Being busy (but not productive) for God

Revelation 2:1-5(NKJV)

1“To the angel of the church of Ephesus write, ‘These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: 

2“I know your works, your labor, your patience, and that you cannot bear those who are evil. And you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not, and have found them liars; 

3and you have persevered and have patience, and have labored for My name’s sake and have not become weary. 

4Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. 

5Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent. 

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Nevertheless!  I'm thinking that if I'm standing there talking to God and He says "Nevertheless", I'm probably not going to like what is coming next!  That is probably how the Ephesians felt as they read the message in Revelation that God directed to them. 

It started out good, God is giving them props for doing a lot of good stuff.  Then all of a sudden God says "Nevertheless" and the air went out of their balloon.  Even though they were sincerely trying to do all the right things, God tells them they have fallen short.  They have lost focus.  They were busy being busy for God, but maybe not terribly productive for God.

As I read this it occurred to me that there are many in church, myself included, who need to guard against falling into this same situation.  Out of a sincere desire to serve God in any way we can, we volunteer to help in lots of areas.  We serve in a certain area but when a special project comes up its like "Oh sure we can help with that".  And then there is another special need and we jump right in again.

I think that the danger God is warning us about here is getting over extended and losing focus as we serve God.  We are all given different strengths and talents.  God has a plan for each and every one of our lives and I believe that He takes into account our strengths and talents as He developes that plan for us.  Let's make sure we are making the best use of those strengths and talents.

In the case of the Ephesians, God seems to be telling them "Hey all this other stuff is good and I commend you but this over here is your MAIN MISSION, and it is not getting done as effectively as it used to."

As you know I believe that anytime God calls we should answer the call.  The thing we have to make sure of is that it is God calling and not just our sincere desire to help in any way we can.  I know that personally I am going to be asking God to help show me where He wants me to focus my efforts so that I can "do the first works" that God has appointed me to.

How important is it?

How important is it to have a relationship with Jesus?  How important is it to be in God's word consistently?  From a Common Christian perspective, what is the benefit?  Are we just talking way off in the future, eternity stuff or are we talking here and now stuff?

Both!  Because a lot of what we do here and now can affect where we end up in eternity.  Let me give you a practical example.  I have been reading Jeremiah lately.  The prophet Jeremiah had told the people that God had said for them to give up and go into captivity in Babylon, that those that stay in Judah or those that flee to Egypt will die.  There are others prophesying that it is OK to stay in Judah or flee to Egypt. 

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Jeremiah 14:14-16(NKJV)

And the Lord said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in My name. I have not sent them, commanded them, nor spoken to them; they prophesy to you a false vision, divination, a worthless thing, and the deceit of their heart. 

Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who prophesy in My name, whom I did not send, and who say, ‘Sword and famine shall not be in this land’—‘By sword and famine those prophets shall be consumed! 

And the people to whom they prophesy shall be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword; they will have no one to bury them—them nor their wives, their sons nor their daughters—for I will pour their wickedness on them.’

Jeremiah 43:1-7(NKJV)

1Now it happened, when Jeremiah had stopped speaking to all the people all the words of the Lord their God, for which the Lord their God had sent him to them, all these words, 

2that Azariah the son of Hoshaiah, Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men spoke, saying to Jeremiah, “You speak falsely! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘Do not go to Egypt to dwell there.’ 

3But Baruch the son of Neriah has set you against us, to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they may put us to death or carry us away captive to Babylon.” 

4So Johanan the son of Kareah, all the captains of the forces, and all the people would not obey the voice of the Lord, to remain in the land of Judah. 

5But Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces took all the remnant of Judah who had returned to dwell in the land of Judah, from all nations where they had been driven—

6men, women, children, the king’s daughters, and every person whom Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had left with Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, and Jeremiah the prophet and Baruch the son of Neriah. 

7So they went to the land of Egypt, for they did not obey the voice of the Lord. And they went as far as Tahpanhes.

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So you have a "he said - they said" thing going on here.  And think about it, to the average person back then, Jeremiah's prophecy made the least sense.  He was telling them to give up and submit to their enemy.  The others were all saying fight on or escape the other way but don't give up to the enemy.  As an average person living your life back then, how would you know who to listen to?  Remember, they didn't all have Bibles at home back then.

Did it make a difference who you listened to?  What were the consequences of listening to the wrong person?  Death!  That's pretty serious.  This is sometimes hard for people to understand but even though we have a loving God,  He warns us that sometimes there are serious consequences to ignoring Him. 

How is this applicable for today?  We are going through historic times right now, in our own country as well as around the world.  We need to be doing all that we can to ensure that we are staying in tune with God's will and God's word.  We need to be able to discern which prophets to listen to and which ones to reject.  And when we realize that there are sometimes real life consequences like life and death, it becomes vitally important that we have the best tools at our disposal to help us discern who to listen to. 

The best chance you have in my opinion is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit to help guide us! 

Great Warriors of the Bible

On this Veterans Day I would like to salute all of our military service people, past and present and thank you and your families for the sacrifices you make on our behalf.  There are many in this country who still value and honor your service.

I hope you know that according to God's word, you hold a special place in His heart as well.  If you look through the Bible, God has accomplished many great things though His use of warriors.  Let's take a look at some of God's favorite warriors .

Joshua - After Moses had led the Jewish people through the desert for 40 years, who did God choose to lead His people to take possession of the land God had promised them?  Joshua.  Why?  Because they were going to have to go in and take the land that God had promised them and Joshua was one of only two people that  actually thought they could do it because God had promised them that they would succeed.

Here is what God had to say about Joshua.

Numbers 27:18(NKJV)

18And the Lord said to Moses: “Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him; 

God saw Joshua - a warrior, as a man in whom is the Spirit.

Gideon - Gideon was another warrior who found favor with God.  Although reluctant at first, once he was convinced that he was indeed called by God, Gideon threw himself into serving God as a warrior.  Gideon went on to win many victories for God.

One of the other great things about Gideon is that he never lost his focus on God.  Even though Gideon had achieved great success on the battlefield he didn't let it go to his head.  When the men of Israel tried to convince Gideon to rule over them, he told them no and that they needed to look to God.

Judges 8:22-23(NKJV)

22Then the men of Israel said to Gideon, “Rule over us, both you and your son, and your grandson also; for you have delivered us from the hand of Midian.”

23But Gideon said to them, “I will not rule over you, nor shall my son rule over you; the Lord shall rule over you.” 

King David - King David started out as a simple shepherd boy who had the audacity to actually believe that God would help David defeat the Philistine giant Goliath, in order to uphold God's honor. 

Here is what God had to say about King David. 

1 Samuel 13:14(NKJV)

14But now your kingdom shall not continue. The Lord has sought for Himself a man after His own heart, and the Lord has commanded him to be commander over His people, because you have not kept what the Lord commanded you.”

That's right, God called David - a warrior, a man after God's own heart.

I particularly love the way David looks to God for his strength, guidance and safety. 

Psalms 18:1-3(NKJV)

1    I will love You, O Lord, my strength.

2    The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;     My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;     My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

3    I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;     So shall I be saved from my enemies.

Psalms 18:17-19(NKJV)

17    He delivered me from my strong enemy,     From those who hated me,     For they were too strong for me.

18    They confronted me in the day of my calamity,     But the Lord was my support.

19    He also brought me out into a broad place;     He delivered me because He delighted in me.

Psalms 18:29-35(NKJV)

29    For by You I can run against a troop,     By my God I can leap over a wall.

30    As for God, His way is perfect;     The word of the Lord is proven;     He is a shield to all who trust in Him.

31    For who is God, except the Lord?      And who is a rock, except our God?

32    It is God who arms me with strength,     And makes my way perfect.

33    He makes my feet like the feet of deer,     And sets me on my high places.

34    He teaches my hands to make war,     So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

35    You have also given me the shield of Your salvation;      Your right hand has held me up,     Your gentleness has made me great.

Psalms 18:50(NKJV)

50    Great deliverance He gives to His king,      And shows mercy to His anointed,     To David and his descendants forevermore.

Even though King David had many faults and weaknesses, God thought so highly of this warrior King  that God's ultimate plan of salvation through Jesus Christ was descended from King David's lineage.

So warriors, you stand in good stead in God's plan.  My prayer is that God will continue to wrap His protective arms around you.  Thank you again for your service!

There Is Hope

Let's have a little fun today.  I ran across this passage in my notes along with the comment that I made at the time.

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1 Peter 3:7(NKJV)

Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.

Really?  We can understand them?

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Yep.  That's what the Bible says.  But seriously, aren’t the difference between men and women the coolest thing.  We all have strengths and weaknesses and if we are lucky our spouse's strengths complement our weaknesses and vice versa. 

If you'd like some fun insight into understanding each other I'd like to recommend a book, Incompatibility: Still Grounds for a Great Marriage by Chuck and Barb Snyder.  Here is a quick blurb about the book.

Do women really spend more time in the bathroom? Are men truly more gifted when it comes to handling the remote control? Will women ever understand the intense concentration demanded by Monday Night Football? Chuck and Barb Snyder (who reveal that their only area of compatibility is having the same kids and grandkids) tackle these and other questions in Incompatibility: (Still) Grounds for a Great Marriage, an entertaining, insightful, and sensible primer on marriage for Christian couples. Ten years after their popular original book, they've teamed up again to present new material and elaborate on their original themes. Readers will learn that differences between couples are actually part of God's plan for marriage and should be viewed as assets, not liabilities.

I taught an Adult Sunday School class from this book years ago.  It was a hoot.  It also helped us understand each other better.  Let me give you an example.

We were married with young children at the time.  My wife was a full time Mom and I worked outside the home. 

When I would get home from work, as soon as I walked in the house my wife would always ask "how was your day"  and my response was always "it was fine, it's over, let's move on."  Now she always felt I was being evasive with my answer and I always felt she was prying because she wasn't satisfied with my answer.  For me as a guy, I wasn't trying to shut her out by not sharing, I was giving her the same answer I would give a guy friend.  As a guy I just don't need that depth of detail.   I also felt like "man I just walked in the door, let me unwind a minute before you attack me with questions".

It wasn't until we read this book and taught this class that we were able to fix this issue.  The key was understanding the difference between the way she meant the question and the way I interpreted the question.  Here is what I mean by that.

When my wife asked the question she meant "how was your day at 9:00, how was it at 10:30, how was it at noon….?"  She didn't really mean it literally but what she wanted was for me to share with her some of the things that went on through out my day.  Because for women it is much more about the relationship aspects of life.  (This is generalization and of course there are always exceptions)

Let me give you a couple of examples from the book to backup the generalizations.

Compare men's magazines and woman's magazine.  Men's magazines are full of statistics like horsepower and rpm's and batting averages, etc.  Women's magazines are chock full of articles about the "relationships".

Here is another example.  Women vs men when touching base with a friend to get together for lunch or something. 

Woman: Hi, how are the kids?  How is your sister?  What's going on?.... After getting an update on the relationship stuff  they finally get around to scheduling lunch.

Man: Lunch? (a grunt from the other end of phone), Theos and Stacy's.  11:30.  See ya!

So what I had to learn was that when she asked that question, she wasn't trying to pry, she just needed me to provide her a little detail from my day.  And what she learned was that if she gave me a half hour to relax, say hi to the kids, whatever, I was much more willing to make the effort to share the details of my day. 

So celebrate the differences!

Boldly to the Throne

Hebrews 4:16(NKJV)

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Hebrews 10:19-20(NKJV)

Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 

by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 

Boldness!  Now there is a word that many don't associate with being a Christian and it's a shame.  Why?  Because the Bible tells us to come boldly to the throne. 

Why is that so hard to do?  Well I think one of the reason is that we don't feel worthy.  We know we are sinners and even though intellectually we know that once we have confessed our sins and asked for forgiveness God puts them in the past and doesn't see them anymore, it's hard for us to do the same.  Therefore it is hard for us to come boldly to the throne. 

Using the God the Father view, look at it this way.  When we were kids and we knew we had screwed up, did we come boldly to our parents and tell them what we did?  I don't know about you but I sure didn't.  I came in meekly trying to show that I was really sorry.  (Sometimes I really was and sometimes I was just sorry I got caught, but that's being a kid!)

I think it is that human element that carries through and sometimes inhibits our relationship with God.  But the Bible is very clear.  Come boldly to the throne.  Now what does it mean to be bold exactly?

bold

[bohld]

adjective, -er, -est.

1.

not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger or rebuff; courageous and daring: a bold hero.

2.

not hesitating to break the rules of propriety; forward; impudent: He apologized for being so bold as to speak to the emperor.

3.

necessitating courage and daring; challenging: a bold adventure.

4.

beyond the usual limits of conventional thought or action; imaginative: Einstein was a bold mathematician. a difficult problem needing a bold answer.

5.

striking or conspicuous to the eye; flashy; showy: a bold pattern.

Pasted from <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bold>

As you read the definitions, don't the words evoke feelings of excitement and adventure?  Well guess what, that's what your life with Christ can be!

God has a plan for our lives and the thing about free will is that He will let us participate as much or as little as we would like.  Well if we have a choice let's be bold!  We serve a great God who can do great things though us, if we will only let Him.

So seek what God has planned for your lives and then be bold and dare great things for Him!

Keeping it simple!

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18(NKJV)

Rejoice always, 

pray without ceasing, 

in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Now here is a scripture to live by!

Nice and simple.  We spend a lot of time with God, studying scripture, looking for all sorts of deep life changing revelations in His word and it is good when we do that.  However sometimes it's nice to just focus on simpler things. 

Imagine how good life could be if we would follow these 3 simple steps.

Rejoice always - Live life in a joyful and happy spirit.  You know people like that.  They always seem to be in a good mood.  They can always make people smile.  How do you get to be that way?  Make the decision and then practice it.

I've heard this quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln but I don't know for sure.  I just think it is a great quote.   

"I imagine you'll be about as happy in life as you make up your mind to be."

I had a friend in high school who was like that.  You know, the kid that everyone liked.  Walking down the street he would say hi and smile at anyone and they would usually smile and say hi back.

God brought this to my attention way back then (around 9th or 10th grade) and inspired me to try and become more like my friend.  I started by just walking down the street in a different town and saying hi to people and smiling.  Even though I was a long hair hippie looking kid I found that I could get almost anyone to smile and say hi back.

Try this little experiment.  When you go through the drive thru, make it a point to look the person right in the eye and with a big smile wish them a great day or something like that.  You don't have to be weird about it or anything, just be genuine.  You'll be amazed at how you can get the grumpiest, surliest person to smile if you are genuine about it.

What a great yet simple way to be a blessing to others.

Now pray without ceasing.  If we pray without ceasing, how would we ever get anything else done?  Here's what pray without ceasing means to me.  For most of us, our major communication with God comes during "official" prayer time.  We check in and have our daily dialog with God and then we go about our day. 

But what about the rest of the day?  Are we having a running dialog with God throughout the day?  To me that is what pray without ceasing means.  God goes from being who we check in with once a day to being our friend and mentor that we runs things by all day long.  Imagine how much better life could be if we talked to God all day long instead of just in the morning!

And finally in everything give thanks.  Be ever thankful to God.  Thank Him for all of the blessings He gives us in life but also be mature enough to be thankful for the challenges we face, acknowledging that the challenges in life are where we get our biggest opportunities for growth as Christian human beings.  This is usually the biggest part of my prayer time because I am just so blown away and thankful for all that God has done in my life. 

Try memorizing this scripture and using it as your daily reminder of how to approach life for the next couple of weeks and see what type of difference it can make.  I think you will be pleasantly surprised!

Nuggets of Wisdom

You ever notice how you can be reading through scripture when all of a sudden - Wham!  You read something that stops you in your tracks.  It just speaks to you.  It may be absurdly simple or elegantly profound but it speaks to you right then. 

Is it that way every day?  Nope.  Sometimes it is a slog to get through my readings.  Sometimes I will read the same sentence over several times and have no more clue what it means than before I read it.  In those cases I pray for focus but if it doesn't come I just chalk it up to me not being ready to learn that particular lesson right now.  I have total confidence that God will reveal whatever I need to learn when He thinks I am ready to learn it.

And if we are being totally honest here, there are a couple of things that I find so tedious that I just blow through.  As an example, some of the genealogy listings in the early Old Testament I just don't see the point of reading.  It's just a list of names that is so strange that I am never going to remember them anyway.  I get the point that the lineage is important but I trust that God got all of the people in the correct order, I don't need the details.  Does that make me a bad person?  Tell me you've never done the same! LOL!

Anyway I digress.  What makes the daily walk so exciting is those little nuggets of wisdom we find along the way.  I'd like to share a couple that I ran across from 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 1:5-7(NKJV)

when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also. 

Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Less than 100 words and yet two great nuggets!

Number one, a spirit of fear is not from God.  If we are living in fear we need to get focused on the Power of God.  It tells us very plainly that God has given us a spirit of power, love, and sound mind.  So pay attention to your spirit (and by extension your demeanor) throughout the day.  Are you exhibiting faith in the Power that God has given you?

Number two it talks about the need to stir up the gift of God.  That indicates that we have to be active in our pursuit of God’s power and guidance.  It’s not a passive thing.  One of the cool things about free will is that God doesn't force Himself on us.  He will reveal as much or as little about Himself as we seem to want. 

One of the things about God's promises are that they are conditional.  If we do this for God, He will do that for us.  He clearly says that "if" we diligently seek him with "all our hearts, minds, and souls" He "will" reveal Himself to us.  Not "maybe", not "might if He feels like it"; He will!

So if you really want to experience the full Power of God then let Him know by being in the Word daily so that He can bless you with Nuggets of Wisdom!