David’s psalm after his sin with Bathsheba –

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge … Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice … Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will turn back to you. Save me from bloodguilt, O God, the God who saves me, and my tongue will sing of your righteousness. O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:1-17).

Walking with God in intimate fellowship is the goal and the key to experiencing his presence, hearing him, receiving his promises, ministering in the power of the Holy Spirit, living with joy and everything else you can think of.  Walking with God is based on agreement with him. “How can two walk together unless they are agreed?” (Amos 3:3). To maintain our “agreement” with God we must deal effectively with any sin that creeps into our lives.  David’s psalm quoted above is vey instructive.  First of all, David knew the heart of God better than any man in scripture other than Jesus because he was “a man after God’s own heart.” Secondly, after his sin with Bathsheba he was in desperate need of realigning his life and heart with the Father.

It’s helpful to know that after adultery, murder and a year of covering up the sins, God’s forgiveness was not out of reach for David. Undoubtedly, David’s sin had set some consequences in motion that he would have to live with, but as soon as he confessed his sin to God he was forgiven and his walk with the Lord restored.  Some great difficulties loomed in his future but God, as a loving Father, would walk through those difficulties with him.  David’s heart and view of God revealed in Psalm 51 is the key to restoration.  Let me just point out a few keys but you should reflect on this psalm yourself for your own insights.

First of all, throughout this psalm David made no attempt to rationalize, justify or minimize his sin. He blamed no one else for his actions but acknowledged that he was totally responsible for the choices he had made.  Too many times we come before God like children caught with our hands in the cookie jar giving every excuse for our actions.  “I couldn’t help myself.  I was overpowered by the smell of those cookies. Actually, my sister made me do it! If mom hadn’t made the cookies in the first place this would have never happened! What’s the big deal anyway, it was only one small cookie?  Besides, the cookie rule is stupid and unfair!”  You get the drift. David could have tried to spread the blame around or deny his personal responsibility by declaring that Bathsheba shouldn’t have been bathing outside or that she should have refused to come to his apartment. Maybe if Uriah had been a better husband this would never have happened or if God hadn’t given David such strong sexual desires he could have said “no” to the temptation, etc.

Sometimes our approach to confession betrays our view that God will forgive our sins or continue to love us only if we convince him that the sin wasn’t our fault or that the biblical standard isn’t fair or that it is out of step with our current realities. David does none of that.  He relies immediately and totally on God’s mercy, his unfailing love, and his great compassion.

He refuses to bargain with God or to offer to somehow work off his sin through penance or good works or by never doing it again – “God if you will just forgive this, I will….” He acknowledges that there is nothing he can do to make his sin right or to make it go away.  He simply asks God to cleanse his sin and purify his heart because there is nothing else he can do. He declares that God’s standards are right and just and simply acknowledges his great failure in living up to those standards.

In this psalm, there is obviously godly sorrow in David’s heart for his sin.  He has wronged God first by violating his commands and wounding (in this case killing) those that God also loved. He feels his guilt and shame but he is laying all of that at the feet of God’s mercy and the cross which already stood in the mind of God (Rev.13:8).  Even after his great sin, David believed that reconciliation was possible and that God was willing to restore his joy because of God’s great heart and relentless love for his people.

David also understood that God is not interested in us carrying guilt and shame around for years so that our joy, our service to him and our testimony is suffocated by the weight of our past.  I see people who seem to carry guilt, shame and self-loathing over sins from there past as if they can earn God’s forgiveness through their self-inflicted misery and emotional suffering.  God is not interested in that because our refusal to accept his forgiveness robs him of our joyful service, our praise, and our testimony to sinners around us. Our insistence on continuing to carry our guilt and shame for past sins declares that Christ’s sacrifice was not enough for us.

David was not theologically clear on the cross but he was clear on the heart of God that provided the cross and so he pressed into God and trusted him totally for grace, mercy, unfailing love, cleansing, and restoration.  No excuses. No rationalization. Just confession and trust in the heart and character of God.  We need to come to God daily with every sin in the same assurance.  We can actually come with even more assurance because we are this side of the cross and understand what Jesus has done for us. If we believe that our sins, our brokenness, and the darkness we still discover in our hearts make us unacceptable to God then we will distance ourselves from him and begin to deny, justify and rationalize our sins until we no longer accept God’s standards in our lives.  God doesn’t require us to live up to his standards before he accepts us, he accepts us in Jesus so that by his Spirit we can begin to live up to those standards.

Dealing with sin and weakness in our lives on a daily basis through the cross is essential to our walk with the Father. Nothing is beyond his grace and mercy. David understood that and when sin was greater than David, God’s grace was greater than sin.  It still is.  Be blessed today in the unfailing love and sure forgiveness of your Father.

According to Bible scholars, the gospel of Matthew is the most Jewish of the gospels in its emphasis on certain things and its style.  The gospel begins with a genealogy tracing the lineage of Jesus from Abraham through David to the earthly parents of Jesus establishing Jesus as a member of the tribe of Judah from which Messiah would come.  Matthew is the one to tell us of the visit of the Magi and the eventual death of innocent Jewish boys in Bethlehem at the hands of Herod. He tells us how Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness fasting and praying in the tradition of the Old Testament prophets and about his showdown with Satan at the end of the forty days.  In Matthew, Jesus calls his disciples to “come and follow” him in the tradition of the Rabbis and his “Sermon on the Mount” is, in many ways, a commentary on the interpretation of Old Testament law by the Pharisees.  In Chapter 4, Matthew tells us in general terms of the healing ministry of Jesus but gives his first specific healing story in Chapter 8 – the healing of a leper.

Leprosy was not only medically significant but socially and spiritually significant as well in Jewish faith and culture. Full-blown leprosy was an infectious disease so that the individual who was affected was marked as “unclean.”  He was to be socially isolated so that no one could touch him and he was not allowed to enter into the temple to worship.  In some cases, it was a death sentence as the disease progressed.  To many Jews, leprosy was seen as punishment for sin – either the sins of the parents or of the individual who had it.  That view probably stemmed from God’s punishment on Miriam in Numbers 12 when she began to rebel against Moses’ leadership.  In that moment God struck her with leprosy and then healed her later at Moses’ request.  David also pronounced a curse on Joab’s house for murdering an innocent man (2 Samuel 3) that included the curse of leprosy.

In the first century, those with leprosy were considered unclean, sinful, loathsome, and under a death sentence from God.  They were isolated and had to walk the streets crying “unclean” so that others would stay away from them.  Any truly religious person would stay far away from a leper because to contact the leper made that person unclean as well so that they could not come into the presence of God in the temple.

In the midst of that cultural environment, an unnamed leper came and kneeled before Jesus asking to be healed. In that moment, Jesus was very counter-cultural.  He actually touched the man which was forbidden by law.  Not only did he touch the man but healed him completely. I like what Bill Johnson says about that kind of healing.  He says that the Old Testament displays the power of sin because if you touched a leper you were made unclean.  The New Testament displays the power of Christ’s righteousness because when he touched a leper he was not made unclean but rather the leper was healed. The righteousness of Christ overcomes both sin and disease in these gospel accounts and in New Testament theology.  Looking ahead to the New Covenant, David said, “ Praise the Lord, O my soul and forget not all his benefits – who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” (Ps.103:3).

I believe this leper was the first detailed account of healing in Matthew’s gospel because it was so significant for the Jews.  Lepers were written off as a lost cause, untouchable, and incurable.  Many thought that their disease was a judgment from God and so felt little pity for the lepers.  And yet Jesus reversed all of that in a moment with a touch and a word.  In that moment the love and the grace of God totally cleansed the man with the implication that he was also totally forgiven.

In the very next chapter of Matthew, Jesus healed a paralytic but began by saying, “Take heart son, your sins are forgiven” (Mt.9:2).  The Pharisees objected to the notion that Jesus could grant forgiveness since only God in heaven could do so.  To their objection, Jesus replied, “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?         But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” And the man got up and went home”  (Mt.9:5-7).

The theology runs something like this.  Disease afflicts man because of sin – sometimes his own sin but more often because of Adam’s sin that makes every man subject to death and disease.  If a man is healed it is because the power of sin has been overcome by the cross of Christ.  Healing is manifest evidence of God’s grace and Christ’s all-sufficient sacrifice through which God forgives all of our sins and heals all of our diseases.  Miraculous healing, then, is evidence of God’s grace and the power of the cross to deliver men from sin. Without such demonstrations, the truth of the gospel is not manifested as God intends. Miraculous healing does not always create faith but it always demonstrates the power of the cross and the love of God for sinful men which opens the door for faith.

Healing and other miraculous moves of the Spirit are not ends in themselves but demonstrations of even greater realities – the love and grace of God and the all sufficiency of the blood of Christ. If God is good all the time; if the cross has broken the power of the enemy in my life; and if the blood of the Lamb open the doors of heaven to me now and later – then sign me up.

Those truths are manifested over time in the life of every believer but are manifested in the moment that the gospel is preached or shared when the power of heaven is released through the gifts of the Spirit. Because of that we should earnestly desire spiritual gifts and pursue them as the will of God for his church today.  When we begin to touch the lepers of our day – AIDS victims, drug addicts, late-stage cancer victims, children with birth defects, etc. with the compassion and power of heaven, then we will present Jesus in all his glory to the world and the world will come to him.  Be blessed today.  Ask for miracles and expect them.  It is God’s will.

Alignment with God is the key to a free flow of power from heaven through God’s instruments on earth.  We are those instruments.  Most of us have had the experience of placing a sprayer on the end of a garden hose, turning the faucet wide open, dragging that hose across our yard in an attempt to water a flowerbed or tree. We have also had the experience of pulling the trigger on the sprayer to see only a tiny stream trickling from the end of the hose.  Typically, as we backtrack we find a kink in the hose obstructing the flow.  The problem was not in the water or the valve; it was in the delivery system which was the hose. Somehow the hose became twisted or misaligned and that twist restricted the flow of water.  Once the kink was eliminated and every part of the hose was realigned, then water flowed powerfully from the hose.

In essence, once the kink was removed, life flowed through the hose to the plants where we directed the water. We are God’s delivery system on the earth. When we are aligned with God, his authority and power flows easily through us as his instruments.  Sin and disobedience however, create kinks and greatly restrict that flow.  As we move toward a new year we need to reflect on the past twelve months to see if any “kinks in the hose” have developed in our lives.  If you read this blog, you probably have a desire for God to work in you and through you in greater and greater ways.  You probably want 2014 to be your greatest year of fellowship with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit and you want it to be a year of breakthroughs in your exercise of spiritual gifts that you have earnestly desired.

As I look back on this past year, I can see kinks that have formed in my life as well as in the lives of people I know, people I have prayed with, and people I have counseled. First of all, 2013 was a year of distractions.  I don’t know when I have felt pulled in so many directions by ministry, family, crises in the life of friends, cultural shifts and so forth.  It was a year in which it was hard to find a consistent spiritual rhythm.

And yet when I look at Jesus, I see a man who knew he faced a brutal death within 36 months of his baptism.  I see a man pulled on by thousands of people clamoring for more healing and more deliverance with each group or community pleading with him to stay longer.  Others pressured him to have political aspirations and to step up and take charge of Israel’s promised destiny.  In addition, he had the responsibility of training twelve rough-cut disciples to be leaders of a worldwide church that would face temptation and persecution at every turn. The twelve alone were a constant source of frustration without everything else that was going on.  On top of that, Jesus was always in the crosshairs of satan who sensed some imminent threat to his kingdom in this Galilean. In the midst of all those potential distractions, Jesus stayed on course and never seemed to be hurried even as the clock ticked quickly toward his death.

This year I need to find his secret. I think that secret was in knowing who he was, having a simple sense of what his life was to be about, and spending extended times with the Father realigning his thoughts, emotions, and vision with heaven, I need to do that more and do it better this year.  I also need to examine my heart to seek if kinks have formed there.  Those kinks may be small offenses I have picked up or resentments about demands others place on me.  They might be ways of thinking that have drifted out of alignment with God’s truth or laziness that has crept into my discipline of study, prayer, writing, and good health.  It could be small fears and anxieties about the future, about financial security, about health care options, or even loss of religious freedoms in our culture.  All of those things can create kinks in the flow of life and power moving through me.

For others I know, grief at the loss of loved ones, serious health challenges, secret addictions, lustful fantasies, unforgiveness and bitterness towards those who wronged them in 2013, etc. can create serious kinks in their spiritual lives. As life dings us, it is even easy to pick up small offenses toward God as well that need to be resolved.  As 2014 arrives in just a few days, it would be good for all of us who desire more of God and more of his Spirit to scan our lives to look for even the smallest things that are out of alignment with God’s heart and God’s truth.  It would be good for each of us to realign our lives through repentance, confession, and the reordering of priorities or whatever it takes to stay in step with heaven this year.

This coming year will undoubtedly be a year of continuing challenges in our culture and in our lives. But it will also be a year of unprecedented opportunities for Jesus to shine in our lives through our faith and obedience to him.  It will be a year of unprecedented opportunities for the power and authority of Jesus to bless others through our spiritual gifts and boldness.  It will be a great year to put down deeper roots into the heart of God so that the winds of change don’t move us.

So…over the next few days you may want to ask God to shine the light on any kinks in your life that might be restricting the flow of God’s love and power through you.  Where kinks have formed, God is quick to forgive, quick to realign, quick to restore and quick to begin to release heaven through his people once again.  There is no reason to hesitate.  We can all begin the year with the unrestricted flow of God’s Spirit moving through us.  Why would we not?  May this upcoming year be an amazing spiritual year for each of us.  Be blessed in Him.

As you know, symbols are important in scripture.  I was reading in Matthew this morning and looking at the familiar story of Jesus being baptized by John in the Jordan River.  It’s important to remember that John’s baptism was a call to repentance from sin. It carried the symbolism of cleansing as John administered baptism to the hundreds and thousands who were being touched by his preaching.

Because it was a baptism of repentance, John objected when Jesus, the sinless one, came to be baptized.  However, Jesus insisted that John immerse him in the muddy waters of the Jordan to “fulfill all righteousness.”  Jesus insisted on obeying the command of the

Father to be baptized because Jesus was not only the chosen representative of God but also of man. Jesus submitted to baptism as our representative not because he needed to turn his heart toward God but because we needed to turn our hearts toward God.

The Jews were not unfamiliar with symbolic washings in water. The priests were washed as a sign of cleansing before entering the temple to minister.  Gentiles who came to faith in Jehovah and converted to Judaism went through cleansings by immersing themselves in water also as a sign of purification. These ceremonial cleansings were performed by the priest or the convert by squatting down in a pool of water until they were completely covered and then rising on their own. But now John was administering baptism.  For the first time, cleansing was not something a man could do for himself by his own efforts but it was something he must receive at the hands of another.

As Jesus was lifted from the water, Matthew tells us that the Holy Spirit descended on him in the form of a dove and remained there. As I read that, my mind always goes back to the Genesis flood when man had become so alienated from God and so saturated with evil that God determined to destroy man except for Noah and his family.  As the flood receded from the earth, Noah sent a dove out from the ark to see if he would find a resting place or return because the water still covered the earth.  The first time Noah released the dove he returned.  The second time he came back with a fresh olive leaf in his beak and the third time he was sent out, the dove did not return because the judgment of God was passing away.

For millennia, the sign of peace has been a dove with an olive branch in his mouth.  It was a sign that God has made peace with man.  Noah and his family were able to step out of the ark and receive the blessing of God once again on dry land. Matthew gave us a picture of Jesus standing waist deep in the Jordan with the sign of peace resting on him.  Through Jesus, God was making peace with man once again. When Isaiah spoke of the coming Messiah, he called him the “Prince of Peace.”

I don’t know about you, but as I grow older I long more and more for peace – peace in my environment but even more for peace within.  Peace is a fruit of the Spirit that I want more and more but it only comes when I am certain that I have peace with God. That certainty only comes through faith in what Jesus has done for me and that my heavenly Father welcomes me and delights in me even in my imperfections.

As Christmas day came and passed, there were still wars and terrorism raging in the world.  Israel was retaliating against sniper fire from Muslims across their border.  Car bombs were still exploding in Bagdad and Egypt. Threats were still being issued against Christians in hostile nations and believers were still being beaten for their faith in China.

The world continues to seek political solutions to war, poverty, and racism.  But you can’t give want you don’t possess.  The problem is that man has no internal peace.  He is restless, angry, bitter, and unforgiving in his fallen nature. All those feelings manifest in war, murder, divorce, or seek to be medicated by drugs and alcohol.  The solution is still and only Jesus, the Prince of Peace.  When I have truly made peace with God through his Son, them I can make peace with men. Through Jesus, God has offered each of us the olive branch – his peace.  That is really what all men are seeking to find without knowing what it is.

The dove landed on one man – Jesus.  He did not land on many or on several.  He landed on one. No man can come to the Father except through his only begotten Son.  We will need to remember that in 2014.  There will be more wars, greater calls to accept the legitimacy of many faiths as roads to salvation, and more promises for political solutions. But only Jesus is the Prince of Peace and the holder of the olive branch from heaven. I want to seek him more and more and point others to him as well. I encourage you to do the same in this coming year. Be blessed today in the peace of God through Jesus Christ

Christmas Eve.  Most of us understand that December 25 is, in all probability, not the day on which Jesus was born.  It was a day chosen by the early church for various reasons to remember and celebrate the birth of our Savior. It’s a remarkable thing to consider God slipping on flesh and living among men.  We know that Jesus came to save his people from their sins but Jesus himself told us that he also came to show us the heart of the Father.  In John 14, Jesus told Philip that if we have seen Jesus then we have seen the Father.  So what do we see in the birth of Jesus that reveals the Father to us on this night before Christmas?

First of all, the birth of Jesus reveals a depth of love in the Father than almost borders on desperation.  In one sense, to speak of God as desperate is a contradiction in terms.  How can God be desperate  for anything?  He is all powerful, all knowing, self-sufficient, and glorious. He needs nothing.  This birth of Jesus reveals a want rather than a need.  He loves his children so deeply that he was willing to take the most extreme measures to make it possible for his rebellious children to live with him. The story of Jesus from birth to death is a story of desperate love.

The Christmas story is full of paradox.  The infinite creator of the universe enters the world through a woman’s womb and is immediately confined within the tiny body of an infant. The one who is unapproachable in glory suddenly becomes dependent on a teenage girl and her carpenter husband.  The one who was adored for millennia by myriads of angels is born into obscurity and hardly noticed by the very people he came to save.  Only a handful of people were aware that God had entered into his universe in this remarkable way on the night it happened. Angels had revealed this reality to Mary and Joseph.  Mary’s cousin Elizabeth and her husband had some sense that a remarkable event had occurred. A few days later, Simeon and Anna took notice of him in the temple courts and spoke about the Messiah to the handful of people; who would listen. A few shepherds who tended flocks outside of Bethlehem got the message.  But the rich and powerful, the religious elite, and the scholars of Israel missed it all together.

The only men of standing who noticed the birth of  the King of Israel were from another nation.  They were probably Persian astronomers/astrologers who were familiar with the prophecies of Daniel since Daniel hard served and prophesied in the courses of Babylon and Persia during the Exile.  They had seen his star and had travelled great distances to worship him.  Imagine their surprise when they arrived at Jerusalem to find that no one in high places had a clue that this King and been born. Herod discovered the truth from the Magi and his response was an attempt to kill God in the flesh.  As far as we know, no Jewish historians wrote anything about Jesus, his birth or his death, other than those who wrote the New Testament.

So…what kind of of God is willing to be born into obscurity, to be birthed in a stable rather than a palace, to be entrusted to a little girl with a questionable reputation because of her pregnancy, and to become a political refugee fleeing from Herod to Egypt before he is two years old?  It’s almost hard to put into words.  Because God is love,  we find through Jesus that he is also humble, approachable, vulnerable, and willing to endure hardship and sacrifice for the one’s he loves.  We see Jesus with the same heart as he grows into a man – vulnerable, approachable, humble, gentle, sacrificial.  Those are words we rarely attach to all powerful deity, but that is who our Father in heaven is.

This evening as we attend our Christmas Eve services or as families gather together, remember Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the angelic chorus and the Magi who came later bearing gifts from the East. But more than that, wonder at the heart of a God who loves us so desperately that he would hand himself over to a fallen race to demonstrate his love and to offer himself as a sacrifice some 30 years later so that we might live with him forever.  That is the true wonder of Christmas.

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  (Isa.9:6)

The church today is hungry for more.  God’s people not only want to hear about God but to experience him as well. God is moving in unprecedented power around the globe and great numbers of believers in American churches are hungering to be part of that move. Conferences and books about healing and prophecy and other “power gifts” of the Spirit are multiplying. Many of those conferences are turning people away because registration takes them beyond seating capacity weeks before the conference begins.

For some, this growing emphasis on the Holy Spirit and miraculous gifts is alarming. Many of us who grew up in mainline denominations in America were taught that “spiritual experiences” were dangerous, deceptive, and should be avoided. We were taught that faith comes from more and more Bible knowledge rather than through supernatural experiences with Jesus.

But many have come to realize that knowing more and more about God without experiencing him does not really build a relationship any more than just reading everything you can about a famous person makes you his/her best friend.  Obviously reading God’s word is essential and a life of lifting up prayers to God is praiseworthy.  And yet, unless we hear God speak to us in response to our prayers, see him answer our prayers in powerful ways, or experience him working through us in ways we could not have imagined the relationship will never be what it could be  – for us or for God.

People are seeking more of God and more of his Spirit.  They are pursuing spiritual gifts and no longer want to be a people who merely explain God to others but who connect others to God through the exercise of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit.  That is, in fact, the New Testament pattern. Three thousand were added to the church on Pentecost through the preaching of the gospel but they were prepared to receive the gospel through the miraculous manifestation of tongues where every man heard the proclamation of God and his good news in his own language. Throughout the gospels, the book of Acts and the epistles, mighty works were being done in the name of Jesus and people were praising God and coming to faith in the anointed one of God.  God’s Spirit is moving in the same ways now.

Will this most recent move of the Spirit be abused and will some be led astray?  Of course.  Satan twists and counterfeits every authentic move of God.  The gifts were abused in Corinth but Paul continued to exhort them to earnestly desire those spiritual gifts rather than making an effort to shut them down. The Lord’s Supper was abused in Corinth as well but no one objects to churches participating in the body and blood of Christ because it might lead to strange doctrines and deception. Instead of minimizing the spiritual gifts or warning people about them, Paul simply taught them how to exercise the gifts, test the prophecies, and to make sure that their motive for exercising the gifts was love rather than power or personal notoriety.

In Acts 17, Paul learned a powerful lesson regarding knowledge about God without experiencing God.  In that chapter, Paul made a stop in Athens.  Being a first-rate scholar he checked out the philosophical debates being aired in the Areopagus and gave his best, most scholarly presentation of the gospel and the resurrection.  If you read the chapter, you will discover that the Athenian philosophers found his “new teaching” very interesting but were not convinced.  Only a few expressed faith in Jesus and Paul was extremely disappointed.  His next stop was Corinth.  In his first letter to the Corinthian church Paul recounted his revised approach to sharing the gospel with them. “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on man’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1 Cor. 2:4-5).

Paul had used wise and persuasive words in Athens with little to show for it. He decided that a demonstration of the Spirit’s power would be a much better strategy.  In a sense, men didn’t need more information about God but needed to experience the reality of God for real faith to be established.  How many of us have talked to an unbelieving loved one over and over again with nothing to show for the effort. We keep thinking that one more argument or a few more facts will push them over the threshold of faith.  But they don’t need more information about God, they need to experience him.  The exercise of a spiritual gift (a word of knowledge, a prophetic word, healing, etc.) possessed by some believer could provide that experience.

I’m not saying that experience without the Word of God is the way to faith.  All experience must be grounded on the Word of God and must be consistent with the revelation of that Word. What I am saying is that God never intended for us to have only an academic understanding of who he is but an experiential understanding as well.  The gifts of the Spirit are primary pathways for that experience.

That is what the church is hungering for today – not just to hear about God but to hear God, to see him, and to feel him as well.  Under the Old Covenant, God revealed himself to men in ways they could experience with both their physical and their spiritual senses.  God revealed himself to his people through angelic visitations, direct words, fie and smoke on the top of Sinai, in the pillar of fire and the cloud that directed Israel in the wilderness, through the Shekinah glory that would descend on the tent of meeting and later the tabernacle, through daily provision of manna and water bursting forth from rocks. We live under an even better covenant with the Spirit of God himself living in us.  How much more should we expect to experience our Father than the people of the Old Testament?

I believe God is creating a hunger for more in his people today that they might seek him and his Spirit more. Spiritual gifts are an expression of God’s love for people.  Healing is a grace.  A prophetic word that strengthens, comforts and encourages is a grace. Deliverance from demons is a grace.  All these gifts and more are ways that God loves his church and the lost through the manifestation of his goodness with these gifts.  Churches that push back against these gifts of the Spirit also push back against the Spirit. As they quench the Spirit they quench the outpouring of God’s love. I know that is not their intent, but it is the unintended outcome.

If we fear deception and want to keep people from error then perhaps we should adopt Paul’s tact. Rather than suppressing or denying the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, we should instruct our people on how to use those gifts in biblical ways with biblical motives to produce biblical outcomes.  If God’s people are hungering for more, then perhaps we should feed them. The church’s fear of the miraculous and heightened suspicion of unusual manifestations of God today may cause many to miss him altogether. My hope is that God’s church in America will choose to embrace all that God has for his children and be open to receiving from God in ways we have not experienced before. God loves to do new things. Be blessed.

Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland… to give drink to my people, my chosen, the people I formed for myself that they may proclaim my praise. (Isa.43:18-21)

I wanted to share some quotes with you this morning out of Graham Cooke’s book, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy.  I really like his prophetic style and what he has to say about many things.  I thought you might be blessed by a few quotes as well.

If we perceive God to be harsh, demanding and prone to judgment, then our experience of Him is not going to grow into any great place of relationship. How do we make friends with a tyrant?  It is impossible because fear governs the relationship – fear of making mistakes, of saying the wrong thing, of doing a wrong act. Paranoia rules and peace is impossible.

         However, if we perceive that the Father has huge wells of compassion and mercy, which never run dry; if we know Him as being the one who is full of grace, rich in love, and abounding in love and truth; if He is slow to anger and incredibly patient toward us; if He is joyfully happy, with a sunny disposition; if His very cheerfulness can cover the world; if He is scandalously forgiving and generous; if He is the very epitome of goodness, so much so that we can only be transformed when we link our repentance with his goodness and kindness, then our whole personality is formed by such values.

         Jesus was always accused of lavishing too much time on sinners (Mt.19:11-13) and always had an answer for religious people.  God desires love and compassion in his people.

         We are called to pray, not condemn.  We are called as Jesus to intercede for a depraved world to the God who cares.  God takes care of His own wrath; He does not need our help.  (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p. 15)

There is a rising tide of evil in the earth and there is no rising tide of goodness to combat it. “We overcome evil with good” (Rom.12:21). What if the problems in the world are not lawlessness and crime, not poverty and sickness, not greed and selfishness, not drugs or terrorism, not abortion or immorality? What if the biggest problem in the earth is simply the lack of goodness? (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p.14)

 Joy is who God is, where He lives from, and what he does. He lives in perpetual, everlasting and eternal joy.  In His presence there is fullness of joy. The Father does not give us joy. He gives us Himself. He is absolute joy personified.  The atmosphere surrounding God is always joyful. We need to anchor our souls in the person of God and embrace his uninhibited delight in all things…. Joy is meant to overwhelm every negative emotion.  “Weeping may last for the night but joy comes in the morning” (Ps.30:5).  When joy is present, not negative emotion can flourish. Jesus was acquainted with grief (Is.53:3); it was not a close traveling companion. We need to be restored to the joy of our salvation, the delight and pleasure of our first major contact with the Lord.  Joy keeps all experience in God fresh. …  It is His plan for us to be joyful on a constant basis. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full”(Jn.15:11). (Graham Cooke, Approaching the Heart of Prophecy, p.87)

These quotes from Cooke remind me that during this season of remembering God’s great gift to us, it would be good to really reflect on the joy of the Lord that comes from Him.  We all know the quip, “Life is hard, and then you die.”  Many believers reflect that sentiment more than the joy of the Lord. Some days I’m wearing the t-shirt.  But joy is a fruit of the Spirit, not somberness or depression or cynicism.

As we reflect on the birth of Christ, we might reflect on the angelic proclamation sent by the Father to us, to you.  “Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  Today, in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.  Suddenly a great company of the heavenly hosts appeared with the angel praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests’” (Lk.2:10-14).

God is joy.  Find Him and we find joy.  Be blessed this Christmas season.

One of my favorite Old Testament accounts is the story of Naaman.  I find new instruction every time I read it.

Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied … So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage. Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. (2 Kings 5:1-14)

This story is instructive in the context of receiving miracles from God.  Naaman was a great man who had been honored greatly by his king for his exploits in battle. Undoubtedly, a man of his strength, skills, and position was the quintessential soldier – tough, proud, and self-sufficient.  He was the Rambo of his generation.  And yet he finally faced an enemy that all of his battle decorations and military prowess could not intimidate or defeat – leprosy.  To be honest, the word translated as “leprosy” could mean any number of skin disorders and not necessarily the rotting flesh form.  However, he may have been infected with the early stages of that fatal disease.  Whatever his infirmity was, the doctors and the priests of his faith had no solutions for his problem.

That his skin disease was serious is suggested by his willingness to seek a man he did not know in a place where he was not welcome at the word of a captive servant girl. You don’t pack for a long chariot drive and load up with cash and prizes for the man you seek without being a bit desperate. So in desperation Naaman sought out Elisha the prophet.

When he arrived at the prophet’s door, the prophet himself did not bother to go out but simply sent a servant with a message to go to the Jordan River and dip seven times. In that moment two things happened.  God extended grace to a non-covenant individual who was also an enemy of Israel and he tested the heart of the man who was seeking healing.  Sometimes we ourselves start thinking that the love of God, the grace of God, and the miracles of God are reserved only for those in his household.  But all of those things came to us when we were not yet in his household.  We are told that the kindness of God leads to repentance and many times to conversion.  Expect God to bless those outside of Christ as an invitation to receive Christ. Ask God to do miracles for unbelievers as well as those already in the kingdom of God.

Secondly, miracles most often come to those who humble themselves before God.  It is the humble that God raises up.  Naaman had already humbled himself about as much as he could stand by even coming to a foreign prophet in a back eater town of Samaria.  But to add insult to injury, Elisha himself didn’t even bother to come out the meet the great man but sent a servant.  In Middle Eastern culture that was quite a snub.  He then was instructed to go down to the muddy Jordan River and dip in it seven times.  Naaman must have thought, “Are you kidding me? I’ll look like a fool and maybe I will be one. All I will probably get out of this is muddy and wet and humiliated.”

His response was anger.  He felt disrespected.  He was a great man who had brought great wealth to this nobody in Samaria.  He had envisioned the prophet himself coming out to honor him and then with pomp and circumstance, cries to the Lord, and the waving of hands he would be healed. But he had been treated like a commoner and told to go dip in a river that had no reputation for healing. His pride welled up along with his anger and he started to leave.  He started to miss his miracle.  His servant was wiser than the master and called on him to humble himself so that he might receive from the God of Israel.  He made the point that if God had asked him to do some great thing to prove his worth before healing, then he would have gladly gone off to “slay the dragon.”  To do so would have brought him glory for his bravery and  “worthiness” rather than bringing God glory for his grace.  In the end, he submitted to the strange ritual and received his healing.

Basic Principles for Receiving a Miracle

•  God does not heal or grant miracles because of our worthiness or accomplishments, but because he is merciful and full of grace.

•  We must receive a miracle on God’s terms not ours.  Sometimes, in our imagination we have written a script for God about how and when he should answer our prayer for a miracle of healing, provision, promotion, children, or relationships. When it doesn’t begin to unfold as we scripted it, we (like Naaman) are tempted to abandon the dream and the request. Stick to it and follow God even in unlikely directions.

•  Sometimes, we need to go where God is working rather than waiting for him to come to us. That would be especially true in healing. In addition, many times God will not grant a miracle without the involvement of others to facilitate that miracle in your life.

• Receive prayer and “ a word” from the lowliest of God’s servants regarding your miracle.  God heals though 12 year olds as well as through leaders of worldwide ministries. You may even be asked to do something that is out of your theological comfort zone.  Many have missed a miracle because the prayer or the methodology did not fit their theology so they walked away.

• Be obedient when you get a clear word.  Obedience is an expression of trust, which is an expression of faith. Many times, miracles only come to us according to our faith.

Be blessed today and expect miracles….on God’s terms!

Have you ever wondered where God is and how he feels when you are being abused, wronged, or wounded?  I was visiting with a friend of mine who is a gifted songwriter.  My friend has been deeply wounded on several occasions in this life but reminded me of a great psalm that pictures God’s response to those who would harm his children.

King David wrote: The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me.  In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears. The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it. He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind…The Lord thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded. He shot his arrows and scattered the enemies, great bolts of lightning and routed them… He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. (Ps.18:5-16).

Although David employs a great deal of imagery in this psalm, the picture is clear. God is a loving Father who hears the cry of his children and rises in anger toward those who would injure them.  David wrote this after God had delivered him from the hand of Saul who had been hunting David for years. In this psalm the Holy Spirit reveals the heart of God toward his hurting children.  He is described as a Father seething with anger, who rends the heavens to rescue one of his beloved children.  Before you say, “Well, he’s never done that for me when I have cried out!” remember that David went through a number of trials before he was finally and fully delivered from his enemy. But this psalm reveals a great deal that should comfort us.

First of all, God is not indifferent to our pain or our dilemmas.  He feels as any good father would feel watching someone hurt his child.  I remember a moment when my youngest daughter was in kindergarten. I was at her school for a Fall Festival when I saw her come of the door leading to the playground and a boy about twice her size pushed her so that she nearly fell.  It wasn’t an accident as he hurried by.  I saw him look at her and intentionally push her.  I felt my blood pressure rise along with a great deal of anger over what he had just done to my little girl. I confronted the boy and let him know very clearly that if that ever happened again there would be swift and severe consequences.  In that moment of anger, I still exercised restraint.  After all, he was just a boy…and there were witnesses. But I still remember my automatic and immediate response to seeing my daughter wronged by a bully.

David paints that picture of our heavenly Father.  He rises in anger breathing fire and coming in vengeance on those who would wrong his child.  And yet, even in this psalm, he showed great restraint.  With all of his power, he still only scattered the enemy and routed them.  Unrestrained, God could have annihilated every one of them in a moment. In his heart he wanted to do just that. Yet, he also loves those who hurt us and still desires for them to repent and be saved.   Remember those moments in the wilderness wanderings of Israel when God would tell Moses to step aside and let him destroy Israel and start over?  That was his feeling, but in his restraint he allowed Moses to intercede on behalf of a stubborn and faithless nation so that he could change his mind and give them another chance.  Think of the restraint of the Father as he watched cruel men abuse and crucify his only begotten Son.  God’s dilemma is that he is not only holy and all-powerful, but he is love. He loves us and our enemies as well. And so he restrains himself and by that restraint is restricted to comforting and healing us rather than annihilating our enemies the moment they wound us. Before you push back against that, remember that there have probably been moments in our lives when he restrained his anger and frustration against us as well.

However, there will come a day when those who refuse to repent will feel the wrath of a loving Father because of what they have done to his children. God does store up wrath. In that Day, men will cry out, tremble, and want to hide under the mountains because of the wrath that will be coming their way.  God is not indifferent and he will display his love for his children and his justice toward those who have abused, rejected, wounded, and even killed those in Christ who have not come to faith and repented.

Remember the parable of the sheep and the goats that Jesus told in Matthew 25.  It is a parable of judgment.  He says that when he comes with his angels, all men will stand before him and will be separated based on what they have done for the poor, the lonely, the imprisoned, and the oppressed.  Those who ministered to the victims of this world will be rewarded.  Jesus says, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”  To those who did not care about the victims of this world, Jesus released them to eternal punishment and said, ”Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”  How much more will that be true for those who injured his children without repentance?

Jesus told us that in this world we will have trouble.  He even told us to expect persecution. He also said, “ I will never leave you nor forsake you” and “I will be with you even unto the end of the age.”  Even in our suffering God is there. He is filled with pain and anger because of what is being done to us. His heart is to save, to comfort and to heal and also to punish the wicked who would hurt you.  He will do so in time. In the meantime, a Father’s restraint blesses us all.  Be blessed today knowing that whatever you have suffered, your Father is stirred deeply and will rise from his throne on your behalf.

In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey poses an interesting question.  If you had been alive and walking the dusty roads of Palestine in the days of Jesus, what would you have noticed about him when you encountered him? Yancey goes on to discuss the phenomenon of having no physical description of Jesus in the New Testament.  The closest the Bible comes to a description is found in Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isa.53:2).

Yancey goes on to document that no paintings of Jesus appeared until six hundred years after his ascension and those paintings were only imaginative speculations.  Even then, artists painted Jesus to look like the idealized man of their culture.  The Greeks first painted him as a young, beardless man who looked much like their versions of the pagan god Apollo. Yancey documents other views when he says, “One tradition dating back to the second century suggested Jesus was a hunchback.  In the Middle Ages, Christians widely believed that Jesus had suffered from leprosy.  Most Christians today would find such notions repulsive and perhaps heretical” (Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 87).

It’s easy to find those views of Jesus weird and laughable but Hollywood has presented Jesus as tall, blond, and blue-eyed with a British accent on more than one occasion. I just saw a nativity scene with a blond baby Jesus. That is as unlikely as being a hunchback since Jesus was very Jewish and much more likely to have been short with dark hair and a Middle Eastern complexion.  But we simply don’t know.

I continue to think it is remarkable and, therefore, intentional that the gospel writers never gave a physical description of Jesus. In fact, it is rare for the writers to give a physical description of anyone – even the most well known New Testament characters – the woman at the well, Nicodemus, the Roman Centurion, the prodigal son, the woman caught in adultery, etc. The Romans focused on appearance produced hundreds if not thousands of idealized sculptures of all their famous and powerful leaders. But the New Testament writers are silent.

I can think of two reasons that the Holy Spirit may have chosen to omit such a description.  The omission may allow each of us to personalize Jesus in our own imaginations. Maybe each of us needs Jesus to look a little like us so that we can identify with him more easily.  Jesus has been painted as being black, Latino, European, and probably somewhere as Asian.  I don’t think Jesus minds.  After all, after his resurrection he took on many forms that often did not look like the Jesus the apostles walked with for three years.  Jesus wants connection and if we imagine him in a way that facilitates that personal connection then he is probably good with that.

Perhaps, there are few physical descriptions because physical appearance is deceptive. Remember when Samuel went to Jesse’s house to anoint the second king of Israel who would take Saul’s place?  Saul was tall and looked kingly but his heart was not the heart of a king.  He failed miserably.  But as the prophet was scanning Jesse’s sons to sense who would be the next king, he kept making the same mistake. He would judge the young man standing before him by his appearance thinking that the one who “looked like a king” should be king.  In one of those moments, God reminded him that the one who sits on the throne in heaven does not look at the appearance of a man but at the heart. In the kingdom of God, the heart qualifies a person rather than good looks. Perhaps, the Father did not give us a description of his son because we would have spent our time trying to duplicate his looks in our lives rather than his heart.

Isaiah’s prophecy doesn’t suggest to me that Jesus was ugly or deformed.  It just suggests that on the outside he looked like an ordinary man.  He didn’t look presidential and in our media saturated world of image, he would have never gotten the nomination for president because he didn’t look the part – tall, slender, handsome, polished, athletic, thick haired, etc.  By the way, our best presidents have not fit that image. Lincoln was tall but not handsome or polished.  Franklin Roosevelt was tied to a wheelchair, which he kept from the public.  Theodore Roosevelt wore glasses, was stocky, somewhat short and brash.  From all accounts, George Washington would not have struck you as a general or president if you had simply met him on the street.

I think God left us to look at the heart of Jesus rather than his outward appearance. If Jesus had ordinary or even less than ordinary looks, he had something on the inside that transcended his looks.  How many teachers today could hold the attention of crowds for three days while they sat in open fields and went without food just to hear him?  Who among us today could have temple police sent to arrest him but would return empty handed saying. “No man ever spoke like this man!” How many preachers among us today would have sinners flock to him without a world-class praise band and light show and give their lives to the kingdom of God?  Something within Jesus was transformative.  I believe it was the love of God and the hope of eternal life that flowed out of his heart giving life to those who were dying to be loved.

Jesus challenges us. Do we spend more time each day thinking about our appearance and the outward trappings of life or do we spend more time developing the heart of Christ within us?  I’m not saying that Christians should take on an ascetic lifestyle giving no thought to the physical.  Please shower, shave, comb your hair and … ladies put on your makeup.  But at the end of the day, do we think more about the externals of our lives or whether our hearts were directed by the presence of Jesus that day?

Imagine a world where late night television was no longer filled with adds about loosing weight so you could slip on your new bikini or about hair transplants, facelifts or the newest wrinkle creams.  What if there were no infomercials about getting rich quick and grabbing the big house with the luxury status cars?  Instead, what if late night television had infomercials about forgiving those who have wounded you, learning to love the poor, doubling your prayer life rather than your income or loosing excessive anger?

Okay, I know those things can’t be purchased in a box or sold like a product. But my point is that we should hunger after those things more than all the products offered to enhance our appearance and perception by others. If God doesn’t look at the appearance of a man but at the heart, we should have the same priorities. We don’t remember Jesus for his looks but for his life, his words and his heart. The same will be true about us.  Lord, give us the heart of Jesus today in every circumstance and for every person. Be blessed.