Dec. 27 - Looking forward, looking back

The end of the old year, the beginning of the new:  that season when we take time to look back with the eyes of hindsight and look forward with the eyes of hope.  Looking back, I see a year that in many ways is like most of my years spent here in Oregon:  a life passively lived, reacting to events as they come along.  I have again been busier than I'd like to be, bemoaned my lack of quiet time, hoped for change without doing anything to make it happen.  The greatest lesson learned this year is the need for intentionality in my life and my family's life.

One of my favorite saying is "if nothing changes, then nothing changes."  I was quick to grasp the irony and truth in this statement when I first heard it, and easily applied it to situations I've seen in the lives of others.  I have been negligent in applying it to my own life, however, despite seeing its obvious need for application.  That's about to change.

I was convicted by the following passages from Dennis Bickers' "The Healthy Small Church":

Without a vision, a church will usually spend its time responding to situations rather than proactively shaping its future.  Church leadership will be reduced to constantly fighting fires in the church while never finding time to lead its people in ministry.
. . . most families don't have a vision for their family.  They usually prefer to live day-to-day unless something unusual occurs.  Very seldom will a family sit down and write out their dreams for the coming year.

While I haven't been one to sit down and write out goals or dreams, I have always been intentional with what I wanted to do and where I wanted that to take me.  This is true of my life until I moved to Oregon, got married and started family life.  I didn't consciously give up living my life intentionally, but I certainly shifted from living for myself to now having to include a family in my plans.  This was a HUGE change for me, certainly a challenging one, and I would not have made it to this point without my wonderful wife Ann teaching me how to do family. 

As a Christian husband and father, I am charged with being the spiritual leader of my family.  I have to answer to God for this, so, no pressure.  ;-)   Ann has been a wonderful encouragement to me on this, but like other areas of life, I talked about plans but never implemented them, complained about having no time but did nothing to change it.  Thanks to being a student at Pacific Evangelical School of Ministry, I now have someone to mentor me in my Christian walk.  It is a relief to finally have some accountability, because without it I don't get much done. 

My mentoring program requires me to evaluate spiritual disciplines in my life and formulate a plan for enhancing them.  This has come along at the exact same time when I realized that I need to intentionally schedule study time during the week or I'm not going to get my assignments for school done on time.  After years of floundering around, so many things are coming together all at the same time.  Being the tech-loving guy I am, it's ironic that I've reverted to a printout of a weekly calendar to solve my scheduling issues.  But, if it works, I'll take it!

So now I'm being intentional about how I spend my time because I've got some important irons in the fire and I intend to be committed to them.  In addition to enhancing my spiritual disciplines and dedicating specific blocks of time to school work, I'm doing a Bible-in-a-year reading plan with my family.  While in the past I would have been stressed-out about having to keep multiple commitments, I'm actually excited about this because I feel like I've got a plan in place that is going to help me be successful and people to help keep me accountable in meeting my commitments. 

I feel the Spirit hard at work in me, which is huge for a guy who's been spiritually tone deaf all his life.  God is good and I am grateful. 

Nov 30 - By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain . . . —1 Corinthians 15:10

We say things such as, “Oh, I shouldn’t claim to be sanctified; I’m not a saint.” But to say that before God means, “No, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn’t possible.” That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.

Oddly enough, today’s Utmost and my devotional from In Touch Ministries nearly match.  In Touch’s message was that we need to see ourselves as saints, not as the sinners we were. Yes, we still sin, but we are now sanctified by God’s grace (1 Corinthians 1:2) and we need to live in that, not in memories of our past sinfulness.  As Chambers rightly points out, finding that line between humility and saintliness can sometimes be difficult. 

The solution to this identity crisis is to change the way we think about ourselves. If we don’t, we’ll rely on how we feel, and Satan will bombard us with reminders of our failures and sins.

It always strikes me how we seem to naturally correlate faith and feelings.  Some people become very emotional during corporate worship or prayer, reinforcing the connection between faith and feeling.  Similarly, who hasn’t heard a believer talk about the warm, tingly feeling they felt all over the minute they accepted Christ and were in-filled with the Holy Spirit?  It was the lack of such feelings that kept me skeptical about faith for years—every one of my efforst to "ask Jesus into my heart" were met with silence, not tingling. When I finally heard someone say “faith is not an emotion, it’s a choice” a huge puzzle piece fell into place for me.  I don’t have trouble choosing Christ; if I’m still right with Him despite the lack of a physical sensation when I chose Him, then I’m good with that.  I can’t say that I necessarily feel “born again” or that I feel that I’m “a new creature.” I pretty-much feel the same as I always did.  My choices, however, have changed as a result of choosing to follow Christ.  While it would be nice to experience some warm, fuzzy feeling every time I make a choice pleasing to Him, it’s critical to know that the lack of such a feeling is not an indicator of lack of faith or that “I did it wrong.”  Had I known this years ago I probably would have become a Christian much sooner. 

Nov 2 - If you love Me, keep My commandments —John 14:15

Our Lord never insists on obedience. He stresses very definitely what we ought to do, but He never forces us to do it. We have to obey Him out of a oneness of spirit with Him.
Obedience.  This is my biggest issue with my boys: it's not so much what they do that upsets me, it's their disobedience to what they've been told.  Their "crimes" are pretty petty in the big picture: sneaking candy, watching TV without permission, sneaking games on the computer, etc.  But while those issues are trivial, the consistent disobedience behind them is not--THAT is what wears me down year after year with no end in sight.  When I consider all the disobedience God has to put up with . . . now there's an example of divine patience!!  And am I the obedient son that I should be?  Far from it.  This again is one of those short, simple phrases that Jesus uses which sounds easy but carries a whole world of weight behind it.  Obedience sounds great and seems simple till we actually try it. 

That is why whenever our Lord talked about discipleship, He prefaced it with an “If,” meaning, “You do not need to do this unless you desire to do so.” “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself . . .” (Luke 9:23).
He should have said "IF you know what's good for you . . . you'll obey me!"  That takes us all the way back to Eden, doesn't it?  And then, several thousand years later, the Son comes along telling us the exact same thing that His Father did; should that be a clue that we should take notice and obey?!?!  If you wanted to be pessimistic, you might say that nothing's changed since the creation:  God's still asking us to obey and we're still ignoring Him.  Again, I am amazed at His patience:  I can't put up with my own two while He has to contend with everyone He's ever created! 

The Lord does not give me rules, but He makes His standard very clear. If my relationship to Him is that of love, I will do what He says without hesitation. If I hesitate, it is because I love someone I have placed in competition with Him, namely, myself.
One of my favorite sayings (which I came up with myself) is:  authority is not imposed from the top down, it is granted from the bottom up.  I can lead all I want, but if nobody follows me . . . then am I really leading?  I can tell my children what I want them to do but if they refuse to do it, am I really parenting them?  We can continue to lock up criminals over and over again but if they refuse to obey the civil authorities and stop breaking laws, are we really exercising any authority over them or just punishing them after the fact?  All this is true of our human experience down here on earth with each other, but not true of our relationship with God.  He does have top-down authority and He's given us the choice to recognize it or not; a choice that bears eternal ramifications.  We can be our own little petty gods down here and think that we don't have to answer to anyone for it.  This will be true until it's not, and then it's too late. 

Oct 29 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him —2 Corinthians 5:21

The modern view of the death of Jesus is that He died for our sins out of sympathy for us.

I can't say as I ever had that view, or maybe only as a young child.  I think that if one pays attention in church or Sunday school they should clearly learn that Christ's sacrifice wasn't about sympathy, it was about substitution. But, since Chambers says "the modern view," maybe that was in fact the case in Scotland of his day.

Our sins are removed because of the death of Jesus, and the only explanation for His death is His obedience to His Father, not His sympathy for us. We are acceptable to God not because we have obeyed, . . . 

Jesus' obedience is easy to overlook, I think, for someone who doesn't pay much attention in church or never developed faith beyond what children's Bible stories teach.  Because we are so hardwired to do everything in our own strength, it is easy to think that it's our obedience that pleases God.  And there is truth in this, but it's not the full picture.  The Israelites tried for centuries to obey God, but the Mosaic Law was too heavy a yoke to bear (Acts 15:10).  The agony in the garden, as reported by Luke, is probably the best illustration of Jesus' obedience to the Father: obedience that required death on a cross (Philippians 2:8). 

That Christ died for me, and therefore I am completely free from penalty, is never taught in the New Testament. What is taught in the New Testament is that “He died for all” (2 Corinthians 5:15)— not, “He died my death”— and that through identification with His death I can be freed from sin, . . . 

Hmm, I don't know that I'd say that that was never taught in the New Testament.  See Ephesians 2: 1-10, where Paul tells believers that they have died and risen with Christ. It's not the exact wording that Chambers uses, but it expresses the same concept.

Chambers frequently annoys me with his use of "always" and "never."  There are certainly lots of "always" and "never" taught in scripture, but Chambers--when making his point--seems to like to shoot down the antithesis of his thesis.  Soteriology wears man faces in the New Testament and develops over time.  Consider as a quick example Peter's declaration at Pentacost (Acts 2:22-24).  Peter implies that Christ was not immortal until after God raise him from the dead; this is a very different soteriology than John teaches at the beginning of his gospel (John 1:1-5). 

As much as I'd like to stay and discuss this further, I have a history paper to write!!  :) 

Oct 21 - Death to self. Matt 16:24-26

²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever wants to save their life^[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶ What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?

This is one of my favorite passages of scripture for several reasons.  First, I like the ones that so simply and easily express the teachings of Jesus which are the most difficult for us to do.  It's almost a rhetorical question: who would give up their soul to gain the whole world?  To a Christian, at least, it's a ridiculous question because our obvious answer is "nothing!"  Yet, how indescribably hard is it for us to actually give up our lives--our whole lives, favorite sins and all--and take up a cross?  Many of us can get a percentage of the way there but not all the way.  As such, this passage is one of those that we can point to as expressing "what christian life is all about" as we ourselves struggle to achieve it.  It's one of those analogies which we spend our life seeking rather than living our life after attaining it. 

I like this passage for another reason, that being the anachronism of Jesus inviting his disciples to "take up their cross."  This analogy works great in our modern times because Jesus set the ultimate example of giving up self and bearing a cross for others.  However, when Jesus is saying this to his disciples, He hadn't yet been crucified.  Given that, how would they understand "taking up their cross" as an analogy for self-sacrificing love?  While crucifixion was a common punishment in Jesus' lifetime, did anyone besides Him endure it as a sacrifice for others?  And if not, then why is He using an analogy that really only makes sense after the crucifixion?  I think the answer is that the author of Matthew inadvertently includes this anachronism because, by the time he's writing his gospel, the analogy of taking up one's cross for others was well established, well known and needed no explanation among a christian audience reading his gospel. 
So does that make it "wrong?"  I don't think so, it's just one of those little details that academic geeks like me like to ruminate on.  :) 

Finally, I like this passage because it's one of those teachings of Jesus where He takes life as we know it and flips it on its head to show us how earthly life differs from life lived in the Kingdom.  This teaching fits right in with the "you have heard it said . . . but I tell you . . ." ones. 

Oct 21 - But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith . . . —Jude 20

But it does require the supernatural grace of God to live twenty-four hours of every day as a saint, going through drudgery, and living an ordinary, unnoticed, and ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus.
This comes into sharp focus for us when we read the lives of the saints.  While no particular example comes to mind at the moment, I recall hearing of many female saints who spent most of their lives as a scullery maid in a convent, being humble and faithful to the Lord.  It's sort of the opposite of what our modern culture does: it lifts up as heroes those who do exceptional (in our eyes) things, be they athletes, celebrities, etc.  Conversely, quiet humility rarely makes the evening news yet we still find in such people heroic qualities.  Maybe that's because we find it so hard ourselves to live in quiet humility among the crashing din of modern culture all around us. 


It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God—but we do not. We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people—and this is not learned in five minutes.
To this I would add: so long as we are trying to do exceptional things for God in our own strength, we prevent God from doing His exceptional things through us in His strength. 

Oct 18 - Prayer Month

October must be prayer month.  I get Charles Stanley’s monthly magazine/devotional and this month the theme is prayer.  That in itself is not very amazing, there’s a theme every month and the theme of prayer for a monthly christian publication is not jaw dropping.  But then there’s this other devotional I have.  It’s called “Experiencing God Day by Day” and is a yearly devotional, i.e. contains a daily devotion for each day of the year.  It’s more like my weekly devotional because that’s how often I seem to find the time to pick it up.  So last week when I picked it up and turned to that day’s devotional the theme was prayer.  Pretty ironic, given the theme of my other devotional.  

Then two weeks ago Pastor James’ message included a discussion about the need for personal quiet time and prayer.  Hmm, starting to sense a common theme?  On top of that, we local churches are praying for our city this month.  So after all these little cues it’s hard to miss that God is trying to get my attention and is asking me to come spend some quiet time with Him.  

As I recently blogged, quiet time is the one thing which always eludes me.  If I ever get any it seems to get eaten up by chores or some other busy-ness of life.  So what do you do when God drops all these little hints in your lap?  “Hey God, I’m trying, maybe a little divine intervention to grease the skids, maybe?”  

I was pleasantly surprised this past Saturday when the 15 minute prayer slot I’d signed up for went by so quickly.  I even helped Aaron & Caitlynn with their 15 minute slots.  So I prayed for nearly 45 minutes on Saturday!!  It’s not all that hard when you have a list of topics in front of you.  I’m pretty comfortable talking to God; it’s the listening part that I need to work on (which will be the topic of an upcoming blog).  

Oct 10 Jesus answered and said, ’I thank You, Father . . . that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes’ —Matthew 11:25

All of God’s revealed truths are sealed until they are opened to us through obedience. You will never open them through philosophy or thinking.

It seems I like arguing back at Chambers.  ;)  One could justifiably argue that the reason it took me so long to come to faith is because I was approaching it from a philosophical angle.  On the other hand, I think one could just as correctly argue (as I do) that that is the very reason I finally came to faith.  Most people, it seems, can just decide to have faith and they instantly get their Christian walk up-and-running (no pun intended).  Not so with me.  I approached it like I do everything else: from a practical, academic, show-me-the-research angle. Eventually that got me there and--when I tell the story--the reason I got there is because I approached faith in the only way I could, given how God made me.  He knew I'd eventually get there once that "hook" He'd implanted finally came into play. 

It is a matter of obedience, and once we obey, the relationship is instantly perfected.

I imagine it works this way for some people, I don't know if it necessarily did for me.  I was strongly influenced by the few personal testimonials I'd heard growing up where someone asked Jesus to come into their heart and they were instantly filled with a warm, peaceful feeling as the Holy Spirit infilled them.  Every time I asked Jesus into my heart I was left listening to the crickets chirping in the silence, no warm, fuzzy feeling inside. After a while that becomes discouraging.  Then I heard something just last year and if I'd have heard it years ago my walk would have started way back then, "faith is not an emotion, it's a decision."  In other words, it's not an emotional reaction (all warm and fuzzy inside) to having asked God to save us, it's a conscious decision to simply start following Jesus and sticking with it.  Eventually that's pretty much what I did: once I'd acquired enough answers to satisfy me up to a certain point, I decided to cast my lot with Jesus and take the rest on faith.  Sure wish I'd known years ago that you can make that second step the first step and save yourself a lot of frustration.  But . . . all in His time, not mine.

The only way you can get to know the truth of God is to stop trying to find out and by being born again. If you obey God in the first thing He shows you, then He instantly opens up the next truth to you.

This kinda reminds me of what James said in his Sunday sermon: through prayer, we discard our "selves" and allow God to fill us with His Son. The more we study and try to be holy, the less so we will be.  Yes, it's another one of those great paradoxes in the way God works versus the way we think He ought to work. 

Oct 5 Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned . . . —Romans 5:12

The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man.

And yet, I'll bet if you ask ten people, at least nine will say that God allows bad things to happen in this world as punishment for our (Adam's) sin.  They'll probably even tell you to "look it up in the bible, it's there."  We can think of many other examples of things that aren't in the bible but--through the lens of (pop) culture and oral tradition, these beliefs get propagated.  One of my favorite sayings is "perception is reality."  Everyone has their version of the truth--formed by experience, culture, education, etc.--and it's what they live by, make decisions by, vote by, raise children by, etc.  How many well-intentioned people are missing (or ignoring!) the gospel message because their perception-turned-reality is actually not correct?  How many people harbor hard-heartedness toward God because they mistakenly think that He's punishing us all for something Adam did?  This situation is what I call "an education piece;" it's up to us as Christians to educate the lost about what the Truth really is.

The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, “I am my own god.”

Yes, I like this distinction.  And again, I think many people look at the former as being reality rather than the later.  Self-realization begets immorality and wrongdoing; it was acting upon self-realization that Lucifer was cast down from heaven (Isaiah 14:12-15).  

But it also says that another Man took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away . . .

In case you missed it, recent studies have shown that it is genetically impossible for all of humanity to have descended from a single couple (Adam & Eve).  Some liberal thinking Christians have sought to re-interpret the creation story based on this genetic evidence.  I'm not going to debate science & religion here, but I do think it's worth pointing out what Albert Mohler had to say about this issue--without Adam and the Fall, there is no cross and redemption.  That's not to say that we simply ignore what science teaches us, but equally we should not be ready to throw the baby out with the bathwater and casually reinterpret fundamental tenets of our faith. 

Oct 4 . . . to those who are . . . called to be saints . . . —1 Corinthians 1:2

We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of the vision to be used by God?
Most of us aren't.  While it's popular nowadays to espouse "what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger," most of us aren't willing to endure the fire to acquire the tempering.  At the same time, we hold in high regard those who have been through extreme circumstances and we respect them for their endurance and the greater character with which they emerged.  Somehow we don't see that without trials and testing, character is not built beyond however much we were given at birth.  As much as we hate the pain of trying circumstances, would we really prefer to remain immature and undeveloped, a child's psyche inside an adult body?  The obvious answer to these rhetorical questions is "no!"  But yet we are still loathe to shoulder our burdens and endure our trials when they come our way.  The author of the book of James expressed what seems an unattainable goal:

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.  1:2-4 

I think this is right up there with loving your enemy:  it's a great concept and we recognize the importance of it but we don't know where we'll ever get the wherewithal to actually do so.  Or maybe I should say "I" rather than "we" because I know I feel this way. 

The beatings will always come in the most common, everyday ways and through common, everyday people.

The forge of the Lord looks common and ordinary.  Maybe if He announced to us ahead of time "I'm about to send you through some trials, I just wanted you to know ahead of time so you could go into it with a positive, can-do attitude.  I'm trying to build your character, but it will take your cooperation to do so."  Unfortunately, it never happens that way.  Instead, it comes as your kid getting arrested, a relative suffering a stroke, the loss of a job and so on.  So to Chambers' discussion of "vision," I would also add "attitude."  We have to have the right attitude in order to receive the benefits the Lord has in mind for us, otherwise we're just suffering along in this sinful and broken world.  Suffering along, while we admire those who are growing stronger from their trials as we groan and complain about our own. 

Sept 28 The Value of Obedience, Proverbs 2:1-6

Our Father may ask us to do something that seems illogical—perhaps to accept more responsibility when we were hoping to reduce our workload, to leave a position that He provided just recently, or to take on an assignment for which we feel ill-equipped. His plan might feel unrealistic in view of our age, stage of life, or health concerns. We must press forward in obedience, regardless of how impractical the request may appear.

Today's passage comes from Dr. Charles Stanley's daily devotional--his are the ones I usually do when I'm not doing Oswald Chambers for PESM.  This passage above struck me because it seems to exemplify my current enrollment at PESM.  As I've shared in posts on my other blog, going to PESM was not my first choice, nor really was it on my radar.  But once I decided to include God in my decision about attending seminary or returning to academia in some way, He began moving me in the direction toward PESM.  It's still very early in my PESM experience, so I'm still at a point where I have no idea what God's going to do with this, I'm simply stepping out in faith (as the saying goes) and following His leading. 

To have obedience as the fishermen did--to walk away from everything and follow Jesus--is mind boggling; more so the faith Abraham showed when he prepared to sacrifice his son Issac in accordance with God's request.  If, as the passage above discusses, He had asked me to quit my job and move to Kentucky to attend seminary, I don't know how obedient I would have been.  It's certainly easier for us to not second guess God when we're getting what we want or can see where the path leads; the opposite is not so easy.  But, maybe it's also the case that God doesn't ask us to do what He knows is beyond our capacity to accept?  And then we, of course, have the free will to turn Him down anyway.

Sept 25 Thinking of Mary's Ministry

I was thinking of how much more complicated life is without Mary.  I've always appreciated how much she does for our family.  I would remind myself of this during those times when I'd become annoyed with her over petty things.  I can probably count the few times she turned us down when we'd ask her to watch the kids for us.  We'd always get a little taste of life without her when she and Bob would go to the coast for a couple weeks.  With no one to get Caitlynn on the bus (and Aaron too, when he was younger) I would have to cut loose from work to run home, get her on the bus and get back to work; all very possible with my flex schedule, but still not as convenient as Mary watching Caitlynn overnight and taking her to school for us. 

Mary always gave us ample notice when she & Bob would be going to the coast, then in the intervening time she'd tease us about how she wouldn't feel guilty about leaving us without child care and how she deserves some time away.  I always completely agreed with her and told her so.  Sometimes I'd wonder if it was less teasing and more her trying to convince herself that she didn't have to feel guilty about leaving us to fend for ourselves for a week or two.  Our success in lining up a back-up babysitter were never successful for more than a few weeks, then the back-up moved, had their own child to worry about or some other such condition of life.

It's always so easy to take Mary for granted because she makes life so easy and is always there for us.  Ann & I have always been cognizant not to and have pointed out the same to the kids. 

These next few weeks (and who knows how far beyond that) will be challenging.  Although I've only mentioned child care here, there's so much more Mary does for us, too many little things to count.  You never left her house empty-handed or without a full stomach; if you did it was your own fault.  Mary's whole life is a ministry to others; I always joked that the worst way to abuse her would be to put her in a room where she had no one to talk to or do things for.  

This is a bit rambling, but I've decided that if I'm going to journal more often (as I'd like to) I'm going to have to stop trying to make every post of mine a literary masterpiece and instead just spit it out. 

Sept 18 A thought from Ogden's "New Reformation"

As I sat down to read from Greg Ogden's "The New Reformation" tonight I reviewed the passages I'd highlighted during my last reading.  One of them gave me pause for thought.  Continuing with my last post's theme of quiet time, I noted this in Ogden:

. . . quiet reflection on the Word of God is a necessary part of a pastor's practice.  Ruminating on the Scriptures with the unhurried opportunity for meditative prayer is essential for good preaching to bear fruit.  More and more pastors are building into their schedules some retreat days for personal renewal.  This quiet setting provides opportunity to bring the needs of God's people before the Lord.  Protected study and meditation time is not stealing time from ministry--it is the ministry. 

While it's true I'm not a preaching pastor, I'd still enjoy some retreat days to have quiet time for prayer and study.  I'd never considered the importance of a preaching pastor's need for quiet time to be with God.  As Ogden's book points out, many of us come to church with many preconceived notions about a lot of things; assuming that the pastor is somehow magically a "man of God" is no doubt on that list.  It amazes me--when I take the time to stop and think about it--how much of our time we give to the work of the Lord yet don't have time for the Lord of the work!  God's given me the grace--after a couple years of being way too busy--to allow myself to say "no" and clear a lot of things off my plate. 

One of the most important lessons I've learned in the past year is that there are a lot of good causes out there to spend your time on but I don't have enough time to spend it on every one of them.  Looking back to the summer when we were launching The Grove, I had something going on every night of the week--training to be a Fusion leader, leading a customer service class for the staff at SafeHaven, attending the preview meetings of Men's Fraternity as well as my usual volunteering for SafeHaven and Fences for Fido.  All of these activities are worthwhile things to spend my time on, but spending my time on ALL of them quickly lead to burnout, exhaustion and a bad attitude.  In the first couple chapters of Rick Warren's "Purpose Driven Life" he challenges the reader to consider that they are probably doing too much in their lives.  They've decided to explore his book in order to find some meaning to all the busy-ness of life and his first lesson is:  if you want to find purpose, stop chasing so many pursuits. 

I've made this idea of doing less one of my guidelines for this current season of life.  I've got things pared down to SafeHaven and church as my two big time commitments outside of work and family.  Now I've added PESM to that, but that's an extension of what I'm doing at church, i.e. working for the Kingdom.  Once I figure out how to incorporate some quiet time into my regular, daily schedule I'll be in a sweet spot!

Sept 16 - Quiet Time

This post has been cooking in my brain for a couple weeks now and Chambers' reading for today (see previous blog post) brought this issue to my attention again.  We are told from the pulpit and by Jesus himself (Matthew 6:6) that quiet time with the Father is important.  I recently watched a snippet from one of Dr. Charles Stanley's sermons in which he talked about listening to God and its importance.  While I was at Dr. Stanley's web site I poked around and found a link to a "quiet time toolbox." 

I'll spare the details of all that to say that quiet time is nearly non-existent for me.  Just ask Ann what my biggest complaint is (well OK, maybe it's one of my biggest) and she'll tell you that it's my lack of quiet study time.  The only time I have the house to myself and it's quiet is workday mornings between 5:00 - 6:00 a.m. when I'm getting ready for work.  I try to do my daily devotional then but, depending on how my preparation for work goes, I find that that doesn't usually happen.  Add to that my increased need for more study & reading time due to PESM and I'm really seeing a quandary.  The only quiet retreat in the house is a corner of our bedroom which Ann set up for me--a rocking chair, lamp and end table.  However, even this escape is at the mercy of the bedroom cats who see my presence there as an opportunity to sit on my lap and get petted.  While I enjoy my cats, they can and usually are a distraction from study.  And, being that this corner of the bedroom is still inside the house, it is subject to all the noise and distractions offered by the kids downstairs doing whatever they're doing.  Over the summer I've enjoyed reading on the back patio.  Our neighborhood is very quiet for its size and I can enjoy the summer weather in our backyard.  That will be going away soon however, it's just about time to put away the canopy before the winds of Fall blow our way (I've learned the hard way that you don't want to put off taking down the canopy or the weather will take it down for you). 

I was excited to notice this past summer that the Albany Public Library has several study rooms upstairs that are free for library patrons to use.  "This is exactly what I need," I thought, "a quiet escape where I can read, study and even have Internet access!"  I asked at the reference desk about the study rooms and was told that they are in very high demand during the entire school year.  No surprise there I suppose.  I haven't yet actually tried to reserve one and use it.  I'm still trying to settle into the new routine of the kids being back in school along with me being back in school; the Fall routine has yet to be established. 

I've also been entertaining the idea of using one of the small rooms as SafeHaven's new building in Tangent as a study room.  The building is used by SafeHaven staff for various meetings throughout the week, but otherwise it's a pretty quiet place and even has wi-fi Internet access. 

The problem with studying somewhere other than home is that you have to pack everything with you that you might need.  I'm sure that I'll want to reference some book that I left at home on the shelf.  Still, I'm thinking the benefits would outweigh the costs. 

Sept 16 When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place . . . —Matthew 6:6

It's been about a week since I posted here.  While I haven't been successful at reading Chambers everyday, I have managed to stay on schedule with my other personal devotion, Early Light by Dr. Charles Stanley.  I like Dr. Stanley a lot--I rarely find time to watch his sermons on TV but I get his monthly magazine "In Touch" (which is the name of his ministry).  He has a very easily understood way of presenting bible messages as well as how to apply them practically in every day life.

The more I read Chambers the more I feel that his daily readings aren't so much devotionals as they are small snippets of theology.  By daily devotional I have in mind a biblical message that includes a piece of practical application for our lives.  In some sense, I like to think of my daily devotional as giving me my micro mission for the day--here's a biblical concept, consider it throughout the day and apply it if given the opportunity.  Chambers, for me, lacks the practical application piece and seems to make too many bold, theological expressions.  Let's consider:

God does not hear us because we pray earnestly— He hears us solely on the basis of redemption.  God is never impressed by our earnestness.
Now, I'm just a first year ministry school student, but I don't agree with Chambers' assertion at all.  While I doubt that earnestness makes our prayer "louder" in God's ears, I don't think that He hears us "solely on the basis of redemption."  Does that mean that an unbeliever who is unredeemed has no chance of having their prayer heard by God?  And with regard to earnestness, I can't help but think that God's ear is more easily caught by the earnest prayer of the mother who has just lost her child than by the man asking for God to produce the finances for him to upgrade his car from a Ford to a Lexus.  Silly example, but hopefully it gets my point across.  And for Chambers to assert that God hears our prayers "solely on the basis of redemption" . . . really?  Can we puny little humans make such an assertion about The Almighty?  I'm not saying redemption doesn't count when it comes to prayer, but I don't think it's the make-it-or-break-it piece either. 

If the Son of God has been formed in us through regeneration (see Galatians 4:19), then He will continue to press on beyond our common sense and will change our attitude about the things for which we pray.
I thought it was the Holy Spirit--not The Son--who directs our prayers and gives voice to our voiceless prayers before God? 

Reading daily snippets of theology isn't bad.  Obviously if Chambers' work wasn't good it wouldn't be considered a classic.  Maybe it's that very theology that he includes that makes his readings so enduring?  I don't see people pouring over a worn copy of "Daily Bread" eighty years after the fact. 

Sept 8 . . . casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God . . . —2 Corinthians 10:5

Deliverance from sin is not the same as deliverance from human nature. There are things in human nature, such as prejudices, that the saint can only destroy through sheer neglect.
This is an interesting distinction that I would never have made on my own.  We so often hear about--and I so often reference it myself--our selfish, sinful nature.  For me, sin and human nature have always been closely intertwined; after all, it's our sinful, selfish nature that has defined our relationship with God ever since the Fall.  It is that natural, inborn rebellion against God that accounts for so much of the challenge of following Christ--we have to go against our own nature by giving it up and becoming a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). 

There are some things over which we are not to fight, but only to “stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord . . .”
Sometimes it can be so frustrating trying to decide which battles we are to fight ourselves and which ones we are to leave to God.  As I mentioned in a previous post, we are hardwired to fix things ourselves, to get by in this world on our own strength.  One of the hurdles to being an effective follower of Christ is allowing Him to fight the battles for us and relying on His strength, not ours.  Yet, we must have discernment to know what we are to leave to Him and what we are to take up ourselves.  I think this can only be accomplished through prayer and the guiding of the Holy Spirit.  In the mean time, it's frustrating for someone like me who has little-to-no natural discernment. 

God does not make us holy in the sense that He makes our character holy. He makes us holy in the sense that He has made us innocent before Him. And then we have to turn that innocence into holy character through the moral choices we make.
Again these are interesting distinctions that Chambers makes:  is he splitting hairs or expressing important theological points?  The reading for Sept 1st was all about holiness yet Chambers did not bring out the above distinction until now.  If God doesn't make our character holy, then what part of us is He making holy:  our spirit, our mind, our conscience, our . . . ?  And for Joe Believer in the pew, does it even matter to know which parts are which, or does Joe just need to concentrate on following Jesus?  I'm certainly not arguing that we needn't make moral choices, and maybe I'm just feeling nit-picky today.  However, this reading seems like a hard one to put into practice if we get all caught up in prejudice vs. sin, fighting vs. standing still, character vs. moral choices. 

Sept 7 The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life —John 4:14

The picture our Lord described here is not that of a simple stream of water, but an overflowing fountain.
Chambers is certainly into the "flowing water" metaphor this week!  But that's not to complain . . . I think it's important to grasp the concept that we do nothing on our own.  If we are to be effective Christians, we do what we do through God's strength, not our own.  Just as we can't save ourselves, nor can we do enough to pay the price of our sin debt, neither can we be a light unto the world (John 8:12) by our own strength.  Our culture values strength, independence and do-it-yourself-ness.  And as I was saying yesterday that God's ways of doing things always seem to be the exact opposite of how we go about them, so too in today's reading: we cannot make nor force the light of Christ to shine through us, nor rivers of living water flow from us.  This, like so much else, is accomplished by surrendering all to God, emptying ourselves of ourself and allowing God to use us as an empty vessel to transmit His blessings out into the world.   

As surely as we receive blessings from Him, He will pour out blessings through us.
More allusions to us simply being the conduit for God's blessings for others.  This is such a foreign concept to so many people.  Especially in this country with our "Puritan work ethic," we work an honest job and live an honest life so we can get ahead in the world and provide for our families.  What so many miss is that blessings aren't given to be hoarded, they are given to be given away; they should flow through us, not build up in us like debris on the backside of a dam.  While it's true that blessings can be seen as having been bestowed upon us by the Lord for the good work we do for Him, He expects us to be good stewards of those blessings, i.e. pass them on.  It's funny how so many grasp the concept of trickle-down economics, but not trickle-down blessings. 

But whenever the blessings are not being poured out in the same measure they are received, there is a defect in our relationship with Him.
I can't hear the word "measure" without thinking of Matthew 7:1-2.  This is currently my favorite verse, my watchword that I carry with me everywhere I go.  Like hypocrites, we want to drop the hammer on others for their sins but expect our own to be overlooked and left unpunished.  Whether it's trickle-down economics, pay it forward, the golden rule or some other such analogy for being a good Samaritan (yet another analogy), we are always quick to receive our measure for our self-perceived entitlement while limiting the measure which others receive due to the transgressions we perceive in them.  If we were simply mindful of making sure the outflow matched the inflow, we would be enabling God's work through us, not hindering it. 

Through the history of God’s work you will usually find that He has started with the obscure, the unknown, the ignored, but those who have been steadfastly true to Jesus Christ.
Praise God, there is hope for all of us yet!  Rock stars for God don't ascend to the pulpit, they're made in the pulpit.

Sept 6 He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow rivers of living water —John 7:38

God rarely allows a person to see how great a blessing he is to others.
I think I'd have to agree with that statement, but it's kind of strange when you think about it. Wouldn't that be a great way for God to encourage us: to show us how our faithfulness has helped others or--even the opposite--how our lack of faith has negatively impacted others?  The more I learn about God, the more amazed I am at how His way of thinking and His way of doing things seems to be 180 degrees from how we humans would do things.  Similarly, the more I learn about Him the more I find myself looking for what would be the opposite of "the obvious" way to handle something, since that's probably how He'd do it. 

A river is victoriously persistent, overcoming all barriers.
Nature takes the path of least resistance.  We're all familiar with that saying and we've all most likely seen it at work multiple times.  This is another way of finding God in this world He's created.  I am ever cognizant of the difference between Creation and Nature: the former is what God created, the latter is what we humans have made of it with our sin.  I'll bet there was no "path of least resistance" in Eden because there was no need for such a thing; everything worked as it was created to.  But like so many other things that we see in the world around us, God has provided a work-around that works around the brokenness. 

Then keep paying attention to the Source, and God will either take you around the obstacle or remove it. The river of the Spirit of God overcomes all obstacles. Never focus your eyes on the obstacle or the difficulty.
This certainly reminds me of Matthew 14:30--through faith in his Lord, Peter is able to miraculously walk on water.  But the second he takes his eyes off the Source and instead regards the problem, he begins to sink.  This is one of my favorite pericopes from the NT because it is easy to apply it to our daily lives.  It's a great story to share with non-believers because even the vast majority of them know the story of Jesus walking on the water.  What they probably don't know is Peter's role in that story and the lesson learned from it. 

Sept 5 Stay here and watch with Me —Matthew 26:38

In the early stages of our Christian life, we do not watch with Jesus, we watch for Him.

Or, we look for Him to watch over us.  Aren't there many childhood bedtime prayers that ask that we be "watched over" as we sleep?  Watching over predates our personal salvation experience--was there ever a time when the Lord was not watching over us?  Will there ever be a time when He is not?  Even non-believers occasionally offer prayers, asking to be watched over when something important is coming up in their lives. So back to the spiritual maturity thing I've mentioned in previous posts.  It seems to take no spiritual maturity at all to expect the Lord to watch over us.  It takes only a little to watch for Him, as Chambers notes.  But it takes a great deal more to watch with Him.

The disciples loved Jesus Christ to the limit of their natural capacity, but they did not fully understand His purpose.

And neither do we.  I believe that every Christian--no matter how mature--would admit when pressed that they are nowhere near understanding Christ's purpose.  Sure, with the benefit of hindsight we now see what the disciples could not--that he is the incarnate Son of God, that he came into human history to be an atoning sacrifice once and for all for all our sins, etc.  And even when we boil it down to its most basic element--Christ's purpose is to lead us to the Father--there is SO much that goes into that, and it is different for each and every person who has ever lived or will live.  At the same time, all we really need to focus on is discerning God's purpose for our life and pursue that, a la Rick Warren's  'Purpose Driven Life. ' 

This meant that they learned to watch with Him the rest of their lives.

I look forward to that. At this point in my walk, watching with Jesus seems a long way off.  But, at one point, being where I am now seemed a long way off.

The key word in all of this is "with."  If we spend little-to-no time with Jesus, we will feel very little of His presence with us.  God works in and through relationship; watching with Jesus is just another expression of that.

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.  John 15:4 (KJV)

Sept 2 He who believes in Me . . . out of his heart will flow . . . —John 7:38

Our Lord’s teaching was always anti-self-realization. His purpose is not the development of a person— His purpose is to make a person exactly like Himself, and the Son of God is characterized by self-expenditure.
This is another concept that I feel it takes a certain amount of spiritual maturity to wrap our brains around.  Returning to my never-ending rant about American consumerism, even as Christians we tend--by inbred cultural default--to think of ourselves first.  What can God do for me?  What's God want to do with me?  What's God got in mind for me?  Mark 8:35 tell us "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it." (KJV)  So John reports exactly what Mark recorded, just in different words (and we can find many more such references in the NT).  Often, the image of an empty vessel is used to illustrate how we empty ourselves of "us" and allow God to fill our emptiness with Christlikeness.  Of course, being our sinful, selfish selves, we rebel against this giving up of ourselves and must rely on God's grace to get us there.  This is one of the things that I pray about regularly, that God will continue His work in me to make me more Christlike by giving me the grace to give up more and more of myself.

God’s purpose is not simply to make us beautiful, plump grapes, but to make us grapes so that He may squeeze the sweetness out of us.
This reminds me of the analogy about change: a seed, in order to grow, much change and become a tree, not become a bigger seed.  So often we perceive the means as the end.  The point is not to empty ourselves of us, it's to empty ourselves so God can fill us with something better.  And the point isn't to be filled with something better, it's to let that something better flow out and benefit others.

Now is the time for us to break “the flask” of our lives, to stop seeking our own satisfaction, and to pour out our lives before Him.
It is said that nature abhors a vacuum--where there is negative space, it will be filled.  It seems that God works in negative space, creating it so that it can be filled.  As just mentioned above, we need to make a negative space within us so that God can fill it.  What other examples of negative space can we find with regards to how God works?  Was the empty tomb a negative space, and if so, what did God fill it with? 

Sept 1 . . it is written, ’Be holy, for I am holy’ —1 Peter 1:16

Today we have far too many desires and interests, and our lives are being consumed and wasted by them.
And he was writing this in 1935! Imagine what he'd thing of all the distractions we have NOW in 2011!!

The preaching of the gospel awakens an intense resentment because it is designed to reveal my unholiness, but it also awakens an intense yearning and desire within me.
I remember Dr. Charles Stanley saying that the reason some people get angry when you confront them with the gospel is because it forces them to make a choice: you either choose Jesus or you don't.  Many people don't like to think of salvation or "a ticket into heaven" hinging on a black or white, all or nothing question.  We want to believe that good people go to heaven and, of course, most of us are generally "a pretty good person;"  just ask us!  We like the comfort of our moralistic therapeutic deism whereby we've got all sorts of wiggle room and grey area within which to be "a good person."  In our current American culture we have grown used to and even expect accommodation.  We know what the rules are but we expect to be able to bend and maybe even break them if it serves our purpose or convenience of the moment.  If God loves us and wants us to be saved then certainly He'll provide some accommodation for those of us that came up a bit short of the standard?  (Well, He actually does, it's called grace, but that's a topic for a different day).  I think it takes a certain level of 1) maturity, 2) open mindedness and 3) spiritual maturity to accept that God has a standard and it's not up for debate. 

God has only one intended destiny for mankind— holiness.
If you were to walk up to me and ask "what's God's intended destiny for mankind?" I'd probably say "salvation."  Is that the same thing as holiness?  Holy means special, set apart.  Salvation means redemption from sin.  Do we want to presume to know God's "only one intended destiny for mankind?" Which is not to say that He doesn't want us to attain holiness, He does. But I'd also offer that He also wants us to attain salvation, righteousness, justification, peace, etc.  I think it's hard to pick just one.

Holiness is not simply what God gives me, but what God has given me that is being exhibited in my life.
Being a good witness . . . that's one of the many things I need to work on.  I'm much better at learning it than I am living it.