Intimacy with God

Friendship is a good thing. We all need friends. When I meet a friend for coffee, we usually express delight to see each other as we greet and prepare to spend some time together. We look forward to the encounter and we listen to each other’s hearts as we share our lives with each other. And when we part, we often make plans to meet again soon and anticipate that time of fellowship together.

What does it look like when I meet with God? Do I sometimes blow Him off because I am too busy? “Sorry God, just no time for you today. I need another hour of sleep and then I have lots to do.” Do I go through a routine that I designed to discipline myself to do ‘morning devotions’? I read so many chapters of the Bible. Yes, yes, I’ve read it before. I know what it says. I pull out my list of prayer requests and read through it. God be with this person. Heal that person. Give them what they want. And then rush into my day with no other thought of God and muscle through my activities whatever they are.

Jesus had much grace with the disciples as He instructed them in the years He spent with them. I think He has much grace for us too as we learn who He is and how to relate to Him. James and John wanted to be important in His kingdom. Philip struggled with trusting Jesus to come through. Peter thought he could handle it all until he found himself denying Jesus not once but three times! Somehow, when we come to the end of ourselves, we finally begin to look for Jesus.

The more I understand who God is, the more I get up in the morning with anticipation of our time together. The more I am overwhelmed by His love – that He would pay attention to me! The God who created the heaven and the earth and all that is in it would want to meet with me each day and share His heart with me! He has given me the privilege of praying – not so I can control the things happening around me, but so that I can join His heart for the people He cares about. He allows me to participate in the work He is doing!

“The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; His mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in Him!” Lamentations 3:22-24 Jeremiah pens these verses in the middle of lamenting being homeless and grieving all that he has lost. And following these verses, he expresses his hope that he has found in knowing God’s love. He is able to worship God in the most dire of circumstances. Paul and Silas worshiped God while sitting in prison because they knew they were loved.

God has invited us to seek Him and to desire to be in His presence. “In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me.” Jeremiah 29:12-13 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8

God is not hiding from us. He is right here in our midst, inviting us to come, rest in Him, receive nurture and friendship, and be loved. Meeting with Him isn’t a discipline, it is a privilege and an act of love for each other! When I have truly given and received that love, I am free to love others well. I John 4-5 lay out a beautiful picture of what it means to be loved by God and how that effects the way we behave toward others.  Our time of worship, listening, sharing, and receiving from God daily is so important to our relationship with God and it is what feeds our relationships with each other. I sure don’t want to miss that. Do you?

Following Crowds or Following Jesus

I wonder, why is it so easy for people who call themselves Christians to follow crowds, movements, etc. and so hard to follow Jesus? We have Scripture that was written down by His followers that tells us many things that Jesus said and taught while He walked on this earth. Jesus tells His disciples in this passage that He speaks in parables so only those who truly are following Him (not the crowd) will understand what He is teaching. “When they see what I do, they will learn nothing. When they hear what I say, they will not understand. Otherwise, they will turn to me and be forgiven.” Mark 4:12

Today, we may follow the crowds to church because that is where the good people hang out. We may go because that is a habit, and we somehow believe that going to church on Sunday morning will qualify us for heaven. We may go because we have friends there that we like to see on Sunday morning. We may go because we want others to think we are good people. We may go because our children need Sunday School. We may go because there is a dynamic or charismatic speaker there each week that is fun or easy to listen to.

Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to explain things to us as we hear and read His words. But if our hearts are closed, we will not understand. When we read or hear the Scripture about the seed falling on various types of soil, we believe ourselves to be the fertile soil and everyone outside the church to be the less productive soils. That is a mindset of self-righteous people. And self-righteousness actually creates a hard, untilled soil in our heart. It is a belief that I know all about it and I don’t have anything new to learn or need to change in any way. We sit in judgment on others and see how they don’t measure up and how the Scripture being taught is for them.

The next type of soil Jesus talks about is shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprout but they cannot take root. So the plants quickly whither and die. In the church, this may look like those of us who get excited about what is preached or the worship music on Sunday morning. We may even shout, “Amen!” But by the time we get to the door of the church, we forget what we heard or experienced. It makes absolutely no difference in our lives throughout the next hours let alone the next week! By Sunday dinner, we cannot even tell anyone what the sermon was about.

Seeds can also begin to grow but be choked out by weeds. To the church-attender, this is likely the most common soil. We have lives so scheduled with other activities (sports, meetings, projects, vacations, work schedules, etc.) that we don’t feel like we have time to spend specifically with God (reading His Word, praying, worshiping Him). We defend ourselves, make excuses and talk about all the good things we are doing. Meanwhile, our Father is waiting with amazing things He wants to tell us, but we don’t have time for even a short visit with Him. How can what He teaches us take root if we don’t nurture our relationship with Him?

So what does the fertile, tilled soil look like in the church? Those who are truly fertile soil are the ones who are filled with joy, are quick to love and show mercy to others, are quick to acknowledge that they need Jesus. They are humble, gentle, kind, and full of compassion. They have empathy for those who are struggling and are quick to pray for others with faith that God sees, He hears, He cares about what is happening to them. They spend time reading and studying Scripture, inviting His Holy Spirit to teach and instruct them so they can live out what they are learning. They pray deeply for themselves and for others. They listen for God’s voice to speak to them and obey when they hear Him speak.

My heart breaks for the number of people who sit on Sunday mornings and hear His words preached, but it falls on the hard, untilled soil, the rocky soil, or the weed-filled soil. Oh that it would fall on the fertile, tilled soil ready to receive the seed and allow it to grow and produce fruit! May we become a church filled with mercy and grace where people come to be healed and to grow in faith because we are tilling our soil, removing rocks and supplementing it with the compost of spending time with God and building strong relationship with Him. Amen.

Whatever You Ask

I live in a country where political unrest has not been a big deal in my lifetime. Yet in the last 40 years, I have watched polarization to the extremes grow and grow. For the first time in my awareness, we have an election still not declared weeks after the casting of votes. Usually, it is declared almost immediately. My heart and mind are now ready to read God’s Word in a different light. I have been shaken out of my comfort and ability to plod through life without much attention to the greater concerns. In the past, I would say, “Let the politicians handle that. I will concern myself with my immediate family and work and maybe my community from time to time.”

The word that is heavy in my mind this morning is “prayer”. Jerusalem was in ruins. Nehemiah, along with many others, was in captivity and he was serving as cup bearer to the king of the nation that was in control. When he heard news of the condition of his beloved Jerusalem, he was distraught. He didn’t just go to the king and tell him he would need to find another cup bearer because he, Nehemiah, was going to go back to Jerusalem to restore the gates and walls. His life could have been taken from him for even thinking such a thing. Long before the ask, Nehemiah began to pray and fast. He talked to God about the situation, but more than that, he talked to God about the condition of his heart and the heart of his people. He praised God for his awesome power and faithfulness. He confessed his sin and the sin of his people. He reminded God that the covenant between Him and His people declared that if they returned to Him, He would restore them to the land He had brought them to. He asked for favor from the king. This went on for several months and it effected his countenance. Apparently, he had a good relationship with the king because the king took notice that he wasn’t his usual happy self and inquired about it. In his journal, Nehemiah confesses he was terrified to answer the king. As he prayed and fasted, God had been giving him a strategy, but it was huge and unheard of to ask a king to help him rebuild the gates and walls of a city that had been conquered.

Yet, as we read Nehemiah’s journal, we see that he was not only released to go, provisions were made for him and for the rebuilding of the wall and the gates. In his prayers, he had asked God for the king’s favor and he was granted huge favor from the king!

But it was not easy. There was a lot of resistance. And the people were constantly being intimidated by the opposition. False prophets appeared to discourage them. How was Nehemiah able to discern the false prophets from the true ones? I don’t imagine he quit praying once the building was underway.

People came to him saying they were in need. They were having to sell their daughters as slaves to have enough food to eat. They had already mortgaged their houses and land and had nothing else to mortgage. Apparently, it was mortgaged to a few wealthy leaders in the community and Nehemiah was angry! That was not God’s way. They were not to be taxing the people, but rather helping them. He accused the leaders of selling their people into slavery after he had been doing all he could to redeem them from slavery to foreigners. To avoid being mocked by enemy nations, he asked the wealthy to restore the property and homes to the rightful owners and quit charging interest. Nehemiah knew that justice for the oppressed was very close to God’s heart. What is amazing is that the wealthy agreed and did restore property and homes to the people.

Nehemiah did not tax the people in order to provide for his own table that fed 150 Jewish officials and visitors to the land on a daily basis. He led by example and people followed.

He was successful in rebuilding the wall. His success came not through his own genius and wealth. It came through a humble spirit committed to prayer and fasting to the God who had the power to make it happen.

Many years later, Jesus would sit with his disciples and teach them the power of prayer through His own example and words. Jesus was in the habit of going up on the mountain to pray each morning. He taught the disciples that God would do anything they asked if they would “remain or abide in Him.” They were to love each other. And through that, they would glorify the Father and produce “lasting fruit.”

So I wonder, what does it mean to “remain or abide in Him?” And what is “lasting fruit?”

And I begin to imagine. If one man, Nehemiah, could pray and fast and receive the king’s favor for a big ask and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, what could I, one person, accomplish if I began to pray and fast about the injustices around me. First would God reveal to me the particular injustices (for there are many) that He would want me to address? Would He give me strategy to begin to address them? And what if several believers would meet together and pray and fast? What desires and strategies would God place in their hearts to do? And if His Church would be united in fasting and praying, what then might be accomplished that would be “unheard of” and would bring great glory to the Father? What if we stopped protecting our own interests and “loved each other” as Christ loved us – even being willing to give His life for us? What then might our nation and our world look like?

Holy Father, you are an awesome God, full of power, mercy and grace. You have been faithful to us even when we have been less than faithful to you. We confess that we have not loved each other as you have asked us to do, but have trampled on each other trying to get more for ourselves. We repent and ask you to forgive us and restore us to being the children you have called us to be – children who seek your face and carry out your mission to reconcile the world to yourself. Give us strategy and favor Lord, that we might serve you by serving each other and bring glory and honor to your name, the name above every other name. It is in the powerful name of Jesus we ask these things. Amen.

Politics and Scripture

I cannot think of a time in my life when politics has been more divisive and even hateful as this season in the United States of America. And among those who call themselves Christian, the lines are being drawn, both sides citing Scripture and beliefs to back them up. “Political Correctness” is at an all time high and we “guilt” those who think differently than ourselves by name calling and putting words into their mouths.

I have been reading in Ecclesiastes, II Chronicles, and Lamentations – I know – all books we tend to avoid when reading Scripture because they are so depressing. I also have been reading the books of Luke, John and Revelation. So, I have been wondering…

“A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” Luke 6:45 NLV What is filling our hearts? Are we seeking God with our whole heart, mind and strength? Is our relationship with the Lord filling us and informing us? Or is it the nightly news (conservative or liberal) that is informing us? Is it blogs written by people who may or may not be filled with the Spirit of God that inform our thinking?

Lamentations is a book of tears written by Jeremiah the prophet as Judah fell to first Egypt and then Babylonia. Judah didn’t fall because of a bad leader. Judah fell because the hearts of the people had wondered far from God and He pulled His protection from them. They were never strong in and of themselves. They had become a strong nation because the Lord fought for them and had prospered them. But now their religious leaders were more interested in what other countries were doing and forgot that they were to teach the people who God is and how to enter into His presence. From time to time, they even lost the "Book of the Law" that contained God's instructions for them. The hearts of the people were wanting to keep up with the other nations, offering prayers and sacrifices to foreign gods and reveling in their wealth. Status was more important to them than their relationship with the one true God. They forgot how they had gotten there y the hand of God and were full of pride and arrogance. 

I live in a country where people vote and elect the government. There are always political campaigns going on in the background and as election years draw near, they become louder and louder. But quite frankly, I am tired of “Christian” leaders and writers taking sides politically and “guilting” people into voting for their political party. I long for the day when the Christian leaders and writers are focused on teaching the people who God is and how He has led and protected His people in the past and is leading and protecting His people in the present. Jeremiah said, “Rise during the night and cry out. Pour out your hearts like water to the Lord. Lift up your hands to Him in prayer, pleading for your children, for in every street they are faint with hunger.” Lamentations 2:19 NLV

I long for the day that instead of political rantings, we hold prayer vigils – because we know the Lord and have a personal relationship with Him and because we desire change through hearts turning to God. It does not matter who is in power – “good king” or “bad king”. What matters is where the hearts of the people are. Are we praying? Are we offering help to the “refugees” we want to protect? Or are we just using them to promote our political views? Are we helping pregnancy crisis centers? Or are we just using pro-life rhetoric to promote our political views? Where our energy and our money go are the indicators of where our hearts are at. If our hearts are truly aligned with the Lord, then we will show fruit – not just words. How we live our lives will always demonstrate with what our hearts are truly filled.

Lord, please fill me with you. I want the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart to be truly acceptable to You. I want to truly live in Your Presence and have You inform all that I am and all that I do. Make me generous and loving like You are. Cause me to be a light in the darkness and a good salt that flavors the earth with Your goodness. Amen