopefully you get the picture.

I’m an old man, but I can tell you in this season of my life I am “rich!” The Lord’s presence is more real than ever before, His love for me is more personal, His leadership more exact, His caring more tender, His heart more open, His presence more compelling, and His provision more complete than ever in my life. I literally want for nothing (except to go home to Him).

Please don’t hold anything back in your love for the Lord Jesus. He has more for you than you can even imagine, but He’s a gentleman and won’t force Himself on you. He comes at our invitation. In Revelation 3:20 He says: “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear My voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.”

There’s no indication in the text that the door is locked, but the Lord will never go where He isn’t welcome. Is He welcome in your heart? In your life? Then open the door! Invite Him in by opening your heart and life to Him today, right now! Don’t wait another second to stop subsisting on crumbs and start living in the luxurious presence of the living God.

No, He won’t flood you with the worthless treasures of this world, but He will fill you with His holy presence that makes everything seem new, alive, and satisfying. There are times we find ourselves longing for something of this world, which happens to all of us, but when I see something that seems appealing to me, my mind is shifted to how richly the Lord has blessed me. So, I conclude I literally have everything I need to be everything He desires me to be.

If you’re not satisfied in your walk with the Lord, I hate to break it to you, but the Lord is perfect in every way, so, you must be lacking. Would you kneel (if you’re able), stretch you hands, palms up, out in front of you, and pray this simple prayer. “Father, here is my life. Take whatever is unlike You and give me what only You can to enable me to be everything You desire me to be. I’m tired of living on crumbs. I want to invite You into my heart and life in a fresh way so that I might feast on Your holy presence from this moment forward. Forgive me and fill me with Yourself. In Jesus’ holy name. Amen!”

Blessings, Ed 😊

What Do You Expect?

“You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong – you want only what will give you pleasure.” (James 4:2-3 NLT)

Expectations can be killers! But they can also be joyful revelations.

Shortly before my 16^th birthday my dad invited me to go with him to pick up a car he had purchased that was about 50 miles away. I assumed he was getting the car to sell, as he often bought and sold used cars to supplement his income. This was in 1963 and the car he bought was a 1960 TR3 Triumph Roadster. It had a soft top and plastic side curtains (that were missing), which was a bit of an issue as we were driving home in a driving rainstorm.

Imagine my surprise when on my birthday my parents invited me to go look on my bed for my birthday present. It was a set of new side curtains for the Triumph – my birthday present I never expected!

Remembering that day causes me to think of the many times my heavenly Father has surprised me by giving me gifts I hadn’t expected. I never expected to go to college or to Seminary; I never dreamed I’d have two beautiful children and have the privilege of watching them grow into responsible adults, one of whom fathered my only grandchild. I couldn’t have imagined how precious she would become to me.

There are many more ways my heavenly Father has blessed me unexpectedly in phenomenal ways, but my point today isn’t how He’s blessed me, but about your expectations considering all the ways He’s blessed you. As your eyes open to the light of a new day, what are your first thoughts? Are you excited to be alive and enthusiastic about facing this new day filled with expectation that God will intersect your life in positive and good ways?

Or do you have to drag yourself out of bed, forcing yourself to do what you must to get through another day with little or no expectation of anything but what’s happened the last untold numbers of days. Just same ole, same ole, filling space and time until the end comes. Is that how Jesus lived His life? Of course not, so why should we as His kids live that way?

It’s sad on many levels that the ones who knew Jesus as He was growing up were most blinded by who He was and was becoming. How so? Because they had no expectation that He would be anything more than any other commoner with whom they grew up. Their friends didn’t become Rabbi’s, didn’t preach in the Temple, didn’t perform miracles, and transform people’s futures, so why would they have expectation that anyone else who grew up with them would?

The Bible tells us in Matthew 13:58: “And so He did only a few miracles there because of their unbelief.” Ron Hutchcraft said regarding them: “He did miracles everywhere but there, and the people who knew the most about Jesus saw the least supernatural because they weren’t expecting anything.”

Is that you, faithful church attender? Are you so familiar with the miracles your knowledge has blinded you to the miracles He wants to do in your life? As we age we can be dulled to miracles by the realities of life all around us, but what if instead of being blinded we let our circumstances open our heart and mind to the miraculous?

The wife of a couple in our Senior Couples’ Group had a stroke recently. “Poor her,” right? WRONG! No feeling sorry for her! Why? Because she believes in a God of miracles! So, what did God do? He healed her completely! She’s in her late 60’s and there’s no indication that she ever had a stroke!

And that’s not all, their son, in his late 40’s, has a serious cancer. What do you think they’re expecting? Yep, you guessed it! They’re (we’re) trusting God to heal him as though he’d never had the cancer!

How about you? As you look at your life and the circumstances that seem so grim – what do YOU expect?

Blessings, Ed 😊

Where God Is Not!

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9 NLT)

We typically think of God not being in hell, and we’re correct to believe that, but hell isn’t just for dead people. Randy Alcorn wrote: “Wherever God is not, there is hell.”

We see many who don’t know or have any desire to know the Lord, yet they have an abundance of what the world declares to be “of value!” “Where is hell in that?” Hell is the eternal pursuit of things that can never satisfy.

That’s why Jesus boldly announced in Matthew 16:26: “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” With the clear implication – “Absolutely not!” He then goes into a pronouncement of His return and future judgment. But He also says something that can be easily misunderstood. In verse 28 He says: “And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.”

Obviously, they wouldn’t still be alive when He returned a second time, so what was He talking about? He was speaking of His eternal presence in the hearts and lives of everyone who then believed and who would believe at any point in the future. His Kingdom is not of this world, in the sense that it cannot be experienced by a human being who hasn’t been “born again.”

It’s a mystery that is only seen with the eye of faith of the one who has received God’s gift of eternal life that can only come by faith in the One who paid the penalty for our sin, then rose from the dead to conquer sin, death, and the grave. Here’s the bottom line: God’s Kingdom is invisible except by the eye of faith because He lives in the hearts and minds of those who are redeemed by His shed blood.

We can never see God except through His physical presence in and through the life of Jesus. Of course, those of us who are alive today can see Him only with the eyes of our faith, but since He lives in us the only way lost people will ever see Him is as He reveals Himself supernaturally or by seeing Him lived out in and through those of us who know Him.

Think about that for a second. If hell is everywhere God is not, that means that hell exists in the hearts and minds of those who are lost. What are the implications? Mainly that as we march to the heartbeat of our Savior, a lost person can only walk to the heartbeat of their “master,” Satan. They must do what their lost and fallen nature dictates.

We can never expect someone who doesn’t know Jesus to live like they do know Him. I think of the Pharisees and other religious leaders who sought to live inviable lives to gain recognition and acclaim because of their own goodness and worth. But Jesus described them as “whitewashed tombs – beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity.”

Shouldn’t knowing that lost people are already experiencing “hell” motivate us to help them to understand their “condition” before it’s eternally too late? And yes, of course, we have our work cut out for us, but we can’t lose sight of the fact that prayer is the work, then God works.

Who are you praying for everyday who doesn’t yet know Jesus? That’s where it starts, then we submit our wills to God’s and do whatever – WHATEVER! – He instructs us to do. Why? Because we have the opportunity to storm the gates of hell, and we already know they will not prevail against us!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊