God’s greatest tools for shaping and forming us

God has been showing me recently that He uses three tools over and over in order to shape and form us into His likeness and image. Those three tools are suffering, lack and delay. And yet perhaps God would call these things training, discipline and appropriate timing. But nonetheless God allows things to come into our lives in order that we might be shaped to be like Him. He allows us to be tested and tried. He allows us to experience difficulties that are too much for us to bear. He withholds things from us in order that we might look to Him for provision and understanding. And He calls upon us to wait for His perfect timing rather than trying to force an imperfect “solution”.

In my life I find that I often complain about these things. Often from my limited (and selfish, pride-filled perspective) I believe that God is putting on me more than I can really handle or He is withholding the supply that I know He has but isn’t releasing or He isn’t coming soon enough with the solution that I have asked Him for. But as these three things keep coming at me again and again I am beginning to believe that God actually desires that we have all of these occurrences in our lives in order to cause us to trust Him more and become more like Him!

So when you face something that seems to beyond you, it may very well be that God is using things in your life to bring you to a place of brokenness and emptiness in order that you might call out to Him in desperation and allow Him to shape you in humility and holiness. This week when you wonder why something is happening, change your questioning into a patient observance of God at work making something beautiful in you!

No one else can do it for you

No one else can choose for you. No one else can think, feel or act for you. We each must choose for ourselves who we will serve (Joshua challenged the people of Israel with this choice). We each must choose for ourselves how we will live.

When circumstances are especially difficult and we ask the Lord to help us, one thing we must know is that we cannot sit passively back and let someone else just “sort it out”. God is able to do things in and through us, but only as we choose to allow Him to. Remember: when we seek the peace and joy that God gives we must choose to receive it from Him. He is not going to force His peace and joy upon us.

Many times in our lives we find ourselves in the middle of a “bad day”. And then we wish or dream or hope or pray that things will get better. We long for the moment when things will once again be “good” and we will be happy. And yet we often wait for God to somehow magically change our attitude even while we are sulking or complaining. God has the power to anything and yet He has given us the gift of free will and therefore won’t go where we don’t allow Him to. If we ask Him to make things better but don’t make the choice to allow Him to change us, will things really get “better”? If we ask Him to guide us through a particularly trying circumstance but we don’t allow Him to shape, form and re-tool us so that we personally can be victorious, will anything really feel  better or complete? What good are changed circumstances if we are still broken within?

No other person can make your choices for you:

  • No other person can choose to eat, sleep, work or play for you
  • No other person can choose joy, peace, love, hope, contentment for you
  • No other person can choose or have a good attitude for you
  • No other person can choose or live out Christlikeness for you
  • No other person can worship, pray, serve or become a disciple of Christ for you

In all of life no one can do it for you, though Christ can live life in you and through you!

Only Jesus can bring you hope, peace, joy and contentment, but not through the changing of our circumstances but rather through the changing of us. And He won’t change us unless we let Him.

So, whatever you are facing, choose now to let Him change you. He might also change the things around you, but He is far more concerned with you than with passing circumstances. And when you ask God to make you feel better, have a better attitude, be more like Him, have more contentment, truly feel full and alive, realize that no other person can do that for you. Only God in you can make it happen and then only with your permission and your partnership. He won’t do it alone. You have to work with Him.

So stop waiting for some other human to make you feel better. Seek the Lord with all your heart. Ask Him to change you. And then personally agree with Him and partner with Him in whatever He wants to work in you!

A prayer for God’s presence and His people

Oh Lord, we need You now. We need You to guide us. To instruct us. Oh Lord we need Your Spirit, Your Presence and Your Glory to be on us, with us and in us!

Lord, break our hearts for lost people, dying churches, hopelessness, hurting, sorrow, grief, sin-laden and imprisoned people. May we care more about You and Your people (both lost and found) than our institutions, programs, ministries and efforts.

Lord, may our hearts carry Your burden for people that none would perish, but all would come to You for salvation and new life! Lord deliver us from our own selfishness and self-absorption that blinds us to the people and needs around us.

Dear Jesus, please make us to truly be desperate for Your Presence and actively partnering with You in Your mission to seek and save the lost. Thank You Jesus for loving us! Now please fill us with that love and flow through us to the world.

In Jesus’ name,

AMEN!

What shall we receive from God?

“Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” – Job 2:10

There seem to be four things in our lives that are complex in how they are intertwined together and yet collectively they seem to account for much of the stress, fear, anxiety, doubt and discouragement in our lives.

These four things are:

* Judgments
* Complaining
* Absence of the Presence of the Lord
* The concept of busyness and what is important

I know at first glance you are probably at a loss. Let me take a moment to explain.

In our lives there are always occurrences, circumstances, experiences and occasions. In other words: life happens. For some unknown reason we seem to always want to designate these happenings into one of two categories: good or bad. We do this with people, attitudes, emotions, circumstances and so on and so forth. We get it in our head that somehow we are able to determine through our own wisdom and knowledge what is good or bad, and what is harmful or helpful. Not only this but we seem to be quite good at it. We make snap judgments about things, circumstances and people and “know” within a few seconds, moments or hours how what we see before us is either good or bad. Furthermore we (subconsciously?) place the good and bad things on an imaginary scale in our mind and when the balance tips so far one way or the other we are then able to make judgments about whether our life is good or bad. This is foolish, stressful and dis-honors God. Yet we do it.

As a result of what we see as an accumulation of bad things in our lives and the subsequent “tipping of the scales” that “clearly” shows that our lives aren’t going well then we turn to God (and others) and begin complaining about how unfair it all is. We moan about how we don’t deserve these things and that clearly our own motives and good choices/deeds should demonstrate that God should be doing more nice things for us instead of heaping all these bad things on us.

Coupled with our judgments and our complaining is a disastrous third reality, and that is that much of the time there is an absence of the manifest presence of God in our lives. Indeed God gives us the Holy Spirit as a deposit upon our salvation and furthermore He cleanses us and sanctifies us as we journey on with Him in surrender and consecration however much of the time we find ourselves simply too busy to stop and call on the Lord. And in case you hadn’t noticed: even though He fills us, we leak.

And there is one more deadly behavior in our lives and that is our constant busyness and our personal viewpoint of what is important. We stay so busy because it makes us feel important, accomplished and like our lives have meaning. We stay busy because it brings us accolades and acceptance from people around us. We stay busy because then we don’t have to listen to God’s still small voice or finally deal with some of the things that He has already told us have been eating us alive. And so we grab on to what we think is important (judgments again?) and we stay busy. Too busy to pray. Too busy to listen to God. Too busy to read His word. Too busy to obey.

When these four things converge, we self-destruct We worry and are seized by guilt and fear. Guilt for not listening to God. Fear of not being able to face the future because we aren’t sure God is with us because we have been ignoring Him. A lack of peace because we are not dwelling in the Presence of the Prince of Peace.

So what is the answer to all of this?

Not to down-play it, but I believe it is quite simple: receive everything in your life as it is (that really is the only way we can receive anything anyway). Then take those things to the Father in prayer. Wait desperately, hungrily, patiently for the Lord. Let God tell us what is good and bad. Let God reveal to us what is important and what we should be doing.

I believe that if we believed and followed these verses, God could truly deliver us from this wretched cycle of fear and self-destruction:

* “By myself I can do nothing. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just because I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me.” – Jesus (John 5:30)
* “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3:5-6
* “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” – Psalms 37:7
* “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” – Job 2:10
* “I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry.” – Psalm 40:1

So accept everything in your life as it is. Take is to the Lord in prayer. Wait patiently for the Lord and place all things before Him for His judgments and His loving influence upon all things. Don’t try and measure life by standards of importance and success, instead let God reveal His will. And then lovingly, cheerfully and faithfully obey. Be still in His Presence and let His peace and His Spirit give you life abundant and life everlasting!!

Let us say with the Psalmist: Oh Lord, “set me in Your Presence forever”. (Psalm 41:12)

Wandering, seeking

So often in life we find ourselves wandering. Wondering. Seeking. Questioning. “What is next?” “What went wrong?” “What should I do now?”

These are legitimate questions. And they come from a place of brokenness and desperation. This might feel like a dark and depressed place to be, but it actually might be the most perfect place to be. In this place of confusion and not knowing we can and should be driven to our knees and driven to find the One who has the answers to all of life’s problems.

I don’t know why it is so hard to go to the One who will always, every-time have all that we need and will freely give it to those who ask Him, but for some reason it is. And so God uses overwhelming circumstances to show us our inadequacies and to reveal His own Sovereignty over all that is. And so when you find yourself wandering: seek the Lord. When you find yourself confused and defeated, look to the Victor. When you realize that you are at the end of your rope, stop grasping for things that will never really save you, and finally let the Lord catch you, save you, preserve you and restore you. Let God be God and stop trying to appear to have it all together. God knows you don’t have it all together and others know it too. It is a much more beautiful thing to see a person seeking refuge in the arms of God than to see someone flailing and self-destructing because they simply can’t let go.

Trust me, I know how hard this is. But when you finally let go, then God can and will catch you!

Our desperate state

We are so completely dependent. Though we think we are autonomous, self-governing, independent beings, when we boil it all down: we are desperately needy for … God.

We are not merely in need of a few blessings or provisions from His hand. No, we are desperate for His glory, His face, His Spirit, His presence! Joy is not something God gives us to put in our pocket and carry around a while. Love is not something we can frame and mount on our walls. Peace is not something that we can hang on our neck. All of these “things” flow out of His character and His presence.

If everything in our lives went exactly as we thought it should but we did not dwell daily in His Presence, we would be miserable creatures with no peace, no freedom, no joy and no hope!

However, if everything in our life appears to be “upside-down” and nothing is going according to what we think is “good” but we are ever, always at Jesus’ feet and abiding in Him, then nothing will be able to discourage, disarm or destroy us!

The mystery of the gospel is this:

  • When we are weak, He is strong.
  • When we are empty, He fills us.
  • When we have nothing, He can be our everything.
  • When we suffer, He uses that suffering to bring us joy and peace.
  • When we know nothing and can do nothing, He becomes our All in all!

If you are struggling today: give up! Let go! Surrender! Let God bring you into His divine Presence, and let His incomparable power, unfathomable love, and His amazing grace redefine everything you thought you knew about life.

Oh Lord, I am desperate for You!

I don’t have a clue

A post about ministry, His presence, and knowing what to do.

 

I write this blog post with a dose of fear that I may be misunderstood or even maligned as a result. And yet I write this article in the hope that it will help someone walk closer to the Lord.

 

Do you know what you are doing? I mean really know? Many of us have some degree of knowledge of what we are attempting, the purpose for which we are attempting it and possibly what the end result might be, but do we really know what we are doing?

Can we say with judgment day honesty “Yes, I am currently living out the will of God in my life and ministry exactly as He would have me do it”? Is every word spoken exactly as He would have us? Is every look, touch, gesture exactly as He would do it? Can we say with absolute certainty that we are doing the exact things that God wants us to do exactly when and how He wants us to do them?

If we are honest with ourselves we must say “no”. Not everything we do is done with a perfect knowledge or understanding. Not everything we do is done exactly as God would have us to do it. This of course has to do with a multitude of reasons: impure motives, poor listening skills, living in a fallen world, outside distractions and detractors, etc.

Furthermore as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ we are availing ourselves to Him that He might still have a physical body and presence on earth in addition to His Spiritual Presence. Ministry is that attempt to go where Jesus would go, speak His Words, extend His touch and share His love with the whole world. How in ministry do we know if we are doing the right things? Are we certain that both as Christians and as His church we are actually using His time to His glory or are we squandering His time with our pitiful attempts at accomplishing sometime significant for Him?

These are difficult questions. And all of them actually beg yet another question: Can we really know and do the will of God in this life?

The answer is yes. We can know God’s will and we can live like Jesus in this life! But this is only possible as we abide in His Presence. In His Presence He reveals, in His Presence He instructs, in His Presence He empowers and in His Presence He guides. All that we are powerless to do in our own strength and wisdom and according to our own plans is possible in His Presence.

That doesn’t mean that He will reveal it all to us, or that He will necessarily reveal it to our own satisfaction, but He will reveal what is necessary in His perfect way and His perfect time. And so we must wait. In the waiting He shapes and forms us. In the waiting we become broken, humble and open to His words and will. In the waiting we learn that we don’t need to know anything more than Him.

So basically I am telling you: in my life and in ministry, I don’t have a clue as to what to do; except this: wait at His feet and do whatever He says. And if/when I mess up, I simply go back to His feet and ask Him to show me the error of my ways and once again fix/redeem my mess. So I don’t know what He has for me next year, next month, tomorrow or even 5 minutes from now. But what I know is that right now He wants me to wait in His Presence and He will reveal to me what He so chooses in His time.

 

Life and the Presence of God

What is this life really about? Have we forgotten? Have we ever really known?

Is this life about feelings and experiences? Is it about love and friendship? Is this life about making something of it?

These are all small parts of the much bigger whole. Each of these things are snippets of the full life that God really intends. And none of these parts make a life complete, but rather are simply expressions of God grace in our lives.

What truly complete us, what truly fulfills us is dwelling in the Presence of the Lord! Being with God and He in us is the only true reality of life “to the full”. In Christ we have life, in Him we have love, peace and joy. In Christ we have forgiveness. In Christ we have grace and mercy. In Christ our chains are broken and our hearts are set truly free!

And once we begin abiding in Him and He in us; once we learn to wait at His feet and let Him truly take away all of our burdens and doubts and fears; once we discover the peace that passes all understanding when we live ever and always in His presence, then everything changes. Our experiences with other people take on new meaning and importance. Our feelings about circumstances are changed and our emotions themselves are sanctified! The way we think of love and give and receive love changes as well how how we approach friendship.

When God is with us and in us, our perceptions are heightened, our emotions are more robust, our heart is filled to overflowing for Him and neighbor, our fears are stilled and our spirit explodes with joy!

So if you are one of the 7 billion people in the world who ask yourself at sometime or another: “what is my life all about”? I challenge you: sit at the feet of Jesus, wait: for minutes, hours, days, and a lifetime and let God fill you “to the very measure” with the fullness of Himself; and then watch as He strips away the ugly, decaying, dead things and brings unstoppable, Spirit-filled, eternity-changing life into you!

A resolution of consecration, surrender, waiting and obeying

So it’s that time again. The time when we make resolutions: we resolve to do something we have not done before (or at least not recently or well). And yet I myself am curious and wary about these resolutions. Why do we want to do certain things now? Why haven’t we been doing them before? And above all: what does God have to say about these areas of our lives we are resolving to change?

Scripture reminds us that unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain who build. So are we attempting things apart from the Holy Spirit of God? Furthermore are we actually doing the things that God wants done or are we merely asking for God’s blessing and seal of approval on something we want done?

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t thing resolutions are a bad thing. But much of the time they do seem misplaced and many times they go completely unfulfilled because of impure motives, lack of discipline, arrogance regarding our own ability, and so on and so forth.

But what if we made this one resolution this year: what if we resolved to do nothing until we had waited at the feet of Jesus for His Spirit, His direction, His will, His revelation, His wisdom and His power? What if we resolved (settled once for all) that our whole life would center around Him and by grace (and the faith that comes by grace) we would refuse to live any other way?!

In the next 6 to 12 weeks many of us will start and stop many things that we have “resolved” to do. Most of the things we will attempt without God and next January we will yet again be filled with much guilt and regret over things poorly done or neglected altogether. But if we decide now that we will always and only do what Jesus directs us to do, then perhaps one year from now we will find ourselves that much closer to God, more filled with His Spirit, more overflowing with His fruit and more fulfilled in our life and calling than ever before!

I resolve: as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!

“So what do you do for your real job?”

So I have been thinking about what pastors do with their time and energy. I can’t tell you the number of times that I have been asked what I do when it is not Wednesday or Sunday. People love to joke that pastors only work two days a week and golf every other day except for when there are funerals and weddings.

So what is it that we pastors do with all that “free time”? I too think about what we pastors find to fill the time, but I think about it in a slightly different way. I know that there are pastors that perhaps don’t manage their time well and others perhaps who have an underdeveloped work ethic (lazy?), but many pastors I know also work hard. They study, pray, call on parishoners, work on the behind the scenes aspects of ministry and program development, stay on call 24/7 and otherwise serve as the resident cheerleader, spiritual coach/trainer, counselor and accountability partner for many people and congregations. But what I think about alot is this: do pastors really do the right things? And what are the rights things? And should we all be doing the same things, or does it differ for each of us?

I would contend that the primary responsibility of pastor is that of priest: one who goes to God on behalf of the people and to the people on behalf of God. This role’s primary function is as a prayer warrior and resident intercessor. The pastor should spend a great deal of time in the prayer closet, prayer room, and at the altar as one who bears the burdens of the people before the Father!

Only after this role has been lived out should a pastor then move on to another important role: that of prophet. A prophet is one who is the mouthpiece of God. They are called and designated by God to bring His messages to all whom He sends them to. Since God’s words are eternal this is perhaps one of the most important tasks that any pastor can do. And the role of prophet flows directly out of that of priest. Without a pastor drawing close to God there is no way he or she can stand before the people with a message.

As the first two roles are lived out and then as the Lord directs the pastor should then thirdly pursue his or her role as that of shepherd. A shepherd is one who leads the flock to green pastures for nourishment, beside still waters for rest and renewal, through the valleys of life as guide and comforter and who overcomes the Enemy and serves as the protector of the flock. In contemporary times all of these functions are realized mostly through words of instruction, Biblical counseling, discipleship and accountability. And so yet again the pastor is to pray, prepare heart and mind through study and meditation and speak as God directs.

Lastly, the pastor should be a servant leader. In a sense this is the last role and in a way it is the over-arching and primary role. The pastor should lead his or her people by example. The church should see their pastor as under-shepherd of the Great Shepherd. The people ought to see the pastor learning and growing and becoming more like Jesus. They should be able to follow their pastor as their pastor follows Jesus.

So I am sure now that what the pastor actually does is as clear as mud to you.

One thing you may notice is that the pastor shouldn’t spend much time developing or working on ministries and programs. God calls and equips many ministers to these tasks, but the pastor ought to first and foremost be priest, shepherd and servant-leader.

Unfortunately I myself have often spent an unhealthy amount of time on administrative tasks. Making sure everything is organized, well communicated and that all the church business is handled has diminished or perhaps even crippled the spiritual roles of many pastors. Instead the pastor’s primary responsibility is to connect people to God and be one of God’s instrument of grace among the people. The pastor should spend the majority of his or her time seeking out God’s will for self, family and church and preparing heart and mind to be used of God among the people.

If the pastor himself or herself never completes certain projects and leads certain programs or ministries that are resume’ worthy but always leads the people to the feet of Jesus, that pastor is a success in their ministry!