Secret Places

In my last blog, I talked about decision making and how when it comes to making decisions, God expects us to be spiritual people who focus upon spiritual decisions utilizing spiritual principles. If any of the leadership within our body read my last blog, they would have recognized the practices of increased prayer, searching the scriptures and seeking what would be most glorifying to God. That is the policy that the leadership adopted several months ago whenever important decisions needed to be made that could have huge spiritual or financial impacts on the body.

I shared that because over the last several months, Karen and I have adopted that same policy when it comes to making spiritual and financial decisions within our own home and we know from practical experience that it truly works. As a person who too often allowed my emotions to lead my actions, I have had to learn to allow God to be in control of issues that fall into his realm of expertise and ultimate final judgment. Of course, God doesn’t expect Christians to be totally catatonic when it comes to things going on around them. He expects us to react when he leads us to react and he expects us to speak out when things don’t line up with the Word or nature of God.

I alluded to this post in my last blog because I felt that God gave me both topics at the same time several mornings ago while I was lying awake in bed. When this topic first came to me, I really thought that “Secret Places” was going to be about physical places. As I was doing some labor intensive work out behind my house, I was “talking” to God at the same time and asking him for direction when it came to writing this blog. It was then that God revealed to me that what I had envisioned as “Secret Places” and what he intended were two different things. He was talking about the “secret places” that nobody except God could visit. It is the secret places of the heart.

I have chosen several verses from Psalm 139 because they tell us that God knows everything, including our thoughts and motives of the heart. I left some verses out because it is rather lengthy, but it doesn’t change the meaning of the message. (Psalm 139) ¹Lord, you have examined me and know all about me.² You know when I sit down and when I get up. You know my thoughts before I think them.³ You know where I go and where I lie down. You know everything I do.⁴ Lord, even before I say a word, you already know it.⁵ You are all around me—in front and in back—and have put your hand on me.⁷ Where can I go to get away from your Spirit? Where can I run from you?¹¹ I could say, “The darkness will hide me. Let the light around me turn into night.” ¹² But even the darkness is not dark to you. The night is as light as the day; darkness and light are the same to you. ²³ God, examine me and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. ²⁴ See if there is any bad thing in me. Lead me on the road to everlasting life. New Century Version (NCV)

When my family travels long distances, we frequently listen to the dramatization “Affabel, Window of Eternity” by John Bevere. One of the most enlightening statements comes from one of the rulers to a person who is getting ready to stand before the King (God). She says, “Your rewards depend on what you say and what you do. Not only will your words and works be examined, but the motive behind them. You will also be judged by the thoughts you embraced.  Do not forget God’s judgment is righteous, testing the mind and the heart. Man's judgment is in light of the visual world but God's is based on a different light.”

 

The problem with the Secret Places of the heart is that as humans, we can’t truly tell what is there. There are some awesome men and women of God who we wouldn’t even suspect because they are extremely quiet and meek and work under the radar of our Christian detectors. They have good hearts and do good things for God and get little or no recognition for their work here on earth. On the other hand, there are those other people out there with evil hearts. Oh sure, we can sometimes see the fruit that an evil heart produces but sometimes people can be really good actors/actresses and can deceive a great multitude of people for a long period of time before the truth is revealed. Especially dangerous are those people who have learned fluent Christianese and church practices through decades of Church attendance. That is why it is so important to adopt a spiritual decision making policy in your own lives and to seek the Holy Spirits guidance. Here is the bottom line; if something doesn’t feel right, sound right, or look right, perhaps the Holy Spirit is telling you that it isn’t right.

Now What God?

Life has been so crazy busy lately that I haven’t taken the time to write much. The other morning, while I was lying in bed, I felt the sudden prompting that I was supposed to write two blogs. The first was supposed to be related to decision making and the other was supposed to address the concept of “Secret Places.” So here is the first one…

Karen and I are constantly doing projects around the house that either needs to be done due to routine maintenance and upkeep requirements or because we are attempting to change/improve the conditions in which we live. With every large project that we attempt, we almost always encounter some sort of hiccup in the process that causes us to spend more time or resources in order to bring the project to completion. So many times I have wondered what it would be like to accomplish a large project without those issues that seem to hinder productivity and someday I suspect that we will have a project that will go as planned. In all honesty though, it is through the solving of those issues/problems that come up that I tend to learn the most. It requires me to do a lot of research, ask a lot of questions and sometimes seek the counsel of friends and/or family.

Over the years and many projects, I have learned that not all the advice that I get from google searches or from talking to others is good sound advice. As well as the intentions of the folks are that either posts their opinions or experiences online or those who give me their advice face-to-face, sometimes it just doesn’t quite fit the bill. It is for that reason that I have learned to include God in all decisions that could be potentially dangerous or costly. Now I know there are those folks who are thinking, “You should include God in all your decisions” and my response is that God does direct all my decisions because he gave me the wisdom to make the routine day to day decisions without seeking extra guidance every time I turn around. As a parent I want my boys to make routine decisions on their own and I believe that God expects the same of us. It is those non-routine issues that tend to be problematic for me and it is those types of issues that I run to God with.

So how does one go about finding answers to those non-routine issues that pop up in life? As much as I wish I could go running to my friends for answers (and I do have some really great friends), I know that ultimately the best answers come from God. It is for that reason that my decision making process must include God first. I have learned over the years that any decision that I make ultimately needs to please God. You see, any decision I make in the physical realm affects the spiritual realm as well. When it comes to decisions, God expects us to be spiritual people who focus upon spiritual decisions utilizing spiritual principles. Then it only makes sense that it all would begin with prayer. When a question arises that will affect mine or my family’s lives, the first step for me should be to spend significant amounts of time in prayer.  

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16 that Scriptures are inspired by God so that the people of God may be completely equipped for life and ministry. The second step in a good decision making process should include the examination of the scriptures because all the available information we need to make wise decisions when it comes to spiritual matters is located here. The third aspect of spiritual decision making is that the decision should result in the glorification of God. We exist to glorify God in the community in which we live and are a visible representation of God to the community. Paul writes, “We are therefore Christ’s Ambassadors’” (2 Corinthians 5:20). In the decisions I make and the actions I take, I should always seek to reflect the character of God in such a way that his reputation is enhanced by what I do.

Lastly, Proverbs makes it clear that the wise seek the advice of many counselors (Proverbs 11:14; 15:22; 24:6). By seeking the counsel of many, we gain greater insight and understanding due to differing perspectives. This is the area that I suspect people need to be very cautious in. Sometimes folks will skip or lightly skim the previous steps of prayer, searching the scriptures and trying to bring glorification to God in order to get advice from others because they already know that what they want to do either violates the Word of God or will bring dishonor to him and they just want somebody to agree with them. This is extremely dangerous, especially if those from whom they are seeking counsel have not gone through the same steps of prayer, searching the scriptures and seeking what would be most glorifying to God. Here’s what I know to be true when it comes to getting advice from others. If it violates the Word of God (scriptures), its bad advice and I wouldn’t follow it.

To end on a positive note, God has put some really great Godly people in our lives and I would seek their counsel any time because I know that I could trust them. They are Godly people who would follow a similar decision making process and would provide me with honest and sound Godly advice, even if it wasn’t what I necessarily wanted to hear. Those are the kind of friends that I appreciate and gravitate towards.

Convincing Doubting Thomas

In 2006 the Department of Army decided to implement a very stringent LEAN SIX SIGMA program world-wide and they decided to launch by training 16 individuals chosen throughout Joint Munitions Command as LEAN SIX SIGMA Blackbelts. The concept was that those 16 individuals would return to their respective commands and be change agents throughout the enterprise by convincing others to embrace the methodologies of LEAN and SIX SIGMA. Because the Army’s mission was increasing exponentially, it was vital for everyone within the enterprise to recognize they were all working toward the same goal – warfighter readiness – and to be excited about where the enterprise was going.

After months of traveling and intense formal training, Joint Munitions Command finally certified their first LEAN SIX SIGMA Blackbelt. Within weeks, several of the other 16 were certified and the Joint Munitions Command began an aggressive blitz for Continuous Improvement. There were a lot of leaders following the progress of those 16 and tracking mechanisms were created to monitor the projects that were being facilitated by the Blackbelts.

It didn’t take long for leadership and the Blackbelts to realize that not everyone was seeing the overall big picture and goals of the enterprise. Although top and mid-level leadership had embraced LEAN SIX SIGMA methodologies, the employees who were actually working production did not seem to recognize the need to change the way they did things and were not eager to do so. The real battle was brewing. It was soon discovered that the real issue wasn’t that people didn’t really want to change; they just wanted to be part of the change process. It was important for everyone to feel ownership and that what they thought was just as important as anybody else, no matter what title they held or salary they received. To have long lasting success, the Blackbelts would always find the "biggest doubting Thomas" and ask him or her, what it would take to get their buy-in. Then the Blackbelt built an action plan around their response. The key seemed to be that if you could turn the biggest doubter into a believer, you could likely turn others.

So by now you are asking yourself “so what?” Well, I have learned over the years that a principle in the secular world can also be a principle in the Christian world. After all, both are inhabited by human beings. As much as we would like to believe that as Christians we may have better control of our feelings and emotions, many of us don’t. I definitely don’t claim to be a giant in this area as I frequently battle to maintain control of my negative emotions. If you ask Karen, I have gotten better and I have tried to be more submissive to God’s and the Holy Spirit’s leading. I guess I will use a paraphrased version of John 8:7 to say, “He that is without sin among us, let him first cast a stone at me.”

I wrote a while back about unity within the body of Christ. One of the statements was that the church needs to become a living body of unified human relationships graced by the Spirit of God. Becoming a unified body of believers requires us to work together to create relationships that become the fertile soil for growth, revival and a tremendous work of the Holy Spirit. Did you see the important phrase in the last sentence? It is “work together.” Sometimes I wonder if one of the biggest challenges in the Church is that its change agents have big goals for the Church but there is not a complete buy-in from the rest of the body. As in the secular arena, I believe the real issue isn’t that people don’t really want to change; they just wanted to be part of and have a voice in the change process. It’s important for everyone to feel ownership and that what they think is just as important as anybody else, no matter what title/position they hold. The bible says in Hebrews 13:8 that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” As followers of Christ, we are to take the gospel message outside the walls of our church. As members of the Assemblies of God we need to commit to fulfilling the four-fold mission: evangelize the lost, worship God, disciple believers and show compassion. Unfortunately, the “how to” portion of that is left open for discussion and interpretation.

As I close, I want to reiterate that I don’t have all the answers. I am simply sharing an opinion and asking some difficult questions: Are we unified? If not, why? Keep asking “why” until you get to the basal cause. It may be very enlightening.

And just in case you didn’t know and were curious, yes I am one of the 16.

Baptizing Worms

 

Here is a fact about my life that very few people actually know and until today I had chosen not to share with anybody except my wife and children because I was too embarrassed by it. You see, there was a period of time before I met Karen that I was living in the back of my pickup because I had no place else to go. I was broke because I was underemployed, was attending school to try to better my situation, had bronchitis along with the flu and was in very poor health. One period that I remember vividly was when I had $2.00 to my name and I wasn’t going to get paid for a while. I had no food but knew I would have to survive as best as I could. I bought a small jar of generic peanut butter and a really cheap loaf of bread. Between that and gleaning food off the cafeteria trays left behind by College students too lazy to dump them, I managed to survive for several weeks. I went into the gym early in the morning when the athletes were training where I was able to shave and shower and hand wash my clothes in the bathroom sink with a bar of soap. I would hang the clothes up in the back of my truck during the day to air dry and I had a clothes iron that I could use in the locker room to help remove the wrinkles. I have to say that it was truly the lowest point of my life!

So what caused my situation to change? Well, I finished the program that I was enrolled in but I was still not able to get a job. It was at that point that I made a conscious decision to move someplace else and start over again, even if it required me to take a job that I didn’t want to do. So I started doing production work in a factory. I hated every minute of it! But God honored my efforts and slowly my situation started to improve. For the first few weeks, I lived off bean burritos and cheap soda and I lived in a mobile home in a mobile home park. I was living at a substandard level by most middle class American standards, but my financial situation was improving and my health had gotten so much better. Then life gave me another black eye. The job that I was working came to an abrupt end due to a lack of customer orders and again I was unable to acquire decent employment. I found myself being forced to move again and this time for a much greater distance. This move would change the course of my life forever…I met Karen.

After Karen and I got married, we barely had two nickels to rub together and the first few years were very challenging. Through extremely hard work, sacrifices of time and resources and an attempt to live as Godly lives as we could, God has honored our endeavors by blessing our lives. We truly understand that God did not owe us a good life and that it is God’s grace that has allowed us to have one.

I mention all of this to set the stage for what this post is really about. You see, there are people in our circle of acquaintances who have been questioning Karen and my Christianity because we are not willing to give them money to help them get back on their feet. This is a reoccurring theme with them and they have become accustomed to receiving handouts from Churches, non-profit organizations, the government and individuals. These individuals spend time scouring the Bible to find scripture verses in an attempt to shame us into helping them by implying that by not doing so we are violating the word of God and proving that we are not even as good as secular society.

I’d agree that Christians have a responsibility to aid the destitute, but the world doesn’t wish to support the unproductive and neither do I. These individuals won’t work because it’ll ruin their government hand-out qualification; they live on charity and freebies at other peoples’ expense.  The Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, “ …that if any would not work, neither should he eat”, and there’s no limited interpretation of that. It means that when someone sits idly by, waiting for whatever, with full capacity to meet the immediate need, then it’s really on them. Proverbs 19:15 says “an idle person will suffer hunger.”

Here’s the bottom line. If I can aid those desiring to contribute, then I will teach them to baptize worms so they can learn to help themselves. Unfortunately, some folks just don’t want to learn how to fish…

Board Walk Unity

One of the games that we had our boys play in Royal Rangers was called “the board walk.” It was a game composed of two boards which had 3 sets of rope handles on each board. A group of three boys would place the boards parallel to each other on the ground and then put their left feet on one board and their right feet on the other. They would then grasp the rope handles and race around a predetermined “racetrack” to see who could walk on the boards the fastest. The key was to work together in unity by coordinating their steps. This was easier said than done because each boy had to lift up their foot and slide the board forward at exactly the same time as their team-mates. Although the keys to success were good communication and coordination, these were typically what were missing the most. This illustrates concepts that people sometimes use interchangeably but in reality are not; unity and union.

Unity is when people are united together as one unit with singleness of purpose while union is the uniting of different people together for mutual benefit without achieving singleness of purpose. When the boys work in unity, they can move the boards as though they are a single unit. When the boys are just a union, they are unique individuals brought together on a team to play a game that they are unlikely to win because they don’t usually achieve the singleness of purpose of controlled board movement.

As unity has practical applications in the physical realm, it also has applications in the spiritual realm. Have you ever wondered what makes a church receptive to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit? We know from reading Acts that on the Day of Pentecost, the new church experienced an awesome outpouring of the Holy Spirit and we know that God never intended this to be a one-time historical event for the church. In fact, God wants every church to experience the revival and power of Pentecost over and over again. Pentecost was designed for every generation and every believer.

So, what does Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit have in common with board walking? Part of it boils down to unity. Acts 2:1 tells us, “They were all together in one place.” One hundred and twenty of Jesus’ followers stayed together for ten days in a large upper room. These were not just apostles and other religious leaders. Many were just ordinary male and female believers who had committed to follow Jesus. They all had their problems and challenges in life, but they made a conscious decision to set them aside to unite together for one purpose. Based on averages, they spent about sixteen waking hours a day together for ten days which amounted to 160 hours. That is equivalent to a little over 2 years of Sunday morning worship services at the church I attend. The important take away here is that the 120 were together and were in unity.

Unfortunately, the modern church of Jesus Christ can all too often be like the boys who come together in union only. Some people come to church to get their names on the attendance rolls, make cameo appearances on Sunday mornings and occasionally throw a few bucks into the offering plate. In their thinking they have obeyed God’s instructions found in Hebrews 10:25 to “not forsake the assembling of ourselves together…” and nothing else is required. For others, they attend but they constantly bring with them baggage that prevents them from unifying with other believers: bad feelings, hidden agendas and turf protection to name a few.  

So what can we do to encourage unity? There really isn’t a quick fix to this problem. To achieve this type of unity will take a great deal of time, intentionality and honesty. One of the biggest challenges is in the area of time. People (including myself) have allowed themselves to become so busy that they didn’t leave time to build quality relationships with anybody outside their familial unit. As the body of Christ, we need to be intentional in creating time to spend with other believers. We need to transition from the convenience type of friendships that we have with fellow believers (where we only fellowship with them when it is convenient for us) to multi-sided friendships where all sides are making an effort. These should be friendships where multiple individuals purposely seek to walk with each along their paths in life. These types of friendships need to focus on the emotional support and spiritual care of all involved. The church needs to become a living body of unified human relationships graced by the Spirit of God and devoid of the self-serving agendas that frequently infiltrate our fellowships. Becoming a unified body of believers will require us to work together to create relationships that will become the fertile soil for growth, revival and a tremendous work of the Holy Spirit.

God's Super Glue

This time of year is absolutely awe inspiring to me. As I look out the kitchen window, I can see myriads of birds collecting all sorts of materials in which to build warm and comfortable nests in expectation of new broods of young ones. Those birds work many long hours every day for weeks just to build nests that many of them will use only once for this happy occasion. God has put an instinct within them that directs their well choreographed movements as they meticulously gather just the right materials needed to create the "perfect" home environment.

 

Too often I have seen birds work almost tirelessly on their nests for weeks to only have them destroyed when powerfully destructive storms came through. More times than not, the birds abandoned their damaged nests to begin elsewhere because they realized that their compromised nests could not be restored to their original condition. 

 

It's amazing how watching those birds collect materials brought back a flood of memories of times in Karen and my marriage when some powerfully destructive storms came through that tried to tear our home apart. The tragedy in all of this is that as the leader of our home, it was my responsibility to protect my family but instead I allowed Satan to use me to bring unhappiness into the familial home. What is most heart breaking about this is the blessed marriage that God had designed for us was almost destroyed by the person who was most responsible for protecting it.  After the storms had passed, it almost seemed like there was no hope, no way to put the broken pieces back together again. Like the birds nests that had become compromised and unable to be restored to their original condition, I felt our marriage had been damaged and was beyond repair and I had nobody to blame but myself.

 

But...

 

Although by man's standards some things are beyond repair, God has his own formula of super glue! If we are willing to submit our lives to him, stop being disobedient and give him complete control, God does more than restore our broken lives to their original condition. The new relationships he makes for us, fashioned by His plan of restoration, is better than the original. How is that possible? Well, as a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17 , KJV) we have been tested and declared a child of God—redeemed, justified, sanctified and filled with the grace and love of Christ himself. When we have been delivered from the bondage of sin, we have more to be thankful for and are more appreciative of what we have. In our marriage, when I completely submitted my life to God, my wife was willing to accept my apologies and was willing to keep going. Although I am not perfect, through God's justification I received a new standing of divinely given righteousness. In His sanctification, I received the spiritual life of Christ that changed my character and conduct which has made the journey so much better! As for our marriage, it is better than ever and I adore the wife that God has so richly blessed me with.

 

Parting thought...

 

If you need to eat a little crow and don't have a good recipe, I have a huge book that has several really good ones. I know, I have tried many of them myself.

Avoiding Legalism

As a Christian, I have been guilty of being legalistic about things when it really wasn’t truly a violation of God’s word or nature. In most cases, it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me individually about an area in my life which needed to be addressed/corrected because it was affecting my relationship with God. Although a problem for me, it may not have been an issue or sin for others. I know that I am not the only individual who has struggled in this area.  In fact, Christians have struggled with questions about what is right or wrong for centuries. The Bible teaches standards of morality and personal relationships by giving instructions like “Stay away from every kind of evil (1 Thessalonians 5:22-NIV).” There are many things specifically listed in the Bible as being evil. In Ephesians 5 for example, it lists sexual immorality, greed, obscenity and coarse joking as just a few. There should be no question about those evils that are listed, but other behaviors are not specifically mentioned in the Bible. How are they to be judged?

In order to truly answer this question, we have to dig deeper into God’s word to identify an important principle.  I Samuel 16:6 tells us, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”. In this passage, we see that the heart (motivation) is more important to God than the specific act that a person does. So, if the Bible doesn’t specifically condemn certain behaviors, then we have to rely on guidance from the Holy Spirit to help us identify those behaviors that please God versus those behaviors that displease God. As a believer studies the scriptures, they learn three principles about pleasing God:

1.      Personal convictions are not always universal commands.  Sometimes people will not do something because they feel it is wrong. In these cases, it may be the Holy Spirit who has convicted them about that issue because it may be causing them spiritual or physical harm. I knew a Christian woman who strongly opposed playing any games that required the use of dice. Her personal conviction came from the fact that the scriptures stated that the soldiers who crucified Jesus Christ cast lots for his garments at the base of the cross. She felt that throwing dice was wrong because it was the same as casting lots. Although a lot of people don’t see any harm in playing games that utilize dice, to her it was a sin. In my own personal life, the Holy Spirit convicted me because I was spending way too much time on Facebook and I would get irritated by some of the posts that I would see. It got to the point where I was allowing it to interfere with my productivity and joy and I finally chose to deactivate my account.

2.      The influence our actions may have on fellow believers must also guide our choices. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:9, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” Although playing games with dice didn’t violate my convictions, because playing games utilizing dice violated a friend’s convictions, we made sure we only played games that didn’t require dice. In the area of Facebook, I explained my feelings of addiction with my “real” facebook friends who understood and were supportive of my decision to deactivate my account.

3.      The Christian’s personal rights are no reason for denying fellow believers their rights. A real mark of spiritual maturity is the move from a self-centered concern about what’s in your own best interest to concern for what is in others’ best interest. The woman whose personal conviction was that playing games utilizing dice was wrong never showed condemnation to those who wanted to play games that utilized them. She just wouldn’t participate in those types of games and those of us who wanted to include her as much as we could, would choose games that didn’t need dice. It never was really a problem. In my own personal life, I don’t have a problem with others who continue to utilize Facebook as a way to communicate and share with others. In fact, I still hear snippets of what is going on because my wife will on rare occasions share with me what has been posted that is of significance to her.

The bottom line is that the person who is led by the spirit, with a desire to be pleasing to God, will avoid lawyerly exercises to create biased rules by which to judge other believers. They realize that the only true standard by which man may be judged is the inerrant Word of God and that the Holy Spirit is here to guide fellow believers in making choices that are pleasing to God.