October 31, 2011

The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail." Isaiah 58:11

I grew up loving God. I have been a believer for 54 years.

Even though I have never seen God He is more real to me that any person I know. I knew intellectually He was the one thing I needed most of all.

But, there was a time in my life when it seemed I had lost just about everything that mattered to me. I was devastated and complained to God, "I have lost everything! All I have left is You!" This was in the early hours of a sleepless night as I was having a pity party. God broke the silence when He answered, "What else do you need?"

That was a turning point in my life. I went from knowing God to KNOWING GOD! When I was at the point of really understanding God was all I had - I discovered God was all I needed.

Even though I was a believer. Even though I was a pastor. I lived with the silent and mistaken assumption that what I needed for happiness was God plus....... What I discovered was that God IS the plus. True happiness is God - period! Living under the assumption that God plus anything will bring happiness elevates the plus to equal status with God. That sounds like idolatry to me. God isn't really God until He is unrivaled in your life.

Once I discovered that God IS ALL I NEED and once I committed to become complete in Him, I understood that everything else is a bonus!

What is your formula for happiness?

Complete this equation: God + _______ = Satisfaction.

Whatever you write into that blank - a person, a possession, a relationship - whatever, commit that to God and discover that there is no plus there is only a period! When you come to the place where you discover God is all you really want that is the place you will discover He is all you need!

Ready to REALLY know God?

October 30, 201

How many of you believe in eternity?

How many of you are sure that you will spend your eternity in Heaven?

So you believe Heaven is a real place – right?

How many of you have seen Heaven?

How many of you know exactly where it is or what it looks like?

So you haven’t seen it?

Have you touched it?

Have you heard it?

Have you tasted it?

Have you smelled it?

How are you able to know something is real that you haven’t experienced with your senses?

Isn’t that how we usually determine what is real, through our senses? If you can see it then it must be real. If you can touch it, it must be real.

So how do we, as flesh and blood, finite, physical, flawed creatures connect with a reality other than the sights, and sounds, and sins and sufferings of this life?

That is the final thought in this “Terms of Endearment” series:

REPENT – Turn from sins and turn to God

RESTITUTION – Making things right because you’ve been made right.

REDEMPTION – Bought back from sin and slavery by the blood of Jesus

REGENERATION – Spirit brought to life by the Holy Spirit

RECONCILIATION – Connected to God in personal faith relationship

RIGHTEOUSNESS – Made right with God through the righteousness of Christ

The last term associated with salvation is “REALITY”. When you come to Christ in salvation you get a new reality.

(Like People Who Lose Much Weight But Still Think Of Themselves As Heavy)

(Like People Who Suddenly Become Wealthy – Sports Stars, Lottery Winners)

(FPU Is Teaching Us A New Reality About Money – Paper or Plastic Has New Meaning)

These are examples of people who experience a new reality that they will have to adjust to.

Becoming a Christian, a child of God who is redeemed, regenerated, and righteous, is indeed, a reality we have to adjust to. It is a fundamental transformation of how we think, how we love, how we believe, how we see, and what we value. Now we “walk by faith not by sight”

(YOUR FAITH HAS TO BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN YOUR FEELINGS)

(BELIEVING MUST BE MORE REAL THAN SEEING)

(HOPE BECOMES MORE THAN CROSSING YOUR FINGERS A WISHING SOMETHING GOOD WILL HAPPEN – HOPE IS LOOKING TO THE CROSS AND TRUSTING THAT IS HAPPENED)

“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 11:6

This verse reveals how the spiritual reality of faith develops in the life of a believer.

I. LIVING FOR A REAL REASON, V. 6
“Without faith it is impossible to please God…..”

The new reality of faith is that I now live to please God. No longer do I live for what pleases me. I don’t expect God to please me, but I live to please Him. What pleases God is my obedience to His will.

THAT IS WHAT ALL THESE HEROES OF FAITH DID!

Do you live to please God? Is that your primary reason for doing what you do?

How many times this week did you face decisions between what you wanted to do and what you knew would please God? How many times did you choose His will above yours?

The reality that guides a Christian is pleasing God.

II. LIVING FOR A REAL RELATIONSHIP, V. 6b
“…..believe that He exists…..”

Believe God exists and is more real than your reality. Real reasons to know He exists:

a) Creation

b) Christ

c) Changed Lives

If God exists – and He does – then He is real and you need to know Him.

If He is Creator, and Christ and if He changes lives – and He does, then you are accountable to Him and will have to answer to Him – so you’d better be in a faith relationship with Him!

III. LIVING FOR A REWARD, V. 6c
“….and He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.”

a) Abundant Life, John 10:10

b) Eternal Life, John 3:16

c) Crown of Life, James 1:12

d) Jesus IS Our Reward, Philippians 3:7-10

“But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith– that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death”

EXAMPLE:

ENOCH –“ By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.” For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.”

Enoch was the poster child for faith!

He Pleased God

He Knew God

God Was His Reward

Because he let God be so real to him – he got a new reality! ALL THESE SAINTS IN HEBREWS 11 DID!

AS REDEEMED, RECONCILED, REGENERATED, AND RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE. WE DON’T HAVE TO BE OVERCOME BY REALITY! WE OVERCOME BY A HIGHER REALITY!

That’s what real faith does!


Are you living to please God?


Are you living to know God?


If you died tonight what would your reward be?

October 29, 2011

"We walk by faith, not by sight" II Corinthians 5:7


This is a very simple sentence and it sounds relatively easy doesn’t it?

Walking by faith implies trust on something known but unseen.

It brings to mind a time Barbara and I were driving the Blue Ridge Parkway in the late afternoon just before dusk. As the sun dropped lower and the air cooled, fog began developing. We were near Boone, NC and were trying to get to US 421 and get down the mountain before the fog became too thick. It was a nice plan but it didn’t happen. So heavy was the fog that I could not see more than ten feet ahead on the roadway. I didn’t know it I had room to pull off to the right side. Sometimes there is room on the shoulder and sometimes there is a several hundred-foot drop off so I did not want to risk that. All I was able to make out the center line so I slowed down and focused on hugging the center line. Literally, I was driving by faith in the center line rather than by sight. To this day I do not know how far we drove before we got out of the fog but it seemed like one hundred miles. Pavement never looked so good!

What does it mean to “walk by faith and not by sight”?

Hebrews 11:6 says, “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.”

Walking by faith means pleasing God!

God is pleased by our obedience and He is pleased by our dependence upon His Word. When you live to please yourself or you choose to do what you want rather than do what pleases God you are not walking in faith.

Walking by faith means proving God!

God is pleased when we believe what the Word says about Him and live for Him. He wants to be known and He delights in us actively seeking to know Him. Pursuing Him is evidence that we believe He exists. Three ways to believe He exists are: 1) His Creation, 2) His Christ and 3) Changed lives! Allowing Him to change our life is the greatest proof!

Walking by faith means pursuing God!

Like the line on the Parkway in the fog, faith fixes a focus on God and follows Him. Faith earnestly seeks God to know Him, to be known by Him and to make Him known. Faith keeps pursuing God even when life is hard to figure and God is hard to find.

Are you walking by faith?

Are you living to please God?

Are you living proof of God’s existence?



Are you pursuing God passionately?

October 28, 2011

“He made known His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel:” Psalm 103:7


Moses came to know God as few others did. He got real good looks at God because he allowed God to be real to him. It is interesting and instructive, as well as inspiring, to trace how God made Himself known to Moses.

It began with the bush that burned but was not consumed. Burning bushes were not that unusual in the arid desert heat, but a bush that burned but was never burned up WAS unusual. And a bush that burned and was not consumed AND that spoke to him – well that got Moses curious. From that bush God called Moses to lead His people out of Egypt.

Next, we see Moses before the Pharaoh demanding that he let God’s people go. Of course the Pharaoh refused so God brought the series of plagues that eventually broke the Pharaoh’s resolve. But it took a series of ten supernatural plagues from the hand of God to do so. However, in those plagues Moses saw how powerful His God was.

From there, we see Moses and the people of God trapped between the Red Sea and the invading Egyptian army. God instructed Moses to raise his rod over the waters and when he did, God opened the sea so they could walk across on dry land.

Then God revealed Himself in the pillar of fire and the cloud that lead Israel through the wilderness. That was followed by the miraculous provision of the manna and the quail.

All those experiences with God had prepared Moses to climb the holy Mount Sinai to meet with God and receive the Commandments. That was the first of several encounters with God on Sinai for Moses. On one occasion Moses asked God to reveal Himself to Moses, but God only consented to allow Moses to see His backside as he passed by. So, Moses looked at God but only from behind.

Few, if any attain to the level Moses did in his relationship with God. Therefore, God was more real to Moses with each successive God-encounter they had. As a result, God was more real than any of the challenges or problems that confronted him.

How real is God to you? Are you in tune with the power of His presence and are you living to please Him as Moses did?

Are you living in the reality of a God Who is bigger than life and bigger than death and able to deliver His people. That was REAL important to God and Moses!

October 27, 2011

“ Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.” Exodus 3:1-6

God had been active in Moses’ life from the time he was an infant who was hidden in the reeds along the shoreline of the Nile River. And God orchestrated him being found by the daughter of the Pharaoh and then arranged for him to be raised by his own mother. Being taught by a Hebrew mother grounded him in godly faith while growing up in the palace gave him stature with the Egyptian hierarchy.

His passion for his Hebrew heritage flared against an Egyptian taskmaster when Moses saw a Hebrew slave being brutally beaten. In his rage he killed the Egyptian and was forced to flee into the wilderness to escape punishment.

This young man who was groomed to be a prince of Egypt was now herding sheep and goats in the desert. Moses had seen a serious change in his status and prospects. Once a favorite of the Pharaoh he was now a fugitive from the Pharaoh. But, unknown to him, God had him exactly where He wanted him. His crooked path had swerved him into the place where God could meet Him. Moses’ life was about to make another dramatic turn. God was about to call Him to a great task that would change the course of history. God would have to change his story in order for him to shape His story.

Moses, the Hebrew raised in Egypt was about to meet God and experience a new reality. Whenever you meet God it challenges all your previous assumptions and opinions about what is real and what is not. I don’t think that happens in giant steps but in baby steps. Moses and the burning bush is an example of how God leads us from the limitations of our sinful nature to the largeness of His spiritual nature.

I believe this shows us that God gives us supernatural touch points to help us get our heart and mind around a new reality. For Moses, that was a burning bush. For us, it begins with salvation. “If anyone be in Christ He is a new creation. The old is passed away and all becomes new.” II Corinthians 5:17

Big faith comes one little reality changing revelation at a time. As God becomes more real to you, the worldly things become less real and less relevant than spiritual things.

Do you know that reality?

October 26, 2011

“While he was saying this, a synagogue leader came and knelt before him and said, “My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”  Jesus got up and went with him, and so did his disciples.  Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.  She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment. When Jesus entered the synagogue leader’s house and saw the noisy crowd and people playing pipes, he said, “Go away. The girl is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. After the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took the girl by the hand, and she got up. News of this spread through all that region.”  Matthew 9:18-26

“What determines your reality? How do you decide what is real?”

That is a very important question. You need to have a very good answer. Over the next few posts I want to share some examples of people whose faith shaped their reality. They believed what they believed more than they believed what they saw. Christ was more real to them than their circumstances.

Two great examples are shown in these several verses from Matthew 9.

The local synagogue leader – and position of respect and influence in any community – came to Jesus bearing news that was all too real, his beloved daughter laid dead at home. But he made an amazing statement, ““My daughter has just died. But come and put your hand on her, and she will live.”

Wow! Here is a guy who should have been grieving but instead – he was believing! This dad refused to let death have the last word with his daughter. Though there was nothing he could do he knew that Jesus was in town and was convinced that Jesus WAS the Son of God. So his thought process went something like this – Jesus is in town. Jesus in the Messiah come from God. God is the Creator and Giver of life. Therefore, Jesus is connected to the source of life and He should be able to raise my daughter from the dead. THAT was his new reality – his faith in Jesus.

Since he believed so strongly in Jesus, Jesus was able to believe in this guy and He arose to follow this fellow home to raise his deceased daughter. But before they made it to the end of the block a woman with a debilitating blood disease took her opportunity to touch the Master’s garment. There is an important reason she reached for the hem of his garment and I recommend you do some research on it.

Matthew reveals what she was thinking as she reached to touch Jesus, ‘She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.’” Her affliction was real, but her faith was more real. She had a faith that changed her reality. She came with a disease and went home completely healed.

Jesus and the synagogue leader then sped their way to his home. As Jesus entered the house He saw the evidence of a death – mourners and music. Speaking to them, Jesus ordered them to leave. Mourners are for the dead and this girl was not going to be dead. That caused them to mock Him because they were locked into a different reality than He was.

After the commotion was stilled, Jesus went to where the daughter was laid and He proceeded to raise her back to life in respect to the great faith of her father. The father’s faith became reality. By letting Jesus have the last word, death did not.

So, I ask you, “Does reality shape your faith or does your faith shape reality?”

October 25, 2011

"Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted." Matthew 5:4

This is another unexpected secret of satisfaction. Kingdom mourning is not depression but grief over our own spiritual bankruptcy. It is the result of seeing God in His holiness and seeing our own sinfulness in stark contrast. When confronted with God's purity , "those who mourn" are utterly striken by the enormity of debt the owe.

This is the mourning of Isaiah, after seeing "The Lord seated on a high and lofty throne," angels encircling the room, the very foundation quaking beneath his feet, the whole templ filling with the smoke of God;s glory. And without stopping for throught or explanation, Isaiah blurts out the only thing his soul knows to say, "Woe is me, for I am ruined, because I am ruined, because I an a man of unclean lips and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." Isaiah 6:1,5)

This was the experience of Paul, who cried out conerning his ongoing struggle with sin, "What a wretched man I am! Who shall rescue me from this body of death?" (Romans 7:24)

It is the experience of every kingdom ctizen.

But - good news! - those who mourn over their sin are "comforted" by their forgiveness. While our awareness of our need never departs, God's comfort their forgiveness. While our awareness of need never departs, God's comfortis also continual. Our tears are tears of joy. We hurt, but we are satisfied.

This is more than a personal mourning. It's also a shared mourning - a sadness over the damaging effects of sin in our world, in our churches, in our extended families, among our friends. But for us, the sorrowing poor, our tears are turned into happy laughter through the intervention of the Messiah, whose kingdom pleasure is to "comfort all who mourn" (Isaiah 61:2)

Do you mourn today over the sins of your past? Over the sin of someone you love? Find comfort in knowing that through Jesus, God offers forgiveness. Continue to pray for those in sin.