Go Jump in the River

On March 27, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 46: 4

There is a river whose streams bring joy to the city of God, the holy place where the Most High lives.

This river is the Holy Spirit and the flow of the Holy Spirit brings many benefits to our lives. Among these is joy. The Holy Spirit is often characterized as a flow in addition to water, rivers and fountains. It is the flow of the Spirit which brings revelation and waters the garden of God. We live in and as part of God’s city right now even as we dwell on earth because the earth is part of His realm too. Because there is great, and I do mean great, profit flowing in and from the Spirit, it is important that we come to know him better and better.

One of the things that is interesting about the Spirit is shown in today’s passage and that is that he is often referred to as some form of water. Think about water for a moment and consider not only how important it is for all life forms but also all of the ways water impacts your life. Try washing clothes, dishes or your face and most often you will use water. Most detergents and cleaners have water in them already or combine with water to do their jobs. Just imagine a week without water even if you had drinking water. I would be using some of that potable water to brush my teeth. We use water in cooking. Besides all that, our bodies are mostly water, as you know.

When you consider the importance of water don’t you find it interesting that God identifies the Holy Spirit as living water? In Jeremiah 2: 13 God said, “My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters.” God calls Himself The fountain of living waters referring to Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit. Do you remember the story of the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well? In verse 10 of John chapter 4, “Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” Again, living water but this time it was Jesus who reveals there is living water, i.e. water that is alive and which gives life. Later in that same chapter, in verse 14, Jesus describes the value of the living water, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” Jesus also said, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water,’” (John 7: 38).

I find these verses exhilarating but I am also impressed by their significance. Water is vital for life and I think that is the point Jesus is making in these verses. From this fountain of living water springs all of life. Perhaps Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit is vital for life and he, therefore, wants us to seek this living water. Jesus wants us to become cognizant of the role the Holy Spirit is intended to play in all our lives. We cannot live without water and I believe Jesus is saying that none of us will flourish or grow without the flowing river of the Holy Spirit. This river is meant to spring up from our innermost being. We can ask ourselves if we feel we are living in this springing up flow from our innermost selves. We can ask if the Spirit is welling up within us. Then, we can ask the Father for this revelation about the Spirit to be manifested in our lives whether we are experiencing a little creek or a raging river for there is always more of the Holy Spirit for us to receive.

Make it a point to meditate on and come to know this third person of the Holy Trinity. Think about what these water verses mean. What did the Father and Jesus mean for us to get out of them? What was Jesus trying to get the Samaritan woman to see and do? Most of all, jump in the river of living water and drink your fill.

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Frozen Heart

On March 26, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 14: 5

Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

Being convinced in our minds is the easiest part. The mind is willing, but our hearts are unconvinced. Have you watched the Disney movie, Frozen? Well, here is another life lesson from my “Everything I learned, I learned from Cartoons” anthology. Of course, last week the Disney movie, Saving Mr. Banks, was not animated, but you get the idea.

One of the central characters in Frozen, Anna, was injured by her sister Elsa’s freeze power. Elsa’s frozen shot hit Anna in the head. Their parents, the Queen and King, rushed Anna to a troll elder for help. The elder encouraged them saying, “You are lucky it wasn’t her heart. The heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded.”

In this I hear the voice of God speaking. Today, as I refreshed myself on exactly what the troll elder said I quipped to myself, “How is it that a troll knows this, and we do not?” We have fallen into a pattern of intellectual service to God but little engagement with our hearts. Of course, some people are better at engaging their hearts than others. Each of must learn, though, how to persuade our hearts to the Word of God.

I confess, I learned early to study the Bible and I have always enjoyed studying it. I’ve learned a lot too but there was a significant component missing from my Christianity. In 2006 I discovered what was missing. It was a heart connection with the Father. Honestly, this was a challenging time. I had to learn to join to the Father with my spirit. In the deep parts of our being, we have built safety walls and not even God is allowed to penetrate that perimeter. Our tender feelings are safely stored away there as well as what we perceive as dangerous memories and experiences. We learned to lock away everything that makes us tender and certainly anything which makes us vulnerable. So, my Christianity became one of intellectual pursuit. I wasn’t seeking God’s heart. Sometimes I wasn’t even seeking His thoughts. I wanted His Word, His knowledge and His wisdom. Leave my heart out of this and speak to my brain. Can anyone relate to this? You see, I could read the Word and get knowledge from it. I could mentally agree to the ideas and categorize them into their proper place in the file cabinet of my mind. Easy-peasy! That was not good enough for Father though. He wanted into my heart.

Your mind and mine, will accept most of what we read in the Bible and file it comfortably away. The trouble comes when you try to convince your heart that these verses and promises are not facts and intellectual ideas but rather something to embrace with your spirit, something to be believed in your heart and then, implemented. Can I stand on the quaking bluff and defiantly declare that the Lord, my God, is my rock and my strong refuge, and I will not fear! It’s a nice thought, a beautiful verse. It’s a good passage to preach about and even to use to encourage your friends, but . . . is it more than that? Can my heart be persuaded that it is absolute truth? When I use the word absolute in this way I often thing of absolute zero. It is the place of undeniable reality, ultimate truth. Can we take these Bible verses and convince our hearts that they mean what they say? Or, as has become our Christian custom, do we say, “That is not for today, miracles have passed away, that is a promise only to the Jews,” or any of a number of excuses? The Bible says I am healed. My mind says, “Yes, Jesus is our healer.” But my heart knows that I do not really believe that Jesus will heal me even though God’s reality is that He already has healed me. Faith and belief, as a Godly paradigm, demand that I reconcile these concepts.

Your heart is much more powerful than you mind. Your brain takes in a lot of information, but your heart tells it what to do with it. Do we file it away in the vault or do we undertake to integrate it into the very fiber of our being? Most of us smile and nod, smile and nod, but we do not challenge ourselves to take God at His Word. I cannot even imagine how it makes Him feel for us to say, “Yeah, but . . ..” He knows, though, that our mind can accept His challenging ideas but our hearts quake. Truth be told, it takes some guts to get in touch with your inner self. Most of us are too afraid to do it, too afraid to face God’s truths and our realities. What will we find, what will we feel? We’ve done a great job of anesthetizing ourselves so that we don’t have to feel much of anything and then God comes along and says, “Let me live, work and breathe in the very core of your being.” Of course that is scary, but, God is love and we can trust Him. He will always love and accept us. He wants to lead us into abundant life, but fullness of life is for the brave of heart. Everything fabulous comes at a price. The price of this abundant life that Jesus came to the earth to give us is thawing this frozen heart.

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Stirred, not Shaken

On March 25, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Psalm 46: 1 – 2

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble. That is why we are not afraid even when the earth quakes or the mountains topple into the depths of the sea.

Imagine, for a moment, standing on a bluff. Beneath your feet you feel the earth quaking as if shivering from a sudden chill. In the near distance you see a mountain as large as any mountain you have ever seen. While you look upon it, it crumbles like cheese, and the whole mountain tumbles into the sea. Where once stood a mountain, there is now nothing. Imagine, as you stand there, the earth still moving beneath your feet, that you feel no fear. Picture yourself standing there and see the confidence portrayed on your face. You have nothing to fear because your God is a strong refuge, a very real and very present help in the time of trouble.

You may never witness a cataclysmic event like described above, but then again, you may. There are places in the world where one could be exposed to seismic activity on this scale. All of us face those times, though, when our world is crumbling around us. The strong people and institutions we have relied upon fall into the sea, never to be seen again. It is in those times that we are best served if we have thought about, nay meditated on, this verse until its encouragement is integrated into the very fiber of our being. We need this assurance in that day.

Psalm 62: 6 reads, “He only is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold; I shall not be shaken.” Can you currently say that with conviction? Maybe you believe it, intellectually, but it is not buried in the soil of your heart. Perhaps, it has not yet taken root. In that day when our world is shaken, we need the kind of assurance these scriptures boast of. One only acquires this level of confidence in one of two ways; either you have experienced standing on the rock and know the truth of this statement or you have meditated on it enough that your spirit is convinced.

These psalms are written by people who saw the strong tower, the mighty refuge of God. They not only boast of the Lord in song but also their songs are an attempt to transfer their experience, wisdom and conviction to the rest of us. You will never go wrong by basking in the Psalms. They are great encouragement and I hope (& pray) that you find encouragement in today’s excerpt from Psalm 46.

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Grace for Women

On March 22, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

John 4: 17 – 18

The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”

I was listening to Christian music the other day when a song played that recounted this episode. The song lyric said, “Jesus told her of all her sin.” Honestly, it was a pretty song and well sung, but this lyric grieved my heart. I thought of other Bible references about women. Women often portrayed in an unfavorable light. Even Mary Magdalene, a devout follower of Jesus, is referred to as a prostitute, but was she? The worst thing of all, at least to me, is that we carry these ideas forward and continue to judge these women harshly. One understands that in biblical times, women were not treated equally or even fairly. The culture of those times sanctified treating women as property for that is what they were. Further, there were few ways for women to support themselves. Primarily there were two: marriage or prostitution, which, in truth, offers little difference between the two. Either way, women traded sex for their sustenance.

We harshly judge the woman in this story, but we must understand that women had very little power over their persons or their lives. The only way this woman could support herself was prostitution or to be the companion, married or not, to a man. How many opportunities did this woman have to buy food and provide shelter for herself? Could she force this man to marry her? Maybe she pestered him daily to marry her, but he refused. What was she to do?

Now, for generations people have judged and criticized her but little do we understand her predicament. Little compassion is offered women of the Bible and even less comprehension. There are feminine heroes in the Bible. Consider Ester and Ruth but in large part, the appearance of women in often accompanied by judgment. Jesus is the great exception. If you read of his life, you will notice he had women companions and treated women fairly. Even more astounding is that time after time, he refused to judge them. This is one of the ways we need to follow in his footsteps.

The message I wish to convey in today’s Word of the Day is two-fold. First, we have an opportunity to greet the women of the Bible without judgment or criticism. Secondly, for all the women who read these passages and are troubled by them, Jesus has redeemed you and purchased your freedom with his own life. The Bible says, “But many who are first will be last; and the last, first,” (Matthew 19: 30). In Jesus’ eyes women are not second-class citizens. Some of his closest supporters were women. In fact, women were the first ones to preach the gospel. They were the ones who found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. So understand, you are not second class with Jesus. He very much honors and respects women.

Also, God loves you like He loves Jesus. You are precious in His sight. We may have thousands of years of damaged, sin-infested Christians and Jews who left a legacy of enslaving and marginalizing women, but God has not had even one day or one thought of women being anything less than competent and lovely in His eyes.

When you read your Bible, remember the environment women in Biblical times existed in and cut them some slack. Jesus did not judge them, and neither should we. What I find objectionable is that we characterize Bible women as sinners and overlook the sin of men of the Bible. Let’s stop majoring on women as sinners for all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3: 23). Instead, we can honor their contributions. We don’t have to be in denial about where people are falling short, but we really should stop relegating women. It is almost as if we look for their crimes and overlook their accomplishments while overlooking the sins of the men to focus on their accomplishments. Read the whole story of this woman in John. She evangelized her town. She took the good news to the men of the town. But for her, none in the town of Sychar have heard the good news about Messiah, none would have gotten saved. To make it an even more amazing story, Sychar was a Samarian town and Jews of that time had nothing to do with Samaritans. Jesus, however, stayed two days in that town. Though disparaged for generations, this Samaritan woman evangelized a whole town. How many disciples can that be said of?

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Busy is a Four-Letter Word

On March 21, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Luke 5: 16

But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.

Jesus set a priority on spending time to pray and fellowship with his father. I wonder, though, how he had time to slip away to the mountains or the wilderness for fellowship time. Most pastors I know are busy, very busy. Jesus saw all of the demand. He saw the plethora of hurting people. And he, of all people knew he had the means to help everyone of them. People were clamoring after him for his words, his prayers and his healing touch. I just don’t understand how, among all the people pulling on him and all the needs of the people, the people for whom he came to earth, I don’t see how he was able to sneak away for private time.

I called my mom the other day, just to catch up. During the conversation I asked if she had received the document she requested of me. She replied, no, she hadn’t. I was surprised she had not called me and asked if I had sent it. She said she figured with all that I have going on that I was just too busy to get to it. My response, “How sad!” This is the state our culture has come to. This has become the norm. And I think it is pathetic. I had sent the document, and I told her that I am never too busy to do something for her. Yeah, I’ve got stuff going on. We all do, but I also know something about priorities and profanities, and I am here to say that “busy” has become, to me, a profane vulgarity.

I saw a friend of mine from the YMCA recently and remarked that I had not seen her teaching any classes recently. She told me that she had scaled back on her schedule and that teaching Y classes was something she had to cut out. This woman works a full-time job and has a family. She began to feel that she had too many balls in the air, too many things on her plate, and was not able to give the priority items in her life the time and attention they deserve. I admire her for this. I believe in doing all things well. Some of us, many of us in fact, have taken on so much that we do nothing with excellence. I admire this woman for figuring out what is important, like Jesus did, and doing those things.

Jesus corrected Martha when she let herself be overwhelmed with the many “to do’s”. He pointed out that Mary was doing what was important, that she had her priorities right. Rather than running around trying to do everything, Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet fellowshipping and learning from him. Most of us are too busy to give Jesus time. We are Marthas and the worst part of it is that we are proud of it.

I hear people practically every day talking about how busy they are. Some people boast about it wearing their busyness as a badge of honor. Well, all I see is a scarlet B in the place of the scarlet A. I see an inability to prioritize and properly invest one’s time. And I have a reason to know about this. I was the worst of us all. I worked all of the time and do you know what I accomplished? My health declined significantly. I gained weight. My joints hurt all the time. All of my relationships suffered including the one with he whom I declare that I love most of all. Pshaw! If you love me, show me! People have a right to judge our fruit instead of our words. That is what Jesus told them to do. If you say you love someone, that they are important to you, then show them by spending time with them.

Busy can be a blessing. I am thankful I have things to do. I really am. I like being busy. It is exhilarating and makes me feel fully alive. However, it is also a curse. Societally it has become acceptable to be “busy.” Busy can be sin though, and every one of us needs to hear this. If you can’t manage your tasks and still have time for the priorities, then you really should consider adjusting your schedule. Do like my friend did and cut something out of your schedule. I hope what you cut out isn’t God, though, and honestly, just between you and me, He is usually the first one to suffer. “Oh, I have time for God,” we might say, but the truth is that your prayer time is in the shower and on the drive to work. Maybe you are going slack on your obligations at church. Maybe your social life is growing, and that is a blessing, but your most important priorities are suffering.

Only you and Father can do the kind of heart work needed to ascertain if you have lost your balance. If so, you can always have a do over. I always tell people, “Tomorrow is January 1st.” We can have a virtual January 1 anytime we need it. Today is a great day to readjust but if you don’t feel you’ve gotten it right today, then you have tomorrow and the next day. I don’t want you to be like I was and frankly, I don’t want to be like I was either. I learned a rather painful lesson. Now, if I should I let the tasks of my busy schedule overwhelm the priorities of my life, I very much hope, and expect, my Father to correct me. I remember my pastor’s brother, who is also and ordained minister, commenting that I must like how busy and overwhelmed I was. Well, he had a point. If there wasn’t something in it that gratified me, I wouldn’t have maintained that insane schedule.

Our busyness takes many forms but if you cannot be a person of your word then you might be too busy. If you frequently have to call off or reschedule plans with friends, then you might be too busy. If you hear the words, “I’m just so busy,” coming out of your mouth, then you might be too busy. I encourage you to look at the substance of your life. Are your friends and family suffering because you are “so busy”? Are you becoming unreliable or often unavailable? Take an inventory and ask yourself if you are doing yourself justice. Does your life need some calibration? Where are your priorities and are you doing them justice? Are you serving busyness instead of faithfulness?

These are all questions you can take to the Father. Ask him if you are responding to a brokenness inside you. He can heal those broken parts. Satan would love you to be so busy that you have no time for the Lord or His work. Satan wants you to damage your health and your relationships. Look very honestly at your life and be sure that you are staying within the refuge of your Father. Be honest with Father about where you are in your life and ask Him to help you readjust your schedule if need be. Don’t let busyness overwhelm your life but rather let the love and anointing of God care for you and for all the pieces of your life. Go to the wilderness and pray. Let Father speak into your life about all the demands on you.

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First aid kit

On March 20, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Proverb 4: 20 – 22

My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body.

Colossians 4: 2

Devote yourselves to prayer.

Every adventurer knows to carry a First Aid Kit on excursions. We are encouraged to have an emergency first aid kit in our cars and our homes. I have one for my kayak and another in my hiking gear and yet another in my bike bag. One thing you learn about making your own kit is that you can’t pack everything you would like to have. It is a kit of essentials. You only pack those items which will get you through the tough situations.

We all need a spiritual first aid kit too packed with the essential elements. What are those? There are many good spiritual tools and we do not need to deny ourselves any of them. For example, music can be a very powerful tool. Meditation is another important spiritual skill. And praise – oh my goodness, what a powerful tool and even weapon. There are others as well, and they are all to be utilized but when the pressure is on and you only have time and room for the bare bones necessities, it boils down to two things. No matter what, load prayer and your Bible in your pack.

Now the thing about your Bible is that you need to extract its vital nutrients from it. Mindlessly reading the Bible can be a dull and near meaningless activity. In order for the Bible to help us, we must engage with it. Studying the Bible can be as empty if our only approach is to acquire intellectual information rather than applicable knowledge. The value of the Bible is its life blood. It can be like getting a transfusion but only when we try to pull wisdom from it. So, simple Bible reading or even Bible study can leave us dangerously void of the First Aid medicine we desperately need. Extracting life from the Bible, that is the key.

Prayer comes in many forms as well. Really, meditation can become prayerful. Obviously, intercession isn’t the kind of prayer we need to pack in our emergency kit. Telling the Father about all our problems really isn’t very helpful either though in an emergency that is often our response. Our Father knows our situation. He is omniscient after all. No, the kind of prayer you want in your backpack is the one on one conversation with you and your Lord. This prayerful, meditative conversation is as much about listening to what the Lord has to say as it is about what you want to say.

Allow me to be clear, I am not saying that each of us should not constantly involve ourselves in all forms of prayer and Bible engagement, nor should we deprive ourselves of any of the spiritual tools. I am merely saying that the essentials are like oxygen and water. Without these two we become depleted very quickly. Second, in the time of crisis, you cannot always have all of the niceties. At those times you must reach for your First Aid Kit and treat the immediate trauma. At those times do not neglect these two very important elements of your Christian life. There are days when praise can pull you out of a blue funk. There are days when journaling is just the ticket but alone time with God, quiet, pensive alone time is crucial when challenged. If you will treat yourself with the Bible and with prayer, then the Lord will direct your path. He may tell you to go put on some music. He may tell you to take a walk in the woods where you can be very meditative. He may tell you to go to a yoga class. Whatever you need, He is there and will guide you. Go to your prayer closet with your Bible. Slow down your physiology and psychology and let the Lord speak to you. Be still and let Him show you that He is God. Be calm and let Him be your God.

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Tender Mercy

On March 19, 2019   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

1 Samuel 16: 7             (NCV)

“God does not see the same way people see. People look at the outside of a person, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

I just watched the movie Saving Mr. Banks. It is about Walt Disney’s trials and efforts in acquiring the rights to make the movie Mary Poppins. By all indications, the author of the Mary Poppins books was difficult and even unreasonable. Disney was committed to turning the Mary Poppins book into a movie. It took him 20 years of cajoling, negotiating, and pleasing Mrs. P.L. Travers in order for him to finally do so.

I said Travers was unreasonable. For example, she told Disney she was “off” the color red, so she didn’t want to see any red in the movie. Disney was pretty astounded explaining that the movie is set in London where phone boxes and mailboxes, are all red. He figured out that she was testing him but when confronted she, nonetheless, stuck to her position. It was a test. She was looking for an excuse to deny him the movie rights. Disney, who was very influential by this time, agreed to bar the color red from the movie. He did not berate her, did not point out that she was being unreasonable.

The real climax of the movie is when Walt Disney flew to England to have a cup of tea and a conversation with Travers. He spoke to her heart without judging her and without criticism. He shared part of his own story showing Travers compassion rather than condemnation. He asked for her trust but more than that, he earned it by being trustworthy, insightful and kind.

This movie moved me for a number or reasons but predominantly because I so admire the way Disney interacted with Travers. I know me well enough to realize that I would have failed her tests, and the Lord’s, tragically. Travers wanted someone to believe in. She wanted Disney to be who he made himself out to be, but her heart didn’t believe anyone could be who she needed him to be. In fact, she set Disney up to fail. Though she wanted to believe, she set stumbling blocks in front of him for 20 years trying to get him to reveal his true colors. It turned out, though, that the fruit on his tree was consistent with the words of his mouth. He was true to the pledge he gave her.

It would have been the easiest thing in the world, normal even, to have been very critical of Travers. It would have been tempting to try to bully her into a more cooperative attitude. You might even think Disney justified in taking issue with her and calling her on her unreasonable demands. Instead, he looked beyond the outer symptoms pondering what it was within her that made the process so challenging for her. He looked from her perspective rather than becoming judgmental. In the end, not only was the movie Mary Poppins made as Disney imagined it, but it turned out to be a source of emotional healing for Travers who went on to write five more Mary Poppins stories. It is hard to imagine a more difficult person than Travers. In the end, though, she and Disney made a movie which has brought joy to generations of movie goers and blessed their own hearts to boot.

The moral of the story is pretty clear. People have a tendency to judge others based on actions and words and that seems fair. We are to be fruit inspectors. There is a line between judging someone’s fruit and judging them. If you are asked to invest financially in someone’s project, wisdom dictates that you inspect the fruit on their tree. That is not to say that we should succumb to the temptation to judge them. We can decline their project without rejecting them. Only God truly knows what is in a person’s heart. All too often we assume we know and then we judge people as unworthy. If we follow Walt Disney’s example, we can tenderly engage others without getting embroiled in the chaos and dysfunction. We can choose to believe that there is a good person beneath the outlandish demands and negative outbursts. This is hard to do, no doubt, but I think if you watch this movie you will find that you are drawn to the way Walt Disney worked with Travers. Ultimately, he helped her and though the movie Mary Poppins is, and was, a towering success, what he did for Travers was an even greater accomplishment.

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