Believe

   "Do you really believe what you believe is really true?"

   I had a passing thought yesterday when I was putting down some things that I believe, why do I believe that?

   The quote above is from a session of the Truth Project, a 12 week course from Focus on the Family that we facilitate here at our church. We have done that course 5 times and each time I stop at that quote and wonder if I really believe what I say I do.

   When you grow up in church and are around church folks all your life, it is sometimes easy to just accept the belief system that you are a part of, and when those same people elect you to positions of leadership in the church body, it is hard to question yourself or let others see you less than sure of yourself.

   It has only been in the past few years that I have come to grips with the things I say I believe and why I believe them. Maybe it is a little sad that all of this happens late in life, but it is worth it to be able to say, "Yes I really believe"

  Now let me live my life as if I really do..

Struggle with Jesus

   One bad thing about trying to read and respond to the writings of Oswald Chambers is his depth of relationship with Jesus as he writes about it. That is a great thing for him, but it is hard for me to relate to it on such a plane.

    I believe the Bible and what it says about Him:
         born of a virgin
         lived a sinless life
         died on the cross for me
         resurrected on the third day
         lives in Heaven with the Father
         lives in me through the Holy Spirit
         is coming again

    OK, I believe, and I trust Him with my salvation, but I really struggle with the personal relationship part of living with Him and for Him. Chambers seems to have no such problem, and the depth of his relationship is foreign to me.

    I have seen how He has been active in my life and circumstances. I know He has used me in some situations, and I look to Him to continue to do so, but it is more like an unseen, unfelt personage bringing circumstances into my life from afar.

    I am grateful to God for what I do have and what He has led me to believe, but I really want more. Really.....

    My prayer is for God to give me what He wants me to have and when He wants it.

Misgivings About God

    Can God really bring order out of chaos? Can He overcome the the failure of men to properly bring a planned program to those that need it?

    In a few days, the prison ministry organization that I participate in will be beginning a 4 day weekend walk in a state prison near here, and the two questions above are legitimate for us.

    The loose ends of planning this weekend are all getting tangled together. Can God get them untied in time or will the inmates see what a mess we are? I look at all that is necessary for a weekend to be run properly, and I know I could not put it together.

    If I am not careful, I can have real misgivings about God. I want to limit His ability to bring this thing off, when I know that I could not. His will will be done, with us, or in spite of us.

    The one thing that I need to remember regarding any situation in my life is that, in essence, it is not about me but about Him. I can only respond to a call and give it my best. When the weekend is over, and I look back on what has happened, and see the results, my misgivings about God should vanish. Nothing we humans could have done would have produced any fruit at all, but His will was done and 40 plus inmates received a blessing.

    Fear not.

Destitution

   Paul says that he is willing to spend himself extravagantly so that he might serve others for Jesus Christ. He would hold back nothing, but give it his all.

   I say I am willing to give all in order to obey a call of God to service, but does my service actually look like that? Do I forget about myself, my desires, my comforts, my reputation or do I just work really hard looking like I am doing that.

   True service starts with the heart. Halfhearted service is not true service at all, and, although some good might be done, I not sure how much it really counts in God's eyes.

  How much am I willing to destitute myself in order to be a true servant?

  God help me.

Convenient Sacrifice

   Paul tells the folks in Corinth (II Cor. 12:15) that he will gladly spend and be spent for them. His life was not his, but His and theirs. Their well being in Christ was for him a delightful sacrifice. A sacrifice that he was more than willing to give.

   As I look at my life, it seems that any sacrifice that I have made, or still make, is one that is convenient for me. In fact the term, convenient sacrifice, is an oxymoron. It is really no sacrifice if it is not of a cost to me (a real cost).

   A sacrifice in baseball can fall into both categories. In a game if a batter gives up an opportunity for gain for himself by helping another runner get to second base, that is called a sacrifice. If you transpose that scene into the last game of the season, where the batter sacrifices the runner to the next base so the team might have a chance to win the game, but in doing that he sacrifices his chance to win the league batting title with its attendant glory, that is real.

   My attitude toward sacrifice does not come close to the one Paul talked about. He was willing to give up everything so that some others might be won to Jesus Christ. Mine are so piddling that they would not even fit on the scale,

   Recognizing these deficiencies in my life is easy, being willing to follow Paul and Jesus in their example will take sacrifice, and not just the convenient type.

A Question of Service

If I serve others out of a love for them, I am apt to be disappointed by their ingratitude and selfishness, but if I serve others out of a love for Jesus, I will be continually strengthened by Him for this service. So the whole question of service begs the question: Why do I do it?

I do like to serve, so I have to continually ask that question. If it is for me so I can look good and be praised for my servanthood, then I will soon find out that flattery and praise is fleeting, and I am depending on man to give me an appraisal of my worth. If it is truly for Christ, then His "well done" is my reward.

The temptation is in evidence, even when serving, of wanting to be significant. I want to say "Hey, look at me and what I am doing", but I also know how very shallow that is.

Do I even think about motives at all or is service just a way of life? For me, it is what I feel good doing, but I need to be continually checking on the "why".

God help me to be always serving others in love for You.

Spiritual Tenacity

Spiritual tenacity

   OC has an interesting take on this subject today. Spiritual tenacity is not just endurance, not just hanging on. It encompasses more than those two things. It is the belief that who you believe in will not be worsted, that you will not have hung on in vain, because what you hung on to, did not win in the end.

   I cannot say that I have ever feared that God would not triumph in the end, but I can say that I have not always lived in that certainty.

   It is easy for me to say that God will win over evil in the end, but to live my life each and every day with that conviction in the forefront of my mind is kinda hard.

   My family would say that one of my favorite sayings is "that it will all work out". One way or another, whether we like the outcome or not, it will take place. The ancients would say that the fates willed it, but Christians know that God's will will be done in all matters.

   Would it make a difference in my life, if, whenever some event occurs, I would realize that God is somehow in that, and that maybe I should look for what He has to tell me.

   Nothing comes into our lives as a coincidence. God is in control, and I need to recognize that and not just shrug my shoulders and mumble "whatever".

   The Psalmist says to "Be still and know that I am God". To know God, to hang on to that Truth gives the proper meaning to spiritual tenacity.

   God help me to not just be able to write this, but to live it each day.

Abandonment

   We often speak of an athlete playing with reckless abandon, which means that they play the game with boldness, seemingly not caring for their own personal safety. Most of my athletic pursuits have not involved playing this way, especially in my current state (golf probably should not be played that way, if it is possible to do so), but I can remember my softball days frequently sliding into second base, trying to stretch a routine single into a surprising double.

   How does all of that relate to the OC for today? To get the full gist of the reading at http://www.myutmost.org/02/0221.html will take me several times, but maybe it is because abandonment to God fully, is not in my life style.

   Intellectually I understand what this is, but experiencing it is another matter. I am having a hard enough time discovering what loving God really is, how much further away is complete abandon?

   To get myself completely out of the way and just bask in His presence, now that would be something!

   Amen

Again? Me Dense?

"Rise, let us go from here"

I get the idea, from all these sessions on rising up, that Oswald has the notion that we all sit around too much.

There are times in my Christian life that God wants me to wait for Him to point out His desired way, but there are also times, when the way has been proclaimed, that I need to move.

The reading for today concerns a different way of sitting around; dreaming about the plan. Once I get an idea of what God desires of me in a certain area, or a certain way to go, I can't gain anything from dreaming about how this will look or what the outcome will be. That all is in God's hands. He knows the beginning and the end, and my dreaming just tries to put my ideas of completion ahead of His vision.

Two quotes from this reading stand out to me:

1. Dreaming about a thing in order to do it properly is right, but dreaming about it when we should be doing it is wrong.

2. Dreaming after God has spoken is an indication that we do not trust Him.

For me the more comfortable, less threatening way is to dream, but the obedient way is to do.

God, help me to know what to do and have the obedience to follow through.

Arise..again

Rise, shine, give God the glory, glory
Rise, shine, give God the glory, glory
Rise, shine, give God the glory, glory
Soldiers of the Cross

I believe that is one of the choruses from We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder, one of the songs we used to sing back in the old days. Maybe they still do, I don't know.

Isaiah 60:1 says that "Arise, shine"

Oswald Chambers introduction to today's reading is "We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us. He will not; but immediately we arise we find that He is there."

If I have heard the call, and the call comes from God, then I don't do well by sitting and waiting for God to give me the help I need to accomplish the task at hand. No matter the if the details of the call are very mundane, if it is indeed His call, then He is in it and will use it for His Glory. A task of seeming drudgery can be a joy when looked at through the lens of Service for God.

I am off to prison in about two and a half weeks, and a part of that weekend of ministry is writing to each inmate on the walk, probably 42, a personal letter telling them how they have blessed me on the weekend. Now, from a practical standpoint, I cannot go into prison on a Thursday night, meet the men, and then write 42 individual letters to deliver them to them on Saturday afternoon. So I write the letters before I go and then fill in the names on Fridays night.

Why does this come to my mind this morning? I know it is because this letter writing can be a drudgery in the time frame allowed, especially when you don't know anyone to whom you will be writing. But when I remember, from past prison weekends, the absolute joy on the faces of the men when they read the notes from each of the workers on the walk, I see what it means to do it for God and His Glory. And when I remember the heart breaking fact that a lot of these same men get no mail at all from anyone, the supposed drudgery of the act, fades.

The funny thing about having this reading today is that as I woke up this morning, I was thinking about how to type a note on the computer and copying it 42 times so as to get it done quickly and painlessly. Now that I have at least partially understood the implications of the scripture, then I know what it is that I should do.

If God has called me to go to prison on this particular weekend, then He will be in the simple task of writing these letters. I know all that.......Arise.

Moving on out

Two days in a row: Get up and go!

Never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action. Let the past sleep on and get up and go.

As I look back on my life, I can see the numerous times I have not only done what is contrary to God's way, but also numerous times that I have failed in what He clearly wanted me to do. There are also those many times that I have done the job, but not given it my best, only the appearance of my best.

These I truly regret, but regret is a great non-motivator. If I am not careful, that sense of failure can lead to a completely nonproductive life.

If Christ is still calling me to do something or be something, then He is still active in my life. He calls me to get up and go and not sit and slog in the slough of despair.

My prayer for today is to listen actively for the Call, and get up and get at it.

Invitation

     A few years back, a friend gave me a synopsis of his yearly readings in Oswald Chanbers devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest. My thought when he gave it to me was "this is great for him, but I had tried to connect with this book once before, and it went right over my head". Plus I did not have the book anymore, and my nature does not allow me to purchase something that I know I will not use.

   So, when I decided in January of this year, to go back and revisit this work and to see if it could have some relevance in my life, I dug out this synopsis. This inspired me to start anew the journey through this devotional guide. I wanted to dig deeper into what it truly meant to be a "Christ follower".

   I found an online site myutmost.org that had the complete calendar of devotional readings for the year, and I did not even have to buy the book. But I wanted to do more than just read and think. I wanted to record my thoughts on each reading so that I could look back and see my spiritual journey over the span of this year. So I found another site examen.me where I could have an online journal. Now all I had to do was to sit down at my computer and everything was there. I opened the devotion for the proper day, I opened a journal to record, and I opened a Bible site with the complete Scripture reading. I then could toggle through each tab and begin the day's study.

   So, you ask, why this blog? I realized that my journals were filled with a lot of questions as to why my life was not reflecting what I thought a Christian should look like and do. Was I just pretending to be a Christian or just confused? Did others, sitting around me in church, have some of the same feelings? Could my questions cause others to think about where they were in this spiritual journey?

    I had considered blogging some time back, but then the last 2 readings in my study both had the same message for me "Arise and go". The result: this blog.

   You, Reader, have the opportunity to study along with me, but, more importantly, have the opportunity to explore Christianity from a new and different perspective. So come on in, read, think, comment, and see where Jesus leads us. Most of all pray that God will show you what a life lived for Him would truly look like.