I was thinking today about an incident that happened a few years ago. We lived in Wisconsin at the time and our house was in the middle of quite a few very old, very large trees. Maple, Oak, and… oh who am I kidding? Big old trees, I have no idea what kind. I do know that those trees grew a lot of leaves and in the Fall, much to our chagrin, they would drop their leaves. Everywhere. I bet you didn’t think you were going to get such an in-depth science lesson here today, did you?

As I was saying, leaves. Leaves! We were covered in leaves every Fall. So of course we had no choice but to burn those leaves, which is what Kyle and I chose to do one day. My husband Julian, in preparation, had made an impressive pile of leaves, sticks, and twigs in the fire pit in the backyard. Although we still had mounds surrounding the fire pit that were two and three feet high.

Because we could not find the lighter fluid anywhere my sweet son suggested what most fifteen year-olds would suggest, “I’ll use gasoline.”

I couldn’t think of an alternative quickly enough so that is exactly what he used. But no worries because I was standing by to limit the amount. When I said enough, he stopped. Then as he put the gas can down, I thought about its location and told him to put it a little farther away from the fire. Again he obeyed. We’re nothing if not cautious, you see.

I bet you have no idea where I’m going with this little tale.

Within seconds of tossing the lit match into the fire pit, flames had completely engulfed my son. With one foot still in the fire pit, the flames were literally surrounding him to the point that I couldn’t see him for what seemed forever but in reality was probably a second or two. The burn marks on the ground afterwards were three feet past where he had stood at the time. I screamed and could do little else. The explosion rocked the house which made Niko, my oldest son who had been inside filling out college applications, come running outside. He later said he was just sure his family had been killed in the explosion. I managed to turn my eyes toward the back door but that was the extent of my abilities. I could not move one muscle in my body. I just stood there frozen.

A screaming, frozen woman is really not a lot of help when the back yard is on fire.

Kyle was completely unharmed. Thank you, Jesus. Not a hair on his head, not his clothes, nothing was touched by those flames that had completely overtaken him. The mounds of leaves around the fire pit went up in flames quickly though and those flames ran in different directions even quicker.

As I stood frozen, Kyle yelled to get the hose. Niko turned on the water and like the tin man who had finally been oiled I was able to move again in time to get the hose to Kyle. Niko grabbed a bucket and hurriedly filled it inside the house then ran with it to the flames. Back and forth he ran while Kyle sprayed the flames with the hose. And all the while he kept looking back at me with a beautiful smile on his face saying, “I could be a firefighter! I could!”

God is so good!

And composting didn’t sound too bad to me after that little episode either.

The point of this tale, you ask?

Fire showed me its power that day. Raging flames from just a spark and how rapidly it spreads overtaking everything in its path. And so it is with love.

When we come to know the love of God, when we become completely engulfed by it, His love overtakes everything in our path. Everyone we come in contact with is touched by that love.

At least this, I believe, is as He meant it to be. His love as a fire burning in each of us:  lighting our path, filling our lives with warmth, even removing the dry, lifeless brush that hinders the beauty of life.

May His love burn brightly in each of us today just as He meant it to.

Do you keep a journal? Maybe a prayer journal?

Have you ever read through an entry that was written years back and felt your heart nearly leap from your chest because as you sit in stunned amazement you come to realize that God did everything and more than you asked for there in writing?

I’ve just had such a moment reading through this old entry from 2007:

LABORED ATTENDANCE

Twice in the 12+ years I’ve known the Lord I have felt completely and totally ensconced in a church. I have been: involved, encouraged, taught, stretched, plugged-in, an-integral-part-of, needed, and thrilled to be there. Only twice.

In the first church, I enjoyed this for two years and in the second, three years. And when I say “the first” I mean it literally but “the second” is said only figuratively. There were many churches and many years in between those two experiences. So many that I began to think that my very first church experience of feeling truly a part of a family was quite the anomaly. I wished we had never moved out of state and longed to be a part of this first church again. When I finally “belonged” once again I purposed never to leave this church. I purposed; my sovereign God had other plans.

Currently we attend a very nice church along with a very nice body of believers in a very nice, brand new building. Each Sunday we sit in very nice chairs listening to a very nice sermon. It’s all very nice. Really. Nice.

And I want so much more than nice.

I want passion and belonging; I want accountability, conviction, and tears. I want to gasp and hold my breath, without even realizing it, as I hear the Holy Spirit speak through the words of the pastor. I want a sermon that makes me hang my head and silently weep for forgiveness. And then just as it so often happens when I read the Psalms, I want that same sermon to point me to the God who loves faithfully so I am lifted from my pit of despair, buoyed by His grace. I want to be needed in this fantasy church but not in the nursery or children’s ministry where they send all the newest volunteers. Haven’t I paid those dues? I want to be used in a ministry that reaches outside of the church to love the unlovely and to care for those who can’t care for themselves.

I’m tired of church ministries that only care for their own.

I’m tired of nice. I want more.

And I want to find a church that is filled with believers who feel the same.

And here I sit, just 4 years later, in that very group of believers that I described. One year ago we began attending a brand new church plant without realizing that it would be the answer to our prayers. You can even read here how unlikely I felt it was that this church would be the perfect fit for us. But oh how it is. Perfect for us that is.

We love ONEchapel. We love the Pastor, Ross Parsley and his wife Aimee. We love all of our church family members and how they love us and others. They are passionate about Christ and bringing others into relationship with Him.

We are once again ensconced in a church family and we are thrilled.

I do feel bad about one thing I wrote in the post above though and that is concerning the children’s ministry. I certainly didn’t mean to sound like I don’t like children. I’ve had three and still love them after all these years.

It is just not my calling and yet I’ve always been placed there. It happens in some churches.

I’ve seen how this ministry is supposed to work though here at ONEchapel. I’ve seen the passion and love that exude from those who feel called to serve in children’s ministry. Our children deserve no less.

A few days ago my daughter, Chloe, came home early from her friend’s house. It seems that Catherine’s grandmother had come to visit and they had decided to go to lunch and then do some shopping.

Catherine’s family, and I mean whole family her grandparents, aunts, and uncles included, are of the very wealthy variety. When they do lunch or go shopping it’s usually at the country club and then a Neiman Marcus type of store. They are all extremely kind and very often they have included Chloe in their plans. Just today in fact, after one of their infrequent, highly-coveted sleepovers, Catherine’s mom took the girls to a local country club that has recently added a small water park.

The girls have only known each other for about two months but in that time Chloe has been introduced to a very different way of life than she is used to, well, living.

But I digress.

On the day she came home early she nonchalantly mentioned something the Grandma had asked. If it started to rain, she wanted Chloe to come back and take the laundry off the line. She said that the laundry basket would be just inside the unlocked garage door.

Julian did a double take. “She wants her to ride her bike back there in the rain, take their clean laundry off the line, fold it, place it into a basket, put it in the garage and then ride back home? In the rain?”

I thought of how nice they have been and the request just didn’t seem that odd to me. Besides, my daughter had readily and humbly agreed. Didn’t that reflect well on the Jesus she loves? Chloe is our baby, our small-for-her-age youngest child, sometimes we think of her as younger than she is. She will be twelve in a few months though; she is fully capable of folding laundry. Although, I can’t honestly say she’s ever taken clothes off of a line because I love my dryer and I would never cheat on my dryer with that well built, flirtatious laundry line out back. Oh I’ve thought about it, that I will admit, but I’ve never acted on those thoughts because loyalty is my middle name.

The hours passed and the sun continued to shine. Around the time that Catherine was expected home the sky became overcast and I began to think that rain was not only imminent but would be here quickly. I told Chloe to head out to their house and take care of their laundry. A few minutes later I saw her coming back up the driveway.

She must have worked fast, I thought. For a second I was just a little proud of her.

Then she told me that she couldn’t reach the clothes pins and she wasn’t able to get any of the clothes down. That meant that I would have to go and help her.

Suddenly, folding the rich people’s laundry up the street didn’t seem like such a great idea. The thoughts that entered my head were absolutely appalling. Whose thoughts were these? They were so ugly.

As I walked towards their home with the slight drizzle coming down I talked with God. I could clearly see how selfish I was being, not to mention hypocritical. But something about this situation was making me feel lees than. No one was even around to look down on me but I felt lowly.

“Help me Lord, I don’t want to feel this, this sin; it’s just disgusting.

Take every thought captive to Jesus Christ – it was as if I was reading this verse right off the page.

So I did.

And then the feelings started to make sense. Satan was hard at work in my thought life.

It was a strange lesson for me. One minute I was thinking that something was perfectly fine for my daughter to do and the next I was feeling belittled by being called to do it myself. I recognized why God raised the laundry line just out of Chloe’s reach. It was a necessary lesson to show me how easily I allow satan to get a foothold in my life.

Sometimes being the parent all the time leads me to forget I am still His child and I should readily and humbly agree to whatever He asks. Chloe and I quickly yet cheerfully finished up our God-given task just in time for the sun to come back out.

And for a second I imagined it was my Father God shining His face upon me.

I hadn’t been a Christian very long when it happened, less than 6 months, if I remember correctly. My oldest son was in kindergarten at a Christian school and I was usually on my best behavior when I was around these Godly people; I never wanted them to doubt my Christianity.

My life prior to knowing Christ had not been an innocent one, to put it mildly. But I was under the assumption it should have been, er… I should have been. These people who worked at the school didn’t seem like could possibly have the past that I had, their eyes hadn’t been witness to some of the horrors, difficulties and sin mine had, at least that’s the way it seemed.

So when Niko’s teacher pulled me aside as I arrived to pick him up from school that day, I quickly became worried by her behavior. She was obviously very upset and I could not imagine what my son might possibly have said or done to have her acting so strange.

“Something very upsetting happened today and I feel I need to discuss it with you before you see your son,” she whispered.

I tried to imagine what the upsetting thing might be, but he was normally such a well-behaved child I couldn’t come up with anything off-the-cuff.

“Do you know what it means “to be mooned?” she asked me very seriously.

Now my heart sank, of course I knew what it meant, but I didn’t know that Niko knew. But wait, she was asking, which meant maybe I shouldn’t know, maybe most Christians didn’t know. Was this some kind of trick question? If I say “yes” is she automatically going to assume we drive around as a family and moon people for fun? No way was I going to admit that I knew, so I just kinda bobbed my head in a few different directions and mumbled under my breath. Strange as I must have looked, she took it as a “no” and decided to define the term for me.

Well, now I was forced to act shocked because what other reaction could I possibly have to such a crude act? The pretense worked, she obviously believed that I was as innocent as she, because she was now looking at me with concern rather than the disgust she would have, had she known that I actually did know what mooning someone was after all.

“Well, we had an incident here today…”

She started to tell me very slowly and calmly, obviously hoping I’d take my cue from her and remain calm in the face of this tragedy.

“… and I hate to have to be the one to tell you this but, well, we’ve had Niko in the principal’s office for most of the afternoon, just kind of talking him through this incident…”

There was that word incident again; at this point, I really just wanted her to spit it out, tell me what happened. I was beginning to think maybe we were being asked to leave the school.

Finally I heard her say, “Niko was mooned on the playground today.”

I honestly had to hold back a chuckle. Oh, what a complete relief.

“Oh, how funny,” I thought to myself.

“Ohhhhh!” I said in shock and grasping my chest. I was stuck in Pretendville with not a clue how to react or what she expected of me.

“You’ll probably want to discuss it with him, we needed you to know we’ve handled the situation on our end to the best of our abilities and we’ll be in prayer that this doesn’t affect him in the future.”

“Thank you,” was about all I could muster.

As we drove home together in the car, I looked at Niko. He didn’t look tramatized. So I smiled, then I asked him how his day was. He said it was good.

“Anything new I should know about?” I asked.

“Nope.” Came the reply. “Oh, something weird did happen, Katie showed me her butt, she’s really weird.”

“Yeah, that is weird,” I said, “Do you want to go get ice cream?”

He nodded excitedly.

I sighed from relief, I had left Pretendville and was now back in familiar territory where ice cream still fixed everything.

Do you remember any of your thoughts and feelings about life prior to accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?

It may be a gift that my great God has given me; it may be unusual but I do remember the emptiness, the huge hole in my life that nothing, not people, fun, family, money, career, not even human love could fill.

I went through life hoping deep inside – so deep I didn’t even realize it myself for a long time – that everything that could be seen with my eyes or that I had already experienced or accomplished was not all that life was about. Seriously, life had been incredibly good at times but was it really all there was?

The people that had the most influence in my life were always those who were the most passionate about something. The ones who were willing to live differently for the sake of their cause. I easily could have been swayed into becoming anything because I truly stood for nothing. I had no convictions that I would have been willing to stake my reputation on and definitely not my life.

Then Jesus made Himself known to me and saved me and everything inside of me changed. I knew for the first time in 33 long years of life that there was meaning and purpose in why I was here. I was created to glorify God and I was made for relationship with that great God.

Everything I had previously thought about my life just had to change. I was not created so that I could enjoy a long life and make friends and influence people. I was not put here on this earth to have fun, enjoy what the world had to offer and oh yeah go to church on Sundays. My life was to be about HIM.

I was different and people who knew me saw that difference. I no longer swore, I didn’t live for the next party. I didn’t take part in things that didn’t honor God. I no longer drank in order to enjoy myself, I could have fun in a crowd or by myself because He was with me. My life’s focus was Jesus. I was always about my Father’s business. Always. There were people who recognized the strength and peace that Jesus had filled my life with and wanted this for themselves. There were also people in my life who wanted nothing to do with me any longer. They didn’t see strength and peace but instead only saw my changed life as an inconvenience. It was convicting to be around me now that I wasn’t living a life filled with self sin.

Accepting Jesus made me different, there was no arguing that, and people around me saw it. It wasn’t always easy to be different from others but I slept soundly at night knowing that I was called to be different, set apart from the world I lived in.

But something has changed in my life lately. I’m not as different from the world as I used to be. The culture has crept in and the areas that once used to be black and white to me have blurred to gray. Over the years people that I have truly loved, other Christians in fact, have taught me that engaging the culture is perfectly fine. With words and actions they told me that looking like the world, acting like the world, and participating in the things of this world would actually help me bring Christ to that dying world.

For the last few years I’ve been very much a part of my culture, I no longer stand out from the non-believers in my neighborhood, my town, or my country. Put me next to a non-believer and you’d never be able to tell the difference. No I don’t swear, and yes, I’m nice to everyone I meet but you can find millions of really nice non-believers just like me. I have an entire extended family full of awesome, lovely people who are all going to die without Christ. But you’d like them, they’re nice.

So how can I possibly think that being nice to people while living just like them, is going to bring anyone to Christ? The sad fact is, it hasn’t for quite sometime.

I let a watered-down version of Christianity take over in my life because people around me that I loved had every excuse in the book for why it’s okay to live a life exactly like an unsaved neighbor for the sake of bringing Christ to them.

Guess what? It doesn’t work. It’s impossible to bring Christ down to them. Christ isn’t in that type of life. Christ didn’t live that type of life on earth and neither did any of his true followers. Engaging the culture by acting no different than the unsaved world around us does not bring Christ to a dying world. It makes for a pretty easy life for us; it helps to avoid persecution of any sort. It keeps us from having to inconvenience ourselves in anyway but it is not dying to self for the sake of the unsaved world. Most importantly a life lived engaging the culture does not force us to stand up for the gospel of Jesus Christ, it never makes us stand for His truth, it never forces us to identify Christ as our Savior and give the reason for the hope that we have within us. It never seems to open the door for us to preach in all seasons.

If I compare my life the last few years with that of any New Testament disciple I can only say that my life actually looks as though I am ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. I have blended in with this world and this culture to the extent of being unusable. And in tears I ask, have you?

I am NOT ashamed of Jesus!

I remember the emptiness, I remember and my heart cries for those who feel the same now and don’t know that there is a different way because they see no difference.

In the New Testament, Christians were actually referred to as those who followed the way. The Way! Try to convince me that they didn’t stand out, that they weren’t different. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He is my life! He is your life. Is it evident? Do people ask you how is it that you have the strength, conviction and power to stand against the tide? If I just blend in, is what I believe being lived out?

I do not want to stand out from my peers as in, “Hey look at me aren’t I grand?”

When I use the words set apart I use them in the context of being sanctified, set apart for His purposes. I don’t want to draw people to me but to point them to the One who can save their souls. This life isn’t about me. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives within me. The life I live in the body I now live by faith in the Son of God who died for me.

I have tried living life on earth as a believer acknowledging gray areas and giving an approving nod to my fellow sojourners who choose to make choices that I have always believed hindered their walk. I have kept my mouth shut for the sake of unity. And in the process of doing so, I have become a weak and useless believer. I have not lead another human being, who is dead in their sins, to the Christ who can make them alive forever, in quite some time.

I don’t want to live this way.

I want to be used of God in a mighty way, in the way we read that the disciples were used in the New Testament.

I believe in my heart of hearts that the gray areas have weakened me spiritually and have quenched the Holy Spirit in my life.

I do not want to stand out but I want Christ as my life to stand out. I want the power of His Spirit to be evident in my life to the world around me again. And I say again because there was a time that when you looked at me you saw Christ and no one else. I was strong in the Lord and in His might.

In those days I witnessed friends and family forced not by me but by their own convictions to make a decision to either continue hanging around me and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or choose to walk away from me. I loved all of them but I stood for the things of the Lord and those who were of the world, the enemies of God, could not stand to be inundated with His truth daily.

I now see clearly that the things I slowly accepted as gray areas drained me spiritually. A person, especially an intellectual one, could come on here and comment about using all of the things of the culture to lead people to Christ and make complete sense in doing so. But, and this is a really big but, we have no idea what their spiritual life looks like. We have no idea if they are being used by the Lord to do anything at all. If they are a blogger, they may write beautifully and make people laugh and feel great. They may even make non-believers feel comfortable around them but none of that is spiritual fruit. And God tells us we are known by our fruit.

Well I’m here today to tell you that lately my tree is fruitless. I live a nice life, I get a long with my neighbors. People like me.

And still I am fruitless.

And it’s killing me. Slowly but surely I am dying here, I am losing His powerful life within me.

Dear Jesus, please give strength and clarity of thought. Help me to pour out your love to a broken, hurting, dying world without compromising my faith. Compel me to make your name and renown the only thing I stand for.

Sorry, I needed that desperately just now.

Anyway, in the past I have become afraid to stand up and say just this, “You can do what you want. You can handle all of your decisions and dilemmas just the way world does if you like. You can leave your Bible on your bookshelf and go to the secular world for advice. You can completely compromise the faith you claim to follow. Feel free to argue that everything you do is basically a gray area.  I will not. I will however, by faith, love you regardless of the fact that I don’t agree with you. I will not take spiritual advice from you but I will love you. If you find you need me, I am here for you with no – I told you so. I am here to love you because as we both know love is never a gray area.”

A few winters ago when we lived in Wisconsin and after a bad snow storm, my husband was required to help move cars around at the dealership he works at in order to get the entire lot cleared of snow.

After hours of getting in and out of cars, cleaning the snow from those same cars, and trudging through a foot of snow he realized his wedding ring was missing. He called to tell me the bad news; we prayed that God would show him where it was.

A week later, when the snow started to melt, we decided to take some time out of our Sunday afternoon (when the dealership was closed) to have a look around. The kids and I had still been praying fervently every night and I truly believed this would be the day we found his ring.

As we passed by people who used Sundays as their day to “shop” unhindered by those pesky car salesmen, I made jokes about having to be married to whoever found the ring and put it on. The immense size of the car lot did not detour my faith. We didn’t find the ring but I knew God knew where it was.

I found this scripture,

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Heb 4:13 NIV

and prayed it back to Lord.

Three days later my daughter came running into the house. She was beaming as she showed me the ring her daddy had bought for her. She had lost it during the summer but she had had no idea where. Seems it had spent the winter buried under snow but as the sun shone upon the small gold band that was tucked safely in between a few white rocks in the garden, by God’s grace, it had caught my daughter’s attention. She was so extremely happy!

I couldn’t wait to tell my husband because (as I stated to everyone who would listen) to me this was God’s way of telling us to have faith, he knows everything and where everything is too. He would give Julian back his wedding ring in His timing! Bold proclamation to be sure, but for some reason, I was sure!

It was just one of those rare times when my faith was unwavering and I knew that I knew that God would return his ring.

It was rubbing off on Julian too because he continued to tell everyone at work, no matter how they scoffed at him, that God was going to return his wedding ring to him.

It wasn’t more than a few days later that my husband stopped home to show me his wedding ring back on his left hand where it belonged. The men he worked with were so shocked that he actually found the ring like he said that they even put up with his talk about God a bit more than usual. Isn’t God good?

From the beginning of the world to its end, there is no place you can look and not see Jesus. He is everywhere. He is everything. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” – Colossians 1:17

In Genesis, He is the Creator God.

In Exodus, He is the Redeemer.

In Leviticus, He is your sanctification.

In Numbers, He is your guide.

In Deuteronomy, He is your teacher.

In Joshua, He is the mighty conqueror.

In Judges, He gives victory over enemies.

In Ruth, He is your kinsman, your lover, your redeemer.

In I Samuel, he is the root of Jesse;

In 2 Samuel, He is the Son of David.

In 1 Kings and 2 Kings, He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords

In 1st and 2nd Chronicles, He is your intercessor and High Priest.

In Ezra, He is your temple, your house of worship.

In Nehemiah, He is your mighty wall, protecting you from your enemies.

In Esther, He stands in the gap to deliver you from your enemies.

In Job, He is the arbitrator who not only understands your struggles, but has the power to do something about them.

In Psalms, He is your song-and your reason to sing.

In Proverbs, He is your wisdom, helping you make sense of life and live it successfully.

In Ecclesiastes, He is your purpose, delivering you from vanity.

In the Song of Solomon, He is your lover, your Rose of Sharon.

In Isaiah, He is the mighty counselor, the prince of peace, the everlasting father, and more. In short, He’s everything you need.

In Jeremiah, He is your balm of Gilead, the soothing salve for your sin-sick soul.

In Lamentations, He is the ever-faithful one upon whom you can depend.

In Ezekiel, He is your wheel in the middle of a wheel-the one who
assures that dry, dead bones will come alive again.

In Daniel, He is the ancient of days, the everlasting God who never runs out of time.

In Hosea, He is your faithful lover, always beckoning you to come back-even when you have abandoned Him.

In Joel, He is your refuge, keeping you safe in times of trouble.

In Amos, He is the husbandman, the one you can depend on to stay by your side.

In Obadiah, He is Lord of the Kingdom.

In Jonah, He is your salvation, bringing you back within His will.

In Micah, He is judge of the nation.

In Nahum, He is the jealous God.

In Habakkuk, He is the Holy One.

In Zephaniah, He is the witness.

In Haggai, He overthrows the enemies

In Zechariah, He is Lord of Hosts.

In Malachi, He is the messenger God.

In Matthew, He is king of the Jews.

In Mark, He is the servant.

In Luke, He is the Son of Man, feeling what you feel.

In John, He is the Son of God.

In Acts, He is Savior of the world.

In Romans, He is the righteousness of God.

In I Corinthians, He is the rock that followed Israel.

In II Corinthians, He is the triumphant one, giving victory.

In Galatians, He is your liberty; He sets you free.

In Ephesians, He is head of the Church.

In Philippians, He is your joy.

In Colossians, He is your completeness.

In I Thessalonians, He is your hope.

In II Thessalonians, He is your patience and discipline.

In I Timothy, He is your faith.

In II Timothy, He is your stability.

In Titus, He is the truth.

In Philemon, He is your benefactor.

In Hebrews, He is your perfection.

In James, He is the power behind your faith.

In I Peter, He is your example.

In II Peter, He is your purity.

In I John, He is your life.

In II John, He is your pattern.

In III John, He is your motivation.

In Jude, He is the foundation of your faith.

In the Revelation, He is your coming King.

Once upon a time I had a thought. I mulled over that thought and as minutes turned into hours, hours into days, still I could be found thinking about the Christ, Jesus the Christ to be exact.

I thought about the definition of the word Christian, which is “belonging to Christ.” I thought about Jesus as my Life, not just in my life. And finally I thought about the verse found in Galatians 2:20,

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

I know, I know, that’s probably way too much thinking for someone like me but rest assured no one, myself included, was hurt during this long, strenuous process. I’m sure the padded helmet helped tremendously.

Anyway, this morning my mind seemed to be headed into a new direction, or so I thought. I awoke thinking how foolish I was at times to seek after happiness, fulfillment, contentment, even godliness or righteousness. I thought about how many times I had heard different people witnessing to non-believers say that Christ could save them from hell, if they would just believe in him. Even worse, I had heard others say that they should believe in Jesus to find peace.

While all of the outcomes may be good, right, pure, and true, should we really be seeking the benefits above the benefactor? Should our goal be to have it all together, to be faultless? Is that what makes us a Christian? Should we be telling people to believe in Christ for the benefits it brings to their life? And if I’m seeking after these things rather than the one who provides them, is there anyway I can ever find them? I think not.

I’m sure many of us have, even if we don’t relish admitting it, flipped on TBN just in time to catch Benny Hinn or another word-of-faith teacher tell us to send in our seed money or our $1000 faith gift, “even if you can’t afford it, in fact especially if you can’t afford it.” Their reasoning is that God can not be out given so if we give, then God will have to give. The more we give then the more we get, and if we don’t have it’s because we haven’t given. It’s easy to see the discrepancy in their teaching versus the Word of God, they aren’t teaching obedience to His Word but rather seek the benefits, with their own little twists of the truth thrown in for good measure.

But how is seeking righteousness any different? Isn’t righteousness the outcome of a life surrendered to Christ, one that is laid down in sacrifice to the one who gave His all for us? If I truly no longer live, as Galatians says, but Christ lives in me, then wouldn’t Christ be doing the same today in me, as He did 2000 years ago? That is to say, wouldn’t He be about His Father’s business, living in complete obedience to God? So then the only thing I should be seeking is to allow Christ in me to be obedient to God’s Word.

There will come a day when each of us stands before the God of all creation and answers to Him for our life here on earth. Some will have nothing to say for themselves at all, they never believed, some even boldly denied, that the God of the Bible is the one true living God.

Then there will be those who claim the name of Jesus as their VIP pass into heaven, they’ll stand before God and say, “I believed in Jesus, I read the Bible, I went to church every Sunday, and I even put my children in Christian school.” Yet Jesus will have been standing there listening to them the whole time that they spoke and they will not recognize Him until they hear Him say, “I never knew you, depart from me…” And off they’ll go sporting the perfect do, the perfect education, maybe even the perfect reputation. As 2 Timothy 3:5 puts it,

“having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”
I don’t want to be found standing in either of these lines. I’d rather take the service elevator to my Savior’s throne and be cleaning the leather or polishing the jewels encrusted in it when this is going on.

When all is said and done, the fires of judgment will diminish, and only those things done by Jesus himself through me will remain to be rewarded. The rewards are not the benefit I seek but only to stand approved before God, and it is only Christ in me that can accomplish this goal. Christ in me the hope of glory!

There was an awful lot a few years back about the purpose of one’s life. Believers and non-believers alike made one particular book on the subject a best seller. Yet we need only go to our Bibles to find what God says is the purpose that should “drive” us.

Colossians 1:16 says, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him…” It seems silly to write an entire book concerning our purpose here on earth when it could so easily be summed up in just a few words – to glorify God. We were created for Him; only He knows each individual’s purpose. Wouldn’t it be more prudent to ask God what He would have us do to glorify Him?

In Revelation 4:11 we read, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” So here’s another reason that the Lord Almighty has created us – for His pleasure. But wait Hebrews 11:6 also says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Was this mentioned to all the non-believers looking for a purpose driven life? Was the Gospel clearly laid out to those who don’t know that the Lord Jesus Christ died for their sins and made it possible for them to be reconciled with God through faith in Jesus Christ? Without this life-giving information, it’s impossible for any one to know their true purpose and live it.

God wrote a book too and although it may be the number one best seller of all time, I don’t believe it’s the most read. Every time I search out wisdom from man on my life’s purpose, no matter how well known or how large their church has grown, it’s time taken away from what could have been direct communication with the God of the universe on the subject. I’m not opposed to reading anything other than the Bible but what we do read should always point us back to God’s Word.

I don’t need a purpose driven life. In the long run that simply makes this life all about me and that’s my natural, fleshly inclination anyway. What I need is a Bible-driven life, a life that is centered on and motivated by the Word of God. The Lord has so much He wants to tell us; won’t you let Him speak to you today through His Word?

Father God,
Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. Forgive me for looking to others for their advice and teachings on the purpose of my life. Your Word clearly tells me in Job 36:22 that no one can teach me as you can. I pray that from this moment on I will come to you and you alone for your wisdom. I pray that I would glorify you Lord for this is my heart’s desire.
In the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen

While I was looking through some of my old writings that are saved on this computer, I was surprised by how relevant most of them are today. I realized that my writings on the web began days after the terror attacks on 9-11-2001. Only because I was looking for a more convenient way of publishing what I wrote on the web, the site gradually morphed into blogging. I had no idea what I was getting myself into at that time and how many rabbit trails the whole blogging process would lead me down.

I’m going to occasionally publish – with a few tweaks – some of those that are still applicable today. Since you can’t turn on the news nowadays without feeling the cloud of depression moving in I’ll start with the post below.

Fellow saints, I pray that our God may count you worthy of His calling and that by His power He may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. I pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Thessalonians 1:11)

The Lord’s Spirit is working greatly on this earth during this troubling time. I along with so many other Christians have a renewed sense of boldness. His Spirit confides in those who fear Him and He is speaking words of hope and promise. People are lamenting, “… things will never be the same …” Praise God! Let this be true, Oh Holy One.

Show me your ways , O Lord, teach me your paths;
guide me in your truth and teach me,
for you are my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.
Psalm 25:4,5

The world does not open it’s heart to truth easily, sometimes that heart has to be broken to be opened at all. Now is the time to tell this hurting world about Christ. We as Christians should not be talking of fear, for the Lord has not given us the spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord. (2 Timothy 1:7,8a) Only His love and forgiveness can heal the pain in this world. We can be bold in our witness regardless of what the future holds because we know personally the One Who holds the future.
Our faith declares that the times ahead will be difficult, but our faith in Christ also comforts us with “a peace that transcends all understanding”, we need to show this peace to others. Strength through adversity and peace in turmoil, these are attributes of true Christianity. If you are finding these difficult to display to the world then you must do something about it. Spend extra time with the Lord; ask Him to reveal Himself through you to others. We need to be in His Word and in prayer for the country. Our witness is not in our words so much as in our actions and if we aren’t truly different than non-believers, what then do we have to offer? If our faith isn’t giving us hope and peace then what exactly does if offer to others? All that we do should be to the Lord’s glory, keep this in mind as you interact with the people around you today. The world is looking for hope and by our words and actions we can either lead them to or away from Him Who offers it.