challenges – Page 15 – Broken Believers

Esteeming His Word

Quite often, we’re intimidated by the Bible. We all can take on a verse or two. But that is pretty much it.

The Bible isn’t made up of singular verses, but of whole books. I intend to go on record, to encourage you to ingest the Word. It’s as if we went to a Chinese restaurant buffet. There is so many delicious choices. But we load up exclusively on the “Kung Pao Chicken.” We make many trips, but that is all we take. Only the Kung Pao, and that’s it.

Have we really experienced this restaurant? Or just the chicken? The Word is extensively diverse. There are recipes, and there are heaping and steaming platters of things we will never personally experience, and that is a shame. So much is there, but we pick out just one thing.

I have been reading the first few chapters of the prophet Jeremiah. It really humbles me, and I sense I’ve been sliced open and my innards have been drug out into the streets. It has spiritually eviscerated me. It has opened me up, with a spiritual power. (I’m sorry, but “Moby Dick” or “Great Expectations” or other works of classical literature does nothing comparable for me.)

God’s Word has a peculiar dimension to it. What it does is spiritually forceful. It eagerly waits for us–this leather backed book. At random we pick it up and start to read. Quite quickly, it slips through our issues, and it directly ministers to us. It has such power that it enters our thinking, and detonates, when the time is right. And we are left to pick-up the pieces. (This is good.)

You see, His presence has throughly saturated His Word. He comes and infuses His books. They have been dipped in His very personality and brought out for us to read and handle. The things we discover there develop an awareness of truth and what is real. If you study, you will hear the voice of God.

You have not arrived. There is still a substantial work to be done. You desperately need God’s words. And you don’t need to become proficient or educated. Perhaps we should just strive to be holy and kind. Even an unorthodox approach is better than none. Please–put down the remote, take up your heart, and apply it to your Bible. It won’t take long, but the work is eternal.

“The Bible is alive; it speaks to me. It has feet; it runs after me. It has hands; it lays hold of me!”

— Martin Luther

It is God’s Glory, Not Ours

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:31, ESV

We are to make distinctions of all that passes by us. Making the decisions based on value and content and worth is the correct way to go about deciding what is worthwhile. The radiance and brilliance are not our way of sounding poetic about something. It is the real core of essential nature. It’s like watching a doctor perform a biopsy. They extract a tiny speck of organ tissue with a long needle. A biopsy will give the physician a real understanding of what is really happening inside.

The Bible tells us ‘taste and see, that God is good’ [tasty]. This is what real faith does, it reaches out and takes a sample. Often in a big grocery store the management sets up a card table. A person attends the table, and offers passing customers samples. Of course, they do this so you will buy this new product. (Sausage and cheese samples are my favorites. I generally try to avoid the cole slaw, as a general rule).

I guess God made us humans with an adventurous and inquisitive nature. We climb mountains, and eat Korean food. We have this built in curiosity that leaks out all over the place. Some really need a taste of danger, or to be creative, or competitive. The point is this– we are created in God’s image. And only God is majestic enough, and big enough– to be enough.

We are learning that all our activity, and all our passion is to contribute and build His Glory. In order to do this we need to amputate our passivity and stretch out to a muscular faith. Flabby and flaccid discipleship won’t be able to give God any real glory, or give us any real joy. We were designed and built specifically to give God immense glory. There is nothing better to do with our lives.

What Price Vigilance?

There are times in every believer when things become crystal clear. The comes an awareness of things that are real and true. We see in detail the world as it really is; we suddenly understand.

We are specifically called to be watchful.

What that suggests to me is that we have an awareness of “each hour’ of the day. We choose to know the time, no matter our circumstances. We are made alert in hope though the world spins around us.

About 30 years ago I was ‘hitch-hiking’ in Alaska. I was not in the best place spiritually, and wasn’t really listening to the Lord. I had walked a bit and was about a mile from my cabin when I saw a ‘3×5’ card laying off the ground. Picking it up, I turned it over, and read the simple message written on it– “Stay Alert.” Weird. I walked further and saw another. I went and picked up, the same simple message. “Stay Alert.” That same day I was notified of a family emergency. My mother had been diagnosed with cancer. I was not prepared.

“So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.”

1 Thessalonians 5:6

There are three distinct areas that demand and require every believer’s watchful attention:

The Second Coming, Jesus’ return and the signs signaling
Spiritual warfare, against temptation and oppression
the Fellowship of the Saints, others in the Church

“Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. ³⁴It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to stay awake. ³⁵Therefore stay awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or in the morning— ³⁶lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. ³⁷And what I say to you I say to all: ”Stay awake.”

Mark 13:33-37

‘The Parable of the Ten Virgins’ is Jesus’ cry for awareness for the waiting believer. The verses in Matthew 25 is a description of wise and foolish behavior and the terrible consequences of spiritual inattention.

We know that we must sleep, it is a physical need we all have. I think Jesus is warning us of a spiritual awareness. Vigilance– being watchful can be a challenge. The World offers plenty of “narcotics” that lull the heart. Satan is quite proficient at what he does.

In the Book of Song of Solomon we see the beloved waiting for her lover. She makes the observation–

“I slept, but my heart was awake.
A sound! My beloved is knocking.”

Song of Solomon 5:2

Even sleeping we can be awake. That is a luxury given to those whom the Father loves. We can be ‘cued in’ even as we physically rest. Our hearts are very much awake, even in our pajamas!

In the sport of fencing two opponents face off with foils. The come together with the cry, ‘on guard’ and both become intensely aware of the other. I suggest we become as focused as believers. There is so much at stake. Jesus warns his disciples, and we had best listen.

Praying Authentically

Prayer often can be just a nice religious duty, that makes us feel warm and fuzzy. But such prayer the does not suit a disciple who is tired of religion, and is seeking authenticity. There are few models who can be our guides.

That one of the reasons why we need elders in our fellowships; they have been through so much, they can anchor us to all that is real. As elderd they probably had lessons in prayer.

We often will theologically play on the periphery, and cleverly deceive others and ourselves. My own heart gets pretty creative as I display a self-righteousness. (I should win an Academy Award as ‘best actor.’) But Jesus insists on us becoming real. You might say that real is the prayer that touches his heart.

When you talk with Jesus, do you really talk to Him? Do you have a real awareness that you are really talking with Him?

Is it the real you that fellowships with the ‘real’ God?

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The following is an excerpt from A Diary of Private Prayer, by the Scottish theologian, John Baillie, 1886-1960:

Eternal Father of my soul, let my first thought today be of You, let my first impulse be to worship You, let my first speech be Your name, let my first action be to kneel before You in prayer.

For Your perfect wisdom and perfect goodness:

For the love with which You love mankind:

For the love with which You love me:

For the great and mysterious opportunity of my life:

For the indwelling of your Spirit in my heart:

For the sevenfold gifts of your Spirit:

I praise and worship You, O Lord.

Yet let me not, when this morning prayer is said, think my worship ended and spend the day in forgetfulness of You. Rather from these moments of quietness let light go forth, and joy, and power, that will remain with me through all the hours of the day;

Category: challenges