Are You a Hater?

Dear God,

So many of my loved ones and friends are caught in a cycle of confusion and despair.  They don’t know who they are.  They have some sense of who You created them to be.  But sin has scarred them leaving their identity scattered in disarray and distress.  Sin hates people.  They tell me that the confusion and questions started with sin–sins against them in a season of innocence.  A relative, a neighbor, an older playmate...  Winning a child’s confidence...  Confusing attention... Uncomfortable touches...  And now...

Father, I have listened to Your children confess their brokenness to me.  I have lifted them heavenward in prayer and love.  So many people are shattered by unsolicited sins committed against them in their innocence.  Your heart grieves at the sins of humanity–abuse, incest, molestation.  You are our only Healer from the brokenness of life.

Blemished, scarred, used, abused... Your children question their worth–their value–to You.  Shame confines Your precious ones to a confounding prison of guilt.  They question their identity, worth, value, and sexuality.  All too often, they fear parents, grandparents and authority who should be able to speak freedom into their lives.  Ignorantly, victim and loved ones uncomfortably proclaim “Just get over it.”

The world injects its proclamation: “You must be gay!”  So Your wounded, broken children pursue a path of sin in a hopeless attempt to heal what sin shattered inside of them.  It does not work.  There is no healing balm in sin.  Sin destroys.  Sin never heals what it broke.  But we try.

My heart aches for friends and loved ones who have distorted images of Your beautiful creation in them.  I ache for innocence lost.  I grieve as I see them pursue sinful paths that multiply their scars.  You grieve.

All the while, You call Your Creation to Yourself.  You are our Hope, our Healer, our Salvation, our Deliverer.  Help me to love people where they are broken.  Grant me courage to proclaim Your message of hope and fulfillment!  Our world calls me a hater, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  I love Your shattered, broken children, as You do, and want to see them made whole in You.  Our world’s message of labeling broken people as gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, or transgender, and trying to force them to adopt these sinful labels and lifestyles is cruel.  The world’s message is hateful.  Sin is the hater.

Help me to be Your agent of grace, peace, healing, and wholeness, for Your glory.

Thank You, my loving Father,
Amen.

Be Perfect

Matthew 5:43-48, Luke 15:11-32, Romans 12:9-21, I John 3:1-23

Precious God and Father of all,

I am breathless with wonder at Your love!  You love Your Creation.  You even treasure those who have rebelled against You, calling all to repentance and faith.  You love me.

The optimism of Your grace stirs and amazes me.  You never give up on any who have turned their backs and stiffened their necks against You.  Your love is everlasting.  And You call us to Your kind of love, an "unconquerable benevolence."

I find myself like the elder brother of the prodigal just begging You to give up on people.  "Rebels aren't worth it!  They will never come back!  Don't waste your time or Your love pining for their return!"  Not you.  You are love--unconquerable love.

William Barclay tells a rabbinical legend of the destruction of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea as they pursued the fleeing Hebrews, only to be covered by the returning flood waters.  The tale recounts that upon the drowning of the Egyptians, the heavenly angelic choir burst out with praise. You sorrowfully rebuked them saying, "The work of my hands are sunk in the sea, and you would sing before me!"  (Barclay, Matthew vol. 1, p. 175).

Oh, the unending nature of Your love!  Your enduring love never relinquishes.  You never give up! You actually believe that people are never finished!  You love me that way.  Thank you.

But You are not done loving until You have shaped Your likeness of perfection in Your Creation. You call me to Your kind of love--perfection!  You frighten me with what seems to be an impossible demand.  But upon closer examination I realize that You are calling me to become a more complete and authentic version of the "me" You made me to be... more complete than I could ever imagine.

I think I am getting a glimpse of the perfection to which You are calling me.  You are calling me to "a universal benevolence," an "unconquerable goodwill, this constant seeking of the highest good of every man" (Barclay, p. 176).  You are calling me not to a perfection of performance, a failure-free existence, but to perfect love.  This is the only perfection You require of Your follower.

Oh my God, I want to live out this perpetual forgiving love that sacrifices myself for the sake of others, friend or foe alike.  I want to care as You care.  I want to forgive as You forgive.  I want to endure rejection and even persecution if that is what You privilege me to face for You.  I want to live out the optimism of grace that characterizes Your very nature.  I want to embrace Your perfect love until Your likeness penetrates and permeates my character.  I want to be like You.  Then I can be complete--more authentically human than ever before.  I don't fear to ask for this sort of Christian perfection.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the only author of perfect love,
Amen.

Measuring Up

Matthew 5:42

Precious Lord,

I really don’t measure up to Your standard of generosity.  It sounds so simple, “Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.”

I see them at the interstate exit.  The cardboard signs.  The impoverished families.  The crippled beggar limping his way between the maze of waiting cars.  I question, “Are they worthy?”  “Is he a drunk–an addict?”  I don’t want to throw my “pearls before swine!”

Instead of heeding Christ’s command, I find myself thinking, “I work hard for what I have.  I pay my tithe and more.  I give to worthy enterprises!  I have to take care of my stuff.  If I loan it out it might get damaged or destroyed."  If I give someone a financial loan, I’d better get repaid on my timetable. If not, I am searching for that person to remind them to repay me!

I just don’t measure up to Your standard.  I want to, but I don’t.

William Barclay (Matthew, vol. 1, pp. 168-170) tells that the ancient Rabbis had five governing principles for giving to needy people.
• A follower of God cannot refuse the obligation to give.
• The giver must give in a manner that fits the recipient’s real needs.
• The giver must do so in private, and keep the gift a secret.
• Give in a manner that is as helpful to the recipient as the gift.
• All giving is to God.  “It is better to help a score of fraudulent beggars than to risk turning away the one man in real need.”

Sometimes they come to the door of my workplace begging for a handout.  Often they are scammers, stinky, needy, even dangerous.  I don’t want to be taken advantage of!

Is it that?  Or am I cold, hard, unwilling to help?

Lord Jesus, I want to be living in obedience to your command to give.  I don’t want the pragmatism of my age, the “what am I going to get out of it?” question, to render my soul lame, my heart icy, and my conscience seared with the very real needs of others.  Help me to see beyond the shell to the worth of one soul.

In the Name of my most generous and giving Lord who never withholds from me,
Amen.

True Repentance

Matthew 5:23-24, II Corinthians 7:9-10, Acts 24:16, Hebrews 9:13-14, 10:22

Holy Father, Son, and Spirit,

My conscience is stirred, awakened, and deeply pricked.  You have convicted me of my sin. I have defiled my God-given sense of morality with my sin and disobedience to You.  I have abandoned Your Truth in a quest for expediency and acceptance.  I have exchanged Your Truth for the doctrine of tolerance–the idolatry of my age, but my guilt is never assuaged.

But awakening is not salvation!  All I know at this moment is my own sin.  I must have relief from my guilt–my condemnation before You.  I must know Your peace.  I confess my sin to You.  
The Hebrew worshipers came to Your temple to offer sacrifice for their sins.  You taught them that no sacrifice remained for deliberate, defiant sin, but sacrifice could only appeal to God for forgiveness when the supplicant demonstrated true confession and penitence.  Such penitence demanded humble reconciliation with brother, neighbor, business partner, and friend.

Whom have I offended?  Against whom have I sinned?  Whom has received the brunt of my anger?  Have my words damaged another’s reputation?  Have I been ungrateful for what others have done for me?  Am I  bitter  toward anyone?  Have I rebelled against, resisted, or been disrespectful of authority God has placed in my life?  Am I proud, unteachable, arrogant, argumentative, or condescending?

So here I am at the altar of my life, awakened by Your Holy Spirit to my own guilt and sinfulness.  I am about to make a sacrifice of repentance to You, and I sense You nudging from the rail to reconciliation.  You long to accept my gift of repentance, but first I have to get right with some other people in my life.

“God has convicted me of how wrong I’ve been in my sin against you.  I’ve come to ask will you forgive me?”

You have awakened my conscience.  I have sought to make amends to the best of my knowledge and ability, according to the dictates of my conscience as stirred by Your Holy Spirit.  Now, I return to the altar of sacrifice to continue my search to know Your forgiveness.

Thank You, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for accepting my humble repentance.  I embrace Your forgiveness and await Your Witness to my heart, Holy Spirit.  As You show me other wrongs to make right with people in my life, I will obey You.

In the Name of my God who accepts my sacrifice of true worship,
Amen.

ETERNAL VALUES

Written by Dr. John Neihof, Jr.
July 2007

Just to live for eternity.  Just to invest in its worth.

Just to live for a future, longer than time on this earth.

What is it that really matters?  What is it about my life?

Leading others to Jesus,  investing in eternal life.

For years I studied science, with experiments, labs, and tests.

I grew weary of probability, and hungered for the best.

I even thought about money, and all the things it buys.

But I can’t take it with me when my time comes to die.

Live for eternal values.  Live for the worth of a soul.

Live for eternal values, giving Jesus your all.

DO NOT DELAY

Written by Dr. John E. Neihof, Jr.
based on Hebrews 3
June 4, 2006

You think there is no way that you can ever stand, 

That you can know Christ’s victory, His Precious Canaan Land.

His Canaan Land is peace, in a heart of Perfect Love.

The Holy Ghost will enter in fulness like a dove.

You first must know forgiveness, be walking in God’s Light.

Repent from all your sins and trust God’s saving might.

You then must die to self; surrender all to God.

Possess His Land of Canaan where your feet will trod.

Today,  hear His voice, harden not your hearts.

Enter Canaan’s Land, His fulness He imparts.

Accept His full salvation, His Canaan Land of grace.

Believe His Word and enter.  Don’t wander from this place.

CHORUS

Do not delay.  Enter His way.  The way of Perfect rest.

Hear His call; surrender your all.  In Him you will be blest.

Don’t harden your heart; yield every part.  Canaan is God’s best.

Do not delay.  Enter His way.  The way of Perfect rest.

How to Keep Sanctified

Leviticus 6:8-13, Isaiah 6:1-8, Matthew 3:11-12, Acts 2:1-4, Galatians 5:25

Dear God,

You are my Sanctifier.  But I have to be honest.  I have asked You to cleanse and fill me many times, only to leak out!  I remember reading from Samuel Logan Brengle who quoted John Wesley on keeping sanctified:  “Many people lose the blessing 2 or 3 times before they learn how to keep it!”

That was my experience, especially in my youth.  I don’t want to lose the experience of a pure heart.  I want to  maintain the blessing and continue to grow in Christian holiness.

The lesson of the burnt offering from the Law, teaches me how to keep sanctified.  In order to keep sanctified, I must keep my ashes emptied, keep my fire burning on the altar of my heart, keep my sacrifice on Your altar, and keep my garments clean.

I know that the cares of life, memories of personal failures, and past defeats would be ashes on the altar of my heart to choke out the holy life You are giving me.  Help me to sweep the hearth and keep the ashes emptied.

You ignited the fire from heaven on the altar of tabernacle.  The priests had to keep the fire burning that You had started.  You ignited a fire within me through Your sanctifying Spirit.  Help me to keep the fire of a clean heart burning on the altar of my soul.  Dennis Kinlaw wrote: “An ignited person with an ignited heart is the one baptized by the Spirit/s fire” (This Day with the Master, 2002,  March 14).

Then there is the matter of my keeping my sacrifice on Your altar.  Someone once told me that “The trouble with living sacrifices is that they tend to crawl off the altar.”  My best and my redeemed all is Yours from now and forever.  I pray that You find my sacrifice holy and pleasing.

You call me to a holy life, represented by clean garments.  Your priests were called to holiness.  Amidst the bloody, smoky environment of the tabernacle, You called them to inner and outer holiness.  Amidst the sinful environment of my family, my workplace, and my community, keep me clean.  I want Your gracious holiness to radiate through me in a humble, God-centered life.

I am only frustrated in the life of holiness when I try to measure and assess myself.  I want You to see me as holy.  I want the Witness of Your Holy Spirit that I please You.  I love You.  I need You.  I am utterly dependent upon You.

In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who pronounce me clean,
Amen.