DISAPPOINTED

Ezra 3:13 “No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.”

The year is 537 B.C. The place is Jerusalem. The Jews have just returned from a long captivity in Babylon. Some have been gone from their homeland for 70 years. Others have been gone for 50 years. They were sent into captivity as part of God’s judgment on generations of disobedience. Now at last the first wave of Jews is returning to the land. But everything has changed. The countryside is in the hands of their enemies. The city of Jerusalem lies in ruins. The walls have been torn down and buildings have been looted. And worst of all, the temple built by Solomon 500 years earlier is no more. It’s gone. Vanished. Utterly destroyed. So complete was the work that it seemed as if the temple and all its glory had been some strange dream. The Babylonians took the gold and the silver and everything else of value. The temple itself was razed. The Ark of the Covenant is gone, the altar of sacrifice is gone, and the temple implements are gone. In its place lies a field of rubble.

So the Jews go to work with vigor and determination. First, they rebuild the altar. Second, they relay the foundation of the temple. Then they pause for a public praise celebration. In the midst of the cheering and the singing, a strange thing happens: “But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. The young folks danced and cheered while the old folks wept bitter tears. And the shouts of joy mixed with the weeping so that no one could tell them apart. What a strange scene.

If you do the math, it all makes sense. The temple had been destroyed in 586 B.C. Fifty years later the Jews return from captivity and begin to rebuild it. The older folks who could remember Solomon’s temple were at least 65 years old. Meanwhile, two whole generations had been born in Babylon. Those young people had no memory of the glories of Solomon’s temple. Having grown up in pagan Babylon, they cheered the beginning of a new temple. But to the old folks, it was like comparing a tarpaper shack to the Taj Mahal. How pitifully small it seemed to them when compared with what they once had known. Their disappointment was so great that they wept while others rejoiced.

Everyone knows disappointment sooner or later. Friends break their word, marriages end in divorce, our children move away and never call us, colleagues betray us, the company lays us off, doctors can’t cure us, our investments disappear, our dreams are shattered, the best-laid plans go astray, other Christians disappoint us, and very often, we disappoint ourselves. We live in a world of disappointment, and if we do not come to grips with this truth, we are doomed to be unhappier tomorrow than we are today. English author Joseph Addison declared, “Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments.”

That group of weepers had to come to this realization: God was working to do a new thing for them and in them. The foundation was laid for the altar of God. Something new would happen there. There are times when we all need a new beginning with God. Sometimes we need a new beginning because of our own sin. Sometimes the circumstances of life have so defeated us that we need a fresh start. Sometimes we feel that hope is gone forever. And in those moments, we must do what the Jews did. We must return to the altar of sacrifice. For Christians, that means returning to the cross of Jesus Christ where his blood was shed for our sins. We should run to the cross. And not just for the unsaved but for Christians, too. We all need the healing that comes from the cross of Jesus Christ. And we need it every day.

HEARTS OF STONE

Ezekiel 11:19 “I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.”

It was 103°F in Hell Creek, South Dakota, one day in September 1993. Dinosaur hunter Michael Hammer was amazed at what he saw. Sticking out of the ground were the remains of a Thescelosaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur. The skeleton was almost complete. Hammer says he knew right away that it was "very special." Scientists reported that inside the dinosaur’s chest was what seems to be a stone heart--the first dinosaur heart ever seen. Having a stone heart usually is not a good thing.

Having a heart made of stone is not exactly something we should long for. We see that in the book of Ezekiel the prophet was calling the exiled people of Israel back to the living God. He spoke of their hearts that had been turned to stone. The Bible teaches plainly that it really does matter what condition our heart is in, it really does matter what is inside of us. It goes beyond the things that we do; God is concerned about what we think and how we think.

Jesus was really hard on the Pharisees, and the main reason was because of their hardened stone hearts. It blows me away how people that possessed so much knowledge about God, and a people that did so much in the name of God, could have hearts as hard as they did. The Pharisees had hearts of stone. They could find joy in the disgrace of a woman caught in the act of adultery and take pride in the fulfillment of the law to stone her to death. They could look at the situations of Jesus doing good and find fault in them. Their hearts were made of stone. The hard hearted are not always the easiest to identify however. Just because a person is doing certain things that we think are good does not guarantee that their heart is not stone.

One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to bring conviction to people’s hearts. It was the Holy Spirit working on the hearts of the Jews on Pentecost when they said, they were pierced to the heart. The Word of God is one of the most powerful things that there is. It is the Word of God that is called the sword of the Spirit and is our weapon against the Devil. It is in the Word of God that we can find help for our problems, we can claim promises that God gives us, and we can learn the way of shaping our hearts.

Our hearts are softened and chiseled away at by being careful what we allow into our hearts. Jesus taught plainly, that it really does matter what you allow into your hearts, because that goes to your heart and eventually will come out.

It can happen to any of us. Our hearts can become hardened by the troubles that we face, by the losses we suffer, and by our perception of what is going on around us. Be mindful of the condition of your heart. Allow the Spirit and the Word to always have access to your heart. Never shut yourself off to God’s voice. Be teachable and touchable. Keep your heart guarded and you will remain sensitive to God’s ways.

WELL OF SALVATION

Isaiah 12:3 “With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”

How do you dig a well? It’s not as simple as making a hole and waiting for the water to gush out. The biggest hand dug well can be found in Greensburg Kansas. Dug in 1880’s it took a massive effort and was over 109 feet deep and 32 feet in diameter. All of the walls were covered in stone paving and, to prevent cave-ins, every 8 feet a brace was constructed out of 2 foot by 12 foot planks mortised and dovetailed together so than no nails were used in the construction which might then rust and pollute the well water. This well served the whole city’s needs until 1939 and is a big tourist attraction with over 3 million people having visited it to date. Not bad for a hole in the ground.

To dig a well, you need an understanding of the geology of the rock formations; you need to know how the water might be moving to or where underground reservoirs are building up to tap into them. You then need to dig the hole in the ground and make sure it is has a solid wall of brick, stone or wood so that the well does not collapse in on its self. You need to dig it deep enough to reach the water. You need then a way of getting the water up to the surface. You then need to maintain the well to make sure that the water is not polluted, does not stagnate and stays fresh. If you do this really well you might have an Artesian well were the water flowing up from the rock is under such pressure it overflows by it self and does not need pumps or buckets to bring it up. Wells take hard work to locate, establish and maintain but they bring life. They transform communities and are vital sources of clean water.

The work of Jesus is a well that can transform and bring life to individuals. It’s a precious resource that needs love and care to bring forth more love and life. The reality is salvation comes from only one source; there is only one rock from which these waters flow. That’s Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Jesus is the very well spring of salvation. The very source of the redemption we speak of is the source of the living water. The touch of Jesus brings those in darkness to light. To those without hope, he brings hope that ignites the spark of faith into a mighty eternal flame. The well of salvation is the good news that Jesus came from Heaven, fully in human form, remained pure and unpolluted and then took the punishment we deserve to bring those who love him and accept him into salvation or rightness with God. It’s all about God’s love, God’s creation and God’s plan to bring about salvation for those he loves and those that love him.

Our scripture clearly tells us that it is with joy that these wells spring forth. Joy is that which runs deep within our heart and soul. It is independent of many of the things that occur in our day to day lives. Joy cannot be taken away by difficulties. It is that which is from God and is our strength in troubled times. Allow yourself today to live and breathe in the joy of the Lord. Let the well run deep and produce life everyday.

A VESSEL HE CAN USE

Judges 6:16 “The Lord answered, "I will be with you, and you will strike down all the Midianites together."

Gideon wasn’t prepared to take the reigns of commanding an army. He was leading a simple life, existing from day to day as God provided him the means to do so. He just went about his daily routine, plowing, planting and harvesting and never once thought of becoming a deliverer of his people. In his own eyes he was less than nothing. He had no power within himself, no knowledge of warfare and tactics, no education in the use of weaponry, and no ability to lead men into battle. In other words, he was just a common citizen trying to make it the best way he knew how.

But God saw something in Gideon that no one else could see. God saw that Gideon was nothing in his own eyes as well as the eyes of other men. Gideon was the least likely, of all his brethren, since he even said that he was the least among his tribe, the Tribe of Manasseh, and that his family was poor even among that small, poor tribe.

I am reminded of the words of Paul to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence."

God’s view of who is useful to his Kingdom is so very different from our own. We look for those who have talent. We look for those who are influential. We look for those who are great speakers and those of high education. We look for those who everyone would call, “beautiful people”, because we think that somehow the fleshly appearance and ability will draw the crowds or bring down the Spirit of God in a special way.

God doesn’t look for what we look for in those that he will use. God looks for a willing vessel, but more than that, God looks for that willing vessel that is broken and powerless without him. We may pray to be more like Jesus. We may whisper that prayer in some fashion that says to God, “Lord make me what you would have me to be. Let there be less of me and my desires so that more of you may be made manifest through me and let your desires become mine.” Every Christian who truly wants a close walk with Jesus will say that prayer again and again.

I like what Tommy Tenney says in his book God’s Eye View, “Less is Better and Nothing is Best.” What he is saying is that God will only use those vessels that are powerless to take any credit for what God wants to do through their lives. God will not share his glory with any man and no man can say that he did anything to accomplish anything for God.

Inside of each of us God has placed his light of the gospel. God’s conviction power breaks our hard heart, crushes and destroys that outer shell of humanity, and makes us into a broken vessel that he can use for his glory. Then, after all the power of the flesh has been broken, his light bursts forth from the inside out so that the entire world can see how that our lives become a bright light in a sin-darkened world.

SIFTED

Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.”

Daniel Morgan commanded a unit called Morgan’s Raiders during the Revolutionary War. He was on the colonist’s side. It was his strategy that led to the turning point in the war at the Battle of Saratoga. Morgan told his riflemen, “Forget the poor fellows who fight for six pence a day. Concentrate your fire on the officers. In fact, try your best to hit their epaulets that officers wear on their shoulders.” As a result of Morgan’s orders, British General Burgoine’s officer ranks were so depleted that he surrendered at Saratoga.

Morgan’s strategy is still the way to win a battle. When Jesus walked the earth, he knew all too well the fierceness of Satan’s power—that he comes with every weapon in hell to sift the Lord’s people. He has been doing this from ancient times, when Job was severely put to the test. There is a great conflict right now that exists in the spirit realm. Satan is determined to destroy all believer’s faith who have fixed their hungering hearts firmly on going all the way with Jesus. You see, when we make the decision to follow Christ in total obedience, an alarm goes off in hell. We become a threat to the kingdom of darkness and a prime target of demonic forces.

“Simon, Simon, Jesus says, Satan has asked for you that he may sift you as wheat.” Here the Lord introduces the subject of sifting saints. In his day, grain workers used a sieve just before they sacked grain. They shoveled wheat into a square box covered with netting, then turned the box upside down and shook it violently. The grit and dirt fell through the netting until only the grain kernels remained. So then, “sift” in this verse means “to be turned upside down, shaken and separated–to be shocked through the agitation of sudden trials.” These trials can take many forms—sickness, death of a loved one, loss of reputation, financial disaster, loss of employment, broken relationships, etc. The whole purpose of this sifting is that we would turn from our faith. Jesus used this analogy to say to Peter, “Satan believes you’re nothing but grit and dirt and that when he puts you in the sieve and shakes you, you will fall through to the ground.”

When Peter was sifted, he failed miserably. But it was not a lasting or permanent kind of failure. After his denial Luke tell us that “he went out and wept bitterly” Just because someone fails, it does not make him a failure. What does make a person a failure? Is it not his decision to give up? I picture Peter walking toward the Judean hills, falling on his face, crying out to the Lord for forgiveness. He’s at the lowest point of his life. Ashamed of his denial, especially in light of the fact that he was a leader among the disciples. But then something wonderful happened. The Holy Spirit brought to Peter’s memory the words of his Master: “I have prayed for you.” They brought hope and comfort to his soul.

Take heart. Times of trouble will come. Satan will work to sift us as wheat. One day soon, the sifting process will end. Satan will have done his worst but our advocate, the Lord Jesus Christ, will win this battle for you and me.

CROSS OVER

Joshua 3:10 “This is how you will know that the living God is among you…”

Necessity is the mother of invention, they say; and a little deeper than that, the desire to accomplish something important, the need to protect something valuable: that can motivate you, even when the obstacles are great.

I expect most of us have had the experience of facing an insurmountable barrier to something we wanted to do. Probably you’ve had those times in your life when you wanted to get on with it, but everything seemed to be stacked against you: too much work to do, too many conflicts in the family, too many bills to pay, too much to do all at once. Do you know what that feels like? I expect it feels something like drowning. You just feel engulfed, taken over, by all kinds of things. Too much! "Stop the world, I want to get off!" And you think you will just about drown.

Imagine, then, how Joshua felt when he and the people of Israel got to the River Jordan, which they had to cross in order to get to the land of promise. The people had been traveling through the wilderness for a generation; under the leadership of Moses they had endured hunger and thirst, heat and cold, rebellions and recriminations.

They were tired. They were just plain tired. They were exhausted. Too long, too much, too hard, too frustrating. And now, one more river to cross. The River Jordan, standing between them and the land of promise. I can hear them now sighing and groaning and looking at all that water: one more river to cross. How do we get over? And I’m sure their leader, Joshua, felt the same way.

There’s something about that River Jordan, however, that you would not guess just from reading the text of the Scriptures. There is a little secret about that river. It’s shallow and narrow. It’s not a deep river; it’s a dinky little stream. It is no mighty Mississippi, no powerful Potomac. It is just a minor stream which does on occasion overflow its banks, but which is normally pretty unimpressive.

And yet to Israel it might as well have been the Amazon. It looked uncrossable. It Iooked as though it was a tidal wave of water no human being could expect to get over. On the other side there was the land which God had promised. How would they get over? It looked like too much. You see, the truth is that any obstacle looks bad when you are running. Any barrier looks insurmountable when you have done nothing all your life but fret about things that are under God’s care. If you don’t know or you can’t see that the same God who has brought you this far has a plan for this problem too …well, then, you dissolve into despair. Just one more river to cross. How are we going to get over?

How do we get over? We get over because Jesus Christ makes a way. Jesus Christ, standing at the River Jordan, facing his own life and subsequent death, carries in himself the hopes and dreams of all who will trust in him. We get over because Jesus Christ makes a way. How do we get over? We get over because Jesus Christ wades into the murky waters of our sin and our helplessness, and cleanses us from all sin. For whoever believes and trusts in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. We get over because Jesus Christ makes a way.

Go ahead and cross the river. Grace is greater than all our sin. Go ahead and cross the river; Jesus paid it all. Go ahead and cross the river. It’s taken care of. That’s how we get over.

PREREQUISITE TO BLESSING

Deuteronomy 28:1 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.”

What if God showed up and he said, “I’ll make you a deal. If you obey me and follow my rules, I will bless every area of your life. Your family, your finances, and your future. You’ll never have to worry about these things anymore. I’ll watch over you and provide for you both now and forevermore.”

Would you see this as a good deal? Would you say, “Lord, sign me up. I want to be in on this. I don’t want to miss any of the blessings you have for your people?”

This offer is for real. It is available to everyone in the whole world. Our scripture helps us to discover for ourselves the blessings and benefits of obeying God.

In Deuteronomy, Moses is 120 years old. He’s about to die. But before he dies, God wants him to make a treaty between him and the people of Israel. That’s what the book of Deuteronomy is. It’s a peace treaty between God and Israel. In the first three chapters, Moses reviews the history leading up to the treaty. In chapters 4 through 27, he lays down the rules of the treaty. And in our scripture reading from chapter 28, he discusses the blessings that come from accepting the treaty.

Verse one says “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.” In other words, ‘if you fully obey the Lord, you will go from being the most hated nation to being the most hailed nation. If you obey the word of the Lord, you will experience the blessing of the Lord.

This seems so simple and easy. Yet for many (me included) obedience is sometimes a struggle. You see, the guidance of God is readily available to us. We find it in his word. It is available through his spirit. The problem is that sometimes his guidance is in direct conflict to our ideas and our will. As we survey circumstances in life, we will formulate our game plan and then look to God for his blessing. No question that we would like for God to bless our endeavors. We want his favor. We want success. The great thing is that God wants to give us those things. He does not, however, want us to have those things more than he wants our dedication and our obedience to his word.

The question for each of us is not whether we want blessings in our lives. The question is how much do we want those blessings and how much do we trust the promises of God. If I trust him completely than I must believe that he will keep his words. So, even when my plans and my ideas seem so smart, I will check them with his will and his word.

Be encouraged to today to find your greatest blessings in full obedience and careful following of God’s direction for your life. Don’t get sidetracked by what seems best to you. Follow God’s direction and blessings will follow.

IT TAKES MORE THAN WORDS

Nehemiah 10:29 “…all these now join their brothers the nobles, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath to follow the Law of God.”

I heard about this man who bought a parrot. It was a beautiful parrot but he had a really bad mouth. He could swear for five minutes straight without repeating himself. The man was embarrassed because the bird was driving him crazy in front of people. He tried to appeal to the bird by asking him to clean up his language. The parrot promised to change but nothing happened. In fact, his swearing increased in both volume and frequency.

It finally got to be too much, so the guy grabbed the bird by the throat and started shaking him and yelled, “Quit it!” But this just made the parrot angry and he swore more than ever. Then the guy got really mad and locked him in a kitchen cabinet. That really aggravated the bird and he started clawing and scratching and making all kinds of racket. When the guy finally let him out, the parrot let loose with a stream of swear words that made the man blush.

At that point, the guy was so ticked off that he threw him into the freezer. For the first few seconds the bird squawked and screamed and thrashed around. And then there was silence. At first the guy just waited, but then he started to wonder if the bird was hurt. After a couple minutes of not hearing anything, he was so worried that he opened the freezer door. The bird calmly climbed onto the man’s outstretched arm and said, “I’m really sorry about all the trouble I’ve been giving you. I make a solemn promise and vow to clean up my language from now on.” The man was astounded. He couldn’t believe the transformation that had come over the parrot as a result of being in the freezer for only a couple minutes. The parrot then turned to the man and said, “I just have one question…what did the chicken do?”

The Bible contains many examples of people making vows and covenants with God, only to break them later on. In Exodus 24, the Israelites promise to do “everything the Lord has said.” But in less than six weeks, these same people construct a golden calf and bow down in worship before it. In Mark 14:29, Peter promises Jesus, “Even if all fall away, I will not.” Hours later, Peter responds to a servant girl’s questions by swearing in verse 71: “He began to call down curses on himself, and he swore to them, ‘I don’t know this man you’re talking about.’”

That leads to a question. Are vows of any use today? I think they are for at least two reasons. First, they help us focus. When you make a vow, you are saying that you are going to do something specific. Second, vows allow us to express our love. That’s why couples make vows during a marriage ceremony. They’re the language of love. Love is more than just a feeling, it’s a commitment or promise to be married until death do us part.

God is a covenant-keeping God, even when we don’t keep our end of the deal. You may have made some promises to God in the past that you haven’t kept. You may have broken some vows. If you have, you’re not alone. Jesus inaugurated this new covenant. Listen to what he said in Mark 14:24: “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.” In the Old Covenant, we are expected to live up to our end completely; ¬ everything comes from us. In the New Covenant, nothing comes from us, and everything comes from Jesus. Because of his grace, we can surrender, submit and obey out of love, not fear.

While it may be helpful to make a vow or an oath to God today, remember this: We don’t succeed as Christians because we make promises to God, but because we believe the promises of God and act upon them. Many of us never come to the point of getting serious in our walk with God simply because we never get specific with him. We hear sermons and sense the Spirit’s tug at our heart, but until we decide to be completely committed to him, we won’t be. Listen to him and decide right now to put into practice what you know you need to do. That’s a commitment of the heart.

MAXIMIZE YOUR POTENTIAL

Joshua 14:12 “Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said.”

Do you feel today that God has a bigger purpose for you then you have yet attained, that there is actually something bigger than you that God wants to partner with you to pursue? Well, if you keep doing what you have always done, you will keep getting what you have always gotten and the only way to break the pattern is to change.

Consider the children of Israel, wandering in the wilderness, doing the same thing they had always done. In Egypt, they murmured and complained and things never changed even though the scenery did except for two, Joshua and Caleb, who lead a new generation to the promise land of God. I like Caleb, even more so as I get older. Caleb was not willing to sit back and rest on his accomplishments. He was ready to start out for a new adventure, he was ready for change.

As you study the scriptures, you will find certain characteristics in successful people, people like Caleb, people who have not stopped in their journey, but continue to expand their horizons, knowing there is something great in them that God is desiring to accomplish through them, committed people to personal growth.

If we are to be that type of person, we must be committed to personal growth. Spanish composer and cellist Pablo Casals was asked in the final years of his life this question by a reporter, "Mr. Casals, you are ninety-five years old and the greatest cellist that has ever lived. Why do you still practice six hours a day? Casals answers, "Because I think I’m making progress." People who reach their potential, not matter how young or old, are people who think in terms of improvement.

The only way to improve the quality of your life is to improve yourself. If you want to have better children, you must become a better person. If you want others to treat you more kindly, you must develop better people skills, and on and on it goes. There is no way to make other people improve, the only thing you truly have the ability to do is improve yourself. And the only way you will grow is if you choose to grow.

Growth is not automatic. Just because you grow older does not mean you continue to grow. Understand that the road to the next level is always uphill. Growth today will provide a better tomorrow. Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Man’s mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions." Growth today is an investment for tomorrow. Growth is your responsibility. When you were a child, your parents were responsible for you, even your growth and education, but guess what, you’re an adult, you bear the responsibility, and if you are not responsible, then growth will not happen.

Focus on self-development, not self-fulfillment. In the late 1960’s, people began to talk about "finding themselves", or in other words, they began a quest for their own self-fulfillment which is different from self-development. Self-development is the development of your potential so that you can attain the purpose for which you were created; it is drawing yourself toward your destiny. Rabbi Samuel Silver taught that "the greatest of all miracles is that we need not be tomorrow what we are today, but we can improve if we make use of the potential implanted in us by God."

Never stay satisfied with current accomplishments. Thinking you have arrived when you have accomplished a goal has the same effect as believing you know it all, and that takes away your desire to learn. Successful people don’t sit back, like Caleb; they are ready to begin a new journey, to go another round. This is not the time to settle into a comfort zone. We are to enjoy our success briefly, then move on to a new dimension and level of growth.

Be a continual learner. To do this, you will have to carve out time in your schedule for learning. Henry Ford said, "It’s been my observation that most successful people get ahead during the time other people waste." Read books, listen to instructional tapes, be a learner. Learning something new everyday is essential to being a continual learner. You must keep improving, not just for the sake of acquiring knowledge to replace what you forgot or what’s out of date, but to build on what you learned yesterday.

Develop a plan for growth. Earl Nightingale said, "If a person will spend one hour a day on the same subject for five years, that person will be an expert on that subject." Let me give you a suggestion on what you need to do. Identify 3-5 areas in your life which you desire to grow. Then look for useful material, books, magazines, audio tapes, videos, and incorporate them into your life plan. Exactly how you do it doesn’t matter, just do it every day.

George Eliot said, "It is never too late to be what you might have become." Be a Caleb

WHO SHOULD I LISTEN TO?

Isaiah 30:21 “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."

As we begin each day of our lives, we all have decisions to make. Some are easy and some are difficult. And there are many voices competing for our attention and our loyalty. Some decisions are easy, no-contest sort of questions. Others are much bigger and take days, weeks, months, or even years of searching and questioning. Competing voices pull us in different directions. We want to do what’s right, but what’s right isn’t always so clear.

I better finish this project today and meet that deadline.
- Tomorrow will be good enough, I work too hard.

I really shouldn’t do this; it doesn’t seem ethical and honest.
- It’s just my integrity. Besides, no one will know.

Mom always said I shouldn’t do this.
- Maybe I hold my convictions too tightly. Go ahead, it feels right.

Who are you listening to? It was easy to see what I thought was right in those situations, but often life doesn’t paint it so black and white. And even after we make a decision, we sometimes continue to wonder if it was the right one, we have knots in our stomach, and we wonder if we’ve missed some piece of evidence. How can we have peace in our decisions? It all boils down to who we’re listening to. But knowing how to listen can sometimes be difficult.

Sometimes we think God has a perfect blueprint for our lives and we have to figure out what it is and then do it. We look at circumstances and follow the open doors. Taking our circumstance into consideration is important, but if that’s all we do, we leave out the voice of God.

The flip-side of this extreme is the idea that we can simply immerse ourselves in scripture and then we can use our powers of reasoning to apply this wisdom to our lives. God gave us our powers of reasoning, and we ought to use them, but again, if this is all we do, we leave out listening to God. Either of these options will bring us to a decision, but if we don’t listen to God during times of decision, we won’t have his peace in the answer.

Hearing God’s voice isn’t always easy. It takes a lot of work. In order to hear God’s voice, it might be helpful first to know how to recognize the false voices that speak to us. The false voices are in this world, and so we need to be careful who we listen to. They may masquerade as teachers, acquaintances, or friends. They seek to be the authority in our decisions, whether overtly or covertly. But these false teachers can lead us down the wrong path if we are not careful who we listen to. Does the guidance we receive fall in line with scriptural teaching or not? Does the life of our guide show evidence of knowing Christ? Have we set our minds to knowing the difference? This is where our God-given powers of reasoning, mixed with prayer, can be very helpful.

The false voices in the world often are not reprehensible to us. They entice, they are attractive. The type of wickedness a Christian is likely to fall into isn’t the obvious wrong things – at least not right away. If someone asked you out-rightly to kill the person standing next to you or rob the corner store, your likely answer would be no. But the wicked entice – they tempt, persuade, and charm. And when you feel like you’re in too deep, they ask more of you, and it is harder and harder to refuse. That is why we must test the spirits – for sometimes their origin is not immediately obvious.

Choosing the best isn’t always an easy decision. It takes prayer; it takes courage; it takes faith. We need to be in constant communication with God so that we can recognize the false voices, and know how to choose the best given the circumstances we find ourselves in. We need to take time to shut out the voices of the world and take time to pray. It is then and only then, that we can discern the essential and know God’s peace in our time of decision.

THE GOD WHO IS REAL

Acts 14:17 “Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy."

One of the more creative movies to come out in the last fifteen years was the Peter Wier film The Truman Show. The Truman Show is about a man named Truman Burbank--played by Jim Carey--who was adopted as a newborn by the OmniCam Corporation. The OmniCam Corporation then created an entire city on a movie set and placed Truman in this artificial city called Seahaven without Truman knowing any of it was fake. The enormous studio of Seahaven is filled with 5,000 hidden cameras, as people across the world watch every step of Truman’s life live on television. Of course Truman goes through life in Seahaven thinking that everything and everyone around him are real.

The creator and director of the Truman Show is a messianic figure named Christof, played by Ed Harris. For 30 years Truman is perfectly happy and content in Seahaven, with its perfect sky, computer monitored climate control, a wife and best friend who are really actors, and so forth. Truman’s reality is meticulously manufactured and manipulated by Christof, yet it’s the only reality Truman knows. At least until a series of accidents start Truman questioning this reality, until finally he figures it out and walks off the set into the real world.

Some people think that belief in God is like Truman in The Truman Show. People believe in God, these critics claim, because that’s the only reality that they’ve been presented with. Like the movie set of Seahaven, organized religion has meticulously manufactured and manipulated circumstances to cause people to live in the illusion of God. These critics point out that there’s no denying that people who believe in God are happy and content, even as Truman was happy and content in his world. However behind the set, critics claim, doesn’t lay God, but merely human directors like Christof, who pull the right strings and orchestrate the right circumstances to make belief in God appear real.

You see, even though Truman was happy in Seahaven, he was also tragic because his happiness is based on something that’s not real. And critics of religion claim that people who believe in God are in the same boat; we’re tragic, pathetic figures, because our sense of happiness and meaning in life is no more real than the movie set of Seahaven. True liberation comes for us the way it came for Truman, to turn our back on our make-believe world and courageously venture into the real world, a world without organized religion pulling the strings, a world where God is rejected as a relic from the unenlightened past.

We can know for sure that God is for real. We can know because God has left us evidence, because God reveals himself through the universe, and because we were made to seek God. These realities make knowledge of God a genuine possibility.

Now in many ways the various philosophical arguments for God’s existence seem like a rather tedious game of chess. You see, the reality is that the mission of the Christian church is not to persuade people that God exists. Instead, God has called us to introduce people to a relationship with God, so they can know him as a person rather than believe in him as an abstract concept.

If God is real, then the parallel with The Truman Show is correct, except it’s those who reject God’s existence who are living in a manufactured world like Seahaven. It is those who are in rebellion against God, who are avoiding him because they want to live their lives their own way, which are hiding in a make believe world of denial. As C. S. Lewis said about his younger years as an atheist, "A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading".

Our calling as a church isn’t to defend God--he’s perfectly able to do that himself--but to introduce people to a relationship with God, so they like Truman Burbank will walk off their Seahaven set and venture into the real world, the world God created and designed them to live in.

STOP AND CONSIDER

Job 37:14 “Stop and consider the wonderful miracles of God.”

Life is definitely fast paced. There seems to be so much to do. There seems to be so many things that compete for our attention. When my first child was born, it seemed as if life would stay that way forever. Although deep down I knew it wasn’t true, it just seemed like I had all the time in the world. There was just so much that I wanted to do. I now have three children. They are all in school. My daughter (my oldest) watches a lot less of Mickey Mouse and a lot more shows with real people. Even though, she still crawls up in my lap and wants to “snuggle”, I sense that things are changing. It won’t be long before time with her friends will be more appealing than time with Dad. Oh, how I dread that day.

One thing that the passing of time is teaching me more and more is an appreciation for the things that matter most. My family, my friends, my health, my peace, my joy are the gifts that God has given me. There are many other things that are appealing to the natural eye. Money, jobs, possessions, worldly achievements are things that God uses to bless us, but they are not the foundation of our lives.

Unfortunately for some, this truth is only realized when the real gifts are lost. When our kids grow up, we wish we could go back and do things differently. “If I only had more time”, we might say. When we are faced with difficulties that shake our faith, we turn to friends and family to encourage us. Our jobs, homes, or cars will not speak a word of hope to us.

The key is living in the realization now, not the regret later. Our scripture offers us great guidance. “Stop and consider the wonderful miracles of God.” It is a direct instruction. Stop. If only we could just stop long enough to look around. Have you ever asked yourself, “Where did the time go?” Every time I look at my children, I think it. I can’t stop time from passing but I can be sure that I make the most of every blessing God has given me.

I find it so meaningful that this scripture is found within the context of a story about a man who had it all and lost it. God has done great things in our lives. Make no mistake about it. The only way that we will notice and appreciate God’s work is to stop running in circles, stop scrambling for something else that is temporal, and stop talking about the next big thing. Take notice of what you have. It has been given to you by almighty God. Don’t take it for granted. Let him be the foundation of your hope and peace. Enjoy every minute of the simple things in life. Don’t wait until it is too late to appreciate the here and now. Defend against regret by recognizing the moment. Slow down. God is so evident in our lives. Consider his mighty works. Let it build your faith and strengthen your foundation.

WHO ME?

I Samuel 9:21 “…my family is the least important of all the families of that tribe. Why are you talking like this to me?”

As a teenager, I really enjoyed team sports. I played baseball, basketball, kickball, flag football, even a little volleyball. In the summer, my friends and I would meet in the park for “pick-up” games. Those are the games where teams are chosen once everyone arrives. I never gave it much thought because I was, not great, but good enough to be chosen early on by the team captain. But even at a young age, I had sensitivity for the guys that were picked last. These were normally the guys that perhaps were not athletically gifted. Maybe they were a little clumsy. Don’t get me wrong, they were our friends. But we were competitive and were not about to choose someone that might hurt our chances of winning (well, until there was no one else to pick.)

I still remember a time that I decided to do something really nice for a guy that was normally one of the last guys chosen. The game of the day was flag football. I was a team captain. I selected first and choose one of our best players. Then the next best player was selected. It would be the same as every other day. Then I said, “I’ll take Shawn.” Everyone was shocked at first – especially Shawn. Now, it is worth noting that Shawn had never demonstrated the ability to catch, throw, or run. Soon, some of the other guys began to snicker a bit. Shawn said, “Who me?” Then he smiled and sprinted over to my side. It should also be noted that, even to my surprise, Shawn caught the winning touchdown that Saturday afternoon in Central Ohio.

There were two things about Shawn that really stuck with me. First, even though he was almost always picked last, he showed up every Saturday. I’m sure it would have been easy for him to get fed up with the jokes from the other guys. He could have easily said, “I obviously can’t do this so why bother?” But, he never quit playing. Second, even Shawn was surprised that I selected him. It was apparent to me that even though he was determined, he had little self confidence. That changed that day.

Our scripture gives us an example of a man who was picked by God, even though he was an unlikely choice (even to himself). God ordained Saul to be the first king of Israel and Samuel was instructed to go to Saul. Their encounter was memorable. As Samuel begins to speak over Saul, he says to him, “you are the focus of all Israel’s hopes.” What a huge statement. Note Saul’s response. He, in essence, says “I am a nobody. Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?” But you see, God had chosen Saul. He was not chosen because of his pedigree, his status, or his might. He was chosen because God looks beyond the things that man would focus upon.

It can be so easy for us to look in the mirror and see what the world sees. It can be so easy to just accept someone else’s perception of us. But God has reserved a great plan for you and me. He does not care how much we have or what we have done. He doesn’t even care how many touchdown passes we’ve caught in the park. God looks way beyond our inabilities to see the gifts that he has placed within us. Don’t stop being faithful to the plan of God for your life. Like Shawn, just keep showing up. Live everyday as if it is the day that your name will be called. God is preparing you for that moment. Be ready.

HOPEFUL

John 11:25 “Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live…”

Ruele Howe tells about growing up with his parents in the country. When he was fifteen years old, the house caught on fire. They escaped with only the clothes on their backs. There were no close neighbors to help so he and his father walked to a distant village to get supplies. As they returned they saw something that stayed with Ruele Howe all those years after. Beside the charred remains of what had been their house, his mother had laid out lunch on a log. She had placed a tin can filled with wildflowers on the log. It was a symbol of hope in the midst of tragedy.

This is the Christian faith, isn’t it? She didn’t try to cover up the disaster with flowers, but in the midst of that gloomy scene she had placed a symbol of hope. Martha had the hope that did not cover up the fact that her brother had died, but she had hope that in her grief, Jesus would act. Hope does not cover up what has occurred, but it gives a promise of something better to come. The house was gone, but there was the hope of rebuilding, or getting the supplies to carry on.

That was Martha. She had the hope that something would happen when Jesus came. She says: And even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you." Martha had hope. She did not know exactly what Jesus had planned, but she had hope that something would happen. Then Jesus gives a glimpse of what was going to happen as the text says: Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" She said to him, "Yes, Lord; I believe.”

Jesus turns Martha’s hope into action. Jesus gives Martha a glimpse of what is going to happen when he says: Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die.

This is a story that tells us out of discouragement comes hope. Martha and Mary were discouraged as they both told Jesus if you would have been here our brother would not have died, but even in that discouragement they saw a hope. And to us, to you and me as we live with our discouragement, our despair, our hurts, our pain, Jesus offers hope. All of us face discouragement in life, and it is at those times we need to turn to the Lord and somehow he will act. We must believe that somehow he will act.

No matter where you are at this very moment, there is hope. Our hope is independent of the circumstances that we face. It may seem like a lost cause, as though death has already crept in to your dreams. Take heart today. Jesus knows where you are and is not alarmed by your situation. Because nothing is beyond his life-giving impact. Keep looking and keep hoping. Hope Lives.

ATTITUDE

Proverbs 23:7 “For as he thinks within himself, so he is…”

Once a cranky grandpa lay down to take a nap. To have a little fun, his grandson put some limburger cheese on his mustache, right under his nose. Grandpa awoke with a snort, staggered out of the bedroom and shouted, "This room stinks!" On through the house he went, shouting louder, "This whole house stinks!" He charged out on the porch and shouted as loud as he could, "The whole world stinks!" The truth is it was grandpa who stunk. The problem was right under his nose.

Someone had rightly said that attitude not aptitude determines ones altitude in life. How important is your attitude? Your attitude is more important than: facts - circumstances - what others say - it’s more important than your past - your education and your money. Your attitude is more important than anything else. Your attitude is much deeper than just a few thoughts you might think or not think. Your attitude comes out of the core of your being. Your attitude represents your disposition, your outlook, and your very character.

Your attitudes always become actions or reactions. Let’s visualize it this way... The attitudes inside you are like a jack-in-the box. Have you ever played with one of them? You turn the little handle and then when you least expect it - he pops out. That’s a vivid picture of our attitude.

Our attitude affects every relationship in our life. And sometimes relationships will never get started in the first place -- because many times our attitude has built up walls... making it difficult for people to be around us. Bad attitudes affect our marriage relationships, our relationship with our kids, at work, at church, and with friends.

The thing that makes a bad attitude so destructive is that like a jar of water with the loose lid on it, a bad attitude is eventually going to spill out into some negative actions - destructive words and deeds. The key for us is to understand that our attitude is our choice.

Without a doubt, the human mind is the most awesome creation of God. With it, God has given us the ability to think, to reason, and to choose whether we will focus on positive thoughts or negative thoughts. In every one of our lives there is the positive and the negative. The choice as to which one we will focus on and consequently feed and nurture is up to us.

We can’t choose what will happen to us today (it’s beyond your control) -- but we can choose our own attitude - we each have the power to decide how we will respond to what happens to us. No matter what has happened to you, the attitude choice is still yours. Jesus Christ wants to help you choose and cultivate a positive attitude.

I find it both interesting and tragic that the one thing that no person or circumstance can ever take away from us, the awesome power to choose our own attitude; is usually the first thing we give away.

To blame our bad attitudes on another person or on a difficult circumstance is simply a cop-out. And if we allow events and people to cause us to be negative we are only hurting ourselves more because in addition to everything else we are know forced to live with the effects and misery our bad attitudes will bring.

A positive person is not one who refuses to recognize the negatives, but he refuses to dwell on them. Remember there are always the negative and the positive in every person or situation. What a positive person does is develop the habit of looking for the best results even from the worst conditions. It’s always possible to look for something good, even when things look bad. And the remarkable fact is that when you look after and seek good you will find it.

CONQUER FEAR

2 Timothy 1:7 “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”

There was a lady who died in 1916 name Hetty Green. She was called America’s greatest miser. When she died, she left an estate valued at $100 million. But she was so miserly that she ate cold oatmeal in order to save the expense of heating the water. When her son had a severe leg injury, she took so long trying to find a free clinic to treat him that his leg had to be amputated because of advanced infection. I am sure she was worried about losing her wealth, so she didn’t even enjoy her life.

Everyone knows what its like to be afraid. We all have things that we’re afraid of - I can remember as a child being afraid of the dark - a fear I think we have all had at one time or another. For some it may be storms, an extreme height, traveling in airplanes, or dogs.

There are hidden fears that motivate us too - Fear of failure causes many people to never start, or try anything that is not completely safe. Fear of rejection makes us afraid to do anything that could draw criticism or give someone a chance to laugh at us.

I could go on and on talking about fears and phobias and in the course of naming these different fears we’d probably find that all of them fall into two kinds of fear. Fear that is good - the type of fear that keeps us from driving 200 miles per hour, from picking up a rattle snake, from jumping off the side of a building. Fear that is harmful - This is the "spirit of fear" mentioned in this particular passage. This fear paralyzes us, keeps us from doing things we could or should do.

The more we love God, the less fear we will have. It is a matter of trust. When we realize that God will take care of us, it relieves our fear. Those who have children would understand this - my children understand this because they don’t worry about having something to eat. They know that when they are hungry they’ll get food. That mommy and daddy will provide for them. They trust us. Now if we didn’t provide for them, they would get worried and it could lead to tremendous trauma and fear in their lives. But they know that we love them and will provide for them so they aren’t afraid.

The Apostle Paul clearly defines the solution for a fearful spirit. He says that God has given us a sound mind. Conquering fear is not a matter of self-determination; it is a matter of dependence on the God whom we can trust and love. It is a matter of belief in his words, his promises, and his gifts to you. It is a matter of recognizing the enemy’s pitiful attempts at crippling you with fear and God’s majestic grace in giving you power, love, and a sound mind.

The next time that something in your life brings even the threat of fear, remember the power of the God who loves you. Take a step back. Look clearly at your circumstances with the sound mind that God has given you. Walk in the authority granted by God the Father. Conquer fear and achieve great things.

CHOOSE TO STAND

2 Samuel 23:12 “But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the Lord brought about a great victory.”

Our lives are marked by the choices we make. In a typical day, there are so many small choices that must be made. I choose to get up when the alarm goes off. I choose to take a shower and comb my hair. I choose what clothes to wear. I choose whether to eat or get coffee. I choose to have a good attitude or be sullen. Choices don’t stop. Choices never end.

In grade school you had to choose whether you liked him or her or not. In high school you had to choose who to hang out with and who to go out with. The choices continue into college. Do I go to class?? Will I pull an all-nighter or not? The average student who enters college with a declared major changes it three to five times. Then after graduation you go into the “real” world and still more choices. What car? What house? What job? Did you know that between the ages of 18-36 the average American will have 9.3 different jobs?

There are some areas of our life in which we may need to move over, change our mind, back up, adjust course, and give in. However, there are also times in life when we must choose to stand. There are times that we can’t back down or budge. There are times we must draw a line in the sand and refuse to move from that spot. Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do. Rest assured such a stand means there will be a fight. But it means a fight now rather than a fight for the rest of our lives. Our scripture offers an account of someone who understood this truth.

You see, we all will be confronted with a moment when we must choose to stand. The enemy will come. That is choice that we don’t get to make. I wish we could choose for the enemy not to come. I wish we could pick seasons in our life and say that season is off limits. I’m just not strong enough so give me a break. I am tired of fighting so don’t show up now. But the enemy will show up. And if you haven’t figured it out yet he is the master of timing. He will pick the right time. He will usually show up right in harvest time. Right when everything seems to be great. The crops are ripe. The raise is certain, the contract is almost final, the relationship is almost back to normal, right when you think everything is about to level back out, and then the enemy comes. Prepare for it. Don’t be surprised by it. Keep an eye open. He will come.

There are some things that we have to ask God about. There are grey areas that must be weighed out on the principles set in God’s Word. However, there are other areas that we don’t even have to pray about. We just need to choose to do what is right.

There is a time to make the choice to straighten your back, raise your head, stir your faith, and choose to stand while everyone else seems to be fleeing. Like Shammah, plant your feet in the middle of the pea patch and refuse to back up. Square your shoulders and draw a line in the sand and refuse to give up an inch of territory. He was a mighty man. So he chose to stand.