What do faith and Reese’s Cups have in common? Both have to be unwrapped to be experienced. Saying you believe something and never acting on it is like leaving the wrapper on candy.
Never In My Wildest Dreams
“Never in my wildest dreams.” Have you ever used that expression? I have…lots of times…several times over the last 48 hours. Then again, that’s how God works – beyond our wildest dreams.
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. – Ephesians 3:20-21
Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined moving back to my hometown to pastor a church. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined having the opportunity to lead a church with such a rich history and promising future. In fact, there were times times over the last several months I wondered if I would ever have the opportunity to pastor again…anywhere.
Thankfully, however, God is not bound by our measly imaginations; He works in ways we cannot see or believe to accomplish things so awesome that ONLY HE can receive glory for them. My family and I have experienced His glory in just such a way this past weekend. I was called as Senior Pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in my hometown of Macon, Georgia. NEVER IN MY WILDEST DREAMS, but easily within the sovereignty of an all-wise God. TO GOD BE THE GLORY!
What impossibilities or difficulties challenge your faith? As one who has experienced the miraculous hand of God, let me encourage you to hang in there and keep your eyes in the Lord. He is at work around you, and in His perfect timing, God will act in just such a way in your life.
As I shared with my new church family today: THE BEST IS YET TO COME. That is just as true for you individually as it is for us as a church.
What Do You Do When Your Dream Takes a Detour?
God planned an incredible work in and through Joseph, and communicated that plan to him at an early age. Lacking the maturity to handle the vision of such a glorious dream, Joseph shared it with anyone and everyone who would listen…and even a few who didn’t want to listen?
His brothers didn’t take too kindly to hearing Joseph boast of God’s plan to exalt him over his brothers and to make Joseph a ruler over even his own family. They took matters into their own hands, at first plotting to kill him, but eventually satisfied to sell him off as a common slave to a caravan headed for Egypt. They thought distance would derail Joseph’s dream, and it almost did.
Joseph began at his father’s house, the favored child of his father, and a future brimming with promise. He eventually ascended to second in command to the most powerful ruler of his time – the Egyptian Pharaoh. The road from daddy’s house to Pharaoh’s palace took some disappointing and odd twists and turns, but he eventually wound up in exactly the same position God had promised him.
Joseph probably never would have chosen to leave his father’s house. He would have been pleased to inherit Jacob’s extensive holdings and to take over for his father – one of the wealthiest men of his time. God’s plan for Joseph however was not to preside over a family business but to administer the most powerful empire of his time.
Consider this, however. Joseph could not have made it to Pharaoh’s palace without a pit, Potiphar’s house, and prison. God led Joseph through some really dark times before fulfilling His promise.
Things did not end at my previous church the way I would have chosen, but God necessarily allowed it to happen to prepare me for what is next. Without my present circumstances, I may not be as open to whatever God may choose to do with me next.
As for you, do not be quick to despise unexpected and unwelcome circumstances in your life. God may have you in your pit or your prison to prepare you for His version of your Pharaoh’s palace. Let God reveal Himself to you in your present circumstances. Let God prepare you for what He has in store next. Know that the “various trials” James writes about make us complete and ready for what God already has planned for us.
Maintaining Spiritual Momentum
For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God,
which is in you through the laying on of my hands… 2 Timothy 1:6
In my teen days, we used to sing a song at church that began with the line, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going.” Since I want my life to be “on fire” with the power of the Holy Spirit bearing His fruit in and through me, I need to tend the fire that He has started.
First, the fire needs to be fed. To keep the fire going, I have to introduce a new log every now and then. The same thing is true in my life spiritually. I cannot continue to burn brightly with what God fed me last week. I need God’s Word to address MY LIFE on a daily basis. I need an intentional plan for studying, meditating on, and applying God’s Word.
Also, the fire needs to be fanned. As a flame starts to dwindle, I can blow on the red-hot embers and once again the flames rise. In my spiritual life, I need the fresh wind of the Holy Spirit to blow in my life. I need to start everyday asking Him to control every thought, word, attitude, and action in my life. I need to ask Him to bear His fruit in my life. I need what only the Holy Spirit can do in my life. I need His filling, His empowerment, His activity or else my fire for God suffocates.
Then finally, the fire needs to be freshened. I can freshen a fire by stirring it around a bit, moving the logs, creating some breathing room. Spiritually, I need fresh challenges and experiences if I am to grow. I need to be stirred on a regular basis. Granted, these freshening experiences are not always pleasant – after all, you freshen a fire with a pointed thing called a poker. Who among us really enjoys being poked and prodded? The poker freshens the fire by stirring the fuel closer to the red-hot center of the fire. When God uses His poker to stir my life, He usually draws me closer to Him, the blazing center of spiritual vitality and fire.
So . . . what does your fire need? Fuel? Fanning? Freshening?
The Value in Hurts and Disappointments
One of the things I have noticed as I have grown older is that my body tends to ache and pain more than it used to. Just little stuff here and there – muscle spasms, joint pains, bone aches. Just a reminder that God created our bodies to be temporary.
But I have also noticed another pain as I have grown older, a “soul pain.” I think I have become more sensitive to the things that hurt me spiritually, and I am more aware of soul pain in others. I would gladly choose any physical pain over the ache that I sometimes have in my spirit.
Various things cause these soul pains – people have hurt me, circumstances have disappointed me, my own sins have beset me. Negativity has a painful effect on me these days too, and of course, the stress of everyday life can weigh on anyone.
I get the feeling I am not alone in feeling soul pain. Can you feel my pain?
So where do we turn for healing? God has drawn my attention quite a bit lately to Psalm 42. In a refreshing display of transparency, one of the songwriting sons of Korah penned these words:
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar. – Psalm 42:5-7
Downcast. Disturbed. Describe you? Does me, sometimes, I am sorry to say. But look at the remedy: put your hope in God. In the Bible “hope” is not the subjunctive wish or desire that it is in our contemporary English language. When we say “hope so” we are expressing a desire but not a confidence that something will happen. When the Bible uses the word “hope” however, it speaks to a confident and quieting assurance that the object of our hope – in this case, God – is a sure thing.
We can claim the promise of verse 5: I WILL YET PRAISE HIM. Things may not look like it right now, I may not feel like it right now, circumstances may seem to indicate otherwise, but the fact (not feeling) of the matter is that God will come through and I will break out into a praising hissy fit eventually. In those moments of despair, the songwriter said he “remembered” God; he reminded himself of God’s past faithfulness and used that memory to give him the strength to take things one day (or one hour even) at a time.
Hang in there, friend. Stick it out. And in the meantime know that God will bring us through. He has great things in store for us and we will yet praise Him.
Heaven is For Real Because the Bible is True
Recently, the book and movie Heaven Is For Real has captivated the attention of the Christian world and to some degree those outside the purview of Christianity. Before that, Don Piper’s testimonial book 90 Minutes in Heaven made the rounds as it rose to prominence in Christian literature.
Both of these books are written by sincere, Christ-following believers whose desire is to encourage faith and foster belief in God and in His Son Jesus. I do, however, find myself quite uncomfortable with some of the assertions made in both books. Both contain descriptions that are inconsistent with the Biblical accounts of heaven. I will not go into detail about them here, but I highly recommend an article written by Randy Alcorn, author of the book Heaven, which is a summary of Biblical teachings on heaven. You can find his article by clicking on this link.
A larger and much more vital issue, however, is the sufficiency of Scripture for faith and practice. We love to hear the testimony of others that corroborates that which we believe to be so, but what if we hear evidence contrary to what we believe? What if those who had near death experiences came back with a totally different picture than the Biblical account of the afterlife? Which would we believe?
My personal experiences are subjective and vulnerable to circumstances, emotions, fleshly desires, and other such fickle factors. The truths of the Word of God, however, stand true for all eternity and are unchanged by the times, circumstances, and whims of life. I may “feel” one way today and another way tomorrow, but God’s Word remains true because it emanates from the Unchanging One.
I can always count on God’s Word to mean today what it meant back then, to ask of me today the same it asked of me yesterday, and to stand the tests and challenges of changing times, cultures, needs, and contexts. God’s Word…learn it…love it…live by it. He will never let you down.
“Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of Mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. And its collapse was great!” – Matthew 7:24-27
For further reading:
Why We Can Be Thankful for Painful Circumstances
There are only 84 documented cases in our country of a rare condition called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis (CIPA).
CIPA occurs because a genetic mutation prevents the formation of nerve cells responsible for transmitting signals of pain, heat, and cold to the brain. Those who suffer with CIPA are prone to self-injury, hypothermia, and other conditions which those of us with the ability to sense pain can often avoid. Another complication of CIPA, the inability to sweat, also creates the danger of heat trauma and fever. Others often break bones or chew their tongues since they are not able to feel the warning signs of pain.
Who would have ever thought to be thankful for pain? A good portion of our life and learning is spent pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, but, the path to godliness doesn’t always pass through pleasurable places. Our greatest teachers and trainers are often trials and pain.
If we want to be fully developed followers of Christ, some pain is inevitable. Some lessons can only be learned in the classroom of tribulation, and some wisdom can only be gained through the experiences of hardship. Just as Jesus could not experience Resurrection without the Cross, so also we do not fully identify with Him without some pain in our lives.
None of us ask for pain, but for all of us pain is inevitable. We can thank God for it, knowing that through our trials He is completing and growing us.
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1:6-7
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 1 Peter 5:10
See also a previous blog, “Thankful for My Limp.”
Seeing All There Is to See
One of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite preachers, Dr. Tony Evans:
“If all you see is what you see then you will never see all there is to be seen.”
How many of us live our days trapped in a reality only seen with human eyes? The Bible teaches about a realm of spiritual activity taking place all around us, and most of the time we are unaware of it. We act as though reality is only what we experience through our five senses.
Coaches encourage athletes to visualize their desired outcome because we cannot achieve what we cannot visualize. I find a tremendous spiritual lesson in that concept. We miss so much when we only see with our eyes. God created us with eyes to see, but He also provided us with another means to “see the unseen.” That means is FAITH.
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. …And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. – Hebrews 11:1-3, 6
I must caution you, though, that faith is only as reliable as its object. Having faith in ourselves, in other human beings, or manmade institutions will invariably lead to disappointment, possibly even disaster. Faith grounded in an infinitely reliable God, however, will always produce a supernatural outcome.
Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:26
I like to define faith as “choosing to actively trust in all that God has said concerning His person, His precepts, and His promises.” Let me challenge you to open your eyes wider. See beyond the tangible and gaze into the spiritual realm. Choose to believe. Stop thinking that seeing is believing and learn that BELIEVING IS SEEING.
For Those Who Hate to Wait
I am by nature an impatient person. I hate to wait. Doesn’t matter if it is a traffic light, check-out line, delivery, or even a date on the calendar; I find waiting to be one of my life’s most difficult tasks.
Yesterday morning while reading in Genesis 7, I came across something I have missed in my previous readings, something that made me stop and think. There it was in black and white in Genesis 7:10 –
And after seven days the waters of the flood came upon the earth.
For seven days after Noah, his family, and all the animals boarded the ark they had to sit there on that waiting for God to deliver on a promise.
- Just like the blind man to whom Jesus restored sight could only see men looking like trees walking about and had to wait a little longer for his full vision to come to him.
- Just like Mary and Martha had to wait four days for Jesus to come to Bethany while their brother laid in a tomb developing the stench of rigor mortis.
- Just like Jesus’ disciples had to wait three days after His death to see the fulfillment of the promised resurrection.
Waiting is never easy and seldom fun, but we can rest assured that while we wait God works.
- Perhaps we wait while God prepares us for the greater work He desires to do in us.
- Perhaps we wait while God arranges circumstances so that He will receive greater glory.
- Perhaps we wait while God tests our faith and in that testing strengthens us.
- Perhaps we will NEVER know why we wait, but if He says wait, then wait we must, and that waiting is good.
So on what promise of God do you wait today? Don’t get bored, distracted, or discouraged. Trust God and seek Him all throughout the moments of your wait. AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME God will deliver the goods.
And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you
will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. – Philippians 1:6
How to Make Better Decisions – Part 2
So what practical help is available for making better decisions? Consider this passage from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount:
Ask, and it will be given to you;
seek, and you will find;
knock, and it will be opened to you. – Matthew 7:7
Jesus provided three clear steps we can follow that open up God’s wisdom for us.
ASK. A believer with an active prayer discipline naturally makes better decisions because he is vitally connected to the only true source of wisdom.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God,
who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. – James 1:5
We cannot overestimate the value of an ongoing daily time of prayer and connection with God.
SEEK.
We have a reliable, trustworthy, and authoritative source to lead us in our decision making quest: God’s Word. The Bible has every principle we need to form our thinking, attitudes, and perspectives.
All Scripture is breathed out by God
and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
and for training in righteousness,
that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. – 2 Timothy 3:16-17
Regularly read, study, and memorize God’s Word and you will be “complete and equipped for every good work.”
KNOCK.
God does not write instructions on paper and mail them to us, nor does He text us or email us with specific directions. Once we have prayed and sought God’s direction in His Word, we eventually have to step out in faith to realize the benefit of His wisdom.
When Joshua led God’s people into the Promised Land, the water did not part until AFTER they stepped into the water.
Wisdom has no shortcuts. Pray, saturate your life in God’s Word, and move in faith. You will look back at a track record of much wiser decisions.