Category Archives: obedience

Feb 1 2012

A Chariot Ride Into Teachability

We live out our lives making decisions.  Many are like ‘forks’ in the road.  They are made and they shunt us in another direction.  Some are dramatic, we see very quickly that the road is going to take us in a radically different path.

Sometimes, if we’re honest, we will admit to backtracking, retracing our route back to the point we turned.  A lot of time it is too late, and the moment has past.

I think I have been learning to receive correction and rebuke from others.  I’m thinking of that Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:30-31,

“So when Philip ran toward the chariot, he heard the man reading from Isaiah the prophet. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

 31 He answered, “How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?” Then he invited Philip to climb in and sit with him.”

There is a humbleness, a teachableness that this eunuch possesses.  He is confident enough to acknowledge that he just doesn’t know.  He is so eager to be set on the right course that he invites Philip to a Bible study in the chariot.

We are responsible for our receptivity to truth.  It is our personal decision to either seek or not seek.  No one else can make this decision for us.  We come to a decision point and we go the way things seem to direct us.  And we learn; God and how we learn!

The book of Proverbs is saturated with ideas on being guided by our humility when it comes in contact with truth.  Furthermore, there are many warnings about receiving correction and reproof gracefully.  If we believe what we are reading, at that point all of a sudden our stubbornness and rejection become a very bad thing.

I have learned that scriptural truth is almost always negative when it is first encountered.  It will not sit well, and I will try to shake it off.  But truth can be remarkably persistent.  ‘Forgive your brother’, the Holy Spirit says.  And you say right away, ‘Not a chance!’  But give it time, and the Word will soften rock.  If you respond properly, humbly, you be able to make the right decision.

One more thing, Jesus told us in Matthew 18:3,

  ” I promise you this. If you don’t change and become like a child, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven.”

There will need to be a complete alteration in our hearts if we are to accommodate this command.  Becoming a child is more difficult as adults as becoming an adult is for a child.  It takes a great amount of brokenness to make the transition.

God fully intends to work with you on this.  He doesn’t seem to ever give up.  He is wonderfully persistent, and for some reason, He loves you. LOL

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Nov 26 2011

Mending Your Nets

And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them.  Matthew 4:21, ESV

And immediately they left their nets and followed him.  Mark 1:18

Fishing takes considerable effort.  There is always something that needs to be done.  To be honest, there is very little relationship between the 1st century commercial fisherman and our modern day guy on a new bass boat (with a big fridge for his beer.)

To mend nets was tedious but necessary.  You would take your net and spread it on the ground in a open space.  Every knot would be carefully examined.  All holes would be repaired.  Nothing was overlooked.  Fishing nets were painstakingly maintained.  Everyday, and without fail.

Fish would school, and if your gear was right, and you were in a prime place, you could catch a lot.  But at the same time, you could let hundreds of fish escape through a hole in your net.  Each fish meant money, if you could catch them.

Jesus walking along the beach surveyed the boats and crews. Since most of these guys had worked through the night, they were tired and maybe a bit “punchy.”  Some had gotten somewhat lucky, while others had very little to show for working so hard.  Most likely the different crews bantered with each other as they unloaded.

Jesus walked through the bunches of fisherman.  He looked at their hauls to see  what they had caught.  But it wasn’t the catch He was looking at, it was the men. It was from these laboring fishermen that He would choose.  These men were rough and tumble rednecks. They where not easily accepting of someone like Jesus.

He stands and looks, and then commands.  “You!  Come and follow me, now.”  Now if you are looking for disciples– future apostles and leaders, the seashore is not the best place to recruit.  They really have a rudimentary education.  No theology, and just a meager understanding of Jewish ritual and religion.  Essentially there was no time for them to think outside their occupation. Sure there just might be one, or two that possessed more, but that would be the exception.

But Jesus had no desire to interview them, and take the best of the lot.  He didn’t have a Human Resources Department, there were no tests, and no forms that had to list references.  He simply commanded, and those who understood followed.  Only after they left it all did He get their names and addresses.  I think that it is the same today.

Will we leave our boat, with the nets?  Really, you can keep mending or you can follow Him– it’s your choice.  Most of the time though, decisions have a tendency to be irrevocable. You have a moment, an instant of time to decide.  Mending nets can be back-breaking and quite tedious.  But following the Lord Jesus is an unknown.  Many will choose to keep mending.  Others are launched into something new, and eternally significant.

The glaring truth is the necessity of obedience to Jesus’ command. There is no other voice we must hear.  As a matter of fact, hearing (and really apprehending) is the only foundation we can trust to make our obedience true. You can keep mending your nets and preparing for another night on the water. That is always your prerogative.  But if you decide to follow you will need to leave what you know behind.  That is authentic discipleship.

 

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Sep 21 2011

To Be Despised by All, but God

I’m working my way through Ezekiel in the Old Testament, and before that I was reading Jeremiah. These are challenging books to read and to apply to our daily lives. Here and there is a nugget with direct – and easy – application, but I think these books are there for a much bigger purpose. The Old Testament prophets show us what is important to God. As I read, I find that God is concerned with two things:

  1. That His people trust in Him, and not in idols of their own making. This seems reasonable, since He alone is trustworthy. An idol made of stone or gold – or as we often trust in these days, of paper in the form of money and stocks – cannot protect us or provide a sure and trustworthy future. Only God can do that.
  2. That His people care for the “widow and the orphan,” that is, the less fortunate of society who are in need of a helping hand. This seems reasonable, too, since those of us who have been blessed should not find it a burden to bless others in return.

These are simple principles. When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus echoed these two principles when He answered, “’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. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22:37-38 (NIV).

And yet the prophets were hated and ridiculed for telling the Israelites that they would suffer and were suffering exile and death, war and famine, because they failed to follow these two simple principles. Instead of loving and trusting the God who had seen them through so much and protected them, they trusted in idols and the ways of their neighbors. Instead of loving their neighbors and caring for the downtrodden, they cared only for their own gain and gluttony. The Israelites were warned over and over by the prophets. I believe that the message of the prophets – that these two principles are paramount – is just as relevant for our world today as it was for ancient Israel.

The other day I received this wonderful quote in my Quotemeal email from Heartlight.org. I believe it illustrates not only the struggle the Old Testament prophets faced, but also the struggle those who trust in Christ alone for salvation and seek to share His expectation that we love our neighbors with the world face today.

To be forged upon the anvil of God’s purpose, to be at once His hammer, His tongs, and His molten iron; to hear words that rend the heart, see visions that pierce the chest; to be emptied like an urn, again and again and again until one desires only rest, only an end to the refilling — and to know one cannot live without the refilling. To be given words that one dare not speak, and to feel those words churning and boiling in the belly until one must speak them aloud, or die. To be despised, soon or late, by everyone except Adonai — and to desire it so, while hating it. This is to be a prophet.
– Thom Lemmons

I’m not suggesting that I am a prophet, but there have been times in my life when I was compelled to speak, or to write, words I did not wish to say or write. I have had words churn and boil in my mind and in my heart, felt the fear of saying or writing them, but had to push through that fear and let those words fly and land wherever God desires.

Just writing that last paragraph makes it seem all so dramatic, but really it just is. Sometimes I don’t push through the fear and I fail to share the words that are on my heart. Although I have not yet died as a result, a small part of my spiritual growth does whither. Perhaps my faith would be stronger and more souls would have been saved if I had always spoken up.

But, in the end, I know that God loves me and knows I am being sanctified daily, though sometimes more slowly than I would like.

Linda’s blog is at http://lindakruschke.wordpress.com/.  Please check out all she has to say.  Linda tells me that it is absolutely guaranteed to bless, or your money back!

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May 28 2011

Righteousness: His or Yours?

All of us are dirty with sin.
All the right things we have done are like filthy pieces of cloth.
All of us are like dead leaves,
and our sins, like the wind, have carried us away.   Isaiah 64:6, NCV 

________________

I have this “nightmare.”  I jump out of a plane.  I deploy my parachute, and it opens.  But it is completely full of holes!  Yikes!  And then I think in a spiritual sense. What a relief it is to have a holiness that is given, or imputed.  If somehow you could turn off the spigot of the holiness he gives, and then run on your own merits; how far would you go?

Among good Christian people, there is an occupational hazard of sorts, and that is to “advance” in our thinking to that place were we are doing fine on our own.  We very much appreciated Jesus’ help– but now, at this moment, I must figure it out by myself.  This line of thinking, is called “self-righteousness.”

“Many have passed the rocks of gross sins – who have suffered shipwreck upon the sands of self-righteousness.”  –William Secker: ‘The Consistent Christian,’ 1660

We begin to travel in our sense of ourselves, away from a desperate, clinging to a trust in his mercy that is moving to a place of a confident, strutting awareness of having put ourselves back together again.  This is the ‘evil ones’ work, to steer you into self-righteousness.  Once you get there, he can just release you and let you ‘stew in your own juices,’ while he rules over your soul.

Becoming self-righteous should scare us to death.  It will damn our souls just as quick as adultery, or murder.  It is evil, and it sedates us to the place where it can work, unhindered and unchallenged.  I’ve read that some predators inject first an anesthetic to soothe their prey. This enables them to take their time, as they slaughter them.

I have had several bouts with self-righteousness.  (And I bet I’ll have several more.)  It is sin that will give you a wonderful back massage, just before it reaches for the knife that will cut your throat.  Somehow, we are lulled into this and my! I’m such a good person (even after such a dark and evil start.)

Self-righteousness is the largest idol of the human heart – the idol which man loves most and God hates most. Dearly beloved, you will always be going back to this idol. You are always trying to be something in yourself, to gain God’s favour by thinking little of your sin, or by looking to your repentance, tears, prayers ; or by looking to your religious exercises, your frames, etc; or by looking to your graces, the Spirit’s work in your heart.”  Robert Murray McCheyne

 

We must cling to these hand-holds of grace.  The waves are substantial, and we most certainly would be swept out to sea.  But we grab and hold on to him.  And he holds on to us!  The fantasy of having enough of my own created righteousness to please God is simply a crock.  Jesus was, and is, and will be all my “righteousness.”  I have nothing– nothing else. 

 

May 26 2011

Superglue Your Crown On

“Because you have obeyed my command to persevere, I will protect you from the great time of testing that will come upon the whole world to test those who belong to this world. 11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown.“

Rev. 3:1o-11, NLT

The crown you wear is vulnerable.  Sorry.  But the truth needs no amplifier, it brings us to that amazing place where we can influence and shape our future track.  The crown we wear can be snatched, and taken away from us.  The dark enemy would then lift it up, and the teems of evil would rejoice over their victory in a dark orgy of an evil power.

Jesus has issued a command.  His instruction is communicating to us an awareness of what evil is about to attempt.  He states that there is a testing, that there is the need for endurance.  We can so easily be brought into darkness, and the enemy is pushing us (with all his power and zeal) in that direction.

Our crowns can be taken.  They will never be returned, not without issues.  Evil will be generated from failure to keep watch.  Our life has been harmed and weakened, and evil swoops in to collect that crown that we wore.  It becomes Satan’s trophy, and he gloats as shows off his collection.  We will become destitute of spirit, and quite undone.  Evil repetitively does this, and we must accept its reality and its claim to darkness.

But the crown Jesus gave you is extremely important.  I suppose, that it is wonderfully significant.  We look at our crown, and we can draw conclusions.  He has given us an authority, and a place in his kingdom which is secure.  He works on our behalf to turn us into a marvel of grace.  We grasp on his gentleness, and turn toward his grace.

The wonderful crown that has been given to us, it creates an issue that we can not erase or eradicate.  We pick it up and we are reminded of who we are, and what we are to become.  My dear brother or sister, you wear a crown that sets you apart.  Wear it, with a spiritual awareness that you are special.  You are of a kingly lineage.  Rub shoulders with all that is good.  Become a companion of all those who are friendly to the truth.  Walk soft, but you must hold on to everything that belongs to you.

May 2 2011

Off the Scrap Heap

God has particular preferences when it comes to different people.  He selectively chooses.  These choices have been made up in his mind and heart.  For us to criticize them, is by association faulting God.

There have been very many men and women flung out on the scrap heap of humanity.  People who have been dealt with so severely that there is little pride and arrogance left.  People like Moses,

Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

Exodus 3:11

Someone once said, “When God intends to use a man [woman] he takes them and crushes them.”  The inevitable breaking is followed by a release of the Holy Spirit from their lives.  Moses is proof of God’s renovating presence.  You want the presence? Prepare for roughness, and misunderstanding.

At the burning bush, Moses was given the assignment of returning, confronting Pharoah, and leading all the captives to the Promised Land of Canaan.  He had just spent 40 years as a refugee/shepherd.  In spite of a good education he had received while in Egypt as a prince, that wasn’t why he had been selected.

Moses has definite feelings of inadequacy and failure.  And his time in the desert did nothing to relieve this.  But a 40 year “prison” term will do that.  In chapter 4 of Exodus we read “the back and forth” conversation between Moses and the Lord God.  Moses’ issues were consistently volleyed back with comfort and promise.

As you read this, you are aware of God’s presence.  He has called you to do something for him.  You have wandered off the path, gotten lost and suffered much.  The “desert” will do that.  But it all can be forgiven.  His alert grace is like a velvet battering ram.  He will (and does) discipline you–but only because he is passionately in love with your soul.