Jesus Christ as Treasure – Surrendered moment

February 18, 2018

Lost TV Remotes

It’s not natural for us to count on GOD in everyday, mundane circumstances—matters that seem to be below Him and not worth bothering over. Not long after finding the diamond, (read this first: The Lost Diamond), we had lost the remote control for the TV, (again), and I looked and looked everywhere, feeling along all seams of the couches. I searched the room thoroughly for about twenty minutes.

Only then did I ask God about it, and He showed me, (after another twenty minutes) not one, not two, but three remotes within the bowels of our couch. Apparently a cavity opens up within the couch when the recliner leg pads are extended outward, and over the years the original TV remote control, (and two universal replacement remotes), had been swallowed by this Bermuda Triangle compartment, and held captive—despite a couple of re-locations.

I told my family how God had led me to the remotes, and how I searched for Him, and how he set the remotes free from their captivity. We all had a good laugh. It is all too easy to explain away the move of God, however, especially in practical situations where a little more diligence, a little more wisdom, a little more skill is applied, and lo, the desired result is achieved. Nevermind, God! I found it!

Two days later, God provided another living demonstration for us. My son, Nick, had gotten a toy plastic Nerf gun, complete with sponge darts. The “weapon” was capable of rapid firing a number of rounds in three seconds. Anyway, he was having fun shooting these off in the house, but then he lost one of his darts.

He looked all over the area for it, and I started to join in the search. After looking around a bit, I told Nick that he should ask the Lord to show him where it is. I reminded him about finding the diamond, and finding the remote controls a few days before. He laughed at me, and said something to the effect that it wasn’t that big a deal and that God wouldn’t do that, anyway.

I turned my head in the next instant and saw the dart across the breakfast nook nestled into a shoe along the baseboards. “Look, the dart is right over there in that shoe.” Nick was happy to have the dart back, but didn’t really believe that the finding of it was helped by the Lord. Nobody likes to admit being wrong, and there is always a secular explanation to these kinds of minor miracles, but I reserve the pleasure of seeing the Hand of God all about me, even if others would explain Him away.

Maybe you’ve asked God, and your diamond is still lost, and maybe your TV remotes keep disappearing forever, and perhaps even your Nerf dart is completely invisible to you, but one question burns to be answered as your life flows and ebbs: have you sought the Lord more diligently than all the “important” items or successes that seem beyond your sight and reach?

Have you invited Him into the commonplace crannies of your daily life? Or has your search for these things, and your frustration with God over losing or not getting them, actually turned your heart in other directions, away from the God Who Sees You? Perhaps you could undertake to search for Him in your life, and consider that He may not appear or act the way you think He should? Like the diamond in the parking lot, He is the stone of greatest importance, invisible to the myriad casual passersby, but uniquely accessible and valuable to the one who looks diligently for Him.

Your lost diamond may stay lost, but make sure you find HIM.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33. NIV 1984.

February 18, 2018February 22, 2018

The Lost Diamond

A few years ago, we received a distressed call from our close friend, Barbara. Her daughter, Saki, recently engaged and within about a month of her wedding, had lost the diamond from her engagement ring some time during the day. She had been collecting her and her fiance’s possessions from each of their families’ homes, and delivering them to their new apartment that day, in multiple trips. Late in the afternoon, she looked down at her ring, and panicked when she saw that the setting was empty. Can you imagine, the symbol of your future husband’s promised love, gone, before you even wed?

The ring was vintage jewelry that her fiance, Austin, had specially picked, and the diamond was beautiful and of significant size.

But even a large diamond can seem very small when it is lost in the wide world, and it could be anywhere: her parents’ minivan, her parents’ house or gravel driveway, Austin’s parents’ house or driveway, or the new apartment or parking lot, to say nothing of a store or gas station. Not only that, but she had parked in different spots during the day to make deliveries from the van, and she had to walk varying distances along the sidewalk before turning up the pathway directly to their specific apartment building, and up and down the staircase to their second floor unit. Sometimes she even cut across the lawn to save the time and distance of staying on the sidewalk…

Several families dropped everything to go over and search for the diamond at the apartment complex. It was the one place that Saki kept coming back to, during the day, so we all converged there with prayer in our hearts, and high hopes that the diamond would be found. Saki reasoned that the jewel probably got dislodged or loosened when she was taking things out of the van or placing things in the apartment. Of course, the jewel could have fallen loose at one of the parents’ homes, but given that she had spent more time at the apartment than anywhere else that day, it became the focus of the investigation.

It seemed an impossible task, searching to find the missing diamond in front of the apartment complex with about a dozen other friends that had come right over, shining flashlights in the dark, and searching across the asphalt, under cars, along the sidewalk, through the grass, up the flight of exterior building stairs, across the landing, into the apartment, and through the carpet into every room.

Have you ever shined a light across asphalt at night? There are millions of shiny, reflective, sparkly stones, like the quartz and mica that are ubiquitous in the mixes here in North Carolina. Everything that sparkled looked like a diamond, but nothing we scrutinized actually was.

We looked for hours that night, and many of us came out the next few days and searched long in daylight. As desperation started to set in, I even thought of using our Dyson to vacuum the lawn where Saki had cut corners on her multiple shortcuts! We could suck up any loose lawn debris and then open the vacuum compartment over a sheet to examine the contents of its gullet little by little. The neighbors were already suspicious about what was lost, but can you imagine hearing a machine outside and looking out the window to see a grown man vacuuming the lawn?

“You there—what are you doing?”

“Oh…just doing a little tidying!”

I decided against vacuuming.

For several more days, Austin and others looked over and over for the diamond. He was beginning to talk about ordering a replacement stone, since the wedding was coming up, though we were all still praying that God would show us where the diamond was lying. Hope, in the meantime, was dying.

On the following weekend, I wanted to go just one more time to look for the diamond. My wife, Wendy, was leaving home to shop with our daughter, Tess, and I suggested that they could drop me off at the parking lot of the apartments so that I could search while they shopped. Wendy was skeptical, but I insisted, so I grabbed my rain jacket, (since it looked like we were going to get some rain), and we headed over to Austin and Saki’s place.

By the time we got to the apartment, however, the sky had gotten very gray, and a storm was threatening through a ceiling of dense, dark clouds, with rumbling thunder in the distance. I was resolute. I told Wendy that she could leave me there, and that I would be alright.

“You’re crazy! You’ll be soaked from head to toe by the time I get back,” she said. She wore me down, convincing me that searching for a diamond in the rain would be futile. The water would make everything slick and glossy-looking. I knew, however, that a hard rain could wash the diamond down a stormwater drain forever, so I insisted that I should at least get out and look, “just for a minute!”

As I got out of the van, I was doubtful, and felt a little sheepish. “I must be crazy,” I mused. (To think that the diamond could be found in one minute after so many had looked for hours upon hours—it was crazy! And it was probably resting at a completely different location—perhaps at one of the parents’ houses—but still I felt an inexplicable optimism that God could show me right now). Closing the door of the van, I prayed to God one last time. I said in my heart, “God, you know all things—you know where this diamond is! If it is ever going to be found, please show me where it is. I can’t do this on my own…”

As I crossed the drive lanes to a parking spot we knew was one Saki had parked in, I was praying, and the thought popped into my mind, “Could the diamond look different from what I am expecting, sitting on the ground? Something perfectly round when viewed directly overhead…”

This was my thought as soon as my eyes started scanning the pavement. Within five seconds, I spied a round, quartz-looking stone nestled in a cranny in the asphalt—too perfectly round among a sea of natural pebble bits—and I knew instantly that it was the diamond!

Photoshop recreation. The diamond was upside-down in a cranny of the pavement. For some reason, it appeared whitish, and not shiny, but it was perfectly round. God gave me a thought, “Round,” and I looked down, and there it was. In a sea of imperfect stones…

Can you imagine what I felt? The exhilaration of experiencing God, (and it had to be Him), as He drew me to the spot and gave me eyes to see what I needed to see? In my heart I was “walking and leaping and praising God!”

The diamond was upside down in a cranny of the pavement, and didn’t appear clear and transparent, but rather looked whitish. I suppose it was reflecting some of the matrix around it—I don’t know—I didn’t stand there examining the setting. If I had any sense of posterity at that moment, I would have whipped out my phone and taken a picture of it as it sat waiting for me in the pavement.

Bent over and trembling with adrenaline and excitement at experiencing a miracle, I pinched the diamond from its niche, leaped over to my van a few feet behind me, and threw open the door. With a flourish I stuck my arm across the driver seat to wave the diamond in front of Wendy’s face and yelled, “I’ve GOT it!!!” I was pinching the diamond so hard between my thumb and forefinger that it could not be seen…

Wendy, supposing I was playing some sort of sick joke, said, “Jeff, that’s not even funny!” She was already annoyed at the delay and this was no time for humor.

So I placed the diamond on the plastic island between the front seats, and the three of us leaned in to look at what simply could not have been real. I think I held my own breath as if the whole thing was a dream until someone else could pinch me. Wendy and Tess blinked in disbelief, again and again, inching closer, as if to reset their eyes and turn the faceted jewel back into a piece of broken glass handed over in jest. After a few breathless seconds…“Ohmygoodness!!! Is that really IT?” More pauses. I couldn’t speak. I just looked on, dumbly, fighting the tears of gratitude to the LORD for what He had done. “What!?! I can’t believe it—I thought you were joking! I was about to get really mad!”

What a celebration ensued! What an incredible miracle— how it all unfolded… how we had to search diligently, with great patience and, yes, with faith.

In a way, I’m glad that God didn’t show us all immediately where the diamond was… we would have been tempted to think, “well, of course it’s right there under our noses. Nevermind, God, we found it!” No, instead there was this beautiful struggle, this constant fellowship of going back to God and counting on Him to come through, no matter what the odds.

And whether the diamond was to be found or lost forever, the main thing is that we sought and found the Lord, who is precious beyond all the wealth of every kingdom. The diamond that is, even now, set within Saki’s ring, is a symbol to me of searching for and finding God. He is the greatest treasure, but oftentimes we don’t recognize Him in the setting. We’re looking for something more dazzling, not imagining that He can appear common, or lie waiting quietly in the most mundane parking spot. Or worse, we assume that He’s not around, because we’ve given up looking for the impossible. We don’t seek Him with a whole heart, because our hearts doubt that He will deliver us this time, anyway.

I will never forget watching the LORD deliver at the last instant, in the shadow of a storm, meeting me between two painted lines on the barren asphalt.

“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.” Jeremiah 29:12-13. NIV 1984.

February 14, 2018February 18, 2018

God’s “Value Added” to Our Moments

While I am often tempted to think about life as if it is a journey, like the water running through the land that I wrote in the last chapter, I have become aware of a tendency to consider myself as not having arrived, and that there is a destination that recedes from me, even as I approach. In some ways, this is biblical, and there are good reasons to see myself as unfinished. My pride will always be kept in check when I remember how perfect Jesus is, and how constantly I fall short in my thoughts, and fail to appreciate God, and how quick I am to lean on my own understanding.

A new understanding is breaking into my heart. It is the awareness of God in me.

Eph. 3:20. “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…”

We are constantly flawed in thought and weak in action, but He is constantly perfect and powerful. Our love is inconstant, and limited by our short-sightedness and our selfishness, but His love is never ending, never failing. His sight is infinite, in its simultaneous and complete grasp of the present, past, and future.

Though I’m always looking forward to something, and thinking how I’m not where I want to be with respect to what I know of God, and I tend to measure my “progress” by looking at externals, I’m beginning to appreciate the unlimited “value added” that God brings to every moment, and to see that God’s friendship and power is not limited to the size of our abilities, nor the extents of our intelligence.

We have been given the Holy Spirit!!! What more do we need in order to express God’s purpose and power to a world that reels in its desperate need of Him? He more than completes the finite “us”—He applies His eternal and infinite power and wisdom to our moments. He not only supplies what we lack, but through an incalculable spiritual multiplication, He accomplishes eternal kingdom work through us that no man or woman could have built, nor can any man or woman tear down.

What God builds is beyond comprehension, and even with a resurrected body and purified eyes, we will not see the beginning nor the end of God in us. He will increase our ability to see His work, but without unlimited sight, we will not completely grasp it. Joy and delight is available in the discerning of His presence, love, and power, and it is meant for NOW! The fellowship and communion that God seeks with us is always NOW. The sweetness that the Holy Spirit can speak into any moment is always NOW. The unlimited power of God is being dispensed NOW, at this moment.

He does not wait for us, but quickens our spirits to accomplish His purposes in each one of us. “After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” Genesis 15:1, NIV. God refers to Himself in present tense. His name is “I AM.” And He tells Abram that He IS Abram’s shield, presently, and He IS Abram’s very great reward.

So, while we are tempted to think that we are becoming more equipped over time to accomplish God’s work, and we assume that we will be ready on some future day to do this or that thing as we journey onward, the reality is that GOD Himself inhabits our moments with us–(“Emmanuel,” God WITH us!)—and that His power makes every moment a DESTINATION and a complete miracle! He is our shield, even NOW!

God’s presence and power is available to every believer, no matter how young or new, and He is not limited by our imperfection. If He were, we would never see the hand of God moving in anyone, since we are all hopelessly broken. We will never perfect ourselves, or arrive, in our own strength.

God’s “value added” packs treasure into “jars of clay,” and turns the mundane into the sublime. 2 Cor. 4:7, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” ESV.

I used to think that the best treasures were visible—something physical, that you could reach out and call your own. Within the band of my wedding ring, I had the jeweler inscribe a Bible verse reference, “Psalm 37:4-6,” before I even knew the depth of meaning these verses contain:

“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. ”

I used to think about this verse, and what the Lord would do for me. If I follow Him, I reasoned, He would give me the things that I want most. He would give me a beautiful wife whom I love, a job that I thoroughly enjoy, wonderful children, good health, a comfortable house, a safe and comfortable car, and other stuff, as it comes to mind. Of course, I believed that I was already getting the first one, and that was why the verse was put into my wedding ring. The inscription was to be a reminder to me that God was providing the desires of my heart, starting with my prayers for a lovely wife.

In looking back, however, I see that my thinking on this verse, and about God, was completely errant. I thought that the desires of my heart were other things or conditions. I didn’t know then the new heart that God had given to me, with a capacity to appreciate and know Him more deeply—with a design to grow in love for Him above all else.

Ezekiel 36:26, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

I have realized that the deepest desires of this new heart are set upon HIM, and that if I aim this new heart at other things, the heart will lose out, in comparison. He did not gift me this new heart so that I can run with it away from Him—that would be stealing the heart that is His. He gave it to me so that I will run to Him with this heart, and constantly return to Him what is actually His alone.

My God, I have squandered years of my life setting my heart on other things, casting but a glance over my shoulder toward You, the Beautiful ONE… When I feel the emptiness of my pursuits, then I set my heart to honor you, and then you fill my vision!

God gave me a realization that my love for Him was shallow, and that the heart He gave me was malnourished and weak through my neglect of Him. I wanted to have a heart that loved Him unreservedly, but I knew that I was far from possessing it. I began to pray consistently, a few years ago, that God would show me what it means to love Him with all my heart and soul, mind and strength.

I don’t presume that I can attain a heart that is unreservedly, unflinchingly whole in my complete and constant surrender and devotion to Him (this side of Heaven), but I do see that God is inclining my heart toward Him, (sometimes precipitously), and drawing me to Himself with cords of loving kindness. My motivations and hunger for fellowship with Him are deeper when I invite the activity of the Holy Spirit. When I delight in His presence and friendship, I realize that I already have Him, and that I am complete in Him, no matter what may happen to me, or whether I get anything else on my wish list, or if something else I treasure gets taken away. Jesus said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5 NIV.

God points out that David had a heart after Him. As I mention elsewhere in this blog, the life and heart of King David is fascinating to me because of its contrasts. I feel the contrasts within myself and my own heart. There is a strong desire for God in my best moments, but there is also a strong drive for other things, and a temptation to fan the flames of those other desires, to build passions for them. The struggle between conflicting desires is reassuring, actually, because it shows that my heart is deepening in understanding my God and my self. If my awareness of the struggle were small, it might be an indication that I have become spiritually dull, or proud. In my ignorance and sin, I can be lulled into a state of complacency or laziness, so that I do not recognize the Lord calling me. In my pride and sin, I can become drunk with the satisfaction of my own “spiritual” work or progress, and begin to lose the desperation for Him that is the foundation of the abundant life He offers me.

I think one of the most important verses in the Bible about the heart is Malachi 2:2, “’If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honor my name,’ says the LORD Almighty, ‘I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your heart to honor me.’”

It sounds harsh, that the Lord will send a curse upon us if we do not set our hearts to honor Him. Actually, the power of the curse is found within the precondition of not honoring the LORD. Put another way, not honoring the Lord, or delighting in Him, (to use the language of Psalm 37), IS ITS OWN CURSE. This is a circular curse. Absence of honoring and appreciating the Lord is a failure to enjoy the greatest blessing available to mankind: the fellowship and goodness of the Living God. We curse ourselves, because we fail to accept His blessing.

In the same way, the blessing in Psalm 37:4 is a circular blessing. Delighting in the Lord is the highest, and best, and truest desire of the new heart He gives!!! When you truly delight in the Lord, you will ALREADY have the desires of your new heart, and realize they are for HIM.

When this is fully realized—well, you’ll be dead and face-to-face with Jesus Our Righteousness and Our Beloved when you FULLY realize this—but when you begin to more fully realize this on earth, your capacity to appreciate everything else is increased. You realize that you don’t deserve anything, and that the next moment of life and the next breath and the next heartbeat is a blessing, and anything else is gravy. You also begin to realize that pain and suffering is your opportunity and can be a great blessing if it drives you to HIM. If, in desperation, you throw yourself on Him—then you will truly live!

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7.

Knowing Him and delighting in Him—relying on Him, I have begun to see that it is true what Jesus said: “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” See Matthew 11:27-30. I want to spend time with Him, I want to know Him better and better, I want to do His bidding, I want to tell others how great HE is! I want to embrace suffering, and my own weakness, because to follow Him is to be weak on one hand, and to know His glory and power on the other! THIS is GOOD NEWS!!!

Our greatest treasure is God Himself. We should stop looking around for other treasures to pack into our jars of clay. There is no greater treasure to be filled with, than God Himself.

God, give us eyes to see who You really are, and what you are doing, and hearts to praise your handiwork in the seemingly empty spaces of our days. Enliven your people to look for your saving hand at all times, to look up, because You are working out Your redemption of our moments constantly, and You will not fail to wring eternal glory from every cranny of creation and moment of existence…

I am writing this chapter in a broken plastic lawn chair on a laptop computer in my back yard. I have been painfully bitten five or six times on the leg by one fly or another, (and AGAIN just NOW), but… I have seen the Lord! Not with my own eyes, but with the eyes of my heart, and not because I am special, but because I have looked for Him and found Him. He has shown me where He is. Today He was out back, with me and the flies. He was in this common place, and He is in every common place everywhere. Is there really any such thing as a common place or common moment?

Open your eyes and see that YOU are on holy ground! It is underfoot, wherever you may find yourself. Understand that you have a priceless treasure in you, if you have received Christ, and that the Holy Spirit has packed your jar. You are full, and rich, even if you have thought of yourself as poor. We were created to know Him.

Acts 17:27-28. “God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’” NIV 1984.

Know the LORD. He is not mere “value added.” He is your life. Delight in Him, and you will understand what real living is meant to be. You will know the true desires of your heart, and you will know that your heart, and your jar, has been filled.

February 7, 2018March 2, 2018

Secret Treasure

Standing nervously in a long line at the convention center, she lugged an heirloom with a secret even her family didn’t know. A crowd of hopefuls had assembled this Saturday morning, all clutching or hauling antiques, collected from sitting rooms and dust-covered mantels, or scrounged and rummaged from attics and closets, or bargained for in garage sales. They didn’t jump out of bed early, and change outfits three times, to come and sell their stuff at the flea market. No, they triple-prepped because they thought that maybe, just maybe, they owned something of unusual interest or value that would get them onto the set of a TV episode of “Antiques Roadshow: Discovering America’s Hidden Treasures.”

Today, she was “together.” Freshly styled, cascading ombre hair framed her pretty face and tumbled onto her purple shirt, and an eye-catching silver choker glinted at her neckline. Her extra effort turned out to be an investment in her future. The framed “print” she carried was arresting in its own way, so that she was eventually ushered to the main presenter’s table, as cameras recorded her interview with the art appraiser. Now the center of attention in a high stakes “show and tell,” her eyes sparkled in the telling, and her item stole the show.

Under glass, in an old frame, the artwork had hung over her grandmother’s bed, and she inherited it when her grandmother passed away. It was appraised twice as a printed reproduction of little consequence—in 1998, for $200, and then again, in 2004, for $250. When she opened the frame recently to remove a dead mosquito trapped between the glass and the image, she saw something that scared her with a thought that this print might be “real.”

The picture itself is beautiful. Henry Francois Farny had painted a traveling group of Native Americans in 1892, some on foot, some on horseback, peacefully emerging from an alpine grove at the bend in a high mountain pass. The hue of the evergreen forest shifts into the distant blue of the cloudless sky, and cuts a jagged edge at the treeline of a massive Rocky Mountain summit that dominates the setting. The artist masterly captured the tiny details in the journeying figures, and their clothing and supplies, and skillfully wrapped them in the grandness of nature under an infinite sky.

The appraiser explained how Farny lived and traveled with the Sioux tribe, and chose to portray peaceful scenes of their way of life, rather than sensationalize their existence with violence and conflict. Theodore Roosevelt once told the artist, “Farny, the nation owes you a great debt. It does not realize it now, but it will some day. You are preserving for future generations phases of American history that are rapidly passing away.” Clark, S. J. (1912). Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912, Volume 2. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company. p. 449. Retrieved 2016-03-29.

On Antiques Roadshow, the appraiser usually builds the suspense by pointing out clues of authenticity on the way to revealing the estimated value, but Meredith Hilferty avoided the question of originality. She ended her description of the artist and subject matter abruptly, and, without any warning, she revealed an appraised value a thousand times higher than any previous appraisal had dared—$200,000-$300,000!

The young woman suddenly slumped forward, catching her head in her hand, and fought tears for the next couple of minutes as she struggled to control her emotions on camera. With this revelation, her life was changed. In a single moment, everything was different—the moment she realized she had inherited a national treasure.

Her eyes were opened to see a true national treasure.

We enjoy watching Antiques Roadshow because we are all born with a desire to possess treasure, and spend our lives looking for and storing up treasures for ourselves, and for our children. This show reveals that there may be treasures right under our noses, so that we start to think twice about hauling our junk off to the dump. What if that old ceramic vase that grandma gave us is worth a fortune? What if I could find a real treasure at the antiques store that everyone else overlooked?

What if an appraiser looked into your life, and found something you had completely overlooked—something of untold value—that would change your outlook, your opportunities, and your life?

For some of you, this may be the moment you discover, or rediscover, a treasure beyond measure. It hung on your grandma’s wall, or collected dust on the mantel, in the background of your life. Months, even years, may have passed since you truly admired it… Even your family has said, “That old thing? You can have it… now, what about that rocking chair in the front room?”

Here is my reveal… I’m going to assume the role of appraiser and point out a treasure that is yours already, and remind you of its value and its power to enrich your moments. It’s not a thing that can be touched or traded, or stolen, or destroyed.

In the Bible, God told Abram, “I am your shield, your very great reward.” Genesis 15:1.*

Have you forgotten God, in the moment-to-moment? It’s easy to do, because He’s not a visible companion. I think we’ve all been there, probably more often than we’re willing to admit.

We spend far too much time pursuing other treasure, hoping and yearning for more, looking past the Savior and Sustainer of the entire universe, Jesus Christ. Many of us are willing to trust Him with our eternal future, but somehow, in the present moment, we neglect to reach out to Him. We forget where true meaning and real value lives, and forge ahead to create our own kingdoms—under the nose of God—but without seeking His face.**

Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10.*

Jesus came so that we may have a moment-by-moment fellowship with the Father, even as He does. He came so that we can surrender in our moments to the Father, even as He does. He came so that we can understand and receive the treasure that He is, and invite Him, as the treasured One, to live through us in our moments.

This is what Paul means, when he writes, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Philippians 1:27.*

Maybe you are not treasuring God right now. Maybe you’re angry because of something you’ve lost, or because some kind of pain or bad news weighs you down. Maybe you feel God has let you down, or forgotten you, when you were in great need. May God remind you, right now, that your deepest need is to fellowship with Him. He hasn’t forgotten you. He is knocking on your door even now. Will you get up out of your easy chair and open the door to Him? Perhaps pain is the doorway to a deeper fellowship with Him?

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” Revelation 3:20.

Practice a yielded heart, and an invitational spirit, toward the LORD, so that your life can take on a depth and meaning in His presence, and, in His power, you will realize the opportunity in your moments, far beyond what your own wisdom and strength could grasp.

If you have never understood your need for a Savior, go straight to THIS post: (Coming Soon).

If you want to know the principles of The Surrendered Moment, and the power of God to transform your life through it, go to THIS post: A Challenge to “WWJD” (What Would Jesus Do)?-PART 1

*All scripture quoted is NIV 1984.

**NOTE: When I write about “our” tendencies and shortcomings, and sin, I am condemning myself only, and counting myself as the worst offender. I see God most clearly when I understand the depth and desperation of my need for Him. The best moments in life are the ones where we are most aware of God’s love, presence, and power, in full recognition of our own weaknesses and limitations.

The basic message in this blog is special, and resonates with the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ. The messenger, however, is a broken vessel. Those who know me could tell of my faults and blind spots—I struggle against sin. I have no high horse to ride.

But broken vessels can hold living water. Imperfect people can speak truth; sinful people can accomplish good. If my cracked pitcher, with holes in the bottom, can hold holy water, there is hope for everyone! When water is poured from any broken pitcher, we shouldn’t marvel at the vessel itself, or the sheen of its glazed veneer—we should instead stand in awe at the miraculous power that, despite the laws of physics, holds the water in the pitcher, or causes it to pour out when water is needed. We should be drawn to worship and praise the goodness, the magnificence, the power, and the friendship of our God, and be thankful that He prefers to fill and use people that know they are broken—who are thirsty for Him—and desire to be filled according to His will and good purpose.

I can’t claim that my desire for Him is consistently deep, nor is my resolve to stay close to Him always strong. My faith waxes and wanes, and sin tempts me and still overwhelms me. God is gracious. He isn’t looking for perfection, or wisdom, or strength, or power, or nobility—He has all that. He is looking for a humbled people, who will yield themselves to be filled.

“For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-31. ESV.

This blog is a boast about God—that He is THE WONDERFUL—and His desire to fill His people, broken as we are, to pour out the good news about Him with demonstrations of His goodness, power, and friendship. Jesus is called “Emmanuel, “God with Us,” and He, in submission to the Father, has sent the Holy Spirit to demonstrate God In Us.

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