Walking With Jesus

Truth Without Beauty?

“So the Word became human and made His home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen His glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.” (John 1:14 NLT)

Over the last five days my goal has been to share delusions that people believe that either rob them of an understanding of who Jesus is or rob them of a right relationship with Him.

Today as we look at Truth, realizing Jesus is the embodiment of all that is true, we must caution those who believe they can know Jesus without an eye for the beauty His life IS and for the magnificence of what seeing life through the lens of His holiness reveals. There is no “truth” without the beauty and majesty of King Jesus shining through.

I’m reminded of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, / And every common bush afire with God; / But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, / The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.” Many churches today are filled with “berry-pluckers:” people who have a façade of Christianity without the beauty of the Truth of who Jesus is, what He did, and the resultant lifestyle that gives visibility to others who have yet to meet Him.

Knowing Jesus reveals beauty where none existed before. Ryan Bomberger wrote: “So I think of earth crammed with heaven. Everything that we do as Christians can be an act of worship. And design, for me, and writing, they are acts of worship….” How about greeting your neighbor with a smile and a kind word, rather than waving and saying nothing?

How many of us “common bushes,” afire with God could the Lord use to reveal His glory if we’d only get our minds off ourselves? It’s sad, but for me, and I suspect for some of you, I’m most likely to “pick berries” in my own home and among my own family. What does that mean? It means I see too much “ordinary” in my house and not enough majesty. My tendency is to see the beauty in someone else’s life before I see it in my wife or children’s lives.

Truth always displays beauty to those willing to see it. The truth is, I’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, but I have to fight to see the beauty that’s already being revealed on this journey. As a rule, focus reveals what we expect to see. If we’re not looking for beauty, we’ll keep our shoes on while we’re plucking berries, rather than pausing, recognizing these are holy moments, removing our shoes and taking time to worship.

Too often in our culture we suppress the beauty that can surface in casual conversations. My infusions last about an hour, so, I take a book to read rather than watching TV or wasting the time sleeping. The first day the young Nurse Practitioner came in to get my line started and noticed my book. “What are you reading?” led to a series of questions and conversations leading to me buying her a copy of Experiencing God, for which she expressed genuine appreciation and gave me an opportunity to hear her story.

Being infilled with Truth will open our heart and mind to beauty where none seems to exist, but since we’re filled with “Beauty,” why not look for creative ways to share Him? As a child of God you are “beautiful,” not simply physically, but you’re like a mini-museum of fine art from whom people who meet you and have a conversation with you can catch a glimpse of what Truth really looks like.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Heaven Without Hell?

“Not everyone who calls out to Me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of My Father in heaven will enter. On judgment day many will say to Me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in Your name and cast out demons in Your name and performed many miracles in Your name.” But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from Me, you who break God’s laws.’” (Matthew 7:21-23 NLT)

If you play a game that can’t be won or lost, why play? The challenge of being a human being is there is a “prize” to be “won” and a “penalty” to be “paid” if you lose. The irony is, we don’t “win” the prize, the prize has been won on our behalf, and the “penalty” isn’t “earned” by losing the game, it’s the default “prize” for not choosing to play at all.

C. S. Lewis put it this way: “There is no doctrine (the doctrine of Hell) which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it.^”

Everyone wants a heaven, but not many want there to be a hell, yet, how can you have one without the other? Most, whether believer or not, “if there was a heaven,” would want to go there. Only those who have no Biblical understanding of what hell is, believe it’s no big deal to go there. “After all,” they reason, “that’s where most people will be, so, I’ll have lots of company.” Sadly, that just isn’t true.

In Luke 16:23 we catch a glimpse of hell in a story Jesus told about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus. We can’t assume that this parable paints the full picture of hell, but it certainly helps us to understand that it’s a place of full awareness, complete helplessness, incessant regret, and anguish for our lost loved ones we left behind.

Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, we’ll pass from physical life to physical death, back to eternal life in our eternal body in hell where we’ll have perfect insight and understanding of the truth of Scripture, full awareness of the opportunity we had, but ignored, and an everlasting, soul-wrenching regret that not only did we miss heaven, but those we love who are walking in our steps will miss heaven as well unless they listen to someone who tries to warn them.

It’s interesting to me that in Jesus’ story there’s no indication there will be any interaction between hell’s residents, thus debunking the oft used caricature of hell in the movies of being a continuation of what we experienced on earth – gathering in an eternal bar and commiserating with our drunken buddies how mistreated we’ve been.

With the epidemic of loneliness in our world today, it’s unimaginable to most people to realize they have no real concept of what eternal loneliness will look like: wishing to die, but realizing you’re already dead; longing for companionship, but realizing there will never be another person to be with, to love, to listen to or be listened to.

Compare that with C. S. Lewis’ description: “To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is ‘remains.’ To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man – to be an ex-man or ‘damned ghost’ – would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centered in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will.”

Heaven and hell are more real than the person looking back at you from the mirror, and the only opportunity we have to make our choice where we’ll spend eternity is while we’re residents of planet earth. Please, I’m begging you, Jesus has made a way for you to be in heaven, please take it. If you don’t know how, please click this link: The Bridge to God.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed

Strength Without Submission?

“Do not be like your ancestors and relatives who abandoned the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and became an object of derision, as you yourselves can see. Do not be stubborn, as they were, but submit yourselves to the Lord. Come to His Temple, which He has set apart as holy forever. Worship the Lord your God so that His fierce anger will turn away from you.” (2 Chronicles 30:7-8 NLT)

How strong is your faith? Strong enough to wither a fig tree? Strong enough to move a mountain? How about strong enough to lead a family member or friend to Jesus? How about strong enough to walk away from temptation or memorize a verse of Scripture?

What determines the strength of our faith? Is it our attendance at church? Reading the Bible? Serving in some capacity? Giving money? Teaching a class or leading a group? While all those things are commendable, we can do all those things and not have a relationship with Jesus. There are many people who aren’t even committed believers in Jesus who fill our churches and serve in many capacities who do the things they do in the energy of the flesh. They don’t count on the Holy Spirit to equip, guide, and use them.

The strength to walk in faithfulness to the Lord Jesus is derived from our submission to His authority; our willingness to count all things loss for the privilege of knowing, loving, and serving our King. Strength isn’t built when things are easy and convenient, but when it takes sacrifice of time, energy, and money. Our strength to serve grows out of our love and gratitude for all our Savior has done and is doing for us.

If you want to know what strength looks like, kneel at the Cross of Christ and hear His words: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” It’s hard for me to look in the mirror and understand that I’m capable of the most heinous act any person is capable of committing. The only thing that separates me from hell and the acts of those who are there and who are headed there, is Jesus.

Everything I am or ever hope to be I owe to Him. He deserves so much more than I’m capable of giving Him, but He loves me anyway. I have nothing to offer Him but my heart and as He held me in His strong arms He whispered: “That’s all I want!” In this season of my life, I have very little strength – physically, emotionally, or otherwise, but my heart beats with love for the One who gave everything because He knew one day I’d need a Savior.

Would you please stop running! Would you please realize that you’re not as strong as you’ve imagined; that without Jesus the sum of you is nothing! As hard as you’ve wanted to believe, all you’re trying to offer Him in the energy of the flesh is valueless. He’s not interested in Your strength, He wants you to realize you have nothing to offer Him, yet He still wants to give you His strength, if you’d just say “YES!”

It’s not our strength that impresses Him, it’s our weakness. Someone who thinks they have all the Lord requires in and of themselves is either confused or delusional. We’re not invited to come to Him in our strength or on the basis of anything we can offer Him, we’re invited to see our life, strength, and everything we’d ever hoped to be or become, in Him alone, by faith alone.

Please stop trying to develop your own spiritual strength and receive all the strength you’ll ever need for all eternity in Him, in the Person of His Holy Spirit. He will give you everything you need to be everything He desires you to be, but you must trust Him and walk in the ways He will lead you. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Love Without Loss?

“I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him.” (Philippians 3:8-9a NLT)

Another delusion with which we sometimes wrestle is believing we can experience the love of Christ without suffering loss. Think of all the Lord gave up becoming wrapped in human flesh and leaving His home in heaven. Jesus’ life is a testament of loss, up to and including His physical life on a cross. Loss is a part of life whether we’re a believer or not, but it gives us avenues to reveal the presence of our Savior when we suffer loss as His servant.

That doesn’t mean we won’t feel pain, but even during severe pain we can still magnify the love of our Savior as He comforts and heals us. Loss comes in different sizes and shapes but can be used by the Lord to wean us away from the things of the world and hold us more closely to Himself. My sense is we suffer more when we lose the things to which we’re most closely tied, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

As a Pastor I conducted many funeral services and it seemed to me the greater the love a person had for someone, the greater their suffering. There’s a sense in which our suffering is like our “badge of honor;” it’s the privilege we have to feel deeply the pain of our love now lost. As a believer our separation is temporary, but often no less painful.

Death is just one of many ways we suffer loss. Loss of health, a job or position, a home or something material that we loved, a relationship, a pet, an opportunity, the list is virtually endless. And to think becoming a Jesus follower shields us from those things is to misunderstand why we’re following Him. On some levels the Lord allows loss for the very purpose of enabling us to see Him more clearly.

When we allow something to come between us and the Lord; when our attention and devotion that rightfully belongs to the Lord is misguided or misdirected, He sometimes will allow things to be taken away, not to hurt us, but to help us, not to push us away, but to draw us to Him more closely.

Suffering loss is part of being a human being, so we believe wrongly when we think coming to the Lord will eliminate loss from happening in our life. Life on planet earth is temporary and even as it begins, we start the inevitable string of losses: from the security of our mother’s womb, from childhood, from being a teen, young adult, and on and on it goes until we fight our final battle with death on planet earth.

One advantage of knowing the Lord is we never face any loss without His presence with us – guiding, guarding, protecting, comforting, assuring us that we’re never alone, especially as we pass from death on earth to life in heaven, never to die again. The future, in terms of the steps between now and then, are often a mystery, but when the Lord Jesus becomes our Savior, Master, and Lord, the mysteries are shrouded in the shadow of His holiness and love.

While many would like to know what the future holds, step by step, I’m content to know I’m not alone as I face the uncertainties of having dementia. All I need to know is Who is holding my hand, leading me into the future He has prepared for me. I’m not afraid, actually, I’m excited to experience what He has for me, not only in heaven, but in the months or years I have left on this earth, as He reveals His glory in ever increasing measure in and through my life. “For to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better.” (Philippians 1:21)

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Avenues of Delusion

“Our worship of idols on the hills and our religious orgies on the mountains are a delusion. Only in the Lord our God will Israel ever find salvation. From childhood we have watched as everything our ancestors worked for – their flocks and herds, their sons and daughters – was squandered on a delusion. Let us now lie down in shame and cover ourselves with dishonor, for we and our ancestors have sinned against the Lord our God. From our childhood to this day we have never obeyed Him.” (Jeremiah 3:22-25 NLT)

A delusion is “a persistent belief in something false typical of some mental disorders.” (The Merriam-Webster Dictionary). The irony to me is that many today would accuse those of us who are following Jesus as being “delusional,” and on some levels, they’re correct. What do I mean?

There are those who wrongly believe they can live their lives under the banner of the Lord Jesus, who, like the Israelites of old, follow practices and delusions that lead them to believe what isn’t true. For example, they believe they can be forgiven without repentance; however, Peter and the apostles when speaking to the Jewish high council stated clearly in Acts 5:29-31: “…We must obey God rather than any human authority. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed Him by hanging Him on a cross. Then God put Him in the place of honor at His right hand as Prince and Savior. He did this so the people of Israel would repent of their sins and be forgiven.”

“Used by permission, © Ray Majoran, GlimpseOfInfinity.com” “A New Beginning”

Repentance leads to forgiveness. Repentance is a change of mind and heart that results in a new direction for our life that is motivated and fueled by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The forgiveness of which Peter speaks is a pardon or remission of our sin. Because of the cleansing blood of our Savior Jesus, God views us through the lens of His sinless Son, seeing us as though we’d never sinned.

R. C. Sproul reminds us: “We can invent a God who forgives everybody without requiring repentance. All such avenues are established in delusion.” To think God would restore us to a position of sonship without any regret, remorse, or intention of walking away from the sin that holds us in bondage is to be delusional. To repent of sin is to walk away from the life we were living and seek to depend solely on the Holy Spirit’s power to enable us to joyfully walk in obedience to the directives of our new Master, the Lord Jesus.

Part of the process of living a forgiven life is the formation of a new view of the world, one that leans not on our own understanding, but on the Lord Jesus who alone can give us a sanctified life. John Stonestreet helps us to see this more clearly as he writes: “What this means is that the Christian worldview is not merely something we look at in order to analyze, study, and use with non-believers. It is something we are to look through. When we do, we see the brilliance of the world God made, the beauty of it along with the truth.”

Truth is the only antidote to delusion, yet those who don’t know Jesus see us and what we believe in much the same way as we see them and what they believe. In the eyes and minds of unbelievers, we’re the ones who are delusional, but why? Largely because we believe in a God we can’t see except with the eye of faith.

That’s why it’s so critical that our relationship with the Lord Jesus becomes visible in and through the ways we submit to the will of God, driven by our dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s guidance and training. That’s essentially how we formulate and follow a Christian worldview. We filter everything we do, say, think and experience through the Holy Scriptures, through which the Truth, not only of what Jesus said, but lived, informs and transforms our lives. That’s how we avoid delusion.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Being Who We’re Called to Be (Part 2)

“For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was His plan from before the beginning of time – to show us His grace through Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 1:9 NLT)

To be called is in essence an invitation to do something for God. Because we have free will, it’s up to us whether we’ll receive and walk in the calling the Lord has offered us. Calling begins with an invitation to become a child of God. There’s no calling to serve the Lord if we haven’t first yielded our life and allegiance to Him.

The specific task or service the Lord invites us into can be a life-long assignment or temporary. For those called to vocational ministry, for the most part, it’s a lifelong commitment, at least it has been for me. In yesterday’s post I mentioned that God designs and equips us for specific responsibilities that He will assign to us across the years of our ministry; however, there’s no “retirement” when it comes to Christian ministry.

My calling/ministry/service looks different now than it did when I first started my journey, but my devotion to the Lord, which is foundational, should never change, at least in terms of my commitment to carry out God’s will regardless of where it leads me. In this season of my life, I don’t have the energy to be a Pastor of a congregation of God’s people, large or small, so, the Lord has tailored my assignment specifically to the qualifications I have now – physically, spiritually, mentally, intellectually, etc.

Another consideration that can be confusing, is what we desire for ourselves, especially as it relates to other people and/or positions to which we aspire. Human aspirations and God’s will can sometimes be in conflict, so, we have to be very careful to whom we’re listening. We may see someone fulfilling a type of ministry or service that looks very appealing to us, but we must be honest with ourselves in terms of why. Is it the ministry or the person who is drawing our attention?

Honestly, that can be a valid basis for asking the right questions when we’re not sure where the Lord is leading. To sit down with someone whom we perceive is doing an outstanding job in an area in which they’re serving can be healthy. However, we mustn’t forget that people who are good at something can make it seem like it’s effortless, when in fact, it’s anything but.

One other dimension of this whole area of giftedness, serving, and calling is this: don’t be afraid to try something on a short-term basis. There have been those who have come to me because of their interest in an area of ministry in which they’ve felt “called,” but in which they had no experience. In my mind, that’s an ideal situation to have them volunteer for a specific amount of time – i.e. 3-6 months.

That should give them enough time to see if their curiosity is satisfied or if they need to dig in and spend more time learning as they then consider a long-term calling to serve in that area of ministry.

The bottom line to me is, over time God will give you certainty as to where He wants you to serve, so, when you find your “sweet spot,” hone your skills to train you to be the best you can possibly be. At that point you can also define what serving in that specific area will look like for you, whether your “calling” is as a layperson or paid staff position, which opens other considerations such as: continuing to serve where you are or pursuing a position with another church or organization. Just know the Lord will help you be the person He’s called you to be. Please listen carefully to what He’s saying and where He’s leading!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Being Who We’re Called to Be

“One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, – Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew – throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. Jesus called out to them, ‘Come, follow Me, and I will show you how to fish for people!’ And they left their nets at once and followed Him.” (Matthew 4:18-20 NLT)

Who has Jesus called you to be?

It’s important that we understand that to be a believer in Jesus is to be called to follow wherever He directs. There’s a sense in which – no Jesus, no calling; know Jesus, know calling. First and foremost, we’re called to be God’s child. Having our sins forgiven and being filled with the Holy Spirit sets us apart for holy purposes. But that’s only the beginning.

We don’t have to have an emotionally charged experience like Paul had on the Damascus Road to know we’re saved and called to be more than we could ever be on our own. All we need is a humble, contrite heart willing to hear God’s voice and follow His directives. He will speak, the only issue is, will we listen? What might that look like?

Jalen Hurts said: “I usually keep my prayers to myself, but I say, God knows… I really lean on Him, and I try to keep Him in the center of everything that I do because I know without God, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t be the man I am today without having that faith in Him, without having integrity and leadership and diligence and all of those things. But I think the biggest thing is you get so influenced by so much around you, you just want to pray that you’re the person that God calls you to be, so that’s what I’m going to do: Be who God called me to be.”(See BreakPoint Christian Creativity: Truth and Beauty Together // Jalen Hurts’ Best Performance – 02-15-23)

Callings vary, based on who we are and how God put us together. The plot thickens when we understand that God knows everything, so, He specifically designed us to possess the very qualities He wants us to have for us to carry out His purposes exactly as He desires. Spiritual gifts give us a clue, as well as our personality, preferences, where we were born, and into what kind of family. Our temperament, education, spheres of influence, where we live, our race, culture, socio-economic background and on and on it goes.

It’s safe to say that if God calls you to do something, He’s already vetted you to make sure you’re exactly who He needs for whatever He’s calling you to do. Another consideration is the scope of His calling. When He called the men in the verses above, they would be giving their lives to the calling He chose them to carry out. Callings have perimeters whether they’re for short-term or long-term ministries, but all of us are called to a lifetime of commitment.

For me, my “calling” was Pastoral ministry, but that looked different based on where I was serving and what my “position” was. In some settings I was on staff and had specific responsibilities such as: youth, Sunday School, Evangelism, Discipleship, etc. When I was the Senior or, in some cases, the only Pastor, I wore a lot of hats and had to recruit lay leaders to serve in those capacities.

Calling isn’t necessarily for a full-time ministry position, but it is a full-time commitment for each of us to do what we’re called and equipped to do. Sometimes knowing what that might look like for you is easy, sometimes it stretches out over years based on lots of factors and scenarios.

Maybe we should look at this more closely in tomorrow’s post.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Anger

“He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then He said to the man, ‘Hold out your hand.’ So the man held out his hand, and it was restored!” (Mark 3:5 NLT)

What makes you angry? Not just mildly annoyed or upset, but red in the face, fists formed, teeth clenched, ready to brawl angry? Often, we believe anger is a sin, and it can certainly lead to sin, but the Bible clearly shows that Jesus was angry with the Pharisees in the verse above, yet He didn’t allow it to lead to sin. Where’s the line? How far must we go before we sin?

Part of it is based on the origin of our anger. Most of the time our anger originates because of an offense or threat against us. But notice Jesus wasn’t angry because of the Pharisees attack on Him, He was upset because of the shallowness of their heart and their misdirected piety. They were trying to use the letter of the law to prevent God’s will from being accomplished. Is that our problem?

When I see the shallowness of my own faith raise its ugly head, if I allow Him, the Lord will point out that my anger (a) is misdirected and (b) isn’t appropriate for the circumstances. How so? Notice in the Mark 3 passage Jesus didn’t allow His anger to be taken out on another human being, He focused on the real “enemy.” He asked the man to stretch out his deformed hand.

Ranting at the Pharisees would have accomplished nothing, so, instead, Jesus addressed the heart of the matter – the man who needed healing. How often do we jump all over the “messenger,” which in the above verse was the Pharisees, and miss the real source – Satan or his devilish emissaries. We want to lash out when we get angry, which is like pouring gasoline on the flame, rather than seeing the big picture.

An unknown source said: “Anger is just one letter short of danger.” Anger is like the musicians tuning their instruments before the concert, it’s the prelude to what’s coming, that has the potential to be something beautiful and good. David Jeremiah wrote: “When anger rises, let it be a motivation not to sin. Step back, consider, and pray for understanding and guidance and for a way to replace harm with goodness.” (See Turning Point Take a Breath – 02-15-23)

No doubt Jesus was unhappy with the Pharisees, not for what they said or suggested, but for what motivated their concern – their hard hearts and blindness to His great love for them. It broke His heart to see them so committed to the law, when the Author of the Law was standing in their presence. That’s the critical piece of anger we can’t miss. Anything that turns our heart or mind away from Jesus and onto anything else, hurts Him and hardens our heart toward Him.

Paul said it like this: “And ‘don’t sin by letting anger control you.’ Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” Unrighteousness, illustrated in whatever setting, should cause anger to well up in our spirit; however, it must lead to positive action, not needless and purposeless ranting against individuals.

Anything that negatively stirs us up will push us toward anger and away from the Lord, unless and until we allow the Holy Spirit to harness our anger, thus, allowing the Lord to use it for the good of others and to honor Himself.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Failure Isn’t Final

“Do not gloat over me, my enemies! For though I fall, I will rise again. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. I will be patient as the Lord punishes me, for I have sinned against Him. But after that, He will take up my case and give me justice for all I have suffered from my enemies. The Lord will bring me into the light, and I will see His righteousness.” (Micah 7:8-9 NLT)

Notice a couple of things in the verses above. First, while the Lord does punish (discipline) us, it’s never for the purpose of hurting us, but always with correction in mind. Christ bore the punishment for our sin, but we will be disciplined (corrected) when we disobey God. Notice, secondly, the Lord brings us into His light, not to illuminate our badness, but His righteousness.

If you’ve never been disciplined by the Lord, you may not be walking as closely to Him as you think you are. Discipline is as much a part of our walk with God as prayer and worship, it just may look (feel) different than what we received when we were kids.

Photo by Monstera Production on Pexels.com

The first step in understanding the Lord’s discipline of us is that it isn’t for punitive purposes, it is for correction of wrong or inappropriate actions or behavior, including wrong thoughts (i.e. thinking wrongly about God, the Church, self, others, etc.). Think, too, of the disciplines we learn in order to walk the straight paths of righteousness (i.e. reading and studying the Scriptures, prayer, service, the Lord’s Supper, Baptism, etc.).

Disciplines are the formation of practices that we learn and/or follow in our pursuit of Christlikeness. An undisciplined believer is an oxymoron. To not be disciplined is to not be loved. Proverbs 3:11-12 reads in the NLT: “My child, don’t reject the Lord’s discipline, and don’t be upset when He corrects you. For the Lord corrects those He loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights.”

Throughout life we develop habits and/or attitudes that are displeasing to the Lord. As a teen I was extremely jealous and possessive in my relationship with my girlfriend, that not only cost me my relationship with her, but hurt my walk with the Lord. As a young adult I was so focused on making a living I got sidetracked from making a life.

In these two scenarios and in many more I/we seek to run our own lives, often in an effort to do for ourselves what only God can do. We want to be the proverbial Captain of our own “ship,” ignoring the clear signs that reveal we’re not really “Captain” material. God alone knows the future, thus, qualifying Him alone to help prepare us for what only He knows is coming.

Inevitably, our efforts to live life on our terms lead to failures that can, and often do, change the course of our lives. The good news is, nothing catches God by surprise, He sees our life from beginning to end, so, He can redeem our failures and use them to better equip us for what He knows is coming. Often, before we’re willing to make needed changes, He has to allow us to paint ourselves into the proverbial “corner,” putting ourselves in a situation out of which we’re forced to trust Him.

Thankfully, God is good and is willing to walk with us each step of the way, guiding us into needed change and the formation of a new mindset that allows us to overcome the selfishness that is preventing us from overcoming the sin that has us bound. Gratefully, failure doesn’t have to be final.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Why Attend Church?

“I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20 NLT)

Have you ever wondered, pondered, imagined what being a part of the 1^st century Church would have been like? Listening to Peter, James, John, and others of the original eleven, then Steven, Paul, Silas, Barnabus, Timothy, Jude and others who actually were discipled and ordained by the very ones who had spent time with Jesus. What if one of them showed up at your church on Sunday? What would they think of what’s happening at your church or mine, compared to what they experienced in the churches they helped to establish?

COVID was certainly a major contributor, but many churches declined in attendance during COVID and haven’t rebounded, while others have closed their doors for good. Obviously, large numbers of people who once attended and identified themselves as believers in Jesus, have decided they no longer need to attend church. Why do you suppose so many “believers” see church attendance as optional?

Like a concert, conference, or other event, too many are seeing church as something they can “take” or “leave” rather than something that is vital to their spiritual health. The online option has become the norm for many because it’s convenient and can be “watched” at their leisure.

John Stonestreet is on to something when he wrote: “Much is behind these shifting numbers. First and foremost, God continues to prune and winnow His Church, seeking the health of His Beloved. The broader cultural shift away from truth claims and anything that smacks of traditional morality has only intensified in recent years. And, we should at least consider the possibility that the decline in both numbers and influence is, at least in part, a self-inflicted wound.” (See BreakPoint Why So Many Are Choosing Couches Over Pews // An Awakening at Asbury – 02-15-23)

In my mind, we shoot ourselves in the proverbial “foot” when we opt out of church for personal convenience. It amazed me when I was pastoring how many young families chose to let their child, 6-12 years old, participate in sports on Sunday rather than attend church. It’s one thing to miss once in a while, but every Sunday through the Summer shouts: “CHURCH ISN’T THAT IMPORTANT!” Yet, statistics will verity that most people who become believers will come to Christ by age 18.

Stonestreet continued: “To use a pair of homespun metaphors, the kind of bait used determines the kind of fish caught. Or, more prosaically, what you win people with is what you win them to. After decades of appealing first and foremost to whatever people want and editing to whatever they think, we’ve essentially discipled a generation that will only follow a Church that leads where they want to go.”

One of my neighbors who came to church with my wife and I, began to cry as she sat down and was still crying as we left. “Why?“ you may wonder? Likely, for the same reason I cry much of the services, because of the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit. There’s an atmosphere at our church, and I sincerely hope at your church, that is tangible and can be explained in no other way than it’s God stirring His people to learn of Him and grow closer to Him. Church was never designed by God to simply be a social club; it was meant to be a house of worship and prayer for God’s people.

Yes, of course, He shows up in other places at other times, but there’s a reason He shows up when His people meet, and if you’re not experiencing His presence at your church, you may need to ask why. The truth is, as believers, the Holy Spirit lives in us, so, if we’re not sensing His closeness maybe the place to look isn’t the church, but the mirror.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊