Natural Does Not Mean Effortless

 Some may say that worship is natural and easy for us because it is what we were designed for but just because we are designed for something does not mean it does not take effort to do it. Certain people were born with the type of body that would lend itself to the sport of basketball but anyone who has watched a game knows that those athletes are making a great effort and are paying for it with sweat, bruises and sometimes blood. In fact, the effort started long before those athletes hit the court.

Those players have spent years training and disciplining their bodies. They have had to gain certain muscles, which took work. They had to increase their skill level, which took work. They had to have a routine of sleep, eating, exercise and practice. The game may be natural to them but it took and takes great effort.

Worship is not a moment but a lifestyle. It is based on an attitude of thanksgiving and gratitude that develops from an acceptance of Father’s love. When we focus on the benefits of his love it shapes our heart response. We move from entering the gates with thanksgiving to being in his courts with praise. We were created with the capacity to worship but just like the athlete it requires a disciplined effort to remain in that place, and to grow in it.

Everything in this world is a natural enemy to us and our relationship with Father. The world, including humanity, is broken. Father did not create it to be like this but rebellion has twisted it into this ugliness. The enemy of our soul wants the worship we offer Father. The world bent under his false lordship will try to persuade us against it. Even our old nature will try to pull us away, keep us busy, make us feel ungrateful, depress us, make us feel tired, or convince us it’s okay to skip a day. Just as there are a thousand excuses to keep the athlete from his discipline, so too are there a thousand excuses to keep us from fulfilling the purpose of our design.

King David understood this discipline of the heart and the disaster of falling away from it. Listen to the discipline in his words (Psalm 108):

My heart is unwavering, God.

I WILL sing and make music -

yes, with my whole being!

Wake up, harp and lyre!

I WILL wake the dawn itself!

I WILL give thanks to you, LORD, among all the people;

I WILL make music to you among the nations.

because your faithful love is higher than heaven;

your faithfulness reaches the clouds.

Exalt yourself, God, higher than heaven!

Let your glory be over all the earth!

Just because you are designed for it doesn’t mean it’s easy every day. Just because you have done it in the past doesn’t mean it’s natural to do it today. It takes this same disciplined determination to speak to yourself and say “Get up! I will praise my LORD today!” And none of this is possible unless you are absolutely convinced of his love for you, and the benefits of it. Love is our motivation but we must discover the discipline for it every day, no matter the weather, the busyness and the distractions because we are convinced that he is so good all praise is due him.

Why Seek Blessings?

Why do we seek blessings from the Lord? Why do we ask him for a good day, or the strength to make it through? Why do we seek his grace and run to him when we are in trouble? Some would say the answer is obvious: Because we need his help. Yes, but I am asking, what is the underlying motivation? Is it so that we will have a comfortable life or so we don't have to face the harshness of some situations? Is it for our benefit?

Is that what life is about for us, to be comfortable? Is our life to be spent on ourselves, our needs, our desires, our comforts? Are our prayers about us? Are the blessings about us? It is amazing how quickly we can change the selfless instructions of Jesus to be about focusing on us. If I had to summarize the gospel in a few words, I read that we die to ourselves when we accept Jesus, that we live through him, and our purpose is now the Father's will, and his will is that everyone would be saved. Can we say that we live our life with the purpose of seeing the lost saved, or are we living for ourselves and our family?

The psalmist of Psalm 67 sought the blessings of the Lord but let's consider his motivation:

Let God grant us grace and bless us;
    let God make his face shine on us,
so that your way becomes known on earth,
    so that your salvation becomes known among all the nations. (Psalm 67:1-2)

"Lord bless us so that ..." It is a really important "so that". It explains the motivation and I am amazed that this writer understood our purpose better than us.

So that ... your way becomes known on earth. Oh Lord, let your blessings flow through us so that the world would know you, see you, marvel at you. Let us not dam up the blessings by being selfish but may we be a conduit for everyone around us.

So that ... your salvation becomes known among all nations. Oh Lord, let your blessings flow through us so others would be convinced of your love, mercy, compassion and grace. May your blessings in me be a sign post to your salvation.

Mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness has been given freely to us and we in turn are to freely give it out. It did not cost us. I like how Jesus said it:

You received without having to pay. Therefore, give without demanding payment. (Matthew 10:8)

Let us seek the Lord's blessings understanding their purpose and may he shine brightly in all that we do and in all the blessings we receive.

Doing Wrong With Good Intentions

I am not legalistic but I do believe that wrong is wrong and right is right. We may try to understand the wrong actions of a person by trying to understand their motivation but it does not diminish the wrong of their actions. There is a lady in the news here who ended up causing the death of two people when she stopped in the middle of a highway to assist a family of ducks. Perhaps we can acknowledge there was no criminal intent but her actions robbed a family of a father and daughter and impacted a number of family, friends, and co-workers. Her actions were wrong. There is also the problem of intentionally doing something wrong for a good purpose.

Many people love the stories of Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor. When we strip it of its romantic notions we are left with a group of armed bandits who threatened people to steal what did not belong to them. Their noble purpose does not matter when it involves wrong action. This was the situation with Moses who wanted to do something about the suffering of his people.

When Moses went out walking that day and he saw the abuse being inflicted on his people. It provoked in him a desire to do something about it. His desire was good but his actions were wrong and could not be honoured by Yahweh. Let's not get romantic about it, it wasn't an accident, he intentionally killed a man:

Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. (Exodus 2:12)

I doubt you and I would find ourselves in a situation where we would kill someone as a means to reach an end, but we may do other things that are just as ugly to our Lord. We may feel justified in destroying someone's reputation because we don't agree with something they said or did. We may cut corners, smudge our tax return a bit so we have more money to do good. We may lie to protect a friend or child. Whatever the motivation, wrong is still wrong.

You and I say we follow Jesus, so this means we should be following his example. Scripture says he did all things well. A simple example: Should the instrument of all Creation have to pay Roman tax? I wouldn't think so, but Jesus did because it was the right thing to do: Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's. So why should we think we don't have to pay our government tax? Another example: The enemy offered Jesus several short cuts to avoid the cost of the cross but Jesus dismissed each one of them by putting the Father first. Perhaps he could have justified his actions with his good intentions, but wrong is wrong. The cross was the path he had to take and in obedience it is what he did.

It can be a real pain doing things the right way sometimes, but doing it the wrong way is always ugly and unacceptable to Father. He has purpose for his methods. If Moses had been allowed to lead an armed rebellion, the Lord would not have been revealed to the world and Israel would have kept all the glory for herself. They may have gotten their freedom but at the cost of how many lives and to what end? Without being the servants, the people of Yahweh they would have been a nation like any other nation and the world would not have known her Creator. Now just imagine what would have resulted if there had been no cross, no empty grave, no Holy Spirit.

Don't do short cuts. Don't try to do good by doing wrong. Take the long hard road. Do what is right no matter the cost. Allow Yahweh to accomplish what he wants to accomplish by walking in righteousness. Doing it right matters to how you will feel about things, your conscience, and to Yahweh's glory. Don't fall victim to the temptation of the easy way, the short cut, the fast solution. Follow Jesus and walk according to the example he set for us. To God by the glory!

Jesus Called You To Be A Fundamental Extremist

What makes you get out of bed in the morning? What is your motivation to move throughout the day? What is your "joie de vivre"? I am sure the answers to these questions are as varied as the people contemplating them. But should they be? If we are Christians should not our motivation for getting out of bed be the same? We have the same Lord. We are united by the same Spirit. We live by the same Kingdom principles. We have the same mission. But do we have the same focus?

There was a point in ministry when Jesus' disciples were encouraging him to eat. Jesus responded that he had food that they did not know about. When they questioned him about someone else providing for him, Jesus replied:

"My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to finish his work." John 4:34

Jesus said the reason he gets out of bed every morning is to do the will of his Father, to complete the work assigned to him. This is where most of us disconnect. "Having faith is fine, going to church, worshiping, even talking to friends about Jesus, but to make Jesus our reason for getting out of bed is a bit much." This is our failure to enter into the fullness of relationship and service. We don't want to get "unbalanced" or be an "extreme fundamentalist". That's funny. From my take on Jesus' instructions, the only type of followers he wants is extreme fundamentalist.

Jesus spoke of us loving Yahweh to the extreme - all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our strength. Jesus spoke about loving him to such a degree that all other love would appear to be hate. He told us that he measured our love by our obedience.

Jesus also told us that we have to love extremely. We are to love each other as he loved us and we all know that he died for us because of that love. He told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us, which he demonstrated. He told us to offer the other cheek whenever someone strikes us and he said if someone takes our coat to give him our shirt as well.

So it shouldn't surprise us to read that Jesus considered obedience to his Father's will the thing that sustained him in his day, all the way to the cross. I have experienced the same sense. I have been given some tough tasks and as long as my hand was on the plow I was amazed how much I was sustained in completing them. It is not a physical thing to be understood but a spiritual phenomena: doing the will of our Lord becomes our motivation to the point of lifting us above all circumstances that would try to haul us down.

There is plenty of mental illness these days and we are coming to better understand things like depression. It used to be that we would give some quick fix cure for feeling the "blues" but many people go beyond the "blues" and face a major problem. Jesus provides healing for this and all other things that are disorders in what Father created. On top of this, those things will never touch us again when Jesus becomes our "joie de vivre".

As society moves in the opposite direction to Yahweh and sinks further into the darkness of its rebellion, more people are going to lose their motivation, more people are going to be lost to depression, more people are going to live very confused lives. Even Christians, those who profess Jesus as Lord, will face such things if they are not "extreme fundamentalists".

It is not a matter of "putting it on" but being so surrendered to Jesus that the Spirit produces the extremes in us, so that we love as Jesus loves and serve as Jesus served. When we are this in love with Jesus then nothing else matters to us than obedience to him. This passion along with the truth of the Word is what is missing from believers today and it is a balance. You can't have passion without truth because then lies will undermine you. You can't have truth without passion because then there is no application of the truth.

I pray that we can discover what Jesus had, the sustenance found in doing the will of the one who loves us beyond measure. Then the world would really be able to see Jesus.

Grace As A Loophole

In this age of hyper-grace we are losing our fear of Yahweh. We are no longer afraid to sin, to offend our God because the overwhelming message of the day is that his grace will cover us. How quick we forget apostle Paul's warning not to use grace as an excuse to sin. The grace of our God is the great message of the age, as it has been for every age since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is a fantastic reality that we need to bring to the world but we can never lose sight of the truth that we serve a God of justice. Yahweh will judge and he will punish according to our heart.

We should not be looking for loopholes in order to excuse our sin. If any sin has a hold on us it means that we are enslaved to it and not to the righteousness of our LORD. It means we do not walk in the freedom Jesus won for us and it means we are wrong. Pleading grace is not like pleading the 5th in the United States. Grace is applied to the repentant heart not to the one that is looking for the "get out of jail free" card. Let's look at two examples, one from the Old Testament and one from the New.

Israel had just destroyed Jericho at Yahweh's command. He had warned them not to take anything but to destroy everything. However, there was one who did not obey. Achan could not resist certain of the treasures, so he took some and buried them in his tent. An innocent sin that did not impact anyone else, right? Wrong. God's blessings were removed from the nation and when they fought the next battle many lost their lives because Yahweh was not with them. Achan's sin was found out and Yahweh called for justice to be carried out. Rebellion cannot be tolerated among the children of Yahweh:

Then Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them to the Valley of Achor. And Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day.” So all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones. (Joshua 7:24-25)

Harsh but so was the sin, the rebellion that Yahweh could not permit to spread in his holy nation. Now let's flip forward to the beginning of the Church. There was a married couple who had a plot of land. At that time many of the followers of Jesus were selling their possessions to give to the leaders to provide for those who did not have much. This couple wanted to look good in everyone's eyes but without the cost. So they said they were donating the price of the plot of land they sold but in fact they held some back for themselves. They said they were giving their all but they kept some in reserve:

But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” Then Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and breathed his last. So great fear came upon all those who heard these things. (Acts 5:3-5)

They could have given whatever they wanted, there were no expectations, but they choose to lie. Fear came upon the followers of Jesus as it should to this day. I speak for myself as well when I say that we have lost that fear. We are no longer afraid to offend our God, we no longer fear to sin. We enter into it with the thought, "My God knows I love him; he will forgive me according to his grace". But the Spirit knows the motivation of our heart. If we truly loved Jesus then we would seek his righteousness not loopholes to get what we want and to do what we wish.

There is a difference between those who have chosen righteousness, who pursue it and who are covered by grace, and those who say they seek it but lie, expecting that the grace of our Father will cover them. Our God is still a God of justice and we should fear that justice. How quickly we forget the warning in Hebrews:

For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Hebrews 10:26-31)

Fearful indeed. I am not saying that we should live our life constantly in fear of stepping on an ant and offending Yahweh; we do not live a sin conscience life. But we can live a life where we are aware of the motivation of our heart and if our motivation is to sin against the righteousness of our LORD, to reject it immediately. We are a holy nation, a royal priesthood, separated for the purpose of our Father. We walk in his righteousness and maintain a healthy and respectful fear of the Living God. No loopholes, only obedience.

Remember Jesus Christ

Since last I blogged Bible Gateway and other online Bible providers have removed the NIV '84 at the publisher's request. I refuse to use the new NIV due to its liberal translation of God's Word so this leaves me  no choice but to go back to the printed form of the Bible. Such hardships in this current age of technology. :-)

I am sitting here in my store this morning, with my coffee beside me and God's Word open before me and I am tired. I went into partnership with my son, running a small coffee shop type of store. He needed a partner and I saw it as a means of connecting with people in the neighbourhood. I have to tell you though, it is a lot of work. It's hard to believe that people do this day on and day out just to make a dollar.There has to be easier ways to make money.

I would think that it is an easy thing to become discouraged running a business like this, as bill after bill pour in and income expectation is not always reached. I can tell you, if money was my motivation I would have walked away from this after the first week. But money isn't my motivation. Connecting with people for Jesus is the reason I am involved with this project. That means the financial burden is not so great and the discouragement is kept outside because profit margins don't bring me down.

How we handle life is going to depend on our motivation. Motivation dictates expectation and when expectation is not met then all kinds of emotions run their course. Wrong expectations can be a killer especially when they are based on a false sense of purpose. Perhaps this is why Paul reminded Timothy:

"Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David." (2 Timothy 2:8, NIV '84)

It seems a strange thing to say to a minister of the gospel or even just an ordinary Christian: Remember Jesus.Well, yes, of course I will remember Jesus. But did I yesterday? Did I remember him in the many decisions I made or in every conversation I had? Was he the motivation for my kindness, for my service, for my smiles?It is easy to be me without thinking of Jesus. I am usually a kind and generous guy, but kindness and generosity is not going to reveal the gospel of Jesus to a dying people.

The command to remember Jesus is a reminder that everything must come from him. Our motivation for everything we do must spring from the love of Jesus for us. It is not good enough that I am kind. The type of kindness that changes the world is that which is anointed, that comes from the seed of Jesus Christ. Anything else will fade away. Only that which comes from Jesus has the qualities of eternity knit into it.

I am telling you, you are kind, special, beautiful, talented and a hundred other things that I could say if I knew you better, but none of it matters. All that matters is what springs out of our relationship with Jesus. These are the only things that have the anointing of the Spirit. It is great that we offer our everything to Jesus but we don't have anything he needs.What he wants is our death and rebirth so that we are empty vessels, allowing him to fill us with what we need to serve him. Until we discover that for ourselves we will continue wasting our energy in actions and activities that have no eternal power,as nice and kind as they are.

Remember Jesus Christ. Set aside any other motivation. Stop trying to serve him in your own capacity. Instead, allow him to be your motivation in every word you speak, action you take, decision you make. Then watch what he accomplishes through you.

You Need To Eat To Stay Alive

Yesterday was the climax of a stressful week. For the first time in years I find myself in a classroom, being overwhelmed by information I must quickly absorb, understand and act upon. Saturday was our first assessment and I must admit, I was a bit stressed by it. I am an overachiever. A pass is not good enough for me. I want close to perfection in everything I do. My wife told me not to be stressed but to trust God. I knew Jesus would be faithful to me, but it was me I was stressed over: Did I study enough? Did I forget to study anything? Was there anything I didn't understand?

Stress is a natural part of our life and some have said that stress is what keeps us alive and motivated. However, we all know that too much stress will kill you. I am a person who knows that stress can have ill effects on my health. Even normal living stress can build up with time like an electrical charge in us. My way of dealing with this "charge" in my body is to do physical activity. This activity acts to release this charge through the exercise of my body so there are no ill effects from built up stress. But, at the end of the day yesterday I was tired.

It was a beautiful Spring day in a month when it is usually still cold and there is usually still snow. So being a beautiful day, the children wanted their bikes out. Well, it is never a simple matter of opening the garage and taking the bikes out. First, all the tires need to be pumped and then all the chains and moving parts have to be oiled. After that comes the washing and the checking of the safety equipment. There are seven children with bikes plus two adults, and our friends have four bikes as well. That's a total of thirteen bicycles after a stressful assessment. By supper time I was exhausted and I had not gone for the walk I needed to go on to disperse the stress I could feel in my body.

I checked with my wife but she is nearly six months pregnant and she had helped with the bikes plus she had been doing the laundry so she was no longer interested in a walk. I was exhausted and really just wanted to go to bed. I was greatly tempted to just forget about the walk. After all, I am not out of shape so one day was not going to kill me. But, the walk was not just about staying in shape, it was my mechanism to deal with the stress in my body. I overcame my temptation to not go for my walk by remembering the benefit of that walk. Discipline will not be long lasting if we do not understand our motivation.

So often I push people to remember the need for the relationship ingredients that we must participate in to remain refreshed with Jesus. I talk about and write about our need for studying the Bible, prayer, worship, fellowship and witnessing. These are all the ingredients we need for staying strong in Jesus but if it does not go beyond habit and discipline, to a place of understanding the benefits, then the discipline will be quickly lost, or it will become a dull and stale activity, without purpose.

When we open our Bible we must have the understanding that we are about to feed our soul the food it needs to be sustained in Jesus Christ. If we do not see it as the fuel we need to keep going in the Spirit it will just become a thing we have to do in the day. I can feel myself become spiritually weak if I have allowed busyness to keep me away from my "meal". I know the benefit so I know I must reserve the time to "eat". It is not a stale and dull meal as I dive into the richness of its flavours. The same is true for prayer and worship. If I do not make these the pivotal point of my day, I know that I am slowly starving myself to death. They are not a religious activity I have added to my life; they are what enables me to live. When you have this understanding, your motivation becomes a different thing entirely.

I don't care who you think you are, if you are not rich in Bible study, prayer and worship, you are not rich in Jesus Christ. I am glad you accepted him as your Lord and Saviour but now you need to learn how you can be rich in him. You need to learn how he is your everything. You need to understand what real communion is as you allow him to replace everything you were. You need to allow this relationship to move you from being centered on yourself to being centered on Jesus, from being controlled by your flesh to being controlled by the Spirit. This is the relationship you were saved for. You are spiritually poor, facing spiritual salvation if you do not understand where you get your food from. Your motivation for Bible study, prayer and worship is to stay alive in Jesus and not to experience starvation. I doubt you are too tired to eat supper tonight so don't use your tiredness as an excuse to skip your spiritual meals today either. You need to eat to stay alive.

Most Christians Are Possessed And They Don't Even Know It

A couple of days before the new year and the reality of the Christmas season is setting in on some people who are receiving their first bills. Unfortunately too many of us didn't follow our plan, if we had a plan in the first place. Unfortunately too many of us rely on credit, living far beyond our means. Unfortunately there are too many of us who are feeling like the psalmist as the bills come rolling in:

Save me, O God, 
   for the waters have come up to my neck. 
I sink in the miry depths, 
   where there is no foothold. 
I have come into the deep waters; 
   the floods engulf me. 
I am worn out calling for help; 
   my throat is parched. 
My eyes fail,    looking for my God. (Psalm 69:1-3)

The question we should ask ourselves is, who is our god, because it certainly does not appear to be Jesus. If it is then we seem to turn our back on him during the Christmas season.

I am not judging any of you here because the vast majority of us are in the same place. I have no credit available to me but I am sure that if I did I would have used it. I managed to live within my means this Christmas but only because I was forced to. But what we are really saying as we rack up the credit is: "Daddy you are not a good provider."

I know a number of you are going to take exception to that. You will say that credit is necessary for cars and houses, that you need to use a credit card to establish your credit. Yes, I understand and agree to all that but it is only a theory. In reality we are owned by the credit card companies. A few people of exception pay the balance off at the end of each month but the large majority of us carry a balance from month to month. Come on, be honest here. If we carry a balance we are not living within our means which means we are saying to our Father: "You are not a good provider", because we have to go beyond what he has supplied us with. I really believe that we need to say with the psalmist:

You know my folly, O God;
   my guilt is not hidden from you.

May those who hope in you
   not be disgraced because of me,
   O Lord, the LORD Almighty;
may those who seek you
   not be put to shame because of me,
   O God of Israel. (Psalm 69:5-6)

It is wrong of us to live this way. It  destroys our witness and robs God of his glory. If you are going to make any resolutions for the new year, one of the ones near the top should be to become satisfied with God's provision; to live within your means. You can get help with this if your "god" has you suppressed. There are credit experts that can exercise that demon right out of you. They can help you get the thing under control and then vanquished from your life. The motivation should not be to save money but because you recognize that you are robbing God of his glory. Your motivation should be love and if it is then I am sure you will be able to beat this thing.

For those of you who do not consider this problem with credit a spiritual matter, I leave you with the apostle Paul's instructions to his friend Timothy:

But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:6-10)

Do something about this before it destroys you and your faith.