Missing The Promise

As we enter into the Christmas Season we talk about so many different aspects of the coming of the promised Savior of the world, the Messiah (Christ), God in the flesh.

We talk about God’s love being demonstrated. We talk about the humility of God, the Grace of God, the purpose of His coming, and many other things.

One thing that we often touch on, but never really address is… How could the Jewish people miss the very promise they were waiting for so eagerly? When they have the same prophetic scriptures (the Old Testament) that we have, when they made it their custom for each male to memorize the Scriptures by a certain age, and when they had religious leaders who studied the scriptures daily and taught them regularly, how could they not recognize their God in the flesh? How could they not recognize the manifestation of the promise that they clung to so tightly?

The Jewish nation was regularly, due to their unfaithfulness to God, overcome by foreign kingdoms. At the time of Christ’s coming they were occupied by the Roman Empire. They were praying for, believing for, and eagerly watching for the coming of their King, Messiah/Christ, and Savior. Yet, when He came not only did they not recognize Him (the Promise of God manifest), but they rejected Him and killed Him. Why?

I believe that the reason is very similar to why we often times fail to recognize God’s blessings (in the various forms they come in) in our life.

I don’t think the issue is ignorance. Most people of God know enough to know there is a promise, to ask and believe for the promise, and to watch for it.

I don’t think the issue is lack of adherence to religion. Most people of God who take it serious are faithful in their attending worship services at least and maybe studying scripture, praying, etc.

I think the issue is a few things…

1) I think the biggest thing is they put God in a box. They limited how God would fulfill His promise to how they thought He should fulfill it. They limited God’s promise to their narrow understanding of what it was. They had a picture in their minds of what and how and when it didn’t line up with that, rather than saying, “We missed it, we’re wrong! This is it!” they rejected the real thing and said, “This isn’t it. We’ll wait until God gets it right, until it’s the way and how we think it should be.”

How often do we limit God’s blessings/promises in our lives? How often do we end up rejecting that manifest blessing/promise, thus resisting God and His work in our life, in order to hold out for something in the method and form we think it should be.

2) I think they were proud and thus stiff-necked, about what they thought they knew. They were inflexible, unteachable, and unwilling to admit they were wrong or didn’t understand and then change.

This unwillingness to be shaped and molded, this unwillingness to be teachable and recognize that we don’t know it all, and even what we think we know may only be a small fragment of a much larger picture that will require us to change some things as we gain a more fuller understanding, this unwillingness to change when we’re wrong or when God wants to work outside the box of what we understand, what is convenient, and what is comfortable is sin and robs us and others of God’s best, His blessings/promises as He sees best to give them.

3) I think they were too busy with their own agenda. The were so busied with practicing a dead religion/covenant that God said was over, that they had no time to work with God in this new thing He was doing.

How often do we cling to dead things that are not producing? Maybe they worked in the past, but they aren’t today. How often do we cling to things because it’s what we know or prefer and are comfortable with? How often are we busied by the things of this world, even by religious activities, that we aren’t available to work with God on what He is doing? Thus we go about doing something for God rather than with God, spending our time, money, and energy in things that He’s not even a part of.

4) We know they were living a less than wholly devoted life to the Lord. Jesus regularly referred to them as hypocrites. We know they taught and practice one thing publicly, but privately they lived out something different. It’s not that they didn’t believe in God, but they didn’t walk in the Fear/Honor of God.

This lack of integrity in their faith/spirituality placed them at odds with God rather than coworkers and friends with God. This half-hearted approach to walking with God left them in a place where they had false security, thinking they were right with God, thinking they knew, when in fact they were neither right with God or right in what they thought they knew.

A lack of integrity in our walk with God puts us in the same position. We can lie to others and deceive them, we can even lie to and deceive ourselves, but we can never lie to and deceive God. He knows what we do and say in all places, not just church and around certain believers. He knows what we really think and feel in spite of what front we may put up to cover it.

5) They didn’t have that authentic, intimate, and passionate relationship with God and because they didn’t walk with God faithfully everyday, they were not in the position to really hear from Him and recognize His activity, what He was up to, and in fact they didn’t even recognize Him. They went through all the right motions, but what they had was a substitute for the real thing. They had religion and ritual, but they missed the whole point of this creation… relationship with God.

Relationship isn’t easy and to have a happy, healthy, passionate, and thriving relationship it takes work, investment, and sacrifice. It is for these reasons that many settle for less in their earthly marriage relationships and it’s why many Christians settle for less in their spiritual relationship with God. We think it requires to much from us, we think it costs to much, we want something and don’t want to give it up (we’re selfish). But the fact is, lack of quality relationship with God is probably the key reason we are robbed of God’s best in our life. It’s probably the key reason we don’t hear from God and experience God like He says He wants us to and that we should.

I realize that all 5 of these issues are connected and overlap; yet each one is a specific issue that we must take to heart and take to God.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I don’t want to become confident in where I am and miss where God wants to take me. I don’t want to become cemented in what little I know and miss the more God wants to teach me. I don’t want to be praying for the blessings/promises of God and then miss them when He gives them to me. I don’t want to think I’m all right with God, but in reality be in a disjointed or even broken relationship with Him.

I want to become all God made me to be. I want to experience all God has for me to experience. I want to walk with God, know God, know His ways, and work with Him in what He is doing and how He is doing it, breaking free from my natural standard of living and break into a supernatural way of life.

One Life To Live

Psalm 90:12 Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 39:4-6 4 "Show me, O LORD, my life's end
and the number of my days;
let me know how fleeting is my life.
5 You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man's life is but a breath.
Selah
6 Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro:
He bustles about, but only in vain;
he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.

Psalm 144:4 Man is like a breath; his days are like a fleeting shadow.

In May of this year (2008), not far from my house, there was a car accident in which 2 teenage boys were killed and a third seriously injured while goofing around with friends.

Yesterday, 11/18/2008, a 26 year old woman, mother of two, was killed in a car accident on ice.

Not to long ago a young mother, in her 30’s, died of cancer.

We live in a broken world that doesn’t work right, the way God created it to. We now have death, disease, deformities, and depravity of every kind (moral and physical). Life here on earth is fragile and fleeting.

My compulsion in sharing is not so much to address the bad things of this broken world, but rather to emphasize the reality that we all have only one life to live and we should live it well and wisely.

Whether we live 18 years or 80 years, the fact is we are all going to die and the time here on earth we do have is relatively short in the light of eternity.

I want to encourage us to live life to the full. Don’t settle for anything less than God’s best.

I want to encourage us to live with eternity in our view. Don’t waste your life living and striving for things that are of no value eternally.

Keep life, the good and the bad, in perspective. It can always be better, it can always be worse, but the truth is that neither matter because this world is not our home, it is not where we will spend the majority of our existence.

I want to encourage us to live a life that is meaningful and one that God can bless and take pleasure in, one that stores up for us much reward/treasure in the next life.

I want to encourage us to live a life that doesn’t leave people guessing about our eternal destination.

I know so many people that go to church, claim a belief, but by their lifestyle cause you to wonder what they really believed. Where was their heart? What did they truly believe and live for? If actions speak louder than words, then many weren’t living up to the claims of their mouth. If actions speak louder than words, then they were telling us by their lifestyle a whole different set of values and beliefs than they were saying with their mouth.

It is these kind of people that make funerals so hard. Complete Godless heathens aren’t hard. Faithful Christians aren’t hard. It’s the wishy washy, lukewarm, double minded, half-hearted, and hypocritical that make things very difficult. You believe and hope for the best, but there is always that gnawing ache in your mind and heart that makes you struggle with the question, “Where did they end up?”

Let’s live in such a way that when our day does come to leave this world and all that is in it behind, let’s be able to look back with no regrets. Let’s be able to look back and know our life counted for something more than just living as a selfish consumer. Let’s be able to look back and see that we made a contribution to the world, an eternal contribution. Let’s be able to here that commendation, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

We all have one life to live. Let’s make it count. Let’s give it our BEST shot.

Lastly, let’s keep in mind that this is true of every person around us to. This life is fragile and sooner or later each of those people will also leave this world. Are they ready? Are we doing what we can, in word and deed (lifestyle), to reach these people for eternity? Are we giving them every reason we can in word and deed to turn to the only one who can give them that guaranteed future of life, peace, love, and bliss? Or are we giving them another excuse of why this whole God, Jesus, Heaven, and Hell thing is just bunk and shouldn’t be followed?

“If it were true, wouldn’t the Christians really live it?”

Many people find the proof that the Bible is true is that we faithfully live it, and in their minds the proof that it’s no big deal and just a fairytale or waste of time is that we, who claim to believe it, don’t live like we do, we don’t live like it’s all true.

Live your one life for God’s approval, to be a reason not an excuse for people to follow or not follow Jesus, and determine to settle for nothing less than your life being all God made you to be, experiencing life to the full and making your life count having maximum impact.

God Bless America

We have all heard the phrase and probably even said or prayed it ourselves, but what is it we’re really asking for?

When you say the word blessing the first thing that comes to most peoples mind is some thing or experience that results in pleasure/personal gratification fulfilling the desires of our flesh, or ego, or emotions, or all three. Most think of a blessing as getting what I want.

But, a blessing is a thing or experience that BENEFITS the one who receives it. It may involve pleasure and gratification, but it may not. It may be getting what we want, but it may not.

Jesus said, “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?” (Luke 9:25 NLT)

God wants to bless us, meaning He wants to work in our life that which will benefit us, and sometimes it’s not getting what we WANT, but rather what we NEED. Sometimes it’s getting the answer we don’t want to hear.

A good friend of mine was teaching on the power of prayer and said, “Some people accuse God of not answering prayer. It’s not that God doesn’t answer. It’s that sometimes the answer is ‘No’.” It’s not what we want, but it’s what we need, and it is an answer.

Jesus tells us it’s not always to a man’s benefit to gain the whole world (i.e. get what he wants all the time), but in fact may be to his detriment.

Sometimes the prayer, “God bless so and so…” is asking God to NOT give them the things/pleasure they desire. Sometimes it is to our benefit that God says no.

Taking it a step further, sometimes the benefit is even painful. When my children are purposefully disobeying and misbehaving after being corrected they experience love in the form of punishment. I’m not out to harm them. I don’t want to inflict pain because I hate them. I want to train and help them now while the pain is controlled and minimal, rather then let them go off and destroy themselves and others with wrong living.

If this is true for the individual then what does this mean on a national level?

When we say “God bless America” we may be thinking a prosperous economy, peace, freedom, pleasure, happiness, etc. But, it may very well be an invitation for God to show his love by giving us what we NEED and not what we WANT. It may be an invitation for God lovingly withhold even the perceived good things to help us enter in to the great things down the road.

Often in our narrow and selfish perspectives on life we fail to see the destructive nature of some wants in our life. Because they seem fun, exciting, pleasurable, etc. we think they’re for us (a blessing), and yet to have it, or more of it, or other things would be a curse not a blessing.

Getting what we want all the time, always getting our way, things always being handed to us, being free from discipline/punishment and consequences are not a blessing, but rather a curse.

So, on a national level, I wonder if our request for God to bless America is being fulfilled in some of the difficult situations our country is facing. Rather than pointing fingers and blaming one or two people, perhaps we need to realize that America has been blessed with a lot of stuff and opportunities, but maybe we’ve become such a selfish people so caught up with our own agendas that God is saying, “Wake Up! I’m not giving you what you want (a life of comfort, ease, stuff, and pleasure). I’m giving you what you need.”

Maybe we NEED to learn to trust Him more. Maybe we NEED to make the things of this world less of a focus and priority in our life. Maybe we NEED to begin to think of the needs of others and not what we WANT. Maybe we NEED to focus more of our resources on building the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdom of this world. Maybe we NEED to learn to walk more in the truth, love, grace, and mercy of God.

Some might be tempted to say that America really hasn’t done anything so bad or depraved, compared to other nations, which would warrant punishment from God. But, depravity doesn’t come just in the form of immorality, although we have plenty of that to go around too. The depravity that led to Sodom’s destruction wasn’t just homosexuality, there was behavior/depravity that led up to that final straw that broke the camels back.
(49 " 'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. Ezekiel 16:49-50) I don’t know about anyone else, but the descriptions “arrogant, overfed, and unconcerned, haughty, and not help the poor and needy” sure reminds me of a lot of Americans.

Sure the detestable things get us in trouble too, but that’s not all.

I don’t think America is on God’s black list, but I do think we’re naive to think that asking for God to bless our country or us as individuals is always going to result in pleasurable things or experiences. God loves us and He loves us enough to bless us with what we NEED not what we WANT. He is truly out to benefit us even when it doesn’t make sense to us.

So, as we pray for God to bless our nation, others, or ourselves, let’s not put God in a box of what that will be and look like. Let’s trust that God knows best and that while we may not understand, nor even like the initial blessing, lets look for what the benefit of the blessing is.

I do want to clarify one thing… I do not believe that God is the cause of every negative or bad thing in our life. There are four sources of negative experiences… 1) We live in a broken world that doesn’t function the way God created it to, so things break down and bad things happen to good people. 2) We live in a world of broken people, so whether the bad and foolish choices of others or our own bad and foolish choices we experience the negative consequences and because we are not truly independent of others our lives affect others people’s lives for better or for worse. 3) The devil and demons are at work in our world to work death, destruction, and all kinds of wickedness, pain, and harm. 4) There are those rare occasions where a person or nations sin has reached such a point that God pours out His Judgment/Wrath. This is not as often as some would like to think and when it happens people are warned and have a chance to repent.

When I refer to God disciplining, punishing, withholding, etc in the name of a blessing I’m not talking about tragic things like birth defects, premature death, etc. I’m talking about God withholding pleasures, materials, etc that are a WANT, not a NEED.

The Power of Thanksgiving

How do we release the positive and blessings into our life?

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/455790/the_power_of_thanksgiving.html