RELENTLESS PURSUIT

Matthew 9:21 “for she thought, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.”

I am not an outdoorsman, at all. I don’t fish. I don’t hunt. I don’t watch people fish or hunt. It’s just not my thing. I did, however, stumble across information about a show that can be seen on WILD TV. The show is called Relentless Pursuit. Catching title, huh? It was so catching that it intrigued me to look a little deeper online about this show. Here’s what I discovered – These guys are crazy!! They will hunt anywhere, at anytime, and in any conditions. No joke. They hunt 500 pound elk in Canada, in the winter. These guys hunt deer, elk, coyote, and bears – just to name some. They will do whatever necessary to achieve the “big kill”. It seems to me that nothing keeps these guys from hunting. Although, I doubt I will ever faithfully view Relentless Pursuit, I must admit, the tenacity of these gentlemen is, although misguided if you ask me, impressive.

In Matthew chapter 9, we find an account of a woman with a great level of determination. She was sick and had been sick for twelve years. She hears of Jesus’ appearance in the area. No doubt she had heard of this man and the many miracles that he had already performed. I imagine that upon hearing the news of his coming, some measure of hope rose up within her.

Hope rose up within her because when she heard of Christ’s good work, she believed. The process of this woman’s miracle began the moment that she believed. Then her faith prompted the next series of events that are so emotional and powerful for even us today. In this moment, having faith that was just strong enough to get her in the crowd would not be enough. Her faith had brought her into the presence of the almighty. Now, her faith would have to push her so much more.

She encountered a seemingly impassable crowd. Everyone wanted to see this miracle worker. So, there it is. Would she allow an obstacle to weaken her faith? Would she disappointedly return home still sick? Or, would her pursuit of healing be relentless? Her faith was the kind of faith that wouldn’t quit, therefore it couldn’t fail. It is quite possible that this sick woman had to scratch and claw her way to Jesus. Maybe she was knocked down, but she got up. Finally, she touched him and she was healed.

You and I should believe with that determination. Our pursuit of God’s presence and his subsequent blessings should be relentless because it is driven by an insurmountable faith. We must ask ourselves. What will we do when we meet an obstacle? Will we be overcome with skepticism? Will disappointment determine our course of action? Will we lose faith? Or, will we press on as we are emboldened by faith?

The Pursuit of God does not come without impediment. It won’t be easy. I wonder if the woman deemed her struggle to reach him to be worth the reward of touching him. Surely, she didn’t regret the sacrifice or the bumps and bruises she may have received. When you want to touch God for an answer, a blessing, or a miracle pursue it relentlessly. You will never regret the outcome.

ALWAYS THE SAME

Lamentations 5:19 “But Lord, you remain the same forever. Your throne continues from generation to generation.”

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the place that I had spent my childhood. I have great memories of that part of my life. It was rural area with lots of fun places for kids to roam. I had great friends. We hung out all summer playing baseball and basketball. It was a great place to be a kid. However, I returned some 15 years after leaving as a teenager. I wanted to go by and see some of the places that were significant to me as a child. First, I went by my old middle school. But, to my surprise, it wasn’t there. The land was now used for a parking lot. Then, I went to see my old high school. Again, I was shocked to see the sign out front to no longer say Cambridge High School, but instead, Cambridge YMCA. I couldn’t believe it. Finally, I thought I’d go check out the five acres that we used to live on. I especially wanted to see the old pond that I used to fish in all summer long. But, the land had been sold. New buildings had been erected and the pond had been filled-in to create more space. The realization of time passing and the inevitable change that it brings stung a little bit.

Have any of the following changed on you lately - your family, your bank account, your address, your last name, your money, or your job? If they haven’t, be certain, that something will change. Change is one of the most powerful forces out there and probably one of the most resisted. Most people would prefer things to stay the same.

Everything and everyone else that you know is subject to change. Change is a constant in life. However; God is not subject to change. God has a characteristic that no one else has. It is his immutability. No matter what, God doesn’t change.

In Lamentations, Jeremiah cries out to an unchanging God. He expresses great concern about the ruins of the temple. It was a great calamity. He is praying for mercy and grace. The people ask, “Are not the Lord's judgments in the earth the same as in Jeremiah's days?” Surely, he was tempted by the events around them to turn his heart from God, but he remembers the mighty works of God in past days.

I have, too, been tempted like the people of Judah. I have looked at current circumstance and seemingly forgotten God’s proven work and mercy. But, if I look back upon the countless blessings of God that have so powerfully changed my life, then I must believe the old saying, “If he has done it before, He will do it again!” Why? Because God doesn’t change.

In the moments that try us the most, let us refrain from despondency. Despair prompts our focus to shift, which, in turn, delineates our view point from the only one who can make a difference. Commit to put your whole trust in a God that, unlike everything and everyone else, never changes.

HE IS OUR GOD - WE ARE HIS PEOPLE

Leviticus 26:12 “I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.”

I had the opportunity to take my youngest son to school recently. I cherish the moments that are just between the two of us. Now, there is no question that his mother is his shining star, but he demonstrates adorable behavior when he is alone with me. I got him ready and put his back pack on. I handed him his lunch and then out the door we went. He seemed so proud that it was just the “men” heading to school. As we drove to school, I talked to him. At a stop light, I would glance back at him, all buckled up in the back seat. With every glance, his smile would grow brighter, until it seemed as though his little dimples were like little caverns in his face. Then, the cutest thing of all happened. We pulled up to the drop-off point. His teacher came to the car to get him. My son gave me the “bye Daddy” wave. Although, he couldn’t find the words to express himself, he made sure his teacher could tell that I was in the car and that he had been with me. As I pulled away, he never took his eyes off of me. I looked back several times and each time he was waving and looking intently in my direction.

The connection is simple. He is my son. I am his father. He knows it without question. I am there to meet his every need. The connection is more than just that; it is a promise and a covenant. Every day, through not just my words, but my actions as well, I am saying “I am your father, you are my son”. I doubt that he ever wonders if I will be there for him. It is just a given that “Daddy” is a presence in his life. I realize that not every family is fortunate enough to have that balance and structure. I am so thankful for my family, though. You see, I am made in God’s image. Like God, I desire covenantal relationships to be a part of my life. It is that type of love and commitment that hold everything in place.

God looks upon each of us in the same manner. It is his desire to “walk among us”, to “be our God”, and for us to “be his people”. This passage in Leviticus contains a general enforcement of all the laws given by Moses; by promises of reward in case of obedience. God is saying if you follow my words, I will remain among you. This is a great and precious promise. It is a covenant that is typical of the spiritual blessings made real by the covenant of grace to all believers, through Christ. His promise to always be there means so much. It means abundance, peace and divine protection, victory and success in battle, and the favor of God which is a fountain of good. All covenant blessings are summed up in the covenant relation, I will be your God, and ye shall be my people; and they are all grounded upon their redemption. Having purchased them, God would own them, and never cast them off till they cast him off.

God never forgets his promises. Their faithfulness to the covenant would solidify their position with God. No matter what would come their way, He would be there. He had identified them as His people. We have the same powerful promise today. God is never far from us. If our hearts remain fixed upon him and our faith in Christ persists, He is our Father and we are his children. And nothing can take that assurance away.

LOVE IN ACTION

1 John 3:18 “Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions.”

Here’s a question. What is a legitimate measuring stick for true love? Can love be measured by gifts lavished upon someone? How about kind words? Some people feel most loved when their significant other spends lots of time with them. In fact, there is a well known theory that states that everyone has a “love language”. It is the way in which they are made to feel most loved. The truth is that no matter how often someone is told that they are loved, if their “love language” is not addressed, they will soon feel unloved. For all of us, love is more than a word.

A particular episode of the sitcom Friends offers a comical example of how far someone will go to express their love. Ross said some hurtful things to Rachel. Rachel was now punishing Ross by refusing to accompany him to a very special event in which he was the guest of honor. Ross begged and pleaded with Rachel to forgive him. He proclaimed that he loved her and that the event would just not be the same if she was not there. He asks the question, “What can I do to prove to you that I want you to be there?” For whatever reason, a glass filled with bacon grease was setting on the kitchen counter. Joey then suggests that Ross “drink the fat” in order to prove himself. Surprisingly Rachel agrees with that idea. Ross, determined to prove himself, reaches for the glass (not without some funny hesitation), and prepares to take a huge, disgusting gulp. Rachel stops him and says that she forgives him and will go to the banquet. She says, fighting back tears, “You were going to drink the fat.”

So, what’s the point? Words are just words when it comes to love. Love requires something from us. Christ offered mankind the supreme example of love. John 15:13 says “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. It isn’t always easy to do, but as Christians we ought to strive for our love to be real and impactful. Another version of our scripture says that we should love others in deed and truth. The ability to genuinely love others, and to show it, is gained in our knowledge of the truth of God’s love for us.

Let us make the commitment to allow our love for others to motivate us to great deeds. We have opportunity day after day to love our brothers, to give of ourselves, and to make a difference in the life of someone we know. True love moves us to compassion. True love moves us to meet the need of a disadvantaged person. Love does not allow us to sit by idle while someone else suffers.

I want to be driven by the love of Christ. I want to follow his example as he travelled the land feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and speaking kindness to the down trodden. I want to know the difference between religious “love” and Christ-like compassion. Take the opportunity to assess the impact that your love has had on others. Be sure that our love is not just heard but that it is powerfully felt by those we touch.

TAKING A KNIFE TO A GUN FIGHT

Ephesians 6:12 “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realm.”

I admit it. I am an Indiana Jones fan. I own the movies and still watch them on television whenever they are on. One of my favorite scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark is the scene in which Indy is fighting off attacks right and left in the marketplace. After fending off countless attackers, he looks up to see a gigantic man wielding a large sword. Exhausted and exacerbated, Indiana Jones pulls his pistol from its holder and, with one shot, drops the sword carrying foe. This movie moment reinforced the principle, “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight”.

Maybe you can, in some sense, relate to that situation. Maybe you’ve been fighting off attacks from the enemy. Perhaps, it has seemed that no matter what you try, you are being beaten up. Failure and discouragement can quickly set in when we feel outnumbered or over matched. I, too, have felt that way in the past. I was working hard. I was trying to stand for what was right. I was… I was… I was… Still things were tough. I felt as though ground was being lost. I had moments of despair as I wanted to give up.

As I look back on some of those times, I can now see the root of the problem. It was all the “I was” moments. Every time I moved forward and tried to fix something, things got worse. I was trying to fight a spiritual battle using natural means. It’s like bringing a knife to a gun fight. The Apostle Paul offers clear explanation of the battle in which we are all now engaged. We are not fighting natural things. We are fighting spiritual things. Yet, it seems so easy to drift back into physical tactics and worldly devices to deal with a spiritual issue. Why? Well, we are fleshly by nature. We are naturally drawn to carnal thoughts, thus drawn to carnal actions.

So, how do we win the spiritual contests of our lives? First, believe Paul. Acknowledge the spirituality that surrounds us. Know that even the physical struggles of life have a spiritual root. By grasping hold of that truth, we will no longer look for our adversary with physical eyes, but we will view all that comes against us through the eyes of our spirit man. Second, be spiritual. Paul exhorts all believers in Galatians to “Walk in the Spirit, so to not fulfill the lust of the flesh”. Live lives that are directed by the spirit.

Spiritual battles cannot be won with physical strength. Spirituality requires the release of physical attributes and the dependence upon spiritual authority. Be courageous in the spirit, be bold in the spirit, and be victorious in the spirit. By doing so, life will look a whole lot different.

The next time a battle arises in your life, be sure you are carrying the appropriate weapons. Don’t run out there with your will, your knowledge, and your ability. Put on God’s armor. Let the spirit dwell within you and every ruler, every authority, every power, and every force that is in opposition will fall.

MAKE OR BREAK MOMENT

Esther 4:14 “…you have been elevated to the palace for just such a time as this.”

Have you ever heard a moment or decision called a “make or break moment”? Have you ever been confronted with a choice that you believed was a “make or break” decision? If so, you surely can remember the intense feelings and emotions that were stirring within you during that time period. Perhaps were you nervous, maybe even afraid to choose. Yet, the choice was inevitable. It would determine a certain course to your life. I don’t know how many of those moments actually occur in a person’s life. I am thankful, though, that they do not come up too often.

Many decisions are just casual thoughts. Do I want the blue car or the red car? Do I want the early shift or the late shift? What do I want for dinner – chicken or steak? Those simple choices only impact a short period of life. But how about these - How many children should we have? Should I go back to school? Should I choose more money or more flexibility at work? Those decisions are very impactful to our futures and the results of the decisions do not quickly go away.

When it comes to our spiritual walk and the lives we live for God, we will face some of those big decisions as well. We will have a make or break moment. I recently felt that I was facing that type of decision. I had reached a fork in the road, so to speak, in my career. I had achieved as much as I possibly could in the position I was in and it was seemingly my turn for the big promotion, the big raise, and the big sense of accomplishment. This was a no brainer, right? Well…there was a flip side (isn’t there always a flip side). With the promotion, would be more headaches, less family time, and little personal flexibility. If I choose the increased salary and higher position, I would be letting go of many of my personal goals in ministry. If I tried to do both (as I had before) I feared I would crash and burn.

I felt an intense sense of gravity with this decision. I felt as if this was a definitive moment. I felt as though I was faced with a make or break decision that would set the course for many things to come. After much deliberation and prayer, I choose to stay put. My family, my church, and my ministry had to come first. It was like God was saying, “Now is the time to choose. Who are you, really?”

Esther was faced with a decision that would impact an entire nation of people. Without retelling the whole story, Esther has become queen to the king of Persia. No one knows that she is a Jew. The king is manipulated into making a decree that would exterminate all the Jews living in Persia. She now must decide whether to identify herself as a Jew by approaching the king without permission. By the way, approaching the king without permission could get her killed.

What does Esther do at this decisive moment? She stops denying, stops ignoring, stops making excuses, stops running away. She realizes this needs more than her own strength, so she falls back on the devotional habits of her people and calls on the Jews to fast with her. She resolves that she will face up to her responsibility and go in to the king. She recognizes that what she must do must include disclosing her true identity as a Jew. She takes stock of the realities of her situation and says simply, “If I perish, I perish.” She goes to the heart of the empire to save the Jewish people. Esther does save her people. She does so because she is stirred to an act of extraordinary fortitude.

The plans that God has for each of us are extraordinary. He orders the steps of our lives. When you find yourself facing a make or break moment, what will you do? Will you run from God’s plan, choose the easy route? Or will you step up, knowing that God has your moment prepared.

The heart of the story lies in these echoing words, words which I hope make your stomach tighten and your breath falter just as much as if Mordecai were saying them to you today. “Perhaps you have come to this place, to this moment, to these people, to this challenge, for just such a time as this.”
Will you listen? Will you do what Esther did, realize the reality of your situation, seek all the help you need, plan carefully, fast, and put yourself in the hands of God? Has God put you right here, right now, for just such a time as this?

A FINISHED PROJECT

Philippians 1:6 “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished.”

I was reading recently about the construction of the Panama Canal. History enthusiasts probably know that the Panama Canal was officially opened in October 1913. Then in January 1914 the first ship, a French crane boat, completed passage through the canal. What some may not know is that the first notion of such a canal came 400 years earlier in 1514. The Spanish, the Scottish, and the French all conjured up ideas of such a canal until finally the United States played the greatest role in its completion.

This project did not run smoothly. Official construction of the existing canal began in 1882. Granted, they did not possess the same technological advances that we have today, but nevertheless, its construction took 32 years and encompassed the terms of eight U.S. Presidents. Poor living and working conditions, disease, and awful behavior from the workers contributed to the many delays in the project. Still, when the United States took controlling interest in the project in 1904, they were determined to complete the canal. Today, the canal plays a vital role in commercial interests worldwide as a vital link to world shipping.

In our lives, God is working to build greatness. Often times, it seems like a circuitous process. Our choices, attitudes, and responses to life’s reality can sometimes delay the process. Have you ever wondered, “When am I going to see the culmination of God’s purpose for me?” You see, God began a work in you and me the day we accepted Christ into our hearts. By our own choosing, though, the development of our spiritual man is not an overnight process. There are “things” that need to be addressed, some things that need to be refined, and some things that need to be removed.

I fully believe that God’s patience deals with many of those obstacles one at a time, so not to hurt us. This is where our cooperation is required. The choice is ours. Do we want the complete work of God to impact our life? Do we really desire His perfect will in our daily walk? If we do, then we will allow Him to shape us, to guide us, and even to bring course correction in us. It may, from time to time, lead us somewhere that we never thought we would go and, maybe, never wanted to be. God is infinitely wise. He knows the best blueprint for the completed work. It won’t happen instantaneously. It’s a means to an end.

Rest assured, though, that God will continue working and continue cultivating our heart. He has a completed work planned for you and me. The work will change our lives. It will change the lives of others. It will last eternally.

Theodore Roosevelt, the American president most passionate about the canal, once said, “It is true of the Nation as well as the individual, that the greatest doer must also be the great dreamer.” The dreams in our hearts today are placed there by the creator. They are the impetus behind us becoming the person that God designed us to be. No matter how the construction of your life appears to be going, take heart. Keep dreaming. God began the work and He alone will finish it.