Boasting or Hiding?

"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ...." Galatians 6:14 NIV

In New Testament times (and both before and after) a key sign that a Gentile man had become a Jew was that he was circumcised. A little piece of skin was cut off of one of the most sensitive parts of the body. It was an outward sign of inward covenant with God.

Some Jewish Christians believed that the old covenant with its laws and rituals were binding on all new Christians, Jewish or not, and were even boasting about the numbers of those who had been circumcised because of their witness. The reason for this emphasis was because the Jews in authority were persecuting new Christians. Circumcision was a way to avoid persecution because it showed commitment to the ways of Abraham and Moses.

Do you try to hide the fact that you're a Christian? I know I have. Here in North America persecution doesn't come in the form of physical torture, imprisonment or death. This isn't what we hope to avoid. Rather, we don't want to be thought judgemental, prudish or intolerant. We don't want to risk our jobs or our standing in the community. And so we simply say nothing and do nothing that would show that we are in anyway different. But we are!

Paul didn't want to boast about how many people had become believers in Jesus because of him. The only thing he wanted to boast about was the means by which people became believers--the cross and crucifixion of Christ. Circumcision was the means by which Gentiles became Jews. The difference between the two is that Jesus and his crucifixion has the power to change lives; circumcision or any other outward sign does not. And a changed life, a "new creation"--what's on the inside, not the outside--is what counts.

We can boast in the cross of Jesus because we know that through the cross, Jesus has the power to change us and others. So let's boast about that which is worth boasting about--the cross of Jesus--and stop hiding who we are.

Jesus, what is it in me that keeps me from boasting to others about what you can and have done? Why am I afraid? Why do I hide when the glorious truth about your power to change lives is so needed by those around me? Give me courage but, even more, help me to see things the way you see them so that my passion for you and for others will overshadow any fears I may have.

What Goes in Must Come Out

“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit….” John 7:38-39

I have read, heard and even talked much about the need to go to God for living water—that we are thirsty and need this water to slake our thirst—but somehow I have missed this verse. Streams of living water will flow from believers? From within us? And this living water is the Holy Spirit?

We come to Jesus thirsty and drink. As we drink, what we drink—living water, the Holy Spirit—flows out of us. We are conduits. Pipes. The Holy Spirit then, does not just pour himself into us; he also flows out from us. Does he? Does he flow out from me? How? And how would I know if he was or not? How would others know?

Might this have anything to do with what I was reading in the Bible last night? “These signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Mark 16:17, 18

Father, I want to be a conduit for your Holy Spirit. Fill me up, keep me filled and keep on filling me so that what you pour into me will pour out to others.

Deny, Take Cross, Follow!

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Matthew 16:24 NIV

Oswald Chambers wrote, “Our cross is something that comes only with the peculiar relationship of a disciple to Jesus. It is the sign that we have denied our right to ourselves and are determined to manifest that we are no longer our own, we have given away forever our right to ourselves to Jesus Christ.”*

Deny our right to ourselves. What does that look like? I suspect it looks different for each believer because we all have different things that define us; different things that put a spring in our steps and different things we cling to for self-protection. I believe we must come to a point of choice: What do I want more, God or _______? And this point of choice may come more than once in our lives, each time being a critical juncture.

I can think of three such times in my life. The first was twenty-eight years ago when I returned to God after several years of not walking with him. I was pregnant, separated for two years from Tom and certain that my future lay anywhere except with him. But God made it evident that returning to Tom was what I must do. Everything in me rebelled against doing so but I was determined to follow God and so I obeyed. I look back and am so grateful that I made that choice, denying myself to follow Christ. My best guesses about what life might have been like had I chosen otherwise show only darkness, despair and a spiraling down into the pit of death.

The second time was just over four years ago. I had fallen in love with Pearl who loved me as though I was God himself. It’s not often a person gets to be a god and it’s heady stuff. She was all my dreams and passions come true. To me she was life itself and when I was told that I needed to choose between her and God, it felt like a death sentence. Surely I could have both! No. I could not. It was only after I walked away from her, denying what felt like my very breath of life, that I realized how far I had moved away from God.

The third time is now. Having read Total Forgiveness by R. T. Kendall, I realize I’ve been holding onto a bundle of unforgiveness. Am I willing to throw my “righteous” indignation, my self-protection, my rights and my way of living to the wind? Am I willing to wipe away the past and behave, speak, think as though it never happened? Will I release my wounds, my anger, my bitterness to trust Jesus with my pain and follow him away from my impatience, self-pity and demands for justice?

Chambers says, “We cannot train ourselves to be Christians; we cannot disciple ourselves to be saints; we cannot bend ourselves to the will of God; we have to be broken to the will of God.”*

Father, break me completely. I don’t like being broken and I don’t like giving up those things that make me feel happy, comforted or safe. Denying myself of what feels right and living in the pain of doing without seems impossible. But I want you more than anything else so break me and shape me into your will so that I can follow you more closely.

“Self-Realisation v. Christ-Realisation” in “Facing Reality”, part of The Complete Works of Oswald Chmabers p. 31, 32.

Total Forgiveness

“Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. … For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your heavenly Father will not forgive your sins.” (Matthew 6:12 NLT, 14, 15 NIV)

Total Forgiveness: When Everything in you Wants to Hold a Grudge, Point a Finger and Remember the Pain, God wants you To Lay it all Aside by R. T. Kendall

The sub-title of Total Forgiveness grabbed me. Hold a grudge? Point a Finger? Remember the pain? When it comes to my marriage, this is what I’ve done. Many times I’ve forgiven Tom—or at least I’ve meant to and said all the right words of forgiveness—but I’ve often wondered how much I have forgiven him. Lately I’ve been praying, asking God to take down the barriers I’ve built between the two of us because I don’t know how. Could the barriers be walls of unforgiveness?

I’ve pondered Tom’s amazing acceptance when I told him I struggle with same-sex attraction. I’ve wondered at his support of my book that, though chiefly about God’s work in my life, tells of my infidelity to him. I’ve hurt him grievously more than once in ways that would have sent most spouses not only running away but spewing venom but Tom has not. Can it be that he who has been following God for a much shorter time than me is more forgiving of me than I am of him?

What is forgiveness? What does it look like? How do I know when I’ve forgiven someone? How do I forgive? R. T. Kendall lists seven steps to forgiveness and says that when each of these are present regarding the offence and offender, we know we truly have forgiven (I’m listing only six below because two seem to be the same thing to me)..

Make the deliberate and irrevocable choice not to tell anyone what they did. Yikes! Right off the bat I hit a strike. Why do I tell about the wrongs done against me? I’ve been very free in telling others all the ways Tom has hurt me. What is the necessity? Kendall suggests that we do it in order to punish our offender. Is that forgiveness? No. Neither is telling to garner sympathy and/or praise: “What a wonderful person you are to have endured all that and not walked away!”

Be pleasant to them should you be around them. Here’s another strike against me. I do try to be pleasant but more often than not I let my annoyance show. Why? I don’t want him to think that his unacceptable behavior is okay. But do I want to be treated like that because of my offenses against him or others? No.

If conversation ensues, say that which would set them free from guilt. No way! I’ve put all my energy into convincing him of his guilt. How can I forgive someone who doesn’t believe what he did was wrong or realize the depth of pain he has caused? If only he would acknowledge his guilt I could forgive. But no. Look at Joseph when he encountered his brothers in Egypt: “Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” (Genesis 45:5) Can I be that magnanimous with those who hurt me? I haven’t been.

Let them feel good about themselves. No! Why should he feel good about himself when he’s made me hurt so much? He already feels too good about himself. He really needs to be brought down a notch or two instead. Strike four!

Keep it up today, tomorrow, this year and next. Sigh. I’m still raising the hurts of 37 years ago. That’s not forgiveness, is it? I need to keep renewing my commitment to forgive. Once is not enough.

Pray for them to be blessed. Strike six. I realize that my prayers for him have not been asking for good things to happen to him. Instead they’ve been, “Change him, Lord! “ which, of itself, is a good thing to pray but not good if it ends there. Far too often I’ve wanted him to experience the consequences of his hurtful behavior. Not very loving of me is it?

I need to change. I’ve been unfair, unloving and ungodly. Can I do this? Can I be so forgiving that I never talk about his wrongs to anyone, not even to my best friend? Can I keep my mouth closed when he’s done something again and not say a word? Can I go further by reassuring and encouraging him to not be angry at himself for what he’s done? Can I build him up and praise him instead of tearing him down and being critical? Can I do this to his face, behind his back and repeatedly in my mind? Can I do it every time the pain resurfaces? Am I willing to ask God to shower his blessings on him when my emotions cry out to curse him? Can I? Will I?

It’s a complete shift in my way of thinking and yet, as I was reading the book, the thought of those barriers tumbling down because I dare to forgive totally and forgive in every way is appealing. Is it that easy? It seems impossible. And yet Jesus says that the degree of forgiveness from God to me is dependent on the degree of forgiveness from me to others. I don’t have much choice, do I? I need God’s forgiveness. Without it I am dead. Tom needs my forgiveness. Without it our marriage is dead.

God, I want to be a forgiving person. I want no bitterness in my life. And I want the barriers I’ve built to come down. Help me, Lord! Help me to remember what forgiveness looks like so I can stay in that place of forgiveness. And when fear threatens to take over, give me the courage to do what I fear.

Don't, Don't, Do!

“…’Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!’ … Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom … but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence. … Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” Colossians 2:21-3:2 NIV

I grew up in a church with a lot of don'ts: Don’t dance, don’t wear make-up, don’t play cards, don’t drink tea, don’t go to movies, don’t eat pork. I have don’ts in my life now too. A big one is Don’t feed my fantasy life; don’t make contact with Pearl; don’t do anything that would stir up my desire for her or for any other woman.

There is nothing wrong with rules; we need them to have an ordered society but do the don’ts above stop me from doing what I shouldn’t? Do they stop the desires? Not really. Those come unbidden. In fact, when I first walked away from Pearl and tried to follow those rules I could not. Instead, I found my desires increased. It seems to be human nature to want what is forbidden and I’ve had that in big doses.

So what is the solution? How does one restrain oneself from the things she knows are wrong? How do we do what is right when all that is wrong is so appealing? “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

The more I focused on overcoming my sin, the more I fell into sin. But when I began to make Jesus my focus, when I stopped worrying about what I shouldn’t do or have and instead began to continually bring my thoughts onto the things of God, my life began to change. It didn’t happen overnight but, gradually, what was important to me shifted and instead of teeth-grinding determination to stay away from that which is wrong, I found myself more and more in God’s arms, resting and at peace.

No, I don’t have it all together yet. I still struggle. I still kick myself for doing what I know I shouldn’t. I’m still in process. But I think I’ve found the key: “Set your minds on things above.”

Father, I want to be so wrapped up in you and your presence that nothing on this earth has the power to pull me away from you—not even my own desires. Remind me of this when I forget and keep me focused on you alone.

Law of Life or Law of Death?

“Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2

When I grab hold of the Spirit of God or, rather, when God’s Spirit grabs hold of me, I am filled with life. That life breaks the hold that sin and its resulting death has on me. I am set free from the power of sin and death because the power and strength of God’s life is now in me. It is far stronger than all sin and death.

When life comes, it takes over. There is no room for death and/or things that cause death. In spring the plan life bursts forth, life replacing the death of winter. The law of sin and death becomes a piece of skin cut off from the flow of life until it drops off. It’s not a matter of abandoning sin and death as much as it is choosing God and the life he offers.

As we walk in this choice of God’s Spirit and life, sin and death begin to starve from lack of nourishment and attention. Specific sins aren’t the real issue. The real issue is relationship with God. As I focus on and develop that, the sin on its own will weaken its hold until it has no hold.

Thank you, God, for setting me free from the law of sin and death. Thank you for filling me with your life. I want to be taking my life from yours and from nothing else.

Be

I am seemingly in a dry time of life. Before Christmas I resigned from my position as leader of women’s ministries and began to look for a new church; I’ve been struggling with depression for over a year and just last week my doctor advised me to stop working for the sake of my mental health. My physical health has kept me from my daily walks. What is God doing? Where is he taking me?

It may seem like God has put me on the shelf because I’m not doing any work or service right now, but maybe he’s working on my roots to grow them and while he does, I may not bear flowers. I must wait and be patient just as Jesus told his disciples, as he was leaving for heaven, to wait in Jerusalem. We can get so caught up in doing things for God that we begin to neglect God.

Chambers writes, “Once you are rooted and grounded in Christ the greatest thing you can do is to be. Don’t try and be useful; be yourself and God will use you to further his ends.”*

Be. Not do but be. If I am filled and saturated by Jesus, if I am habitually dominated by his life, then who I am is defined by his presence in me. We are the salt of the earth. When we throw a few grains of salt into our food, the salt does nothing. It simply continues to be salt and, by its presence, improves the taste of the food. When I focus on being God’s, I can simply be me and God will show me what I can do.

God, I want to continue to be yours, to be who you created me to be, to be filled with you. Keep me from trying to prove I am yours by all I do. Let me simply be yours—a willing tool in your hands, not mine.


* Page 28, “Facing Reality” in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers.

Dominant Interest

Oswald Chambers defines “dominant interest” not as what takes up most of my time but what is revealed when I am in crisis. What do I do when my world falls apart? Where do I go? To whom or what do I turn? Where do I find the strength to go on? What is my source of hope and comfort? It is easy to glibly say, “Jesus!” and many of us do, but are we being honest with ourselves or are we giving the expected answer believing the truth of it but belying our words by what we do?

Father, saturate my whole being with you! Fill me with your Spirit! Make everything I turn to, save you, in times of trouble, prove to be empty of what I need so that I am pushed to come to you!

Habitually Dominated

“For those who are habitually dominated by the sinful nature put their minds on the things of the sinful nature, but those who are habitually dominated by the Spirit put their minds on the things of the Spirit.” Romans 8:5 Wuest

There was a time when my fantasies dominated my mind. I didn’t want them but they were there, colouring everything in my life, intruding even when I read my Bible. They ruled my life and my decisions and I wondered why it was so difficult to spend much time in God’s Word or in prayer. My mind was habitually turning to my fantasy life because it gave the illusion that I was wanted, desirable and comforted. Try as I might to break free, I could not.

Then a series of events came to change things. This is what Searching for Love is about. Someone came into my life and said I needed to stop focusing on the problem and start focusing on God and his love. Someone else walked me through steps to freedom in Christ. Another led me to a form of prayer in which I experienced, for the first time in my life, the tangible love and affection of God for me. I was faced with a series of decisions and I began to more consistently choose God.

The real breakthrough came for me from a choice that didn’t seem all that significant. While we were together, Pearl gave me a Life Application Bible and I loved it. I was slowly reading through it, a little every night, and God was giving me some awesome insights as I did but I continued to be plagued by my desire for Pearl. Someone suggested that daily using the Bible she gave me was part of the problem but how could that be? It was the Word of God! But as I thought and prayed about it, I became convinced that this was true and with great pain but also with a sense of release, I gave it away to a stranger in need and bought another, different kind of study Bible to replace it.

An amazing thing happened. I had had Pearl’s Bible for a year and a half and had read half of it. But now, with my new Bible, I couldn’t get enough of it! I read it through, cover-to-cover in five months. I started from the beginning again and read it a second time in four months and a third time in three. Whoa!!! I took my three-inch-thick Bible everywhere I went—on my walks, into restaurants, coffee shops and even work and every chance I had, I read it. For a year and two-thirds, no other book had any appeal.

My speed has slowed some now. It’s currently taking me six months to read it through but I’ve also developed a greater interest in spending time with God in my prayer room—praying, meditating on small portions of Scripture and listening for God’s voice. My whole day and life have become focused around God, There’s been a shift.

Habitually dominated. How are you?

Disciple or Just a Believer?

“Any believer who truly wants to obey God will make trouble.”1 Why are Christians in China and other countries persecuted? It’s not because they believe in God. Most governments are content to let people believe what they will in the privacy of their own homes. “The reason house church Christians are arrested and imprisoned in China is because they cannot keep quiet… Do you boldly preach the truth of God’s word to sinners inside and outside your churches? If you do, you will soon find out that there is persecution wherever you are.”2

How willing am I to make trouble because of Jesus? I must admit that I have been so quiet in the workplace about my belief in and dependency on Jesus that after working a year in the job I just left (I do temp work) no one knew I was a Christian. Why? What have I been afraid of? Rejection? Being mistreated? Being thought strange? Losing my job? If I lived in China no one would be looking to arrest me because of my faith because I have done nothing to upset the status quo.

“There are more than enough Christian ‘believers’ in the world today. God wants more disciples!”3 What is the difference? Disciples are willing to follow and obey Jesus regardless of the cost.

Consider Sister Chang who was told by God to preach the gospel on the steps to the local police station. Not surprisingly, she was sent to prison where, in the first three months, she brought 800 women to Christ and so changed things in that prison that she was offered a well-paying job, a chauffeured car and a nice apartment. She declined so she could continue to preach Christ.

And I’m afraid to let my colleagues see the title of the Christian book I read during breaks or tell them that I’m praying for them.

“A believer always seeks assurances that nothing will go wrong if they step out for Jesus…. [on the other hand,] disciples pray, ‘Oh God, if you will lend me just a little spiritual dynamite, I promise I will take it to the darkest area I can find, place it there, and pray you will send your fire from heaven to explode it.”4

Are you a disciple or just a believer?

1Page 100, Back to Jerusalem
2Pages 100 and 101, ibid.
3Page 114, ibid.
4Page 116, ibid.

Emotional Dependency

Although he was Roman Catholic and I am Protestant, I have a great respect for Henri Nouwen. He had an understanding of God that I want and a gentleness towards imperfect others that I wish I had. I have only read two or three books of the many he has written but I hope to eventually own and read them all. The most recent I have read is actually a posthumous collection of his writings on Spiritual Direction edited into a cohesive whole.

I gained much from Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith but one of his personal stories in particular jumped out at me because it is so much like many of mine. Nouwen was a man of God, a priest by vocation and a scholar who taught at Yale, Harvard and Notre Dame universities but left academia to live in a communal home and be chaplain and one of the aides to the mentally handicapped who lived there.

Soon after arriving at this community he developed a very special friendship. He writes, “My friend Nathan had a surprising capability to open up a place in me that had been closed, and I focused all of my emotional needs on him. I became very dependent on him, which prevented me from making God and the community the true center of my life. In his presence I felt fully alive and loved, and I did not want to let him go. At a certain point… he said, ‘I no longer want to be with you.’”

“I no longer want to be with you.” How often have I been told this in various ways? In grade two, a newcomer to the city, I was shut out at the one party I was invited to, shut out on the playground, shut out in the classroom. At age nine my father killed himself. At high school boarding school my best friend and roommate asked that I be moved to another room and because no one else wanted me I was given a room by myself in an unoccupied wing of the dormitory.

In recent years a woman who had become my spiritual mentor and my lifeline to God told me to never make contact with her again; my accountability partner and I became too emotionally connected and her solution was to end our friendship; another long-time friend who I was about to ask to be my spiritual mentor wrote me a scathing letter and said she no longer wanted to be my friend.

With each of these and also with Pearl (who never wanted me to leave her—that time it was me who ended the relationship) all my emotional needs were focused, I became dependent and made them the centre of my well-being.

When Nouwen was rejected by his friend he became so paralyzed and depressed that he went to stay in a therapeutic centre. I know the darkness he must have felt. The rejections I experienced pushed me to the edge of suicide. How could I go on? It seemed impossible. The psychiatrist I saw during one of these seasons told me that if only I would take up knitting all would be well. Nouwen’s psychiatrist wasn’t much better. “It is very simple: you got infatuated with somebody, that person dropped you, you are depressed. It will take six months of grieving to get over it. Be sure you never see this person again, and it’ll all be fine.” Nouwen says that he seemed like a horse doctor.

Though the doctor recommended Nouwen leave his community, give up his frock and end his celibacy, Nouwen chose to work through the issues in his life, return to his community and eventually was reconciled in a healthy way to the friend who had spurned him.

“We need to forgive each other for not being God!” says Nouwen. How true! No one can meet all our needs. Our hunger for love and worth go beyond what anyone can give us. Although the pain of past rejections rises in me from time to time I have to say I am glad I experienced them for they pushed me to God. I learned to say and believe, “Whom have I in heaven but you [God]? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” [Psalm 73: 25 NIV]

Father God, thank you for showing me that I am not some misfit of society because of the emotional dependencies I developed and the rejections I experienced. Even a brilliant man who was sought around the world for his wisdom and his ability to bring others into close relationship with you experienced the same thing. Please keep me in the place where I can always say with honesty, “Whom have I in heaven but you, Father? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.”

Quotes are from pages 120 and 121 of Spiritual Direction: Wisdom for the Long Walk of Faith by Henry Nouwen

Fear and Courage

In my last post I spoke about one of my fears. As I was deciding what to write, I did a bit of a search to find out more about courage--arguably the opposite of fear. Can fear and courage co-exist? Yes! Consider these thoughts from others:

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.” Mark Twain

"Courage, also known as fortitude, is the ability to confront fear, pain, danger, uncertainty or intimidation… in the face of shame, scandal, and discouragement." Wikipedia

The real test of courage is in our daily lives. Or should be. The courage to speak the truth. All the time. Because lies are the biggest and most obvious sort of cowardice that all of us hide behind. The courage to speak our mind and not stay silent, simply because we are afraid that other people might not agree with us. Of course, there will be conflicting views. And of course, conflict is unpleasant. But not speaking your mind can lead to much worse unpleasantness. Anne Zaidi
Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow. Dan Rather

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared. Edward Vernon Rickenbacker

Lord, give me courage. Despite my fear of rejection, shame, scandal, conflict, danger, uncertainty, intimidation and more, enable me to persevere and not give up. Show me your will and give me the courage to obey.

Do Not Be Frightened!

“Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’ But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.” 1 Peter 3:13-16

I’m scared. Terrified, really. My book is on the path to publication and it won’t be long until my private life and thoughts will be splashed before everyone I know and many I don’t. Searching for Love: One Woman’s Spiritual Journey through Same-Sex Attraction. Why have I agreed to publish it if I’m so afraid? I want others to know what God can do, that he is just as real and powerful today as he was two thousand years ago and that he is still in the people-changing business. What he has done for me, he can do for you. There is nothing in our lives that grips us so powerfully that God cannot loosen the grip and set us free—free to say no to those things which have held us in bondage for far too long.

So why am I afraid? There are many who have nothing but aversion to anyone and everyone connected to homosexuality. When those in this group who know me learn about my past, will they turn away from me with distaste and abhorrence? Rejection hurts and I don’t particularly like pain. There are others who see any suggestion that homosexuality is other than the best for those with such inclinations as homophobic and hateful. And so I am scared.

“Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? But even if you suffer for what is right, you are blessed. ‘Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.’” It is right for me to share what God has done for me. In truth, I cannot be silent. I must share his goodness with others. What if I’m faced with rejection and hatred? Peter says that if I suffer for what is right, I am blessed. Do not fear. Do not be frightened. That’s a hard command to obey. Fear rises, unbidden.

"In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord." Is that the answer to my fear? Can I be like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednigo who said, "Our God can and will save us from the fiery furnace but even if he doesn't, we willingly go to our death, rather than disobey him"? (Daniel 3) Can I have that kind of confidence in my Lord or does fear have a greater hold on my heart than Jesus?

Keep "a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." My fear, in essence, is of malicious slander, of those who will turn or speak against me. Do I allow that to stop me or am I so convinced that God's story in my life needs to be told that I will tell it despite fearful possibilities?

Father, fear overwhelms me at times but you tell me not to fear. Please enable me to obey you despite how I feel. Give me the courage to do what is right, even when it will result in pain.

Gentleness and Respect

“Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” 1 Peter 3:15

Gentleness and respect. To the disheveled drunk, lying on the sidewalk? Yes. To the homosexual couple living across the street? Yes. To the office gossip who never has anything good to say about anyone? Yes, yes, yes!

Father, sometimes I don’t feel very gentle at all and sometimes my distain or anger gets in the way of speaking to others with respect. But you made and love everyone and who would be drawn to you if I bashed your Word over their head?. No one is able to follow and obey you until your Spirit is living in them—and even then it can be hard. Help me to remember this so that I can point to you as the sole reason for hope—for them and for me—and do so with love, gentleness and respect.

Ask!

“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:13 NIV

I need to ask for the Holy Spirit and when I ask, my Father in heaven who knows more than any man (or woman) on earth how to give good gifts to his children will give me the Holy Spirit. If I feel a lack in my life, does that lack exist because I have failed to ask? James seems to think so. “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” (James 4:2) “Ask and it will be given to you,” Jesus says. “Everyone who asks receives.” (Matthew 7:7,8)

Do I ask only once or do I keep on asking until I have received? Jesus told the story of a widow who kept coming to the judge of her town, asking for justice. She didn’t give up asking though he kept refusing her request. In the end, he granted her what she asked and Jesus says that if an ungodly man would eventually give in to this woman’s pleas, how much more will God do the same for us if we keep crying out to him day and night? (Luke 18:2-8)

Can I ask for anything I want? No! My motives must be right. (James 4:3) Even if I’m asking for the Holy Spirit, if my motives are wrong, God will not grant my request. Look at Simon the sorcerer who offered to buy the Holy Spirit so he would have more power for his magic arts! (Acts 8:18-24)

What should I be asking God for? What needs do I see in my life and elsewhere that could be met if only I would ask and keep on asking with the right motives? “Ask and it will be given you.”

Lord, have I been missing out on something you want to do in me, for me or through me because I haven’t asked? Are there others who have been missing out because I have failed to ask you on their behalf? Am I being disobedient if I don’t ask you for what I need? Please help me remember to ask you and keep on asking and Lord, please keep my motives pure and honouring to you in all ways.

The Bible

“Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” 2 Peter 1:21

“These are the Scriptures that testify about me.” John 5:39

“All Scripture is God-breathed.” 2 Timothy 3:16

I don’t have any thoughts of my own this morning so let me share what Oswald Chambers has to say. “The key to my understanding of the Bible is not my intelligence, but personal relationship to Jesus Christ.” It is the Holy Spirit in us who makes the message clear to each of us. Without him, the Bible is just another literary work. The message in the Bible, all parts of it, is about Jesus and its meaning is to show us how to live right.

I find it interesting that when Chambers, who lived and wrote nearly a hundred years ago, talks about problems existing in the church or amongst Christians, I see that the same problems continue to be today’s problems. He says that most people like to use the Bible, not for knowing how to live but for how to prove their particular doctrines. I can remember being like that. I had all the texts I needed to prove this and that but I didn’t have a picture of the whole story—the story of God’s love and special favour for his people. “God so loved the world that he gave his own Son.” The beginning and the end are right there.

Father, thank you for taking the time to speak to those you chose to tell us about your love and your intentions for us. Thank you for caring so much that you sent Jesus not only to show us how to live but to give us the life that was taken from us because of our sin.

Controlled by…

“You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.” Romans 8:9 NIV

God, who am I controlled by? I still sin. I do wrong. I find some sin very attractive and appealing. If I have the Spirit of Christ in me, why is this so? And yet I know I belong to you. I am yours. You have confirmed this to me many times. Please make me yours in every way—undivided and whole.

It's Very Personal

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 NIV

We live in a very individualistic culture and sometimes I wonder how much of what God does or wants is for us corporately rather than as individual people. He calls us his bride. We are the body of Christ. These refer to us collectively—all of us being one unit if you will. I had some grand thoughts about this the past week as I was out walking, though I can’t remember now what they were.

But here Paul indicates that what Jesus did was very personal. Christ lives in me. Jesus loves me. He gave himself for me. I may be a single cell in the baby toe nail of Christ’s body and surely God is able, though we are not, to see the whole body as it is. Yet, every single cell matters to him and not only matters but he loves each one. He loves me! He died for me. He lives in me.

Thank you God that I matter to you. Thank you for loving me, for dying for me, for living in me.

Simon Zhao

The Back to Jerusalem movement began in the 1920s. From then until communism, a number of groups, independent of each other, were given the same vision of taking the gospel westward from China and pursued that vision. One western missionary in China called it “a movement of the Spirit which is irresistible.”*

When communism arrived in 1949, the movement was carried on by only a few and these few headed towards the nation’s northwest border in three groups, bringing many of the soldiers they encountered along the way to believe in Jesus. They hadn’t yet managed to leave the country before they were all arrested and put into prison. None managed to survive their sentences except for one young man, Simon Zhao.

“Simon was beaten [and often tortured] for most of the thirty-one years he spent in prison” but he never renounced Jesus. He prayed, he preached to those who would listen and he experienced God’s presence in a number of ways. By the time he was released as an elderly man in his 60s, he was certain no one would remember him or know who he was. Having no place else to go, he set up a make-shift shelter outside the prison gate, and spent his time praying and praising God, waiting for life to end.

Somehow, the local church learned about him and helped him in ways they could. News about him spread until distant parts of China heard about “a miracle man [who] had been sustained by the power of God during thirty-one years in prison for the sake of the gospel.” Simon didn’t want to give his testimony or have any attention drawn to him but eventually one distant group of believers persuaded him to come to them and tell his story.

God had begun to bring the vision of Back to Jerusalem back to life amongst Chinese believers and one day, a number of years after Simon had begun to share his story, while he was worshipping with others, a well-known Christian leader, himself imprisoned and tortured many times, began to sing an old song from the Back to Jerusalem movement of the 1940s. Simon began to cry uncontrollably and moved towards the front, asking to speak.

Forty-eight years before, he and his colleagues had written that very song. He told how all but he had died in prison, including his bride of four months. The believers asked if he still carried the vision for Back to Jerusalem in his heart. He replied by singing first one song and then another which urged the believers to pick up the torch he had carried. And then he said, “You must recognize the way of the cross is the call to shed blood. You must take the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Muslim countries, then all the way back to Jerusalem. Turn your eyes to the west!”

Brother Yun, the man who sang Simon’s song and now one of the chief leaders of Back to Jerusalem has a few things to say to us in the western Church that are very sobering:

• “We shouldn’t pray for a lighter load to carry, but a stronger back to endure! Then the world will see that God is with us, empowering us to live in a way that reflects his love and power.”
  
• “The Back to Jerusalem missionary movement … is an army of broken-hearted Chinese men and women whom God has cleansed with a mighty fire, and who have already been through years of hardship and deprivation for the sake of the gospel.”
  
• “God is calling thousands of house church warriors to write their testimonies with their own blood…. Thousands will be willing to die for the Lord."
  
• “We are going into battle because we know that for more than seventy years God has been speaking to the Chinese church, telling us to take the gospel back to Jerusalem for his glory. That is why we can march forward….”
  
• “The very thing some people may think a failure [such as imprisonment and death] may turn out to be the point of breakthrough and victory.”

God, give us all this courage and faith!


P. S. Simon Zhao was given twenty post-prison years of ministry for God before he died at the age of eighty-three in 2001.

*Phyllis Thompson quoted in Back to Jerusalem p. 41
All other quotes can be found between pages 46 and 60 in Back to Jerusalem.

A Hundred Years Later is a previous post in this blog about Back to Jerusalem.

He's Got it Backwards Again!

“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV

I’ve been sitting here in my prayer room pondering the hugeness of this truth and find it beyond comprehension. Jesus never sinned. He was never unacceptable to God. He never made a mistake. He was never off the mark. He never once violated God’s will nor was he ever offensive to God.

But God made Jesus sin. Jesus became unacceptable to God. He became the mistake, the violation, the offense that is so abhorrent to God. He wasn’t made a sin; he was made sin. He wasn’t made a representative of sin; he was made sin. This verse doesn’t even suggest that Jesus was made a sin offering*. No! Jesus was made sin. Love the sinner but hate the sin? Jesus was that sin—that which can never come into the presence of God.

Why? It seems so ludicrous. What is more ludicrous is that God did this so that we might become the righteousness of God. Say what? Not so that we could become righteous; not so that we can become like the righteousness of God but that we might become God’s righteousness. How is that even possible? I don’t know about you but I’m covered in sin. I’m tainted through and through, a completely rotten potato that should have been tossed out long ago (have you ever smelled rotten potatoes? ICK!).

“…that we might become the righteousness of God”—that we might become God’s uprightness, God’s virtue, God’s innocence, his faultlessness, guiltlessness and justice. None of these describe me. Like I said, I’m covered in sin; sin through and through. Wait a minute! “God made him who had no sin to be sin.” If Jesus became sin then could I change that statement to read, “I’m covered in Jesus; Jesus through and through?” Is this how we become the righteousness of God?

God, this is beyond comprehension. It makes no sense. It’s backwards. How could I ever become your righteousness? And yet you made your Son everything that is hateful to you so that I could. But oh God, if all the sin in my life could become Jesus in my life, what a different person I would be. I want to be that different person, God. Please change me.



*The footnote in the NIV does suggest “sin offering” so I went to Strong’s Greek lexicon to see what exactly the original word meant or implied. There’s no suggestion in the meaning of anything other than sin.

A Hundred Years Later

Hudson Taylor opened up the whole of China to the good news of Jesus Christ. Less than 50 years after his death all missionaries were forced out of China and the Chinese Christians left behind were bullied, tortured and killed. Did the Church die and Christianity wither away to nothing but a few old people clinging to their memories? NO!

The past more-than-50 years has seen a revolution that the western world, never mind the Chinese communist government, thought could never happen. The church has flourished and grown beyond all imagination. When one Chinese Christian leader was asked what he expected the growth of the Church to look like in the next 20 or 30 years, he replied that all of China would be Christian. Amazing!

Another amazing thing is taking place amongst the Christians in China. They are no longer the greatest mission field but rather are poised to become the greatest missionary sender.

I started reading a new book last night, Back to Jerusalem. Christianity began in Jerusalem and, for the most part, has travelled in a westerly direction—to Africa, Europe, the Americas and finally to the Pacific and inland to China. But what is west of China? The countries with the greatest need and the fewest opportunities to know about Jesus. And so the Church in China has grabbed a vision to complete the westward movement of Christianity through these staunchly Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu nations until the good news reaches back to where it began—Jerusalem.

It is a dangerous mission but danger is nothing new to the Chinese Church. It has grown and flourished under more danger than we in the west can conceive. The intention is to send 100,000 missionaries to this needy area. A hundred thousand! Have all the countries of the west combined sent that many through the two thousand years we’ve known Christ? And yet one nation, knowing Christ for barely a hundred years, persecuted and crushed for half that time, is pouring itself out to nations we seem unable to reach. Praise God! Hudson Taylor must surely be dancing with the angels in heaven!

Father, thank you for China and the incredible faith the Christians there have developed. Thank you that your Church has flourished and multiplied in unbelievable ways. Thank you for the vision you have given these dear brothers and sisters of ours and their very real willingness to pour out their lives so that others may know you. Beside these giants of faith, we in the west are nothing. Forgive us, Lord, for our puniness of faith, our fears and our self-centred materialism. Come to us anew and fill us with life!

Spiritual Secrets

I’ve just finished reading Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret, a biography of that well-known missionary pioneer to China. In a time when all Protestant missionaries were huddled together in five coastal cities, Hudson’s burning desire was to go inland and reach all of China.

To do this he formed his own mission organization. Two stipulations he made was that his missionary recruits live, dress and act like the Chinese they were trying to reach in so far as following God would allow and that there was not to be any fund-raising. “By 1900 there were 750 China Inland Mission members. Four million dollars had been raised without anyone but God being asked to give, and there was no debt. Over 700 Chinese workers were connected with the mission and 13,000 Chinese believers had been baptized.”* In one three-week period in 1891 66 missionaries arrived in Shanghai for his mission alone. Others caught his vision and by the time he died in 1905, men and women from many mission organizations had not only reached every province of China but were strongly entrenched.

What was his secret? How did he have the gall, faith and courage to invite young men and women to work in China with no financial security but the promises of God? He spent time with God. “From 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. was his usual prayer time—the time he could count on being undisturbed in prayer.”** In 40 years, he had read the Bible 40 times. Wow!

But he had another secret that started before he ever went to China, when he was a teen in England. It started out as an exercise in learning to endure difficult living conditions. In doing this, he found that he only used a third of his income and was able to give the rest away to those in need. But then he thought, “When I get out to China, I shall have no claim on anyone for anything. My only claim will be on God. How important to learn, before leaving England, to move man, through God, by prayer alone.”*** If his faith needed to grow, he would learn to exercise it.

His employer often forgot to pay him so one way he began to exercise his faith was to not remind him when it was payday but simply appeal to God for his need. One time his boss was several weeks late paying him and he had only one large coin left when a man came to him in need. He chose to give the man his coin, uncertain whether he’d be able to eat the next day because of it. It was that very next day that his boss asked if he had paid Hudson yet. When he went to medical school, he declined all help but continued to depend on God for all things and always his needs were met.

How much time do I spend with God and how dependent am I on him? Is he the first one I turn to or the last? I would like to think I have the faith of Hudson Taylor but I know I don’t.

Father God, I want to be completely dependent on you for all things—not just for my financial needs but also for my emotional, physical, mental and spiritual needs. Help me turn to you first in all things.


*pages 262, 263
**page 269
***page 13

Sick

My gallbladder has been giving me grief since early last night, robbing me of sleep and keeping me home from work. I'm supposed to have surgery sometime in the next month but a date hasn't been slated yet. Hopefully I'll be able to post later today or tomorrow morning.

Listen and Learn!

“Listen and hear my voice; pay attention and hear what I say. When a farmer plows for planting, does he plow continually? Does he keep on breaking up and harrowing the soil? When he has leveled the surface, does he not sow caraway and scatter cumin? Does he not plant wheat in its place, barley in its plot and spelt in its field? His God instructs him and teaches him the right way.” Isaiah 28:23-26 NIV

Does the farmer plow continually? No! He has more work to do than that. There are steps he must follow in order to produce a crop. What is my work? What are the steps I must follow in order to complete that work? I’m not sure I know completely, yet. Write. But is there more to my work than writing? Just as God instructs the farmer and teaches him the right way to do his work, I know that God is instructing and showing me. Although the farmer may know the end result of his work—a crop of grains to harvest and turn into bread—I don’t need to know the end of mine. All I need to know is each step as it comes and to trust God that he is leading me.

Lord, please keep my eyes, ears and heart open to knowing when to stop one phase of my work and move on to the next. Keep me listening wholly to you and none other.

The Weak and Foolish God

“… we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to Gentiles., but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than Man’s strength.” 1 Corinthians 1:23-25 NIV

Jesus is the power and wisdom of God. He is the power of God because through his death and resurrection he broke the power of sin and death. The cross was a symbol of weakness. Those who were hung on crosses were totally powerless. They had come to the end of themselves. They couldn’t shake off the flies that swarmed to their wounds. They couldn’t cover their nakedness. They couldn’t escape the heat or the sun or the cold at night. They could do nothing for themselves or for others. They couldn’t stop the grief of those who loved them. All they could do was hang there and suffer for a long time.

Jesus is the wisdom of God. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom.” It seems foolish and contradictory to use death to destroy death. It seems foolishness that one man’s death could save an entire world over millennia. It seems foolish to love those who despise and abuse you. It seems foolish, when God has the power to zap us all and start over, that he chose instead to love and redeem us. “The weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”

We want wisdom and power in our leaders and in our God and because God chose to look foolish and powerless, many have a hard time believing that Jesus is worth following. He is a stumbling block on the path to God. Have you tripped over Jesus lately?

Separation

“No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs—he wants to please his commanding officer.” 2 Timothy 2:4 NIV

“If a man or woman wants to make a special vow, a vow of separation to the Lord as a Nazirite, he must abstain from wine and other fermented drink and must not drink vinegar made from wine or from other fermented drink. He must not drink grape juice or eat grapes or raisins.” Numbers 6:2,3 NIV

Oswald Chambers said to a group of seminary students, “A worker has to disentangle himself from many things that would advantage and develop him but which would turn him aside from being broken bread and poured out wine in his Lord’s hands.”*

Holiness means set apart and God tells us to be holy. How? What are we set apart from? We are to live a life that is pleasing to God and that often sets us apart from others but is this the only way? Are we to separate ourselves only from evil? Might there be good things we are also to be separate from?

God, I don’t have answers to all these questions but I do know that I want to be separate from anything that would separate me from all you want me to be and do. Please show me.

*"Approved unto God" in The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers p.21

Hardship and Joy

“Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 2:3 NIV

Yesterday, I spoke of things that I gave up in order to follow God. Each time it was incredibly difficult to make the choice. I fought tooth and nail with God, especially the first two I listed, because I couldn't see how giving them up and choosing the path God was directing me to could bring me anything but misery and pain. As for getting up early in the morning to come to my prayer room, I've always wanted to be able to do that but it seemed impossible to give up the sleep I seemed to never get enough of.

Yes, in each case I made a conscious choice for what seemed to be incredible hardship however, I want you to know that every single time, God turned the pain into sweet joy. Twenty-eight years after choosing to return to my husband, things are better than they have ever been and continue to get even better.

When I chose to leave Pearl, I was raging angry at God for about a week for not letting us even be friends. But then God changed my heart in some radical ways and so, even though I still miss her, I am very glad I made the choice I did. God has become more real to me than I ever thought possible.

As for not sleeping in anymore, well, it's an amazing thing. I'm now waking and getting before my alarm rings. There's a draw, a pull, that makes me look forward to leaving the warmth and comfort of my bed on the second floor to come to the much cooler prayer room in the basement.

With each point of decision in our lives, we have to make the choice. No one, not even God, will make it for us. But once we've chosen God's way, things change. God rewards those who diligently seek him. Not always right away. It took years for our marriage to improve, for example. Sometimes God tests us to see if we'll hold to the choice we've made and sometimes there are other reasons for hardship and pain but God always enables us to follow through on the good choices we've made.