Throughout the gospels, Jesus performed miracles. Because of those miracles, crowds gathered…sometimes massive crowds. No matter what he had done, however, the skeptics in the crowd kept asking for more.  Changing water to wine while healing the blind, the lame, the deaf, the leprous outcasts, and raising the dead was simply not sufficient proof in their minds. They kept asking for a more convincing sign or miracle. On several occasions, Jesus said that the only sign he would give them was the sign of his resurrection.  For the most part, they still did not believe.

I love miracles.  I like to go where people are being healed. I like to see demons driven out in the name of Jesus.  I want to see someone raised from the dead and I believe that is happening today in this world by the power of the Holy Spirit.  And yet, I am often reminded that we need to keep miracles in perspective.  Yes…they point people to God.  And yes, they are often a continuing expression of God’s grace and compassion in a totally fallen world. But they are not always the evangelistic tool we believe them to be.  

We may wonder how anyone could see the works of Jesus and not fully believe….and yet the majority of those who personally witnessed them did not become his followers.  We must acknowledge the axiom that faith produces miracles but miracles do not always produce faith. Certainly, the religious leaders of his day seemed to be inoculated against any faith that would arise from witnessing a miracle.  On the other hand, one thing I have discovered is that radically changed lives are the greater miracles and the greater testimony.  

I remember the story of a little boy who told his agnostic teacher at school that he believed in Jesus.  The teacher sarcastically asked the little boy if he actually believed that Jesus turned water into wine.  The boy replied, “I don’t know about that, but I know he changed beer into bread at my house.” Perhaps, that is a greater miracle than raising the dead.  Sometimes, a supernatural act of God creates faith to change lives, but more often it is the love and acceptance of the body of Christ toward those who have only known rejection that makes Jesus real to them.

I’m not against miracles.  I’m all for them.  But we can’t forget the words of Jesus who said that the world would recognize his followers by their love, not their miracles.  1 Corinthians 13, clearly announces the truth that we can have all the spiritual gifts, that we can speak in the tongues of men and angels, and that we can have faith to move mountains…but if all of that is not motivated by love, then they are of no value.  So as we pursue the gifts and the miraculous, let’s pray even harder for love than we do for the gifts.

One of the most illuminating passages in scripture regarding spirituawarfare is found in the Book of Daniel.  In chapter 10, Daniel had a disturbing dream that he did not understand but could not shake.  He was confident that it was a prophetic dream from the Lord but had the wisdom not to venture the interpretation on his own.  Instead, he asked the Lord for the meaning of the dream and began to fast while he waited for his answer.  After twenty-one days of continued prayer and fasting, David was visited by an angel.

The angel spoke to him saying, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince ofthe Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come” (Dan. 10:12-14).

In summary, the first day that Daniel prayed, God dispatched a powerful angel with the interpretation of the dream. However, a demonic prince assigned to the nation of Persia intercepted the angel and opposed him in the heavenly realm for twenty-one days.  The angel sent by God could not have completed his mission unless Michael the archangel had come to take up the battle.  What we see in this passage is that there is often demonic resistance to the answers to our prayers.  Part of me doesn’t like the notion that demons may work so that my prayers are hindered or side-tracked altogether, but it is a biblical theme.

I sense that most of us want to believe that once we lift up a prayer, there is nothing left to do.  Our sense is that Elohim (God Almighty) will command and everything will immediately fall into place.  But scripture suggests otherwise…at least in some circumstances. Sometimes, there is still a battle to be fought. As Israel was taking the promised land from enemy tribes, there were times that they simply watched and saw God route the enemy.  Sometimes in a moment of confusion and fear, enemy soldiers would turn on one another and kill each other.  At other times, God would convince an enemy army that another army was bearing down on them and they would flee. Later on in Israel’s history, God sent an angel among an army at night to slay thousands so that in the morning, those that remained alive would simply flee.  But most of the time, Israel had to wade into battle and trust that as they fought God would give them the victory.  Sometimes the battle lasted all day and into the night until Israel’s troops were exhausted.

In the same way that God limits his own sovereignty on the earth and chooses not to control every aspect of life here (free will),  he apparently has done the same in the spiritual realm.  There he also allows free will for the angels.  Satan and a third of the heavenly hosts exercised that free will as they rebelled against the King of Heaven and were banished to earth. Apparently, he also allows the enemy to resist his will and our prayers on earth. Typically, our part the battle is to persevere in prayer and faith as Daniel did until the answer manifests.

If I’m honest, I like instant.  I want to pray for healing and see cancer disappear overnight.  I want to pray for a marriage and see a supernatural change of heart before I meet with the couple the next week.  I want to pray for a job for a friend and hear that the phone rang the next day with an amazing offer.  And sometimes, I see an instant answer to prayer.  Bur at other times, I see nothing for days,  weeks,  months and maybe years.  

Here is the question. When I don’t see immediate answers do I assume that God is not going to say “yes” to that prayer or do I continue to pray, believing that I am partnering with heaven in overcoming demonic opposition? I believe that if Daniel had ceased to pray and fast after a few days, Michael would not have been sent to the battle and the other angel would not have delivered the interpretation of the dream.  

Sometimes there is war In heaven that has been activated by our prayers.  Sometimes, the war is in our hearts as Satan whispers unbelief and discouragement so that our prayers will cease before the victory is won.  Sometimes the battle is in the courts of heaven where “the accuser of the brethren” finds charges that he can bring against us in opposition to our prayers.  Those charges might be found in us when we have not forgiven those who have wronged is or have not repented of some persistent sin in our lives.  Sometimes, sin or a curse may exist in the life of the one we are praying for so that Satan has the right to oppose our prayers for the other.  

As we pray, we need to ask the Holy Spirit to show us what is giving Satan the right to oppose our prayers and then deal with those issues through the cross.  When we minister deliverance to people, we often encounter a spirit that is highly resistant to our commands. Typically, he is resistant because something in the life of the demonized person is still giving him a legal right to afflict him/her.   When the person or the Holy Spirit reveals the issue and it is dealt with through the cross the demon is then easily driven out.  

There are times when our prayers are quickly answered, but there are many times when we will have to contend for the answers.  We are not contending with God but with the enemy who wants to thwart God’s will on earth and wreck our destinies. I think we often give up too soon when prayers aren’t quickly answered.  In Matthew 7, Jesus said, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  In the original language, the verbs tell us to keep on asking, keep on seeking, and keep on knocking in order to receive those things.  In Luke 18, we are told that Jesus imparted a parable so that his disciples would always pray and never give up.   Endurance is a key to spiritual warfare and victory.

If you have quit praying for something that you are confident is God’s will, pick it up again and begin to pray, declare, and command.  If you are just beginning to pray for something, know that you may see the instant answer, but you may also be required to wage war in your prayers for weeks to come.  

Victor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher and author who was also a survivor of German concentrations camps in World War II.  In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he wrote that the difference he saw in the men who survived the camps and those who didn’t, was the central issue of “meaning.”  Those who found no meaning in their suffering, succumbed and died.  Those who could find some meaning for what they were experiencing, some redeeming purpose for their suffering, survived.  I would argue that our greatest need today is still to find meaning for our life and our experiences.  Having suicide rates at all-time highs in a nation still prosperous and full of opportunities tells me that people, young and old, cannot find a reason to go on when life gets hard and disappointment dims their dreams.

Before coming to Christ, I struggled with depression as a college student.  Even in my 20’s, I already sensed a futility to life.  The idea of simply working for 75 years to bring home a pay check and then to die, was a very unfulfilling view of my future.  I had no sense of who I was or why I was or of any purpose beyond the moment. The thought of the rest of my life feeling that way was debilitating.  Discovering Jesus changed that. Jesus and the destiny assigned to me in heaven, gave my life purpose – not just for the years I have in this body, but for eternity.  When I began to discover who God had made me to be, I found fulfillment in the path laid out for me.

Satan loves to blind us from our purpose and the meaning that every experience has for our destiny.  One of his primary strategies is to make us feel disqualified for anything beyond disappointments and failures.  He takes those setbacks and whispers to us that we are unworthy of anything more and that our lives will simply be a series of failed attempts to find love and happiness.  

Paul says something interesting in his second letter to the church at Corinth. He wrote, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Let me highlight a couple of truths from this passage and then tie it into the concept of “meaning.”

First of all, we will all experience troubles – failure, loss, hardship, betrayal, and pain.  It is the fabric of this world. If we believe that God has promised us a trouble-free existence then we haven’t read the Bible carefully and we will experience a great deal of disappointment. The fact that we suffer is not abandonment by God any more than pain and injuries in a football game are the coach’s fault.  It is simply part of the game and the price you pay to participate. Expect it.  Prepare for it.  Deal with it. Like all top athletes, you will have to play injured at times,  but God does promise that we win in the end.

Secondly, it is in the midst of trouble that we most clearly experience the hand and comfort of God if we will receive it. Remember, God did not keep Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of the fire.  He simply joined them in the fire.  It is when we struggle that we truly discover God in our lives if we are open to the discovery.

The other great truth in the passage is that whatever we receive from God in our suffering and even failures, we are to use to help others who are coming down that same dark road behind us.  

After years of ministry to hurting people, I have clearly seen that true healing only comes when we use our own pain from the past to comfort and direct others.  That ministry to the broken and the hurting gives our own suffering meaning.  It redeems our pain so that it has value. If we can find no purpose for what we have gone through or are going through, we inevitably blame God for being unfair or of betraying us.  We will then wither like those in the Nazi concentration camps who could find no meaning in what they were going through.  However, when we see God’s purpose for our suffering or have faith that he will use it for something significant, we can become partners with him in overcoming evil.  

Let me quickly say that God is not the cause of our suffering, but he will use it so that what we have gone through has redeeming value. The devil tries to convince us that our losses, abuse, and failures have disqualified us from our destiny –  that because we have failures in our past, God will not or cannot use us. He tries to convince us that our losses and failures determine our identity for all time. That is not true.  Those things that brought pain and even shame into our lives actually equip us to minister to others.   Those are actually the very things that make us qualified. 

I have served in full time ministry long enough that I have known several church leaders whose lives seemed to have been charmed.  They grew up in great Christian homes, had amazing careers, had “perfect” kids, and simply had no history of abuse, divorce, failure , or besetting sin that I knew of.  They were great people, but in every church the people I worked with – the abused, the divorced, the single mothers, those struggling with addictions -would never have gone to those men and women for counsel.  They not only feared being judged, but more than that, believed that those “charmed” individuals would simply have no empathy or understanding of their situation.  In order to be a perfect High Priest for us, Jesus had to be tempted in every way as we are. We need to be able to tell others that we have been down the same muddy roads as they are travelling now.  Our own hurts, betrayals, losses, and sin give us the wisdom and the credibility hurting people need when God has led us out of our own pain and shame.

I love Elevation’s recent song, Graves Into Gardens, as it speaks of how God redeems even death and turns it into something full of life.  He can do that in our own lives as we find our own meaning in Him and the destiny that Jesus has purchased for us.  The key is not to let out past define us, but to let the lessons we have learned in Christ, prepare us to pass God’s comfort on to others who also have a destiny in him. 

Have you ever considered the “impossibility” of successfully living out the commands of Christ in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) on a daily basis? In this sermon, beginning with the “blessed are’s,” he shifts the standard of judgment from behaviors to the heart and our thought life.  He says that instead of murder being the standard, if you even remain angry at your brother, you are in danger of judgment.  Instead of physical adultery being the standard, lusting after a woman in your heart is just as sinful.  He commands us to love our enemies and to pray for those who are intent on doing us harm.  He warns that we must not judge another or we will be judged with the same judgement.  Participating in gossip is a form of judgment.  Considering myself more righteous than another is judging.  Having a critical spirit and accusing others of not measuring up is judging. We could go on, but Jesus set a very high standard for holiness in the courts of heaven.

 How do we get through the day without violating these commands in some way?  Those commands define the standards and the goal.  Thankfully, grace makes up the difference.  But if we ever think we are doing well spiritually, we only need to read those three chapters in Matthew and hold them up to our own hearts objectively to see how much we need Jesus – every day.

One of the beatitudes (blessed are…) that always catches my eye is, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt.5:8).  In a season where the church is crying out for the presence of God in our worship and manifestations of God in our lives, I wonder how much a lack of purity hinders our ability to see God.  If you read the Psalms of David, there seems to be a real sense in which he had vivid visions of God in the temple.  Perhaps, they were occasional, but his songs reflect a true hunger to see God again, to take in his majesty, and to be overwhelmed with his glory.  I think we are crying out for those same things again, but I wonder if our standard of purity has become relative rather than biblical.  

We are surrounded daily by a tsunami of illicit sexuality, profane language, graphic violence, blatant and bold dishonesty, and perversion.  By cultural standards, Christians avoid the worst of those things, but by heavenly standards I suspect we carry much more impurity than we want to acknowledge. What we become calloused to in our culture, what we normalize, is still highly offensive to the Holy Spirit.  For instance, the apostle Paul commanded, “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people” (Eph.5:3). 

 All I have to do is look at Face Book pages of believers I know, to understand that our standards for modesty, environments we hang out in, and even language don’t come close to biblical standards.  And yet, we must think that God is good with our standards or we wouldn’t post some of those things all over the internet for others to admire.  We must remember that we’re are not graded on the Bell Curve against how others perform, but we are to be judged by the pure and holy standards of heaven that never change.  

In 1939, the famous movie Gone with the Wind was released.  This “classic” nearly did not make it past the movie censors because Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara that he didn’t “give a damn.”  That kind of language in a movie was shocking and outraged those who were concerned about America’s moral climate.  Think about what we now consider normal and acceptable in movies and television in terms of language, nudity, sexuality, adultery, and so forth.  Our standards have fallen so far, that we typically would push back against those censors as being archaic and prudish rather than questioning our own standards of morality and purity.  

I have to monitor these issues in my own life, so I know how subtly we can become calloused to the sin around us and lose our sense of shame and outrage when our culture not only offends God, but boasts about the sin and recruits others to join in.  We can’t control the world around us, but if we want to see God, as we claim we do, purity – by His standards – is something we must consider.  

We cannot lower the standards of God’s holiness but must ask him to give us his sensitivity to sin once again in our own lives and hearts so that we are constantly recognizing the compromises in our soul and pulling those weeds from the garden where we want to meet with God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

There are a lot of great thinkers and writers in the world…especially in the Christian world.  When I read something that is noteworthy or that resonates in my spirit, I like to share it with you.  Stephen Mansfield is a New York Times best selling author.  He is a pastor, an historian, and an expert on leadership development.  I want to quote from a recent piece he wrote in his blog Leading Thoughts.

Stephen wrote, “One of my favorite words is ‘legendary.’  Today it means merely something that is famous enough to be celebrated in our time. Yet it comes from the Middle Latin word that meant something worthy to be written down and remembered for generations. I love that idea.  Lives and deeds that are worthy to be written down and remembered. People who live in such a way that they inspire generations.  Frankly, I want to live like that.  I want you to as well.  

A great leader is meant to inspire greatness in others.  He or she is in place to awaken largeness and nobility and an epic vision in the souls of people … Yet I have to tell you that many leaders wrap themselves in the aura of the legendary.  This, I’m sorry to say, is particularly true among people in Christian ministry. They have some challenges.  They achieve some victories. Good things come of it.  Then, unfortunately, their vision shifts from making others legendary to presenting themselves as legends to be honored … Here is the core truth.  You might be a legend one day.  I hope you will be.  I’m here to help.  Yet don’t become legendary by assuming that you are and presenting yourself as such.  You become legendary by enabling other people, empowering them to rise to the greatness possible in their own lives.”

For those of us in leadership or that aspire to leadership, I think this a great reminder of a core biblical truth.  Jesus taught his disciples, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” 

Many ministries that have begun to bear great fruit have been damaged by leaders within the ministry that begin to use the ministry as a platform for their own significance.  The old healing evangelists of the early 1900’s had a term for it.  They said, “Don’t touch the glory.”  What they meant was to never take credit for what God is doing.  Give him the glory rather than yourself.  Historically, those who forgot that maxim ended poorly or even tragically. Spiritual pride is not a quality of Christ, but of Satan. It was spiritual pride that caused Satan to lose his place in heaven. We need to guard against that quality springing up in our own hearts or in the hearts of others that lead with us.  

Pastors, especially, have been given to the church in order to equip others for service in the kingdom.  The Passion Translation puts it this way, “He has appointed some with grace to be apostles, and some with grace to be prophets, and some with grace to be evangelists, and some with grace to be pastors, and some with grace to be teachers.  And their calling is to nurture and prepare all the holy believers to do their own works of ministry, and as they do they will enlarge and build up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:11-12). 

As leaders, we are to equip others for the good works prepared in advance for them.  We are to launch them into fruitful ministries of their own with a vision for achieving great things in the kingdom of God. If the ministry is about our significance, we can never let others accomplish more than ourselves because, then, our significance would be diminished.  If we seek the applause of men, we will find ways to limit what others do who serve in our ministries so they cannot outshine us.  If we seek the applause of heaven, however, we will launch as many as we can who will be even more effective in ministry than we have been.  We will encourage and launch them to develop greater gifts than we have known personally.

In talking to pastors in other churches, it seems that ministries in which “miraculous gifts” are up front, are very susceptible to spiritual pride.  Like the miracles of Jesus, these ministries tend to draw a crowd and may get more notoriety than most other ministries in the church.. Gifted but immature believers looking for significance in the church are often drawn to these areas and want to “shine” in the eyes of others. If not mentored well, they may grow into leaders who want to be legendary in their own eyes and in the eyes of men rather than heaven.  

I have had conversations in which senior pastors did not want a healing or deliverance ministry in their church because of an experience in the past with such a ministry in which the leaders felt spiritually superior to those who didn’t operate in “the gifts” or engage in spiritual warfare.  The self-assigned legendary status of some leaders created divisions in the church.  These senior pastors had no desire to go down that road again.

All this is to say that we truly need to guard our hearts and the hearts of others who serve with us so that our true desire is to develop and promote others far beyond ourselves.  Jesus humbled himself so that we might be lifted up.  If we will do the same, God will bless our ministries and our leadership…and our “legends” may grow in heaven.

Grace

Most of us remember the story from Matthew 18 of a servant who owed his master more money than he could repay.  When the master called in the debt, the man was helpless to repay so the master decided to sell the man and his family into slavery to recoup part of his losses.  The man fell on his knees asking for mercy and the master, in a moment of compassion, forgave the entire amount and continued to keep him on as a servant.   Immediately after receiving the incredible gift of grace from his master, he ran into another servant who owed him a few dollars.  He demanded his money and when that servant couldn’t pay, he had him put in jail until he could get his money.  When the master heard what had happened, he was furious and put the man whose debt he had forgiven in jail, rebuking him for not showing others the mercy he had received.  Jesus finished the story by saying that God will deal with us in the same way if we don’t forgive others their wrongs toward us, because God has forgiven our unpayable debt through his Son.

The question always arises as to why the servant, who was forgiven the enormous debt, was so unbending toward the one who owed him a small debt.  Of course, he could have just been wicked and perverse.  Once he escaped punishment, he still felt the entitlement to demand from others what was not demanded from him.  Some people whose hearts are hard are just like that.   But there may be another reason that we all need to consider.

In the story, when his master demanded payment, the servant cried out, “Please be patient with me.  If you’ll just give me more time, I will repay you all that is owed’ (Matt. 18:29).  When the master completely forgave his debt, the servant may have understood the forgiveness to simply mean that he had extended the note, but would still require payment later.  If that were the case, the first servant would be desperate to collect all he could as soon as he could from others.

The idea that someone would simply forgive an enormous debt without any expectation of repayment is actually hard to get our minds around.  It seems like one of those “too good to be true” offers that will come back to haunt us later.  For many believers, grace has the same feel.  Many of us still live before God thinking that somewhere along the line, our salvation our security, and his blessings will be based on being better than others.  It’s like college entrance exams…only those in the 90^th percentile will get in.

When we slip into self-righteousness, we have slipped into a kind of “meritorious salvation.”  If I believe I only get the favor of God by being better than most, I will be invested in pointing to my own good qualities and good works while zealously pointing out the failures and flaws of others.  That is the nature of judging others and placing them in a psychological category of being less than me. When we can’t be generous in how we deal with the weaknesses and failings of others, we have missed the meaning of God’s grace.  If I know that I have been forgiven much, based totally on the goodness of God and the full payment of my debt made on my behalf by the blood of Christ, how could I not extend that generosity to others?

If we are quick to judge, condemn, criticize, and gossip…we probably have not yet taken hold of the true meaning of God’s grace.  The belief that we have to prove ourselves better than others to deserve love and favor from God is a huge open door for the enemy. We may want to begin to meditate on grace and ask the Holy Spirit to give us a true revelation of that grace in our own hearts.  It is very freeing to know how much God values me without the need to devalue others.

In the third chapter of Revelation, Jesus writes to the church at Laodicea, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev.3:20). This is a familiar passage to most and most have seen the painting by William Hunt depicting Christ standing in front of a heavy wooden door knocking and waiting. The painting symbolizes Jesus knocking on our hearts.  It’s interesting to think that the one who has all authority in heaven and on earth does not command the door to open but waits on our permission, our invitation.

Permission is a powerful thing.  We need to be sure that we issue constant permission and a constant invitation to Jesus to enter our lives and our hearts. We need to make sure that there aren’t places in our lives and hearts where we deny him permission to enter.  If we aren’t careful, a denial to Jesus becomes an invitation for the enemy.

Satan has permission to tempt those who are in Christ but cannot enter to kill, steal and destroy unless we or those who have had authority over us, give him permission. The “sins of the fathers” give Satan permission to attack the blood lines until those bloodlines are cleansed by Christ and that cleansing depends on our request, our invitation.   Where we personally have unrepented sin, ungodly relationships, or unforgiveness in our lives, that agreement with Satan constitutes permission.

Even when ministering deliverance, we need the one being afflicted to no longer extend permission to the enemy through half-hearted commitment to the Lordship of Jesus or half-hearted commitments to holiness. Any secret sin the afflicted wants to hold onto or leave unconfessed, gives the enemy permission to stay and deliverance becomes a much greater task.  

Both Jesus and the devil are always standing at the door and knocking.  We need to be very sure about who we are inviting in.  

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.  Philippians 2:14-16

As we continue to minister freedom and healing in our area, I am constantly confronted with the reality that a great number of people who are saved and forgiven are still bound up in addictions, depression, anger, fear, suicidal thoughts, condemnation, and more. Even without any real reflection, that seems wrong. As we minister to believers in other parts of the country, we see and hear the same thing, so it is not just a West Texas anomaly. 

These Christians have a sense that their struggles are simply to be their unchanging lot in life. Their experience has been that “their church” is powerless to help them other than with prayers that seem to make little difference and encouragement that is appreciated but fades away.  Their churches have sent them into the community to find professional counselors or twelve-step groups and they have not experienced any lasting transformation. They often live in broken relationships or have left a solid trail of those relationships behind them. In a sense, they fear the future because it may even be worse than today.

In many ways, these men and women are no more free than the unsaved men and women in their community. If you put them in a room with an equal number of unbelievers and had them talk honestly about their struggles, you might not be able to tell God’s children from the lost.  That is not God’s intention nor is it what Jesus died for. In the passage from Philippians at the beginning of this blog, Paul clearly is making a case that those who follow Jesus, who have been born again, and have the Spirit of Elohim living in them should stand out in the world like stars against the night.  He declared to the church at Corinth that, “the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power.”  Power is needed to defeat the agents of darkness that torment and to heal deep, gaping wounds from the past before we can become the light of the world. When we say all the right things but display no power, we are not reflecting the kingdom of God.

Through the years, I have talked to several individuals who had been part of witches’ covens or satanic cults.  When I asked them what had drawn them to the “dark side,” the answer was that their lives had been out of control and they were looking for something that could give them a sense of power, control, and security.  They had not found that in Christian churches, so they looked for it in darkness.  These men and women had not failed us, we had failed them.

Of course, we always hear that Christians should not be chasing the miracles but should be chasing Jesus.  Certainly, we can get caught up in the power gifts and supernatural manifestations, but miracles were part of the fabric of Jesus’ ministry and the early church.  Wherever Jesus was, miracles were also present.  Why should it be different today?

A gospel that only gets us to a place of forgiveness but does not radically free us and change us so that we stand out in contrast to our culture is not the gospel that Jesus preached nor demonstrated. If you are part of a church that preaches the Bible, but never displays the power of Jesus Christ in healings, deliverance, prophetic words, and radically transformed lives, then the Bible may be preached but is not being understood.  Stars stand out in stark contrast to the darkness around them. That is the Savior’s desire for his people.  I see it daily in the lives of those who have experienced his power.  So let me encourage you to not accept a powerless gospel.  Seek what you see on the pages of the New Testament.  Those pages were recorded to show what the Christian life should look like, not what it only looked like for a few…long., long ago.

Inevitably, people who have no clear sense of purpose in their lives succumb to depression, restlessness, vague feelings of anxiety, and fatigue.  The fatigue is typically caused by emotional emptiness. Nothing excites them.  Nothing gets them up in the morning.  Life and even relationships become monotonous and each day seems to lose its brightness.

Several years ago, I heard a leading marriage and family therapist say that, in order to be happy and fulfilled, couples must be part of something bigger than themselves and bigger than their marriage.  The same is true for individuals.  Self-focus is a dead end.  At some point, we realize that all the applause, all the purchases, all the trips, all the award shows, and even all the sex and romance, are only drugs that make us feel high and significant for a few hours.  We eventually discover that all that drains away overnight.  In the morning we feel insignificant again. 

Too many Americans are part of nothing bigger than themselves.  The selfie-tsunami on social media is indicative of that.  How many are promoting the smallest details of their lives in some effort to feel significant – week after week?  Again…self-focus is a dead end. It’s counterintuitive, but the key to feeling good about life and about yourself is to shift your focus from self to others and to something bigger than yourself.   One of my favorite authors through the years has been Philip Yancey.  There are a couple of paragraphs in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, that caught my attention years ago and I roll it out every now and then on this blog because I think his point is so important.  Let me share it with you now.

 “My career as a journalist has afforded me opportunities to interview ‘stars,’ including NFL football greats, movie actors, music performers, best-selling authors, politicians, and TV personalities. These are the people who dominate the media. We fawn over them, pouring over the minutiae of their lives: the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the aerobic routines they follow, the people they love, the toothpaste they use.  Yet I must tell you that, in my limited experience, I have found…our ‘idols’ are as miserable a group of people as I have ever met.  

Most have troubled or broken marriages. Nearly all are incurably dependent on psychotherapy.  In a heavy irony, these larger-than-life heroes seem tormented by self-doubt.

I have also spent time with people I call ‘servants.’ Doctors and nurses who work among the ultimate outcasts, leprosy patients in rural India. A Princeton graduate who runs a hotel for the homeless in Chicago. Health workers who have left high-paying jobs to serve in a backwater town of Mississippi, relief workers in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, and other repositories of human suffering. The Ph. D’s I met in Arizona, who are now scattered throughout jungles of South America translating the bible into obscure languages. 

I was prepared to honor and admire these servants, to hold them up as inspiring examples.  I was not prepared to envy them. Yet as I now reflect on the two groups side by side, stars and servants, the servants clearly immerge as the favored ones, the graced ones. Without question, I would rather spend time among the servants than among the stars: they possess qualities of depth and richness and even joy that I have not found elsewhere. Servants work for low pay, long hours, and no applause, ‘wasting’ their talents and skills among the poor and uneducated. Somehow, though, in the process of losing their lives they find them.”

The people Yancey speaks of are men and women who have chosen to be part of something greater than themselves because they count their cause as greater than themselves.  Their lives have purpose beyond the next selfie, the next purchase, and the next cruise.  Jesus points us to that same reality when he says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” and when he says. “Those who lose their life for my sake, will find it.”  There is no greater purpose than serving Jesus and fulfilling the call of the kingdom in your life.  We are called to share the good news, alleviate the suffering of the poor, correct injustice, heal the brokenhearted and set captives free. We are called to be servants. 

Again, the way to find happiness and fulfillment is counterintuitive…get your mind off yourself and onto  the needs of others.  Pursue the call of Jesus. Find your purpose in the destiny Jesus has written for you. Choose servanthood over self-indulgence.  Sacrificing for others is the heart of the gospel and actually is the foundation for the abundant life Jesus promised.   

Sometimes, I need a reminder.  Perhaps, you do too.

I’m reading through Deuteronomy again.  It’s been a while because I, like many Christians, tend to focus on New Testament writing.  However, Paul told Timothy, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). When Paul reminded Timothy of that truth, most of the “scripture” available was the Old Testament.  We should not neglect the Old Testament.  We are not bound to the Law of Moses but in the pages of the O.T. there is a huge amount of revelation about how God deals with men and nations and how he deals with his covenant children.  Those principles are extremely important to know since God is unchanging.

One of the things that my reading in Deuteronomy is reminding me of is the danger of thinking that a casual commitment to the things of God is “good enough.”  Certainly, grace covers our weaknesses and even failures, but the issue is found more in our attitude than in our actions.

God is looking for a people who are sold out to him.  Scripture is filled with promises and cautions for God’s people. These are often stated together and declare something like, “If you are careful to keep all my commandments, you will prosper in the land.”  Notice that the blessings of God are conditional on a heart that desires to be pleasing to God in everything.  I don’t think God is concerned about those who struggle with sin in their lives nearly as much as those who don’t struggle against the sin in their lives. We often walk in a sin that we somehow rationalize as something “God understands.” But God calls us to holiness or, at least, to a heart that sincerely desires it even though we fail from time to time. God calls us to carefully keep all his commandments.

That principle is not a legalistic approach to God or just the flavor of the Old Covenant.  Jesus made some pretty extreme demands on those who would be a disciple. “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk.14:26-27). Jesus is not telling us to literally hate anyone because we are to love even our enemies.  But what he is saying is that if we have to choose between him and anything or anyone else, we must choose him and reject the other.  If we love anyone or anything more than Jesus, we have stepped into the realm of idolatry.

Idolatry was the great sin that God warned Israel about over and over. God declares, “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Deut.5:8-10). 

We typically read that command and dismiss it because we don’t have shrines in our homes to foreign gods.  But if we pursue anything more than God, we are submitting to a form of idolatry.  If I consistently give more attention, more loyalty, more love, more thought, or more priority to anything other than God, I have become an idolator.  

Think of it this way.  Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment” (Matt.22:37).  When we love something or someone else more than God, we are functionally committing idolatry.  Love is not always an emotion.  It is often a choice. Simply put, do I choose God or something else that draws my affections away from God?

Again, this is a matter of the heart.   When couples first fall in love, they think about the relationship all the time.  They call.  They rearrange their schedule to spend time with one another.  They think about small gifts that express their affection.  They long to be in each other’s presence.  They put each other’s needs before their own.  They try hard to please the one they love and have no interest in the affections of another…if their love is genuine.  That is the kind of heart, God wants from his people.  If either of them begins to place their affections elsewhere, the relationship is in trouble.   So it is, with God.  His love never strays, but ours has a tendency to do so.

Here we come back to our aspirational values versus our actual values.  We may declare our love for God (aspirational), but the proof is in our choices (actual).  I can’t tell you how often I have heard believers profess their faith and love for God when their lifestyle is little different from the lifestyle of unbelievers except for occasional church attendance.  These believers often choose immoral relationships, partying with friends every weekend, their favorite recreation, etc. over time with God and their spiritual family.  Their Facebook page documents their choices every day.  If you ask them to serve, they just don’t have the time…but they have time for the things they really value.  Of course, somethings aren’t so obvious.  Our desires, our thought life, our choices of what we watch or listen to, etc. aren’t as apparent, but can be just as indicative of a heart that only chooses God when it is convenient and doesn’t cost us anything. 

Idolatry creates a throne in our hearts for Satan and neither he nor God is willing to share the throne.  The difference is that God asks, even pleads, and presents the truth for us to choose.  He always calls us to those things that bless and redeem. Satan, however, calls us to lies and deception and eventual destruction.  For those who profess Jesus, but withhold parts of their lives from his lordship, there is often a real delusion operating that they are loving and serving Jesus. Satan provides a perfect rationalization for everything in their lives outside of God’s will. 

That is why David wisely asked God to search his heart and show him if there (Ps. 139:24) were any things in his life or his heart that were misaligned with the will of God.

What I see in my own life, as well as the life of others, is a contemporary attitude that says if I’m giving God some of the things he asks for, that is good enough. Then I’m careful not to think about my obedience too much because I might find I am out of sync with his will in several areas that I’m not sure I want to surrender this week. That is simply foolishness on my part because an attitude like that keeps me from many of the things God wants to bless me with and open the door for the destroyer to come in like a cancer.

As Israel was preparing to enter the promise land after forty years of wandering in the desert, Moses admonished them when he said, “See, I have taught you decrees and laws as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may follow them in the land you are entering to take possession of it. Observe them carefully, for this will show your wisdom andunderstanding to the nations, who will hear about all these decrees and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise andunderstanding people.” What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him? And what other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” (Duet. 4:5-8).

God is not interested in getting our left overs or an obedience that it is just “good enough.”  He wants our whole heart so we can receive all that he has for us and so that we can fully fulfill our destiny that he has written in his book (Ps. 139:16).  The truth is that when we shortchange God, we are really shortchanging ourselves.  

Lord give us a heart that loves you without reservation.