Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Tell Your Story!

William Barclay tells the following story in his Daily Study Bible on The Gospel of John (vol.1, 1955, pp. 76-77).

"There is a story which tells how, towards the end of the nineteenth century, Huxley, the great agnostic, was a member of a house-party at a country house. Sunday came round, and most of the members prepared to go to church; but, very naturally, Huxley did not propose to go. Huxley approached a man known to have a simple and radiant Christian faith.

"He said to him: 'Suppose you don't go to church today. Suppose you stay at home and you tell me quite simply what your Christian faith means to you and why you are a Christian.'

"'But,' said the man, 'you could demolish my arguments in an instant. I'm not clever enough to argue with you.'

"Huxley said gently: 'I don't want to argue with you; I just want you to tell me simply what this Christ means to you.'

"The man stayed at home and told Huxley most simply of his faith. When he had finished there were tears in the great agnostic's eyes. 'I would give my right hand,' he said, 'if only I could believe that.'"

"It was not clever argument that touched Huxley's heart. He could have dealt efficiently and devastatingly with any argument that that simple Christian was likely to have produced, but the simple presentation of Christ caught him by the heart."

My prayer is that God will give me the grace, wisdom, and courage just to tell my story of what Jesus means to me today.  I pray the same for you.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Circumcise My Heart

Jeremiah 4:1-4 NKJV
“If you will return, O Israel,” says the Lord, “Return to Me; And if you will put away your abominations out of My sight, Then you shall not be moved. 2 And you shall swear, ‘The Lord lives,’
In truth, in judgment, and in righteousness; The nations shall bless themselves in Him, And in Him they shall glory.”
3 For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, And do not sow among thorns.  4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord, And take away the foreskins of your hearts, You men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem, Lest My fury come forth like fire, And burn so that no one can quench it, Because of the evil of your doings.”

My Precious Lord,

At the center of my personhood resides a moral warp.  This inner curvature reaches out in a limited way, but turns right back in upon my self.  It renders me small and self-contained.  My egocentricity is more than an individual difference, a personality quirk or a trait.  My egocentricity is central to my fallen, sinful character.  It really is "all about me."

Deep within, I define myself by myself in a crazy-making cycle devoid of any healthy external referent. I define myself by my brokenness.  The painful, socially unacceptable, culturally rejected, unpopular, and damaged parts of me are magnetically drawn to the locus of my soul.  As life spins around me, I interpret its revolutions from my center of brokenness.

I stare into my shattered inner soul-mirror in hopes of seeing some image of myself reflected that would hint of worth.  All I see is  a caricature--a splintered reflection.  I gaze.  I examine.  

I know You as my Savior.  You assure me that I am Your child.  I am a new creature.  Guilt and condemnation are gone.  But the doubts of self-definition linger.  The shattered reflections of self haunt the dressing room of my inner world.  In some ways, my frustration is greater now than before I found You.  I see hope, peace, rest, and holiness as promised blessings in Your Word.  I want what You appear to offer.  But my soul is torn with self-consuming brokenness, contrasted with a desire to be consumed by You.

You tell me that You can circumcise my heart by faith.  You can reach to the core of my identity, wielding the Divine flint, and cut away the rebellious, recalcitrant curvature of my nature.  You can excise the gaping wound of my sinful inheritance, cleanse its inbred infection, and give me a heart of flesh.  You can transform my nature from curved to aligned--aligned with You.

I trust You with the intimate journey into the deepest, most secret and hidden places of my soul--places I don't even know that exist.  I trust You to cut, cleanse, and heal the curve that I could never straighten.

Circumcise my hearts from all other loves but Yours and Yours alone.  Mark me at the core of my identity. Claim me as Your exclusive possession.  Reshape the seat of my affections until You alone can occupy the throne of my heart.  I lay myself before You for the Divine procedure.  I have suffered the malady of the soul far too long.  I embrace Your work of grace by faith.  Circumcise my heart even now.

You are the Lover of my soul.
Amen.

Friday, April 8, 2016

I Just Met Jesus!

John 1:35-39
35 Again, the next day, John stood with two of his disciples. 36 And looking at Jesus as He walked, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!”
37 The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 38 Then Jesus turned, and seeing them following, said to them, “What do you seek?”
They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which is to say, when translated, Teacher), “where are You staying?”
39 He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where He was staying, and remained with Him that day (now it was about the tenth hour).

Dear Jesus,

I remember my first encounter with You.  I was four years old.  Kneeling at my mother's knee, I asked You to come into my heart.  You set a trajectory of faith and hope in my heart and mind.  Thank You for that first encounter that has led to a rich and life-long relationship.  I love You.

I met Ed when I was a college student.  He was the Sunday School superintendent at the church I attended.  I remember Ed's story of encountering You for the first time.  He was driving a delivery truck.  Convicted by Your Holy Spirit, Ed had to pull the truck off the road.  Blinded by tears, Ed repented of his sins and asked You into his heart.  He met You, and Ed was never the same because of it.

David was my pastor.  He had run from You for 10 years.  At age 29, David heard You call him yet again.  This time, he ran toward You in repentance.  David's transformation rippled through his entire family.  His family had been known for many years as drunkards and sinners.  Thirty years later, no fewer than 5 of David's family are preaching Your Gospel.  David met You, and he never was the same because of it.

Mark and I were in Bible College together.  Before Mark met You, he was a druggie. Life was meaningless and empty.  He lived from one high to the next.  No future.  I met Mark in West Virginia in 1980.  He had just met You.  Two months later, Mark and I were Bible College classmates.  Mark went deep with You.  Today, Mark is a husband, father, and grandfather.  He loves You and lives for You. Life has been fulfilling because Mark met You.

I thank You for Your children who are a rich part of my life.  I thank You for fellow believers who have genuinely encountered You, the Living Christ, and will never be the same because of it.

"When a man really meets Christ he will no more forget that day and hour than he will forget the day of his birth.  It marks the dividing line between the time when he did not know and the time when he came to know Jesus Christ" (In William Barclay's The Gospel of John, vol. 1, 1955, p. 71).

In the Name of Jesus, whom I have had the joy of meeting, knowing, and will someday know more fully,
Amen.

I've Just Seen Jesus

I've just seen Jesus, I tell you He's alive
I've just seen Jesus, our precious Lord alive
And I knew He really saw me too
As if till now I'd never lived
All that I'd done before won't matter anymore
I've just seen Jesus, I've just seen Jesus
I've just seen Jesus
(William Gaither)

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

A Prayer for the Bride

Ephesians 5:22-33 "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, 26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, 27 that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. 28 So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. 29 For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. 30 For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones. 31 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' 32 This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. 33 Nevertheless let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband."

Dear Jesus,

I am praying for Your Church, Your Bride, today.  You love her.  You love us.  Thank You for Your incredible vision, hope, and plan for Your Church.  Thank You for investing in us as people, local congregations, denominations, and as an entire body of believers--Your Bride.

My longing is that You are pleased with the Bride who walks down the aisle to You.  I want You to adore her, admire her, and be thrilled with her.

My concern is that You feel none of these emotions toward us.  You love us, but...  I fear that we are a chronic disappointment to You.  Wayward, compromising, and sinful, we "expect to walk down the aisle in a dress as filthy as the one in which You found us in the gutters of life" (John Oswalt).  That would be tragic.  Such a presumptive attitude by Your Bride would presume on Your grace, mercy, and love with a careless disregard of Your sinless life, sacrificial death, atoning sacrifice, and resurrection from the dead.

Sometimes, we get stuck in our traditions.  "The Church always runs the danger of condemning a new way of doing things just because it is new.  In one sense there is hardly any institution in the world which resents change so much as the Church does.  The Church has often rejected a great teacher, and has often refused some great adventure silly because it wished to be left alone, and suspected all things new" (William Barclay in The Gospel of John, vol. 1, 1955, p. 59).

Sometimes, we get stuck in our political power-mongering, treating our local or denominational manifestation of Your Body as if it were own personal kingdom.  We pad our pockets with wealth.  We fill our wills with power. We posture ourselves with pontificating control.  We build institutions, but we don't prepare a Bride for You.

Sometimes, we celebrate our new ideas with gusto, abusing other believers who disagree.  We label, disregard, and disrespect them, casting them aside as obstacles to "progress."  Then we capture our innovations with clever titles, prooftexts, and popular speakers who serve as spokespersons for the spread of our initiative.  The fad takes off in a frenzy, based upon some flimsy wresting of scripture morphed into a shoddy theology of praxis.  We make the proponents wealthy, and browbeat the objectors.  Too often, the Church embraces the new with a legalistic dogmatism and then clings to the innovation far too long, because she has painted herself into a proverbial corner where departure from the practice will be construed as spiritual compromise.

Oh, the pride and godlessness of our ways!  Call Your Church, Your Bride, to repent.  Convict us of our self-serving narcissism.  Call us to fall in love with You.  You require a holy Bride, call her to holiness, sanctify her, and lovingly invite her to intimacy of communion with You.  Unclog our deaf and "uncircumcised ears" (Acts 7:51).  Court us.  Nurture our affection until we fall in love with You again.

I love You, Jesus.  I want to be a part of Your holy Bride.  I want to be part of a Bride, Your Church, that pleases You.  I want to see the "Wow" on Your face when we walk down the aisle.  Stir desire within Your Church.

In the Name of the Bridegroom,
Amen.






Monday, April 4, 2016

Grace for Every Situation

I need grace for every situation. Life changes. I must follow Jesus. His grace is sufficient.

William Barclay wrote: "The more we know of him, the more wonderful he becomes. The longer we live with him, the more loveliness we discover. The more we think about him and with him, the wider the horizon of truth becomes... In Christ we find grace instead of grace. The different ages and the different situations in life demand a different kind of grace. We need one grace in the days of prosperity and another in the days of adversity. We need one grace in the sunlit days of youth and another when the shadows of age begin to lengthen. The church needs one grace in the days of persecution and another when the days of acceptance have come. We need one grace when we feel that we are on the top of things and another when we are depressed and discouraged and near to despair. We need one grace to bear our own burdens and another to bear one another's burdens. We need one grace when we are sure of things and another when there seems nothing certain left in the world. The grace of God is never a static but always a dynamic thing. It never fads to meet the situation. One need invades life and one grace comes with it. That need passes and another need assaults us and with it another grace comes. All through life we are constantly receiving grace instead of grace, for the grace of Christ is triumphantly adequate to deal with any situation." (In The Gospel of John, vol. 1, 1955, pp. 53-54).

Dear Jesus,
Provide the grace which You know I need today.  You are my all-sufficiency.
Amen.

Friday, April 1, 2016

A Prayer for Revival

II Chronicles 7:1-18 NKJV
12 Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 14 if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. 16 For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. 17 As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, 18 then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’

Precious Father, my elder brother Jesus, abiding Holy Ghost,
Sin breaks, fractures, shatters, destroys.  I see the effects of humanity's fall into depravity all around me.  I grieve the crippling impact of sin.

Addictions make people intended for freedom into slaves.  Up the nose, in the vein, permeating the liver... Drugged into stupor.  Judgment is compromised. Pharmaceuticals possess the spiritual potential of the soul with demonic-control as they invite other spirits to inhabit the darkest regions.

Sexual sins make people intended for wholeness into shadowy ghosts of humanity.  Giving away one piece of oneself at a time to a series of temporary, broken loves that lack potential to mature into something whole and enduring strips dignity, worth, value, and esteem from Your precious creation.  Lust robs and steals.  Immorality uses and loses, leaving shattered, empty shells behind.  Shells that were intended to be the crowning glory of Your Creation!

Our sin of abandoning Christian marriage declares: "God cannot provide for me!"  In desperation and desire we join ourselves in hopelessness to another and multiply our desperation in the lives of our children.  Poverty, instability, and despair are the bastard offspring of our faithless immorality.

Slaves are powerless.  Slaves are dominated.  Slaves are controlled by another.  Slaves lack autonomy, hope, self-determination, freedom, and choice.  Slaves need a Deliverer.  Slaves need Someone to free them from the dominion of darkness and grant them entrance into the Kingdom of Light!

Only the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ can change lives, restore hope, fulfill potential.

"What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? Certainly not! 16 Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 17 But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. 18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. 21 What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. 22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 6:15-23 NKJV

"The Truth which Jesus brings liberates us from estrangement from God; it liberates us from frustration in life; its liberates us from our on fears and weaknesses and defeats. Jesus Christ is the greatest liberator on Earth" (William Barclay in The Gospel of John, vol. 1, 1955, p. 48).

We have a Champion!  We have a Deliverer!  We have a Savior!

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quick'ning ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.


My Lord, create in me a passion for promoting holiness rather than protecting sin.  Root out my sin.  Leave me with no recourse, no hiding place, no provision for my flesh.  Burn every bridge of retreat and excuse until I am wholly Thine, consumed by Thee, and Thy fulness.  Make me free from slavery, my identity as an ex-slave, and create Your renewed identity within me as a free and holy disciple of Jesus Christ.

In the Name of my Lord Jesus Christ who sets me free!  And sets all free who come to You in faith,
Amen.