March 22, 2010
This Sunday was a great example of what is so cool about CrossLand, or more specifically, how God does things at our church. This happens almost every Sunday, but this week it really shows what God is doing in a powerful way.
What God likes to do is show us, basically, how little we matter, and how important we are.
Read it again.
Our God is a God of paradoxes. I would hate to think about trying to be a Christian without embracing the paradoxical nature of the Christian walk. Many have fallen away from the faith due to the seemingly insurmountable obstacles these paradoxes present (Narrow is the way…). But if you can embrace them, the world literally opens up to you.
So we make plans in our church. We’re very intentional about what we teach and when and how. And we’re always very careful to make sure that those plans are God’s plans and not ours. One way that we can tell that they’re God’s plans is the amazing way that things get linked together. For instance, our Sunday School class is working through the book of James, and Sunday we were talking about how we presume to make plans when we really have no idea what will happen tomorrow, when we are just vapors. How arrogant to think we know what will happen.
And then we got to hear the sermon Buddy preached about the sovereignty of God, and how the gospel of Christ was not given to us by men, but by God, through His chosen servant, Paul. Paul says that he was chosen before birth to be an apostle.
Now think about that one. God chose Paul (or Saul) before he was born, yet allowed him to persecute the church before revealing Himself on the road to Damascus. Many Christians died because of Saul. Surely this wasn’t God’s will.
Yet we are still vapors. We still only see in part. In order to judge whether or not this should have happened, we would have to know more than God.
It is certainly possible that Paul disobeyed God by persecuting Christians, and by doing so merely delayed what God’s plan was for him. But I think it’s also possible that Paul needed to fail, he needed to go down that dark road, so that God could show Paul the light. Maybe those Christians who were persecuted and murdered allowed Saul to become Paul. But the whole point is that we don’t know; only God does. We assume so much. We think we understand, when the reality is that only God truly knows anything, and that which is revealed to us comes from Him.
And God showed us this picture of His sovereignty by tying together the passage in Galatians and the passage in James on this Sunday. These passages were hand picked by God to fit together perfectly in order to illuminate His plan for us. What a wonderful way to show us just how little we can see on our own, and the lengths He goes to provide His children with His wisdom.
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March 14, 2010
Today my family went out shopping and I was looking through some pictures. For some reason, there was one print that caught my eye. It was a picture of a wall, made of stone and mud, with two windows in it, one directly above the other. The caption below the photo was “Psalm 91:1 – He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.”
It was interesting, but I moved on and went about the rest of my day.
Tonight I was asked to pray for a friend along with others in our church, and when we got going, the leader said that God had given him a passage for this prayer time.
Can you guess which passage?
So as we read through the psalm, I began seeing the picture in my mind, and God used the imagery in that picture to shape many of the prayers for this person. It was so powerful, and came as a direct result of God calling me to this picture.
God does this in so many ways with me. A billboard, a ray of light through the clouds, an off-hand comment spoken without thinking, a conversation I have with my daughter. God speaks to us in so many ways.
But are we listening?
Part of the problem is that most of the time we aren’t expecting Him to speak to us. We aren’t expecting an answer at all, sometimes, but then we really don’t expect it to come in the voice of a child, or a rock in the sand. But should this really surprise us? The infinitely creative God that spoke the Universe into existence can and does communicate with us in ways that transcend mere words.
So I want to encourage you this week to expect God to speak to you. Watch for His words in every situation. Seek out His answers where you are. I believe you’ll find, as I have, that the means of communication are just as important as the messages.
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March 11, 2010
I am new to blogging and this is my very first attempt. This is an article written by one of my favorite authors. It expresses well some of the basis for my personal philosophy of life and seems to be a good way to better get to know me. Please read if you are curious or simply enjoy reading.
Buddy
The Waning Authority of Christ in the Churches
By A. W. Tozer
(as appeared in God Tells the Man Who cares, 1970, Christian Publications, Inc.)
Here is the burden of my heart; and while I claim for myself no special inspiration I yet feel that this is also the burden of the Spirit.
If I know my own heart it is love alone that moves me to write this. What I write here is not the sour ferment of a mind agitated by contentions with my fellow Christians. There have been no such contentions. I have not been abused, mistreated or attacked by anyone. Nor have these observations grown out of any unpleasant experiences that I have had in my association with others. My relations with my own church as well as with Christians of other denominations have been friendly, courteous and pleasant. My grief is simply the result of a condition which I believe to be almost universally prevalent among the churches.
I think also that I should acknowledge that I am myself very much involved in the situation I here deplore. As Ezra in his mighty prayer of intercession included himself among the wrong-doers, so do I. “O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens.” Any hard word spoken here against others must in simple honesty return upon my own head. I too have been guilty. This is written with the hope that we all may turn unto the Lord our God and sin no more against Him.
Let me state the cause of my burden. It is this: Jesus Christ has today almost no authority at all among the groups that call themselves by His name. By these I mean not the Roman Catholics nor the liberals, nor the various quasi-Christian cults. I do mean Protestant churches generally, and I include those that protest the loudest that they are in spiritual descent from our Lord and His apostles, namely, the evangelicals.
It is a basic doctrine of the New Testament that after His resurrection the Man Jesus was declared by God to be both Lord and Christ, and that He was invested by the Father with absolute Lordship over the church which is His Body. All authority is His in heaven and in earth. In His own proper time He will exert it to the full, but during this period in history He allows this authority to be challenged or ignored. And just now it is being challenged by the world and ignored by the church.
The present position of Christ in the gospel churches may be likened to that of a king in a limited, constitutional monarchy. The king (sometimes depersonalized by the term “the Crown”) is in such a country no more than a traditional rallying point, a pleasant symbol of unity and loyalty much like a flag or a national anthem. He is lauded, feted and supported, but his real authority is small. Nominally he is head over all, but in every crisis someone else makes the decisions. On formal occasions he appears in his royal attire to deliver the tame, colorless speech put into his mouth by the real rulers of the country. The whole thing may be no more than good-natured make-believe, but it is rooted in antiquity, it is a lot of fun and no one wants to give it up.
Among the gospel churches Christ is now in fact little more than a beloved symbol. “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” is the church’s national anthem and the cross is her official flag, but in the week-by-week services of the church and the day-by-day conduct of her members someone else, not Christ, makes the decisions. Under proper circumstances Christ is allowed to say “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden” or “Let not your heart be troubled,” but when the speech is finished someone else takes over. Those in actual authority decide the moral standards of the church, as well as all objectives and all methods employed to achieve them. Because of long and meticulous organization it is now possible for the youngest pastor just out of seminary to have more actual authority in a church than Jesus Christ has.
Not only does Christ have little or no authority; His influence also is becoming less and less. I would not say that He has none, only that it is small and diminishing. A fair parallel would be the influence of Abraham Lincoln over the American people. Honest Abe is still the idol of the country. The likeness of his kind, rugged face, so homely that it is beautiful, appears everywhere. It is easy to grow misty-eyed over him. Children are brought up on stories of his love, his honesty and his humility.
But after we have gotten control over our tender emotions what have we left? No more than a good example which, as it recedes into the past, becomes more and more unreal and exercises less and less real influence. Every scoundrel is ready to wrap Lincoln’s long black coat around him. In the cold light of political facts in the United States the constant appeal to Lincoln by the politicians is a cynical joke.
The Lordship of Jesus is not quite forgotten among Christians, but it has been relegated to the hymnal where all responsibility toward it may be comfortably discharged in a glow of pleasant religious emotion. Or if it is taught as a theory in the classroom it is rarely applied to practical living. The idea that the Man Christ Jesus has absolute and final authority over the whole church and over all of its members in every detail of their lives is simply not now accepted as true by the rank and file of evangelical Christians.
What we do is this: We accept the Christianity of our group as being identical with that of Christ and His apostles. The beliefs, the practices, the ethics, the activities of our group are equated with the Christianity of the New Testament. Whatever the group thinks or says or does is scriptural, no questions asked. It is assumed that all our Lord expects of us is that we busy ourselves with the activities of the group. In so doing we are keeping the commandments of Christ.
To avoid the hard necessity of either obeying or rejecting the plain instructions of our Lord in the New Testament we take refuge in a liberal interpretation of them. Casuistry is not the possession of Roman Catholic theologians alone. We evangelicals also know how to avoid the sharp point of obedience by means of fine and intricate explanations. These are tailor-made for the flesh. They excuse disobedience, comfort carnality and make the words of Christ of none effect. And the essence of it all is that Christ simply could not have meant what He said. His teachings are accepted even theoretically only after they have been weakened by interpretation.
Yet Christ is consulted by increasing numbers of persons with “problems” and sought after by those who long for peace of mind. He is widely recommended as a kind of spiritual psychiatrist with remarkable powers to straighten people out. He is able to deliver them from their guilt complexes and to help them to avoid serious psychic traumas by making a smooth and easy adjustment to society and to their own ids. Of course this strange Christ has no relation whatever to the Christ of the New Testament. The true Christ is also Lord, but this accommodating Christ is little more than the servant of the people.
But I suppose I should offer some concrete proof to support my charge that Christ has little or no authority today among the churches. Well, let me put a few questions and let the answers be the evidence.
What church board consults our Lord’s words to decide matters under discussion? Let anyone reading this who has had experience on a church board try to recall the times or time when any board member read from the Scriptures to make a point, or when any chairman suggested that the brethren should see what instructions the Lord had for them on a particular question. Board meetings are habitually opened with a formal prayer or “a season of prayer”; after that the Head of the Church is respectfully silent while the real rulers take over. Let anyone who denies this bring forth evidence to refute it. I for one will be glad to hear it.
What Sunday school committee goes to the Word for directions? Do not the members invariably assume that they already know what they are supposed to do and that their only problem is to find effective means to get it done? Plans, rules, “operations” and new methodological techniques absorb all their time and attention. The prayer before the meeting is for divine help to carry out their plans. Apparently the idea that the Lord might have some instructions for them never so much as enters their heads.
Who remembers when a conference chairman brought his Bible to the table with him for the purpose of using it? Minutes, regulations, rules of order, yes. The sacred commandments of the Lord, no. An absolute dichotomy exists between the devotional period and the business session. The first has no relation to the second.
What foreign mission board actually seeks to follow the guidance of the Lord as provided by His Word and His Spirit? They all think they do, but what they do in fact is to assume the scripturalness of their ends and then ask for help to find ways to achieve them. They may pray all night for God to give success to their enterprises, but Christ is desired as their helper, not as their Lord. Human means are devised to achieve ends assumed to be divine. These harden into policy, and thereafter the Lord doesn’t even have a vote.
In the conduct of our public worship where is the authority of Christ to be found? The truth is that today the Lord rarely controls a service, and the influence He exerts is very small. We sing of Him and preach about Him, but He must not interfere; we worship our way, and it must be right because we have always done it that way, as have the other churches in our group.
What Christian when faced with a moral problem goes straight to the Sermon on the Mount or other New Testament Scripture for the authoritative answer? Who lets the words of Christ be final on giving, birth control, the bringing up of a family, personal habits, tithing, entertainment, buying, selling and other such important matters?
What theological school, from the lowly Bible institute up, could continue to operate if it were to make Christ Lord of its every policy? There may be some, and I hope there are, but I believe I am right when I say that most such schools to stay in business are forced to adopt procedures which find no justification in the Bible they profess to teach. So we have this strange anomaly; the authority of Christ is ignored in order to maintain a school to teach among other things the authority of Christ.
The causes back of the decline in our Lord’s authority are many. I name only two.
One is the power of custom, precedent and tradition within the older religious groups. These like gravitation affect every particle of religious practice within the group, exerting a steady and constant pressure in one direction. Of course that direction is toward conformity to the status quo. Not Christ but custom is lord in this situation. And the same thing has passed over (possibly to a slightly lesser degree) into the other groups such as the full gospel tabernacles, the holiness churches, the Pentecostal and fundamental churches and the many independent and undenominational churches found everywhere throughout the North American continent.
The second cause is the revival of intellectualism among the evangelicals. This, if I sense the situation correctly, is not so much a thirst for learning as a desire for a reputation of being learned. Because of it good men who ought to know better are being put in the position of collaborating with the enemy. I’ll explain.
Our evangelical faith (which I believe to be the true faith of Christ and His apostles) is being attacked these days from many different directions. In the Western world the enemy has forsworn violence. He comes against us no more with sword and fagot; he now comes smiling, bearing gifts. He raises his eyes to heaven and swears that he too believes in the faith of our fathers, but his real purpose is to destroy that faith, or at least to modify it to such an extent that it is no longer the supernatural thing it once was. He comes in the name of philosophy or psychology or anthropology, and with sweet reasonableness urges us to rethink our historic position, to be less rigid, more tolerant, more broadly understanding.
He speaks in the sacred jargon of the schools, and many of our half-educated evangelicals run to fawn on him. He tosses academic degrees to the scrambling sons of the prophets as Rockefeller used to toss dimes to the children of the peasants. The evangelicals who, with some justification, have been accused of lacking true scholarship, now grab for these status symbols with shining eyes, and when they get them they are scarcely able to believe their eyes. They walk about in a kind of ecstatic unbelief, much as the soloist of the neighborhood church choir might were she to be invited to sing at La Scala.
For the true Christian the one supreme test for the present soundness and ultimate worth of everything religious must be the place our Lord occupies in it. Is He Lord or symbol? Is He in charge of the project or merely one of the crew? Does He decide things or only help to carry out the plans of others? All religious activities, from the simplest act of an individual Christian to the ponderous and expensive operations of a whole denomination, may be proved by the answer to the question, Is Jesus Christ Lord in this act? Whether our works prove to be wood, hay and stubble or gold and silver and precious stones in that great day will depend upon the right answer to that question.
What, then are we to do? Each one of us must decide, and there are at least three possible choices. One is to rise up in shocked indignation and accuse me of irresponsible reporting. Another is to nod general agreement with what is written here but take comfort in the fact that there are exceptions and we are among the exceptions. The other is to go down in meek humility and confess that we have grieved the Spirit and dishonored our Lord in failing to give Him the place His Father has given Him as Head and Lord of the Church.
Either the first or the second will but confirm the wrong. The third if carried out to its conclusion can remove the curse. The decision lies with us.
This article appeared in the Alliance Witness May 15, 1963, just two days after the death of Dr. Tozer. In a sense it was his valedictory, for it expressed the concern of his heart. Because of its wide acceptance it has been included in this selection.
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March 10, 2010
This week we are studying Galations 1:6-10. One of the things that Paul is talking to us about is remaining steadfast in our faith, and ignoring anyone who might teach something different or pervert the gospel of Christ. He warns us about this quite strongly. His words are, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!” So how do we do this? How do we remain steadfast in the Lord? I know that I do not have a perfect answer. I believe that part of it is talking to Him and hearing His voice. Part is reading the Bible and knowing the gospel. Part is confessing our sins and experiencing God’s forgiveness. Here is the part that I want to work on this week – asking the Lord to help me. I think that we think that remaining steadfast is something we are supposed to do in our own strength. That if we are weak and have to ask for God’s help, we failed. The opposite is true! It pleases God so much when we ask Him for His help! We are never on our own with anything God asks from us.
Do I just need to remain steadfast in my faith? Oh, no. There are so many other areas in which I want to remain steadfast, and I want (and need) the Lord’s help! I want to remain steadfast in my parenting, my marriage, my ministry, my obedience, etc. etc. I am confident that my Father will help me with all of these things if I only ask. In what do you want to remain steadfast? Will you ask for His help?
Our focus song this week is Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. As we are asking for the Father’s help, we keep our eyes on His Son, looking full in His wonderful face. Here are the lyrics to this beautiful song – it is one of my favorites.
“Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”
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March 8, 2010
This week I had a new and fun experience with the Lord. I was on my way into a meeting and had really hoped to have time to meet with God on some things before going into the meeting. As my LIFE hit me that week it this time with the Lord had not happened. I arrived at my meeting place 15 minutes before my meeting was to start. I would normally make some phone calls , balance my checkbook….things that need to be done that I could take advantage of these few spare moments. As I began to think through this I heard clearly from the Lord…lets talk about your meeting. This made me very uncomfortable as I felt that 15 min. was not nearly long enough for me to have the my time with my Lord “the way that I desired” before entering my meeting. He continued to nudge me and I gave in! I had my journal in the car with me and picked it up, pen in hand and began talking to the Lord. I first shared with him that I really did not like doing things this way with Him! I wanted more time, I wanted “our special spot” in my home, and I wanted to not feel rushed. I wanted to give Him more of me than I felt able to give in this situation. I felt the Lord’s delight in me and how He has made me when He received from me these thoughts and my hearts desire to have a “moment” with Him instead of coming quickly to get what I need. He then proceeded to tell me that as we (He and I ) walk and talk more He wants more times like this with me. Imagine my shock…..he really wants me to come and just take from Him without giving Him anything!
What He showed me in a way that only He can is that if we are going to be always talking and walking through life together that there are times that we need “power talks”. He wants access and the ability to speak into all areas of my life. In order to do this there will be many times that I come and “get what I need from Him”. He likes this and will actually enjoy me doing this. He gave me the example of my relationship with my husband. In our relationship there are times of deep intimacy and understanding. There are also a lot of times of taking care of business and talking about what has to be talked about because there is time for only that. Because my God desires to be my friend, my counselor, my ALL He wants me to receive from Him in many ways….including this one!
This is uncomfortable for me but I do want it ALL! I look forward to experiencing the Lord this way more and more as He shows me more that when I come to Him desiring to listen, He will give me the richest of who He is….it is not about what I bring but instead about who He is! Praise God!
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March 4, 2010
Last weekend we helped a friend move, and her Dad and brother were helping as well. Another family with a teenage daughter was helping also, so this made me think about Grace, and what it’ll be like when she moves out to go to college (Grace vehemently denies that this will happen…she insists that she’ll be living with us until she gets married). I really had a hard time thinking about that. It’s difficult to put into words what that felt like. I’m also dieting right now, which means I’m hungry all the time. Especially for Whataburger. There’s a specific hunger inside of me that only a Whataburger will satisfy. The feelings are very similar. An empty ache inside of me, a longing for something that brings me such joy. A yearning for my daughter.
As I was thinking about this, God interjected, “That’s how I feel for you.”
I had never considered this. God misses me terribly. There is a yearning inside of Him, a yearning that can only be satisfied by me.
I can satisfy that longing in Him when I come to Him, spend time with Him, listen to Him, talk with Him. But only partially.
This yearning will only be completely satisfied when I stand in His presence. When my life is over, and my eternal life begins, God will welcome me home, and we will spend all eternity together. I’ll feel his warm embrace, and he’ll crush me in His arms. Our souls will embrace and our joy will be made complete.
But until then, there will always be that yearning. And I’m learning to embrace it. That yearning tells me that this world is not my home. Just as when Grace is away at college, I hope it always feels temporary for her. That coming home is always a joyful homecoming.
So that’s how I feel. A stranger in a strange land. But I also catch glimpses of my Father’s heart every once in a while. They remind me of the coming joy, though tempered with longing, kind of like smelling that Whataburger, but not being able to eat it. Yet.
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So I had an interesting thing happen this week. While planning the worship service, I prayed over the passage, (Galations 1:1-5) which had very strong themes about Christ being our Savior and how He saves and rescues us. The specific verse says “…the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.” As I thought about this verse, especially in the context of a worship service, I felt that My Savior My God would be a great focus song for us this week. The words are a great fit, the tone of the song communicates (to me at least) the weight and seriousness of this gift from our Lord, and it is a song that our Church loves and associates with. Some time went by, and then I sat down with the Lord to plan the service and to ask Him to show me the songs that He has for us this week. I confirmed with Him that the theme is to be about our Savior, the gift of His life and the salvation that we have in Him. God shared with me that He is excited about all of the songs that we will be singing about Jesus. We have often been singing more about God the Father, and we will be singing many songs about Jesus in the near future. Next, I asked Him to confirm that our focus song this week should be My Savior My God. Guess what he said?
He said no. He did not give me a reason. He simply said that He did not have that song for us this week, and that He wanted to re-direct us to a different song. How surprising it was to me! I did not expect His answer at all. So far, in my journey as worship minister, when I plan the services and feel led to a particular focus song God has always confirmed that song as the one that He wants us to sing. It feels very strange in a way to be re-directed so clearly. However, I really like being re-directed for a couple of reasons. First, it wakes me up. It breaks up a routine that can look very similar from day to day. Don’t get me wrong – the routine is great – it is just like a little jolt of caffeine. Second, it makes me feel so close to the Lord. It confirms, to me, that I am truly hearing His voice and not my own. If I were just hearing my own voice we would be singing My Savior My God this week. Instead, we are singing Rescue, which is our focus song, and is not one that I have led before.
How can this affect our daily walk, and not just be something that is an every now-and-then occurrence? My proposal is this – just because we think we know what God would say, we should ask anyway. Ask Him to confirm. “What would Jesus do” might be a good place to start, but our thoughts and our wisdom will never equal that of our Father’s. We never know when God wants to re-direct us until we ask. Sometimes re-direction might be scary, but it is always worth it.
Lyrics to Rescue, Crossland’s focus song for 03/07/2010
You are the source of life. I can’t be left behind. No one will do – I will take hold of You.
I need You Jesus to come to my rescue. Where else can I go? There’s no other name by which I am saved. Capture me with grace. I will follow You.
My heart is Yours for life. I need Your hand in mine. No one else will do. I put my trust in You.
I need You Jesus to come to my rescue. Where else can I go? There’s no other name by which I am saved. Capture me with grace. I will follow You.
This world has nothing for me…I will follow You…
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As I spent time with the Lord preparing this lesson He really spoke to me about His great understanding of me. He knows me well and knows what I need before I ask Him. He showed me that in spending time with Him regularly He is able to provide for all of my needs, often even before I “feel” or understand what my need is or will be.
He is such an amazing parent. I have really felt a deep desire to receive His parenting not only for my well being which is wonderful but also for the benefit of understanding how to be a wonderful parent to our children. My Father God is the greatest role model of a great parent!
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