Walking With Jesus

The Life Only God Can Produce

“For God wanted them to know that the riches, and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing His glory.” (Colossians 1:27 NLT)

When I was newly married I had very little money, so it wasn’t unusual for the gas tank in our car to run low. Suppose you saw me pushing my car along the side of the road and, out of the kindness of your heart, you stopped and asked me why I was pushing my car. After hearing my “out of gas” story, you took me to a station, purchased for me a 5-gallon container of fuel, and drove me back to my car.

A few hours later you were going back by the same area, and you noticed I was still trying to push my car to the gas station. So, you stop and discover – Yes, I’d put gas in my car, but I was still pushing it! THEN what would you think? That’s incredulous, right? Why would anyone in their right mind push a car that was fully capable of being driven?

Yet, that’s exactly what many professing believers in Jesus are trying to do with their lives. Upon confession and repentance, we are filled with spiritual “fuel” in the Person of the Holy Spirit, yet we’re still trying to live our lives irrespective of God’s Spirit “fueling” our lives. We’re still seeking to move our lives by “pushing ourselves” in the energy of the flesh.

I recently finished a devotional book by Major W. Ian Thomas entitled: “The Indwelling Life of Christ (All of Him in All of Me).” In it he writes: “The Christian life is nothing less than the life which He lived then… lived now by Him in you!” That’s the only life God will produce in us – HIMSELF!

To seek to live a life in the energy of the flesh after being filled, empowered, and enabled to live life in the energy of the Spirit is not only foolish, it’s blasphemous! How dare any of us ignore God’s presence in us while working feverishly to be like Jesus on our own. That’s religion, not a relationship with Jesus, and it will never work. That’s what hell is – working tirelessly to earn our own salvation.

Steven Lawson wrote: “The strongest evidence that you have been born again is the fruit of a changed life that only God can produce.” The fruit of the Spirit can be counterfeited and faked short-term but will never manifest itself long-term without the Spirit’s presence and power. Paul affirms this truth when he writes in Galatians 2:20a “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

How is that possible? What does it look life? Paul continues in verse 20b-21:”So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless. For if keeping the law (pushing the car) could make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.”

Following the “rules,” obeying the “law,” living our lives in the energy of the flesh, trying to be good enough to deserve God’s grace, are all ways we try to produce the life of God in our lives without the power and presence of God. It’s like asking a 3-month-old to do double back flips out of his highchair to clean up his own mess on the floor.

God wants to do in and through us essentially what He did in and through Jesus as He walked the pathways of this earth – to govern, rule, equip, enable, us to exhibit the character of Christ in everything we do, think, and speak. Why? So that Jesus is honored and glorified and people’s lives are transformed, not by their own efforts, but by His!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Same Mud, Same Blood

“Now I appeal to Euodia and Syntyche. Please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement. And I ask you, my true partner, to help these two women, for they worked hard with me in telling others the Good News. They worked along with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are written in the Book of Life.” (Philippians 4:2-3 NLT)

Though I’ve never been in the military, my dad, many of my uncles, other relatives, and many close friends have served. One of my friends was among seven of his buddies who went out on night patrol. Only he lived to tell about it. Though wounded, he survived and to this day, 50+ years later, it still haunts him. His only consolation is to meet weekly with other military friends who have experienced similar trauma.

One way of expressing their closeness was the saying, they’re of the “same mud, same blood.” Serving together in war gives them a common bond that is thicker than blood. Remember, this was in the 60’s, and many returning soldiers didn’t come home to open arms and waving flags. They came home to protesters and angry mobs.

Ron Hutchcraft put it this way: “We’re talking about a time when America was convulsing with civil rights conflicts, right? But the documentary told the amazing story of how a company that started out with huge racial walls between them became molded into this group of guys who would die for each other… There was something about being in a war together that brought people close together who might otherwise have never had anything in common. Mission glue – that’s what held that racially mixed, potentially racially divided group of soldiers together. They had a life-or-death mission that brought them together and kept them together.”

One of the reasons we’re so divided in Christendom is that we fail to see our corporate mission. Jesus’ blood was spilled for each of us, not so we could “talk the talk,” bad mouthing and shunning those in His Family who don’t believe exactly like we do on points of doctrine, but that we could “walk the walk” together for the sake of the mission to “win the lost at any cost.”

I’m reminded of John Piper’s quote: “We cannot know what prayer is for until we know that life is war.” Unfortunately, there are still those in the Body of Christ, like those in the verses above of whom Paul spoke, who get bent out of shape because they don’t get their way. The “battle” isn’t only getting believers to join the mission to reach the lost, it’s to get them to see their pettiness is driving their loved ones and friends away from Christ, not serving as a means of inviting them to Him.

The Lord has shown me that everything I do, unless it focuses on and is done in the spirit of love for Christ and others, is a landmine that has the potential to “kill” other’s desire to learn of the Savior. Satan is the god of this world and to the extent we ignore Christ’s commands and directives, thus choosing to serve ourselves, to that extent the “broad” way is widened, and Satan is delighted.

As believers we may not be of the “same mud,” but we’re definitely of the “same blood.” By God’s grace and with the Spirit’s help, can we please set aside our differences long enough to love those without hope to Jesus? Can we just lay down whatever grievances we have in order that Christ’s blood might cleanse us of being more interested in having our own way than showing others His way?

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Triumphant Prayers

“One day Jesus told His disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up.” (Luke 18:1 NLT)

Do you ever get discouraged asking God for the same thing day after day, yet struggling to see any evidence that it’s doing anyone any good? Admittedly, in my weaker moments, I do, but I don’t let those “down” moments dictate my confidence that God IS hearing, and what He hears, He answers. But having said that, I reinforce something I said in a post a few days ago – receiving answers isn’t our primary reason for praying – nearness to the Father is!

In the parable of the persistent widow, which is the story Jesus told after the verse above, He spoke of a judge who, as Jesus put it: “…neither feared God nor cared about people.” Yet, in the end, because of her stubborn persistence, the unjust judge gave her that for which she had asked. What’s the lesson for us?

Jesus affirmed that God would give justice to His children, but He concludes His comments by asking a question that has always troubled me. He said: “But when the Son of Man returns, how many will He find on the earth who have faith?” One clear implication to me is that deep faith is coupled with persistent prayer. So, then the question becomes: “Why won’t people of faith be praying?”

In the previous chapter, in Luke 17, Jesus said to His disciples in verse 22: “The time is coming when you will long to see the day when the Son of Man returns, but you won’t see it.” Then He speaks of His own terrible suffering and begins to reveal how things will be before He returns. He speaks of how it was before the flood, and “in the days of Lot,” before God rained fire and burning sulfur down from heaven on Sodom.

How many people do you think were praying before the rain started falling and the door of the Ark was closed? How many people do you imagine were on their faces before God in Sodom before their demise? And, as the last days before Christ’s return are being clearly revealed, how many people in America are on their knees begging God for the salvation of themselves, their loved ones, friends, and neighbors?

On any given weekend we have roughly 3,500 people who attend our services, but in our monthly prayer services we have less than 200. Am I to assume the other 3,300 don’t love Jesus or care about prayer? That’s not what I’m saying. It’s simply an indicator of what’s most important, not only to unbelievers, but for those of us who profess to believe.

According to Hebrews 11:6: “And it is impossible to please God without faith.” But that’s not the end of the verse. It continues by saying: “Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.” In its purest form, what is prayer? Isn’t it our effort to acknowledge that we believe God exists and that He will reward our efforts by building faith in us whether He answers our prayers the way we expect or not?

Triumphant prayers aren’t only those with spectacular answers that anyone, believer and unbeliever, can see and rejoice in, they’re the ones we pray day in and day out without doubt that the God who knows us and sees us and loves us, is listening to and responding in ways we may not see, even in this lifetime, but we persist anyway. We don’t give up and we don’t give in!

They’re the prayers that rip out our hearts for fear the ones for whom we’re praying won’t see the Light before it’s eternally too late. They’re the prayers, that whether we realize it or not, are building our faith and enabling us to see the heart of our Savior as we can in no other way.

“Holy Father, help us to pray more triumphant prayers to Your honor and fame!”

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed

Life’s Greatest Compliment

“O Lord, You have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do.” (Psalm 139:1-3 NLT)

What’s the most memorable compliment you’ve ever received? After one of my first sermons in a new church I was serving, an elderly woman shook my hand and said: “O brother Hager, that’s one of the best sermons I’ve ever heard. There’s just one thing, you’ve got to speak up, I hardly heard a word you said.”

Ironically, it was one of the most helpful “compliments” I’ve ever received. It causes me to ponder the words above from David, and ask a question: “Lord, how can you know everything about me (us), yet, still love me (us)?” Could it be we have a distorted view of love?

As we look at the people in our lives, how many people do we genuinely love? And how many people in our lives genuinely and truly love us? How can we know for sure? Because they compliment us? Because they’re kind and caring? Because they tell us they love us?

Brian Goins wrote: “Someone once defined love as focus. It’s not enough just to hear words coming out of someone’s mouth—real connection is truly seeing someone and understanding their heart.” How can we know that God’s love is real? Brian continues: “God knows us because He pays attention to us. When we call, He listens. God never interrupts our prayers to like an Instagram post. One of the greatest compliments you can give one another is your undivided attention.”

May I confess? That’s hard for me. My wife (too) often says to me: “I need you to listen to me with your whole face!” Why does she feel the need to say that? Because I’m too easily distracted by things that don’t matter! I often ask her how she got so beautiful in only 72 years, but that’s the proverbial “babbling brook” if she doesn’t feel listened to when she speaks to me.

Do you want to love well? Yeh, me too. So, how can we learn to listen more effectively? Can we take our cues from God? Obviously, the Lord knows us, literally, inside and out, but what if we began to ask questions that would give us greater insight into the hearts and minds of those we want to love the most?

Jackie Hill Perry said: “Being mean isn’t a fruit of the spirit.” That’s the kind of quote that makes me smile while the Spirit opens my heart to the ways that I’m “mean” and don’t even realize it until after the fact. Hearing someone without acknowledging what they’re saying is important enough for us to listen is mean! Being busy doing something else while we should be focused on our spouse, child, neighbor, friend, _________, is mean! Professing love for Jesus and treating our friends and loved ones like the devil is mean!

May I pray for us? “Father in heaven, thank You for genuinely and precisely loving us. You are capable of listening to billions of people speaking at the same time, yet, giving each of us your undivided attention as though we were the only one to whom You were listening. By Your grace and with Your Spirit’s help, thank You for enabling us to learn to love well by learning to listen and be attentive to those who speak to us. Sometimes we think we’ve come pretty far in our walk with You, until, like today, we see how far we have to go. You are gracious, kind, loving, and gentle with us. Thank You for equipping us to be those things for the people we most want to love and for the people we least want to love. In Your holy Name, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen”

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Our Daily Bread

This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24 NLT)

Have you ever wondered why God designed our lives to be lived in 24-hour segments? When I was in college, I always needed money, so when a friend asked me to fill in for him at a soft drink plant as a night watchman, without thinking I said I would. It’s the only time in my life I fell asleep on my feet. In my mind (and body) night was to be used for sleep!

Our bodies are wired to function best when we give them proper nourishment, exercise, and rest. When we don’t, it generally leads to problems. It’s similar with our spirits. Ron Hutchcraft wrote: “The strength you need, the provision you need, the grace you need, the answers you need, the help you need, and the encouragement you need – He’s going to send you what you need on the day you need it and not a day earlier.”

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Have you ever been in such physical, mental, emotional, even spiritual pain you’ve begged God to take it away, or give you an answer? What is worry? Isn’t worry essentially desiring to know or have today what we really don’t need until some point in the future?

After my divorce I worked a commission only job, so when I didn’t make sales, I had no income. Nearly, every month I would be begging God for money TODAY, for my rent that wasn’t due until the beginning of the next month. I rarely had the funds I needed early, but without exception, He always made a way for me to pay in time, so I never got evicted.

Listen to the voice of the Scriptures: “This is the day the Lord has made”(Psalm 118:24)…”His mercies are new every morning”(Lamentations 3:23)…“Daily He bears our burdens” (Psalm 68:19). “Take up your cross daily, and follow Me.” (Luke 9:23), and Moses said to the tribe of Asher in Deuteronomy 25b: “Your strength will equal your days.”

In Luke 11, as Jesus finished praying, the disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. Included in that very short, but important prayer Jesus said to ask the Father: “Give us each day the food we need.” While He used the example of food, I believe His desire is for us to ask the Lord, as I do every morning, to give us everything we need to be everything He desires us to be TODAY!

Ron Hutchcraft continued his thought: “So when you get all worried and fearful about what’s beyond today, you’re running ahead of your supply lines. Because you don’t have tomorrow’s ‘bread,’ tomorrow’s strength, or tomorrow’s grace until that day comes. So you’re trying to carry tomorrow’s burden with today’s grace, and you’re going to stumble.”

When I’m sick physically or struggling emotionally, it seems my all-encompassing passion is to be well RIGHT NOW! “Lord, please heal me now!” Often, however, He chooses to wait. Why would He do that? There is a scene in season 3 of The Chosen where little James is asking Jesus why He hasn’t healed him of a physical condition that causes him to move much more slowly than the other disciples.

Jesus is preparing the disciples to be sent out two-by-two to do mission’s work to prepare these places for His soon arrival. He’s giving them authority and power to heal and to cast out demons, and Jesus explains to James how powerful it will be for people to see him loving and serving Jesus even though he hasn’t been healed himself.

Thousands followed Jesus for what they could get from Him, as they still do today, but Jesus was emphasizing to James what a powerful witness to serve Jesus gladly, and powerfully healing others while he, himself, was still not healed. I no longer ask the Lord to heal me except it be in His way and in His time.

My spirit rejoices in Christ my Savior whether I’m healed in this life or not. Why? Because I know one day, sooner than I can imagine, I’ll be perfectly whole in every way. Wow! What a day that will be!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

When They Don’t Yet Know Him

“Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered Himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2 NLT)

The last couple of days we’ve been looking at how to best honor the Lord when you have a believing spouse, but what if your husband or wife isn’t yet a Jesus follower? Do the “rules” change? Do you not love them if they’re your wife or not respect them if they’re your husband?

There is a very real sense in which love, and respect aren’t reserved just for those who follow the Lord. We loved family and friends before the Lord ruled our heart, so, presumably, love was present in the relationship before marriage.

As Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6:14, we shouldn’t marry someone who isn’t a believer, but it’s not unusual for one spouse to come to Christ before the other one. But regardless of how you came to be in the circumstance of being married to a nonbeliever, how should you treat them since you are a believer?

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Loving and respecting our life’s partner shouldn’t be dependent upon whether they believe in Jesus or not, that’s our directive from Scripture regardless, but it may look differently. How so? One of the things I love about my wife and something I most enjoy doing with her is reading a daily devotion and praying together. That could be hard if your partner doesn’t believe.

They may feel threatened, like you’re trying to cram something down their throat if you press too hard. But if they’re open to sitting with you while you read a devotion or a portion of Scripture, then letting you pray, by all means do it. Give them the opportunity, if they’re willing, to give you requests or ask questions about what you read; however, please don’t use the Bible as a hammer to try to get them to comply with what you want them to do. It will only serve to push them further away.

Going to church together is another helpful step in the process, or going out socially with married friends who love Jesus and each other. In my mind there are very few things more impactful than a couple who has walked with the Lord together for many years. Their love is often tender and spontaneous in ways it takes years to develop.

Ideally, the closer we grow to the Lord, the more of His likeness is evidenced in our lives and the more authentically we can love those in our spheres of influence. The church my wife and I attend is warm, loving, and inviting. There is an environment there that begs for belonging, that’s like going home to family every week, and it’s felt that way since day one.

If you don’t have a church family like that, don’t give up looking because I know it exists. Some folks prefer smaller churches because they are supposedly more intimate and it’s easier to get to know one another. That can be true, and I hope it is if you attend a small church, but small churches can also be cliquish, cold, and unwelcoming, just as larger churches can be distant and uninviting.

The point is, love your husband or wife like you’d love any other person you’re wanting to see come to Christ. Don’t be artificial or fake, but genuinely love them as Christ loves you. If they’re antagonistic and defensive every time you try to speak about the Lord, continue to pray quietly and carefully live in a way that exalts Jesus and serves them in ways that will be hard for them to miss.

The adage: “Action speaks louder than words,” may never be more true than when seeking to love a spouse to Jesus. My love and prayers are with you!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Reflecting Christ in Marriage (Part 2)

“As the Scriptures say, ‘A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.’ This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.” (Ephesians 5:31-32 NLT)

In yesterday’s post we looked at how God’s desire for us as husbands and wives is to reflect in a physical sense what it looks like in a spiritual sense for Christ to love His Church. We left off with Paul’s directive in Ephesians 5:33: “…each man must love His wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” I closed yesterday’s post with the question? “What if our spouse isn’t deserving of our love and respect?” And I would follow that with another one: “Who is deserving of Jesus’ love and respect?”

The Amplified translation adds clarity when it says: “However, let each man of you [without exception] love his wife as [being in a sense] his very own self; and let the wife see that she respects and reverences her husband [that she notices him, regards, him, honors him, prefers him, venerates, and esteems him; and that she defers to him, praises him, and loves and admires him exceedingly]. [1 Peter 3:2.]

Please don’t lose sight of the fact that Paul is writing to those he believes are seeking to model a life of Christlikeness, evidenced by his words in Ephesians 5:21: “And further, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The standard is high for both husbands and wives as seen in verses 22-23: “For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of His body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up His life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.”

This all sounds too radical for most 21^st century married Christian couples, right? But why? Why would it be any different than to those who read these words for the first time. Times were MUCH harder then than they are now on many levels, but in many ways, at least as it pertains to husbands and wives, not a lot has changed.

Those words must become our Biblical mandate today as they’ve been in every generation from then until now. But how? One husband, one wife at a time. One devoted couple at a time. Perhaps this is as good a time as ever to confess that I’m not nearly as good a husband as I desire to be, and I suspect, you’re not a model spouse either.

Every day I fail miserably at being the Christ-honoring husband I want to be, in much the same way as I too often fail at being the godly man I long to be. What’s the problem? Sin! My desire to love my wife is too often superseded by my desire to love myself, to put myself – my plans, my preferences, my problems – ahead of my wife’s plans, preferences, and problems.

And it’s not any different for my wife, or yours. We’re all sinners saved by grace on a path to heaven that leads us along very bumpy and sometimes painful paths. We’re learning how to navigate, but to the extent we can learn to navigate together, we’ll do better in our treatment of one another.

As I understand the process, it begins with desire and determination to allow the Holy Spirit to so direct us we not only learn to “seek first the Kingdom of God,” but to also seek first the welfare and benefit of our spouses ahead of our own. The better we get at that, the more our marriages will reflect our love for Jesus.

Which raises a question we’ll look at in tomorrow’s post: “What if my spouse isn’t a believer?” I’m so glad you asked!

Blessings, Ed 😊

Reflecting Christ in Marriage

“As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word.” (Ephesians 5:24-26 NLT)

How does the church submit to Christ? A related question may also be: Who is the church? When you think of the “Church” as the Body of Jesus Christ, the sum of every person who has or will ever place their trust in the living Christ, the first question fades into incomprehension. However, one day the Church, comprised of every blood-washed soul, will be entirely united and in full unity and devotion, as one Body submitted to our only Savior and Lord, the Christ, the Son of the living God.

But until that day, how do we, as the Church, submit to Christ? One person at a time! Every day we, individually, renew our love and devotion to our Savior, offering our lives as living sacrifices to be offered in our grateful submission and service to Him alone. That’s essentially how each wife and each husband devote themselves to each other.

Submission isn’t a negative term or concept. I willingly and joyfully submit to Christ’s lordship over my life. Why? Because I know He knows me better than I know myself, He desires only good for me, and He will protect me in ways I can’t protect myself. The only way any of us move forward in our faith is by trusting Him to do in, through, and on our behalf what only He can do, as He enables us to do and be what only we can do and be as His strength is being lived out through us.

Submission isn’t a burden, it’s a safety net. It’s our eternal guarantee that we’ll never walk alone or in our own strength. And in marriage, submission isn’t becoming a limp rag, it’s being more together as husband and wife than either of us dreamed we could become on our own.

A wife’s submission to her husband isn’t yielding to him her personality and leaving with him the right and obligation to make every decision for her, it’s to enter into a partnership of mutual love and devotion that together relies upon and seeks the will of God to be the best they can be together, and individually to maximize their effectiveness to the glory of Christ.

John MacArthur wisely wrote: “The Christian husband displays what he thinks of Christ by the way he treats his wife.” To bully her or abuse her in any way is to disrespect and violate our devotion to Christ. Christ loves us with His whole being, illustrated by His willingness to die in our place. He didn’t die to set us free to be anything we desired, He died to enable us to become what only He knows we can become.

Reflecting Christ in marriage is demonstrated by our undivided loyalty to Jesus and to each other; our devotion to one another’s well-being in every avenue of our lives, individually and corporately; and our willingness to submit to one another in mutual desire to see Christ become famous as we exalt and honor Him individually and together.

It’s interesting to me that Paul writes in Ephesians 5:33: “So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife mut respect her husband.” The word “love” used here is “agapao” (ag-ap-ah’-o). This is a love that’s not dependent upon emotion to fuel it, but it’s an act of the will, driven by what we know is God’s will. And the word “respect” is “phobeo” (fob-eh’-o), from which comes our word “fear.” But this isn’t a word that denotes being afraid of someone, but in a similar way as we reverence and esteem God, a wife is to hold her husband in high regard, respecting and honoring him.

Which of course begs the question: What if our spouse isn’t deserving of our love and respect? We’ll look at this more closely in tomorrow’s post.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Just the Two of Us?

In marriage it’s not uncommon for us to begin our life of marital bliss with tunnel vision. We tend to believe it’s just the two of us who will dictate the type and duration of “OUR” marriage. How naïve we are to believe we haven’t been influenced by culture, entertainment, the media, faith, a previous marriage, and, perhaps the most powerful influence, the homes in which we grew up.

We each have our preconceived notions of how we and our new spouse should function in our lives together. At first, depending on how long the honeymoon lasts, we may push irritating things to the proverbial “back burner,” but sooner or later we’re going to stop catering and start rebelling.

Think about it! We’re two imperfect people, having grown up in an imperfect home setting, in an imperfect world, filled with other imperfect people. It simply doesn’t make sense to expect a “perfect” marriage – but we do! And when the bubble bursts we don’t have a clue as to how to handle it, other than “our” way! Unfortunately, each “our” in that equation is also strongly biased by the influences of their life before marriage.

If we’re believers in Jesus we have opportunity to tap an eternal reservoir of resources to help us, beginning with a picture of the ultimate marriage model found in Scripture – Christ and His Bride, the Church. Do you want to know how to love your spouse? Jesus shows us in how He loves each of us, who corporately comprise His holy Bride.

What did His love look like? Sacrifice! He literally laid down His sinless life on our behalf. How does that translate for us? Paul said it well in the verse above: “Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do!” Jesus died for us, but before that He spent three years showing us how to live, how to treat each other, how to pray, how to laugh, cry, celebrate life’s victories and deal with life’s disappointments together.

Life was never meant to be lived anonymously, in solitude, separated from others, even as a couple in marriage. Everything Jesus taught was in community, with the express intention of it being applied in the adventure of life as His follower. That’s how we live, love, learn, serve, share, experience joy, sadness, life, death, healing, wholeness – virtually everything we are or ever hope to be has a context that includes others we love and by whom we’re loved.

There are needs our spouse can’t meet, needs we can’t meet in our own lives, needs that can only be met in community, in the Body of Christ, His Church, His Bride. Imitating Christ and living a life of love is a life-long process learned and practiced in fellowship with other people who are also learning. None of us ever get it perfectly in this life, but by God’s grace and with His help, we get better at it over time.

If you’re married, I pray your goal is to build a marriage that is healthy, strong, loving, and lasting. A marriage that is a positive influence in the lives of your children, grandchildren, and others who are watching. We don’t always realize there are others watching our lives, our marriages, our walk with Jesus, but there are many.

Some are hoping we will fall and fail, and many of us have; but most are rooting for us, praying we’ll do well and influence a lot of others positively. For those watching, what is your life, marriage, and walk with Jesus modeling for them? Remember, it’s not just you and your spouse, or even you and Jesus, it’s you in community with the Body of Christ. We’re in this life together!

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊

Who Decides?

“At that time the highly valued slave of a Roman officer was sick and near death.” (Luke 7:2 NLT)

Great problems can lead to great outcomes, it just depends on who’s deciding the outcome. In the story above a Roman officer has a slave who is very ill and, upon hearing Jesus has healed others, he enlists the help of some “respected Jewish Elders” to intervene on his behalf.

These Jews intercede on the officer’s behalf and Jesus begins to walk with them, but as they’re on their way some friends of the officer share a message with them that surprises and delights Jesus in ways that He’s not been delighted before. You see, this Roman Centurion is a man under authority, who has been given authority. So?

He understood in ways that many of us do not, that the solution to problems is knowing who has the authority to address them. He made the connection that sickness, as well as any other problem we have in this life, is subject to the authority of Jesus. So, he sends his friends to tell Jesus not to bother coming all the way to him, just say the word from where He is, and my servant will be well.

Ron Hutchcraft nailed it in a recent devotional when he wrote: “Amazing faith is all about authority and what authority will decide the outcome in your situation. Amazing faith believes that Jesus will decide the outcome and nothing else! The disease will not decide it, the boss will not decide it, the economy will not decide it, the election will not decide it, your enemies won’t decide it, the odds won’t decide it, the devil won’t decide it – Jesus will decide it!”

So, it begs the question: “With what problem are you wrestling in this season of your life?” I realize that some who read these posts are my contemporaries. What does that mean? It means you’re nearing your last lap around the proverbial track. A cold could turn into a life-threatening illness; a fall could break a bone that could compound and lead to the end of your life. Does that scare you? I hope not.

The reality is, regardless of your age, you could walk out the door in the morning and never return. Life is fickle and doesn’t always pay much attention to age or physical condition when it strikes. What’s my point? Simply this. Whether your 21 or 91 be ready to meet Jesus when you close your eyes each night.

To me, realizing I’m much closer to the end than the beginning stirs my heart to do as much as I possibly can to love well those in my spheres of influence. I want Jesus to decide my outcomes, in this life and beyond. How so? By preparing as best I can to set my house in order before I die. I don’t want there to be any doubt in anyone in my family that I love them, and I want them to serve Jesus.

Since I pay the bills and keep track of who to call in different situations, I’ve made sure when I die my wife doesn’t need to be worrying about any of that. From the moment I die I’ve left instructions as to who to call and what service they bring to the table. I’m writing letters to each of my kids, their spouses, my granddaughter and significant other people in my life, letting them know how much they mean to me and how much I want them to serve Jesus.

We don’t usually get to choose our problems, but we can choose who we’re trusting for their outcomes. The first step for anyone is to yield their life and allegiance to Jesus by confessing their sin and receiving the free gift of salvation through Christ alone by faith alone. Once we’re walking with Jesus, we know we’re never alone and we’ll never be dependent upon our own resources to receive a positive outcome.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊