Tag: Practical Surrender

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Giving Jesus the Key

I recently lost one of the two keys to our Toyota mini-van, and the Lord didn’t reveal its location. I thought I could just go down to Home Depot and have another key made, but the associate there told me otherwise. He said that they have Toyota Blanks, but the key will only be able to get the outer door unlocked. If I put it in the ignition, the car can’t even be started!

It turns out that you have to have an authentic Toyota microchip key in order to drive the car. When the microchip in the head of the key comes close to the sensor near the ignition, the computer unlocks and allows you to start the car.

I guess there is a little value in having a key that gets you into the car only… if I lock the true key in the car, then I could use the valet key to get in without calling the Triple-A service. Actually, “valet key” is not the right term for this copied key, because a valet key can actually start and run the car. I will call the copy key the “fake key,” because the promise that is wrapped up in a real car key is that you will be able to use the car for something other than sitting in it or storing items within it.

Many who call themselves Christians give Jesus the fake key to their lives. The key allows Jesus to get inside the car and sit in a seat, but they don’t really want Jesus driving them around. After all, Jesus might drive them places where they do not want to go. He might drive too fast or two slow, or he might scrape the paint finish or even crash the car! They like Jesus well enough that he can come along for the ride, but they don’t trust Him well enough for Him to do the driving.

He might interfere with where they want to go in life!

Occasionally, I will drive past a police car that is parked on the side of the road. A sidelong glance reveals that the policeman in the driver’s seat is actually an inflatable balloon, designed to look like a policeman. I understand that the Police Department uses this decoy around town in different spots in order to affect a calming of traffic. When people see the “manned” police car, they are likely to slow down if they are speeding, and to be on their best behavior.

Perhaps you have an inflatable Jesus in your car? You blow him up with your own breath and place him in the driver’s seat when you park your car at Church. Those who drive or walk past see that Jesus is in the driver’s seat, and people think well of you. When it is time to leave Church, however, you look both ways before you get into the car, and then you reach in and throw the balloon Jesus into the back seat. You think to yourself, “I can’t get anywhere I really want to go with this Jesus in the driver’s seat!”

The balloon sits quietly in the back seat while you drive to Sin City. Catching a glimpse of the balloon’s eyes in the rear view mirror, and feeling a tad guilty, you grab your coat and throw it over the head of the balloon Jesus. This is the extent of your relationship with Jesus. You prop up the balloon and move it around, promoting “Jesus” to the driver’s position when it is advantageous to do so, and then unceremoniously demoting the colored air bag to the back seat and covering its “eyes” so that you won’t feel guilty as you do the real driving. You hardly ever talk to it, except when you want something badly, and when you don’t get what you want, you think you might as well be talking into the air.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ Matthew 7:21-23.

Perhaps you have done more than buy an inflatable Jesus, and you have really given Jesus a key—the fake key? Is it possible that you’ve kept from giving him the microchip key that is the all-access key that he’s waiting for? Perhaps the key you’ve given Him is the car key of promise, but in reality, it is just a lock-picker for the door. So Jesus is allowed to come pick your lock from time to time, and maybe he can sit in the seat sometimes, or store some of His stuff in the back seat, but you’re not willing for Him to drive you where He wants you to go. He can sit in the driver’s seat, but like the inflatable policeman, He’s just there for effect. He can’t take you anywhere…

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Heart of Stone… Heart of Flesh

A friend has been meditating over the space of a few years about the new heart that God has given us. He wishes to comprehend the victory that Jesus has given us over sin and death, and to apply the new creation heart to live victoriously and become an overcomer. This is a noble, but frustrating, pursuit. Believing that we have been given a free and victorious heart, we have to reconcile the victory that has been won with the simple fact that we are far from perfect, and we “lose” battles every day.

In fact, to have the fallen flesh is to operate in brokenness, and to interpret God and the world around us through a grimy lens. Even in my best moments of, what seems to me, complete surrender to Him, there is some degree of self-preservation or exaltation that is unseen, at work beyond the edges of my consciousness. God knows that we are unable to present a heart to Him that is completely devoid of the concerns of the flesh. And so God operates in continual grace to a constantly broken and needy people.

It is a JOY to the Lord to fill His people with Himself, and to do things through a people who acknowledge that they need Him desperately and are looking toward Him like helpless children. This kind of heart is soft and receptive to the Spirit, and desires what God desires. But no heart started out this way. We know from Jeremiah that the heart is desperately wicked, and we know from Paul that there is no one who seeks after God on his own. God Himself draws us and opens our eyes to Who He is:

Hosea 11:4. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.

John 6:44. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

Romans 2:4. …God’s kindness leads you toward repentance…

So God Himself opens our eyes to be able to see Him, and He gives us a new heart. 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.”

We are tempted to think that this new heart is one that is able to gain victory over sin, and that it has the capacity to throw off the domination of sin. After all, we are a new creation! We begin to adopt the idea that we have the final victory over sin already, and that all we need to do to resist sin is to believe hard enough that the victory is already ours. Subtly, our eyes can be diverted from an ongoing dependency on Jesus to a pursuit of perfection of our own righteousness.

If our primary goal is to be victorious over sin and to be an “overcomer,” we will be constantly frustrated. We supposed that we just hadn’t believed strongly enough… that we are more than conquerors. If God has already given the victory, and we are still experiencing defeat, we rationally conclude that our faith is lacking, and assume that we just need to work up the strength of our faith.

But what is the goal of the Christian life? Are we supposed to reach some state of sinless perfection, or perfect obedience? God knows that we can’t do this, and yet we often make this our chief pursuit, taking on an impossible behavior management project which, we suppose, will please Him. A behavior-centric focus to the Christian life is a path to burnout and disillusionment, and shifts the burden of perfection from the shoulders of Christ onto our own. Our faith and sanctification must be Christo-centric, because Christ is our very life!

Hebrews 12:1-2. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

This kind of persistent pursuit is a testimony of His grace rather than our obedience—of His righteousness rather than our own. HE is the perfecter of our faith, and not we ourselves. He is the Author and the One Who has made us holy, and it is HE who sanctifies us as we still inhabit the body. I can’t will myself to stop committing sin, but I am able to humble myself as one who recognizes the bankruptcy of his own righteousness, and ask that God do in me what I can’t possibly do.

Col. 3:1-4. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

When I eagerly submit to the reign of Jesus in me, and Christ lives and breathes and speaks and thinks through me, then I have nothing to boast about for myself, and I will find myself in awe of His presence and power, and in the difference He makes in my life. I won’t worry about my progress in becoming an overcomer; I will be enamored with the One Overcomer, who overcame for us, and christens us overcomers despite our incomplete obedience.

So, what is the “heart of flesh” that God gives us, spoken about in Ezekiel 36:26? I think the answer is grasped when we consider what the “heart of flesh” is contrasted with—the “heart of stone”–that God removes. The description of our former heart, the unbelieving one, focuses on its hardness and coldness. This hardness is primarily toward God Himself, and to His truth, but is evidenced in our lives by a strong self-will to pursue our own ends or to secure our own security. This might even look like a life of selflessness in some people, as they try to win acceptance from others and from God through being a people-pleaser. Self-salvation is the goal for this hard-hearted condition.

God opens eyes in our stony hearts so that we can see Him, and agree with the truth that we can’t save ourselves, and, at that moment of belief, God removes the heart of stone, the hard one, and gives us a heart of flesh, that is soft toward Him—yielding and responsive. Before receiving Christ, truth could be poured out all over our stony hearts, but none of the Living Water could be absorbed nor find purchase. Since we now have a heart of flesh, purchased by the blood of Jesus, God makes it soft and absorbent, like a sponge, so that our hearts can be made full of Christ and grow in Him.

Even so, our new fleshy hearts can get dehydrated through our neglect of God and His truth. We can still harden our hearts toward Him, and when we deny the Living Water passage through our hearts, our hearts begin to dry out, shrink, and become hard to the touch again. A sponge left on a stone outside, to dry in the desert sun, will become hard and brittle in pretty short order.

But this new heart, dry and hard as it can become again, has many holes in it that are made for receiving and holding the water, so that it can be made soft quickly, the moment we call for Him, and God’s refilling occurs—a re-hydration of the Spirit.

The heart that we have been given cries out for the Living Water, and will not find rest nor peace outside of fellowship with the Lord. This new heart is holy, and has been given a True North direction by which to orient itself. The new heart is more sensitive to changes in direction, and has new desires to return to the north heading when straying east or west, (or south!), in order to be at home with the Lord.

This new heart is responsive to the Holy Spirit, and can be roused to condemn our direction when we stray, and hears the Lord calling, when we wander from Him and rebel against truth.

1 John 3:19-24. “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.”

So this new heart is not the exact same deceitful heart that we once had, but we still have “sin in our members” that tempts our hearts to follow the lies, the old patterns, and the dead trails that our old stony hearts could not help but trace in the past.

Romans 7:23-24. “For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”

If our new hearts are drawn away by sin in our members, we will experience the wounds of the spiritual battle, and can even be taken captive in some ways by the enemy. Our hearts are often willing accomplices to the “sin at work,” and we allow ourselves to surrender our bodies temporarily to the enemy.

Galatians 5:16-18. “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.”

Here is the answer, again, in how to live. Live, being led by the Spirit, not as one who is trying to keep the law perfectly, but as one who knows that he can’t. If we think, act, and speak in Christ, submitted to Him consciously, and rely on His power and presence, we will truly live, and He will give an eternal weight of glory to our moments that is an additional blessing to the grace that sustains us and makes up the continual difference between our impotent obedience and Christ’s perfect obedience.

If we keep in step with the Spirit (Galatians 5:25), then 2 Corinthians 4:17, “our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”

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Second Surrender: Split-Second Surrender to the Holy Spirit

“Whe-yelp…” Lemuel lifted his baseball cap and scratched high up on his forehead. “You’re gon’ take a raht down’t the secont laht, bah the Pigg-ly Wigg-ly, an’ keep a-goin’, oh, ’bout three mahl an’ sommat, ’til you see the ol’ mi-yill on the layeft. Hayaf a mahl mower, you’re gon’ see a whaht feyance on the raht, and a yeller dawg is gon’ chase ya… jus’ keep a-goin’ ’til the dawg stops, look to the layeft and you gon’ see a reyed barn up the hiyill. Turn leyeft raht theyer…”

I never liked asking someone for directions. In the first place, I didn’t want to trouble others, and in the second, I couldn’t be sure that the people I was asking really knew their way around. Third…I might misunderstand what they were sayan.

Like it or not, that’s the way it was, before smartphones. You had to consult someone as you traveled—and all you had was an address and a folded paper map—and you depended on others to help you fill in the details that were in between the squiggly lines. Best thing was to call someone at your destination before you even set out, and write out the directions. If you got lost, you’d stop at a gas station land look for someone that had been there as long as the fuel pumps out front…

And that’s where you’d meet the Lemuels. You could trust them. Anyone that could tell you what to look for when you take that raht turn—and where the yeller dawg lies in wait behind the whaht feyance—knew what he was talking about. Back then, you needed visual cues, because country roads didn’t have green metal labels. Maybe they still don’t.

But now, roads have invisible data tags, so that an internet search can show you where you’re going. Just type in the address on your smartphone and do what it tells you. Satellites track your position and tell you how many minutes remain until you reach your destination. We can even see traffic congestion on our phones, so that we can choose an alternate route if the usual one has the snuffles.

Our lives depend on where, and on Whom, we put our trust.

Life itself is like going on a trip, and the ultimate destination is “fellowship with GOD.” See First Surrender: The Gospel, (“Good News”), About a Relationship with GOD, in Four Points. The most important aspect of the trip is not physical, involving physical nearness, but rather, spiritual, involving spiritual intimacy. Our souls move vast spiritual distances each day, running from God in different directions, or turning to Him, whenever we notice and own up to forgetting or ignoring Him.

The enemy is real and clever. The enemy is Satan, (the Devil), and the fallen angels, (which are demons). He, and the demons under Him, have organized a vast right wing and left wing conspiracy against God, and seek to keep God’s crown of creation—people—from ever reaching “fellowship with GOD.” (Ephesians 6:11-12). They pose as other gods, or aliens, or angels of light, pulling us away, (through enticements), or pushing us away, (chasing us with unmasked evil). (See 2 Corinthians 11:14-15, for pulling, 1 Peter 5:8, for pushing). They will use every means to give people false directions, so that those who don’t know Christ stay “lost,” and those who do find Christ get distracted and absorbed by the physical world—forgetting where we are, how we were made to travel, and where GOD is, in the spiritual one.

Their words, their advice, their directions—none of them can be trusted—they are lies designed to put spiritual distance between you and God. (See John 8:44-45). Like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, Satan seeks to draw you off, away from God, to himself, luring you to some high clifftop so it’s easy to pull or push you over. “Yes, this is the way! Just look at that scenery! Here, give me your hand. I’ll lift you up. OOPS—Buddafingas! LOOK OUT BELOW!!!”

Or they are like the gang on the wrong side of town, when you take a wrong turn and you find yourself in a dark and unfamiliar place full of eyes. You wouldn’t dare to step out of the car to look for a Lemuel, and all the street lights were busted long ago. Instead, you crack your window next to a shadowy figure in the road, and ask for the way out. The glow from his cigarette bobs and blinks in the vice of a right side smirk, while smoke and half truths signal from the left. He’s sure of himself, this one…but he’s not telling you the way out. His instructions are precise, with a key misdirection to a dead end, where eyes and bared teeth sharpen in anticipation of victims. If only it was just a yeller dawg!

You drift forward into the night as narrowing eyes follow, watching to make sure you take the turn. Melting into the shadows, the stranger whips out a smartphone and makes a call. “We got one.  He’s alone.”

None of us is truly alone, of course, though we may feel we are, (or we are persuaded by lies that we are). And even if we walk through the valley, (or drive through the alley), of the shadow of death, God is with us. (Psalm 23:4). He can be trusted more than any Lemuel, and He most definitely has been around longer than the gas pumps. Acts 17:24-28. 2 Chronicles 16:9. This doesn’t mean that we will avoid trouble, and it doesn’t mean that we will not suffer harm, or even death, but it does mean that our God is with us, and for us, and that if we trust in Him, we already have reached our ultimate destination, “fellowship with God,” so that we don’t need to fear death they way we used to.

…And we have an opportunity for fellowship with God that is deeper and more intimate than just asking for directions, or talking to a friend. When we received Christ, we also received a gift beyond forgiveness of all sins, in addition to a future in Heaven with Joy in the presence of the LORD forevermore, even more personal than the gift of communication and fellowship with the King of Kings… and yet many Christians misunderstand or pay little attention to the gift.

The gift is the power of God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, working around you, and from within you.

Jesus said:

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever–the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” John 14:16-20. NIV 1984.

How do we know that we have been given the Holy Spirit? Because Jesus promised to give us (believers in Christ) the Holy Spirit. The entire Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—participates in the filling of each believer, as the Trinity is “three-in-one.” The Father gives the Holy Spirit to live within us, and Jesus is in us, and we are in Him, and He is in the Father. The Spirit is a Counselor and Helper, and is placed in us permanently, at the moment we believed in Christ.

Paul wrote about this permanence:

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. Ephesians 1:13-14. NIV 1984.

We are sealed, at the moment of belief, with the Holy Spirit, as a non-refundable deposit from GOD, guaranteeing our salvation. This verse presents strong evidence that salvation can’t be lost. There is not a case in the New Testament where God un-seals a believer, taking back the deposit and guarantee that the Holy Spirit is. If God were to take back the deposit, the promised “guarantee” would be a lie, and God’s glory would be tarnished. God can’t lie, nor does He break promises.

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians about the effect of the Spirit:

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. 2 Corinthians 1:21-22.

“The Spirit is placed ‘in our hearts,’ καρδία, ας, ἡ, ‘kardia,’ the center and seat of spiritual life, ‘the soul or mind, as it is the fountain and seat of the thoughts, passions, desires, appetites, affections, purposes, endeavors.'”THAYER’S GREEK LEXICON, Electronic Database. Copyright © 2002, 2003, 2006, 2011 by Biblesoft, Inc.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:11-16. NIV 1984. (The Holy Spirit can speak through us, so that the mind of Christ is employed, if we are yielded to Him).

He is working moment-by-moment, whether you’re complicit or rebellious.

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18. NIV 1984. (The idea is to be complicit with the Spirit—be filled—(extend an invitation to God to work through you right in the moment)—and keep being re-filled, moment to moment).

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:26-28. NIV 1984. (He intercedes, and keeps interceding, even when we are not praying, or when we don’t know what to pray, or even when we are rebellious. He intercedes according to God’s will, not the will of man. We don’t even understand what the Spirit prays for us, but we do know that it is for our good).

“When you are brought before synagogues, rulers and authorities, do not worry about how you will defend yourselves or what you will say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say.” Luke 12:11-12. NIV 1984. (The Holy Spirit will speak through surrendered people).

We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Colossians 1:28-29. NASB. (We can strive, within the power of the Holy Spirit, according to God’s purposes).

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. Galatians 5:16-26. NIV. (“Walk by the Spirit,” and “keep in step with the Spirit”… This is the idea of taking a step in the Spirit, and taking another one, and another one. This is what I’ve been teaching as “The Surrendered Moment.” Surrender to the Spirit in the moment, and do it again, and again. Keep on doing this—it is the spiritual life that God has provided for us to live, if we choose).

Jesus said:

“I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
John 16:12-15. NIV. The Holy Spirit will lead you in truth, and He will give you truth to share with others that points to our ultimate destination: “fellowship with God,” and He will empower you to do things you can’t do in your own power.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I never liked asking for directions. We all tend to try and find our own way as our default way of life, rather than put our lives into the hands of someone else. It is a trust issue. When things get desperate, when we find ourselves on the wrong side of town, we begin looking for help. At that point, we almost have no other choice than to trust others in order to make it out of the trouble we’re in.

How much better it is, to fellowship with the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to develop a moment-to-moment trust in Him! I have been there, but I can’t say that “I’ve arrived…” My trust waxes and wanes, and my attention to God, and my intention to function within the power of the Holy Spirit, is inconstant. But I know that, in any and every moment, my God is with me, and I can give up my desperate and exhausting desire to control and accomplish everything my own way, and open my life up to The Ancient of Days, to be carried along in the Spirit. When I do, I’m able to do things that would be impossible for me to do, (it’s the Spirit within me), and able to see and say truths that were inaccessible to my feeble mind.

When we surrender to God in the moment, He saves us in the moment. One second, we feel lost, and the next, we understand where we are. And though we may still be in a tight spot, on foreign soil, or enduring incredible pain, we are reminded that we are “home again” in the Spirit—in the strong and loving hands of the Father.  In a split second, we can see and feel the shining light from God, Our Comforter, in the darkness, and draw on infinite resources, so that others may also see Him with eyes of faith. To this end we journey, every moment a new beginning.

 

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First Surrender: The Gospel, (“Good News”), About a Relationship with GOD, in Four Points

Without a First Surrender to God—ending the rebellion of your soul against Him by receiving Jesus Christ—you do not have a relationship with Him, and you are not experiencing the abundant life He offers. Here is a summary of the First Surrender.

1. We are created for relationship with GOD the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God created all that can be seen and touched, as a gift, and as an environment for love and relationship.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” Genesis 1:26. NIV.

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” Acts 17:24-28. NIV.

Jesus co-created everything with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and He Himself is the life and light that is the greatest gift to mankind…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-4. NIV.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 1 John 4:9. NIV.

2. God’s gift of holy friendship with sinless humans was broken by sin. “Everything that does not come from faith is sin.” Romans 14:23. Failing to believe and trust God, and deciding to go our own way, we rejected the gift of light and life in Christ that was ours.

…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned… Romans 5:12.

…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… Romans 3:23.

For the wages of sin is death… Romans 6:23.

When man chose to sin, he separated himself spiritually from GOD, and experienced a spiritual death and darkness that leads to physical death, and ultimately to permanent separation from God throughout eternity. The sinful nature—where we naturally think and act in unbelief—passes down from generation to generation, and we are born naturally rejecting the light and life of Christ. We are born spiritually dead, and separated from God.

3. Jesus Christ was sent by God the Father to die on the cross for our sins—paying the penalty of death and separation that we deserve—so that we can know and experience the life and light of God’s love forevermore.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16.

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. 1 Peter 3:18.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas,** and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles… 1 Corinthians 15:3-7.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6.

“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” Acts 4:12.

4. Knowing the truth about Jesus is not the same as knowing Jesus. Each person must receive Him personally, to experience the life and light of God’s love forevermore.

About receiving Jesus:

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. John 1:9-13.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:8-9.

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.” John 6:35-40.

Jesus says: “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 that person, and they with me.” Revelation 3:20.

RECEIVE JESUS NOW: THE FIRST SURRENDER

How do we receive Him/come to Him/look to Him/open the door to Him? Belief is instantaneous. One second, you don’t believe, and the next, you do! Receiving is your response, the personal expression of your faith to GOD—a calling out to Him, in your mind or out loud—from your heart. Receiving involves three aspects of belief.

Pray… Prayer is thinking, or talking, to/with God. You are believing that God exists and that He hears you, when you pray sincerely. Prayer is the medium of surrender.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on 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. Jeremiah 29:11-13.

…to Repent…Repentance is a turning from thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors that ignore or oppose God, an expression of your belief that you have sinned and are separated from God, and a sorrow for denying Him.

I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign Lord. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Ezekiel 18:30.

Repentance involves confession, which is agreeing with God that we have fallen short of the glory of God, in thought, word, and deed, and that we have not trusted Him.

‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly…’ 1 Kings 8:47.

Repent at my rebuke! Then I will pour out my thoughts to you, I will make known to you my teachings. Proverbs 1:23.

…And Surrender…

“God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you… Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. James 4:6b, 7, 10.

If you believe these things, then pray to God–confessing, repenting, and receiving. You can pray the following, or something like this. (The words are just vehicles for the attitude of your heart. God knows your heart, beyond the limitations of words).

My God,

I have not trusted you. I’ve been trying to do life without you, and I realize now that I can’t know you, or the life you offer, when I am full of darkness. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins, and suffering to save me. I open the door to you, and receive you as my Savior and LORD. I surrender myself to you. Lead me in the life you want for me. Thank you for forgiving me and and giving me eternal life!

Amen.

If you just prayed this prayer, CONGRATULATIONS! You now have new life that is not like your old life. You might not feel any different, but there is an unseen reality that would take your breath away, if you could see what just happened with spiritual eyes. To uncover the truth of your decision in this moment, see the post: Second Surrender: Split-Second Surrender to the Holy Spirit. This next post will also show you how to trust the LORD in day-to-day life.

Did you just pray to receive Christ? Let me know through the Contact Form. I would like to encourage you by email with some next steps.

*Scripture quoted in this post comes from: Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.®. I have added text formatting, such as changing the font to bold, italics, or underlined, to add emphasis. I encourage you to read the verses in context of the passages. I prefer NIV Copyright ©1984.

**Peter.

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Defining Moment: Good Samaritan Freefall (Part 1)

At a particular moment on a sunny-but-brisk Saturday morning in November 2009, I was about to be shaken to the core by a man I had never met and might never see again.

I had been serving monthly at that time among the homeless people of our city with my wife, Wendy, not because we felt gifted for or attracted to this kind of ministry, but because we had a growing hunger for God, and a willingness for Him to use us however He desired. I can see looking back that God led us with little bread crumbs of “yeses” to a land that might as well have been Oz to us, where its people struggle to meet basic needs between skyscraper shadows. We emerged from our cocoon in the suburbs, fresh and rested from a night in our warm bed, spreading our wings to meet with stranger-friends of the inner city.  In the meantime, they had slept on cardboard or under bridges, or not at all, huddled against life storms, derailed and forgotten like boxcars left to rust.

Before I go on about how my world shifted on its axis, I think it important to say that the LORD puts out little bread crumbs each day, disguised as “almost nothing” moments. Jesus linked the sustenance of bread to action when He said His food is to do the will of the Father. He would take a little nothing moment, a leftover crumb, like talking to a woman at the well, (John, Chapter 4), and turn it into something very significant, so that within hours, many believed in Him because of that woman’s testimony about Him in that moment, and many more believed after seeking Him out and hearing for themselves. And the half-life of that moment of simple conversation echoes throughout eternity, not just because it was written down in the Bible, but because Jesus followed the Father’s lead, and lives were changed when He asked for water. I suspect that we miss the opportunity to do the big things that we imagine we’re going to do because we ignored the little crumbs that would have opened the gates to it. We ignore the seeds of trees while looking for the forest.

The crumb that opened the gates to Oz for us happened months before that fateful Saturday—such a little thing, really. Wendy and I used to meet regularly with friends over coffee for fellowship and encouragement in the LORD at a Borders Bookstore, and we noticed a group of Christians that would come and have a Bible study together at one of the long tables there on the same nights that we would go. One evening, I had a notion to go and introduce myself and encourage them. These people were warm and exuberant about God—we were friends instantly—and my little “yes” to go and speak led to another little “yes,” to sit with them on their next study. That’s where we learned about their “Matthew Ministry,” patterned after Matthew 25:31-46. They served the poor on Saturday mornings in our downtown, distributing clothing, toiletries, food, water, and other necessities to whomever walked up. And with another “yes,” we agreed to go and see how we could serve, too.

The deep intention of this ministry is to go the extra mile to connect in a personal way and minister spiritually with each of the people who come. We often had a chance to support, encourage, share truth, and pray with our new homeless or drifting friends, sharing the love and truth of Jesus. We shared bread crumb moments, and trusted that God could take them and accomplish more than physically feeding 5,000+ people with bread and fish, just as Jesus did more in speaking to the crowd than He did in giving them physical nourishment.

On a Saturday in early November, at Moore Square in downtown Raleigh, I was approached by “Mankind.” Lee was his name, but his friends called him “Mankind,” since he was about 6’4” in height, built like an NFL lineman, and because they thought he resembled the wrestler, “Mankind.” His blonde-dyed hair set off his steely blue eyes—cold in color, but rendered warm by the gentleness of his face. He explained that he was going through some rough times, living out of a car, holding down a new job—but there was hope in his eyes that we didn’t often see out on the sidewalk hardscape… he was reuniting with his ex-wife and daughter.  For about forty five minutes, he was an open book, sharing pages of his life with me as we talked about his past, present, and future. Neither of us knew the secret that he only had a few more days to live.

I asked him if he knew the Lord. He didn’t put an exclamation mark on it when he answered, “I’m  an atheist.” We talked about Jesus Christ. I asked him, “What makes it difficult for you to believe in Jesus?”

His eyes got that far-off look, as if he was looking back through time, and he said church people he had known were so hurtful and hypocritical.  As I listened to Lee open up his wounds for inspection, I was asking God to give me ears to hear him, and to give me words that were true and right that would speak to his heart’s cry.

I heard myself say that Lee should ignore the bad behavior of self-proclaimed Christians in forming a true picture of Christ. Many who call themselves Christians don’t actually know Jesus themselves, believing in “Churchianity” instead. Many believers are not following Jesus in their daily lives, or are ignoring or misunderstanding the life that Jesus is calling them to live.  We uphold a standard of thought and behavior, and righteousness, that is higher than we are able to reach ourselves. But there is grace and acceptance for those who recognize their need for the Savior, and who receive Him and HIS righteousness. And God loves all people, whether we receive or rebuff Him. And God loved Lee; He wanted Lee, “Mankind,” to turn to Him.

I encouraged Lee to re-form his opinion about Jesus by going to His Word, and reading for himself what Jesus said and did.  The Bible is the most accurate picture of the Savior.  His image burns true and bright on the pages of scripture, no matter how imperfectly we, as Christians, reflect that light.

Toward the end of our time together, I gave him a Gospel of John booklet from the Pocket Testament League, and I challenged him to read it and learn about Jesus in His own words and actions. If only he and I could hear the secret whispers, “Mankind will die in 21 DAYS!” He listened to me intently and earnestly, and at the end, he let me pray for him, that God would reveal truth to him, and he actually asked me to pray for his ex-wife and his daughter and her other child.

We gave him a warm winter coat that fit perfectly; clothes and other items for his family. I felt that I had made a new friend, and that here was a man close to turning toward God in Heaven. I couldn’t help wondering if he had met the LORD before, when he was young, and then run from him? I looked forward to seeing him in the coming weeks.

When he turned to go, I didn’t realize he was close to the end of a skydiving free fall, and he needed to pull the rip cord fast. I had told him about believing in Jesus, even helped him put his hands on the truth with the Gospel of John, and gave him instructions on pulling the rip cord through talking with God and repenting—turning to God and placing his full trust in Jesus and what He has already done for him—but he put it off. I watched him walk away, his new burnt-orange colored coat falling back into the milling Saturday morning crowd. That jacket wasn’t padded enough to save him, and the ground was rushing up at him faster than any of us could imagine.

John and Linda, our friends in Matthew Ministry, broke it to me at Bible Study. “Did you see Lee on the news?”

“No! What happened?”

Night had fallen on November 29th. Lee was driving on the I-440 Belt-line on his way to pick up a Christmas present for his daughter when cars up ahead collided at high speed next to the concrete median barriers. Lee put the brakes on his home-on-wheels, jumped out into the time-ticking fray in split-second sacrifice, and ran to a crash victim by the barrier. Oncoming traffic deflected and scattered at speed, dodging cars and people, and one car peeled pell-mell through an opening toward the barrier where Lee was helping a young motorist. Like deer in the headlights, pinned in place by fear with nowhere safe to run, they did what probably most would do in the situation: they hopped behind the waist-high concrete barrier, assuming in the darkness that there was solid ground in the median beyond it. At that one spot, however, the beltline is actually a bridge, and the safe and solid ground they sought was 70 feet below the road level. They fell.

The 18 year old landed in the water and miraculously had no major injuries, but Lee landed on the rocks and probably died instantly.

I was stunned to hear it. He had been so full of this life and hope, and suddenly he had neither.

Lee knew all of the essentials about Jesus from our previous conversation. I had prayed for him that he would come to know Jesus, and he had been given the Gospel of John. Did he read it? Was he changed by the truth? Was he a believer when he went over that railing? I don’t know.  No matter what belief Lee held when he hopped over the railing, there is still a chance that Lee is with God in heaven! As long as there was still life and breath and conscious thought, Lee still had the chance to turn and believe.

How long does it take for belief to happen? It’s instantaneous, isn’t it? Belief in Christ is instantaneous. One moment, you’re not believing, but then, you believe! And at that moment of belief, God forgives you of all your sins (past, present, and future) and puts the Holy Spirit within you to seal you as His own child, and to empower you to live in Christ as a new creation. All that happens instantaneously, at the moment of faith, because Jesus Himself has done the work to provide salvation already. A simple agreement in the soul confirms the efficacy of the work He did for us.

Lee had two seconds of falling before he hit. Maybe he pulled the rip cord at the last second and called out a believing “JESUS!” in his heart and was saved? (He didn’t have to recite the “Sinner’s Prayer” as many suppose; the thief on the cross didn’t say the “Sinner’s Prayer,” either, and yet Jesus recognized his saving faith). A physical parachute deployed at 70 feet from the ground is useless. There isn’t time for the chute to open and slow the fall. But a spiritual parachute deploys immediately and is 100% effective. Even if he was a still a stone cold atheist when he hopped over the barrier, it is possible he landed a 100% believer in Jesus Christ, falling from the jaws of death at the gates of Hell into the hands of THE WONDERFUL—the LIVING GOD!

If only it is so!

Be sure to read the continuation of this post:  “Defining Moment: Good Samaritan Freefall (Part 2).

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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.

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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.

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Waiting For An Answer

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” John 15:5, NIV.

One of my biggest disappointments with this earthly life is that I can’t see the Lord face to face while I am living it.

Every one of us loves to spend time with a special friend. When I’m together with that person, I know I’m accepted and loved just as I am, and I don’t have to pretend to be someone else to win approval. The conversation we have is stimulating, encouraging, insightful… and meaningful!

Oftentimes, a friend will have a viewpoint and experience outside my own that I find refreshing or relieving, and there comes a lightening of my burdens through our being vulnerable and sharing together. Sometimes my friend can sympathize with me and comfort me, or help me break out of the despondence that threatens to overwhelm. Sometimes my friend can help me laugh in the middle of my struggles, or remind me that better days are coming. Sometimes a friend can say something very challenging, and it may take me days, weeks, or months to wrestle with that truth to come to a place of deeper understanding.

Nowadays, we can get a fairly instant response from a friend if we really need to. We can call them on a smart phone, or message them, or tweet, or email, etc., etc. We can post to our walls on Facebook, and many friends can chime in with a response at one time. It’s comforting to have such instant means to connect to someone.

Even now, though, it’s sometimes hard to reach a friend. Perhaps you’ve left a voicemail for a friend, with an expression of urgent need, and then you don’t hear back from the friend for a week. We have such an expectation of instant feedback that we might be tempted to think less of the friend somehow, forgetting that our friends have burdens and responsibilities, and sometimes are forgetful, just as we do, and are.

In the year 1776, in the American colonies, you couldn’t just pick up a phone and call that special friend. You’d have to either get out and walk, or saddle up your horse and ride, or get out your quill and ink to write a letter, in order to at least convey a message to your friends. If you could only write, and depending how far the letter would have to be carried by horse, it could be weeks before your friend could come to you personally, or return a letter.

With the Lord, it is different. I can’t go out and walk or ride to where He is, and see Him face to face. I can’t call Him on my cell phone, and hear the sound of His voice responding to what I say. He doesn’t send me instant tweets or write on my Facebook wall, or “poke” me. I can’t even send a letter by horse, and receive one back from from a heavenly rider.

When I ask God specific questions, He doesn’t speak audibly. When I have a major decision to make, and I have the time to go to Him, again and again, before having to make a choice, He doesn’t write His answer in the sky. Sometimes, I’m tempted to wonder if He is even listening, as when I talk with a friend that dozes completely off while we’re talking. (I’ve been that dozing friend on too many occasions, when exhaustion and comfortable surroundings conspire to slay me with sleep).

Too often, we grow impatient with our “slumbering” Friend. We distrust the One who does not seem to check His voicemail. We grow tired of having a Father Who seems to consistently return silence when we “poke” Him. Did He miss my snapchat—I thought He sees everything?

But our God does not slumber, nor sleep. He hears my voice when I call, no matter how far away I can imagine He is from me, and He knows my every thought, before I think it. Through the prophets of old, He has spoken, and still speaks, into every situation and experience known to mankind.

The real issue is this: how far will I trouble myself to hear from Him? Will I walk across a room and pick up a Bible and search the words He has given to us all? Will I take a moment and ask Him to show me something in His word or in my heart, to open my eyes, to His Truth and His Presence? Will I try, again and again, to hear from Him if I remain perplexed or feel alone?

God absolutely loves it when we treat Him as Someone worth being pursued, sought after, and praised, no matter what life circumstances come. If there is a perceptible distance between me and God, I know it is I who created that distance, it is I who turned away, it is I who wronged the greatest Friend I’ll ever have.

Sometimes it takes awhile to recognize that we’ve left our God out of our lives. Since we are creatures of routine and pattern, we can coast within our roles and our rituals, thinking all the while that we are including God in what we are doing. We can even serve, pray, think, speak and act spiritual, but deep down, have what God must know is a casual indifference in our heart of hearts.

Oftentimes, it is a period of suffering that wakes me up to the reality that I’m just coasting on the powerlessness of my own gas. What a blessing it is to suffer, if I reconnect with God in a more desperate way! It is a privilege to see my own limitations, to peer over the edge of the abyss, and realize that I am at the end of myself… and that God must absolutely save me from myself, and work in power, with resources that I cannot possess apart from Him.

At moments like these, I gain my clearest picture of Him, because what happens next allows me to experience Him, and to see the beautiful and complex mosaic that He is working out. Sometimes He saves me within my circumstances in a dramatic fashion, sometimes in a quiet way, and sometimes I have to look around and wonder if anything is different, only to find that my heart towards Him is tender, and that my craving for His nearness and life is deeper than before. It is this last salvation that is the most precious, when I realize I have everything I truly need in Him, even if life circumstances should grow harder.

And this is the heart God is after… this is the Life He wants to grow in me. It is invisible to the naked eye, undetectable in the sight of the world, and oftentimes forgotten, or overlooked, by the people who are called by His name.

This invisible life is what God loves and rewards. He sees the heart that longs for Him, that looks for Him, that begs Him to BE the difference. He has determined that the righteous shall live by faith, and not by sight.

I said before that one of my biggest disappointments in this earthly life is that I cannot see the Lord face to face… well, my greatest opportunity to bless the Lord is to cultivate a heart that sees Him despite having eyes of flesh, and that values Him above all else that parades before me.

Lamentations 3:18-26. “So I say, ‘My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the LORD.’ I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’ The LORD is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.”

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The Value of a Moment

Despite the inestimable worth that our God places on fellowship within the trinity, we think nothing of breaking fellowship with the Lord to go and get something for ourselves that we feel we need… we think there is little consequence or meaning in our sinful pursuits, and so our momentary devaluation of God approaches infinity. The pain that Jesus endured to relinquish fellowship with the Father for a moment, we eagerly trade into for ill-gotten and utterly rotten “gain.” Teach us, Lord, to more rightly measure your worth, and to see more accurately the true value of fellowship with you!!!

Miscalculations

We bargain our lives, oblivious to the fullness of the stakes, with a chip both infinitely grand and impossibly tiny—the mere, measureless moment. Born and passing away by the trillions every second, the moment is the smallest copper in the currency of time, but, unlike a penny in a piggy, it can’t be saved. In rapid fire execution, we have to spend each moment as we receive it, before we even know what value it holds. At times, we understand some of the significance of the passing moment, as we blow candles to count a birthday, say “I do” at the altar, or shed tears at a deathbed, but the majority of life is made up of commonplace forgettable moments of transition between the “important” moments. These forgotten moments have their own importance, as they set up the big moments, but there are simply too many of them for us to live intentionally within.

Even if we could fully engage in all our moments, we are limited in our understanding, ability, and strength to make the most of them. Moments fly past at the speed of… time, and we are no more able to grasp the full significance of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, or any moment in between, than catch a tornado by its tail. We fail, as a people, to grasp the value of a moment. This failure to note the significance, importance, and value of the moments we are given, often accompanies a spiritual nonchalance, and a desire to live for earthly pleasures.

Some of the value of a moment can be understood with the example of the “do-over.” A “do-over” is what we, as kids, used to ask for, if there was some kind of mistake or foul-up while we were playing a game. I called for a do-over if I suspected that someone cheated somehow, or if I got distracted or impeded by uncontrollable circumstances, such as when a passing car impacts the play of kickball in the street.

There is a certain do-over mentality that we learn as children, and carry over into adulthood. Everyone has heard, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This is an encouragement for learning and applying new knowledge and skills, and for the development of perseverance. Unfortunately, we extend the principle to cover sacred things, like marriage. “If at first you don’t succeed…” We also give ourselves over to sin quite easily, since we are sure that we’re covered by grace, and we can overcome the sin on another day. “My sin just looks too good today! Some day I’ll be ‘tight’ with God… He knows my heart loves Him… it’s just that right now, my sin is just too hard to stop.”

As a result, we are tempted to spend another day in captivity, enslaved by our own desires, and looking after our own interests. Unless something changes in our hearts, tomorrow will be the same story. We reason ourselves back into our cages, because we think we have unlimited “do-overs.”

God is the God of second chances, we understand. Do we fly more quickly into sin, because God is so forgiving? Does His grace become one of our biggest excuses to just do what seems right in our own eyes? If so, we are slowly piddling away “life more abundantly,” in order to live life more “tenaciously” (selfishly)–to grab, get, and hold on to everything we can through mortal means. Life more tenaciously seeks a false abundance, consisting of status, material success, and the glory of appearance, and promotes our own ingenuity and strength to attain and hold on to what we desire.

Life more tenaciously ignores the “Value Added” to our moments that is God. (I’ll come back to this in a moment).

We let most of our moments slip by without paying much attention to them on a spiritual level. We live life on the surface, engaged in a thousand concerns, but we (intentionally, or “accidentally”) leave God out of our concerns. What’s more, we tend not to ask God to show us what His concerns are for the moment, for the day, and for our lives. We become comfortable in the state of repeated “do-overs.” Assuming that we have unlimited second chances, we devalue the present moment and ignore the pricelessness of “now.” We look more to what we can get out of “now” for ourselves, and ignore what God is looking to do in the moment.

Our moments are of inestimable value, but we are asleep to this fact. Some of us get a “wake-up call” in the form of a close brush with death on the highway, or grave news from a doctor. Perhaps we are reminded by the death of someone close to us that we are not guaranteed another chance… another “do-over.”

If you were told, right now, that you only had one, maybe two weeks, to live, how would you live differently? My guess is that you would learn, in that relatively short time, the value of a moment. Every moment that passes by brings you closer to the death that you would love to put off. Every moment contains a richness that, more often than not, goes unnoticed when we think we have all the time in the world left to live.

I’m guessing that you would learn to treasure the people around you and to appreciate your few remaining interactions with them. Perhaps you would call that friend you haven’t spoken to in years, or write a letter to a dear relative to communicate how much you love them, or to ask for forgiveness. Maybe there is someone you would want to make peace with, knowing that your time is so short, and seeing that the issue that divides you is not all that important, after all.

Looking into the yawning jaws of death, and considering how you lived, maybe the regrets start setting in. “I should have lived differently… I wish I had never made this or that choice… I wish I had spent less time at the office, and more time with my wife and kids. I wish I had enjoyed the moments I had, dwelling within them, instead of being distant and detached by always looking to the future. I wish I had made more of an effort to know God.”

You begin to understand that there really are no “do-overs.” You can’t go backward in time and choose differently to love that rebellious son at the moment he needed it. You can’t go and take back those hurtful words you uttered that pushed your spouse over a precipice, that hurled your daughter out of your home, that estranged your father, that severed your fellowship and made an enemy out of a friend.

You can’t go back to the same moment in time and do differently, and the cascade of consequences that poured from that wrong choice or lack of intention, (or attention), can’t be made to run uphill again and run afresh through a more pleasant valley. The streams of your life run onward and plunge toward a sea, and every moment is a continental divide, an encounter with a rock, a moment of swirl, an eddy, a lap onto the shore, a freefall, a tumble, and a splash…

Every moment is a statement of your existence and representation of your beliefs—and your thoughts, words, and actions are like a turning and a flowing—this time right, this time left, this time straight away. And a watercourse stretches behind you with evidence of your passing… a worn stone, an eroded bank, a drowned harvest, a sunken ship, a wedding ring tumbled and lost in the sediment.

If your streams flow in the Lord, He will cause the course of your life to be a blessing, and a plain is watered, a thousand saplings nurtured, an oasis created, a message in a bottle delivered, a treasure uncovered, and a canoe turned toward adventure and a true home.

If we could grasp this idea, that our notion about “living for God” is not about the future, but instead is “living in Christ” right NOW, and Now, and now, and now, then our lives would be filled with the significance we crave. No matter how small the moment is in our own eyes, it contains the opportunity for a special expenditure of the power of God as we align our hearts in concert with Him, or it can contain a hardening of the heart that exerts its own kind of power, which grabs, scratches, spits, and mars, as it leaks its way into the land.

Consider a song. What is a song, but an orchestrated collection of notes… individual moments filled with an assigned sound? A song that is good and lovely to hear has a cadence and a harmony that is recognizable and pleasant. Each individual note, played in isolation, and without the context of the song, is not nearly as inspirational. Weighing the worth of a single note is like our thinking that a moment doesn’t really carry much weight.

But when one note is played, and then another after it, and another, a song develops, and our appreciation of the song can build. Sometimes a song can move us to tears, or to laughter, or call up a memory—accomplishing heart-work—because the composer and the players worked together to fit sounds (moments) together that inspire, or encourage, or cause deep and good reflection, or stir the memory of the mind or heart.

But if you take a musical score and delete some of the notes, or if unpracticed musicians skip notes, or beats, or play discordant sounds, we are reminded how important a note is to the whole, and we hear that the song is not the same, or falls apart and loses its power, because the players lost sight of the moment, and the will to play a strong and right note, or willfully chose to play a note that sounds foul to the ear and heart.

There is a Composer, and He desires to feed us the notes to play in each moment. Sometimes the note feels like a strange one to play, but because I trust this Composer, I will play the note in His strength, though I am unable to hear or fully appreciate where the song is going. I have to put aside my notion of what note would be better to play at this instant, thinking that my song will be better than the one My Composer is teaching me to play.

I want more and more to be able to see what God is doing in the moment, to hear what note He desires my part to play, and then have the will and conviction to play the strong note at the right moment. This is like what Paul says, in Ephesians 5:19-20, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Your life, full of individual moments, is a song—a “poema,” in the Greek, translated to “handiwork,” in Ephesians 2:10—a masterpiece. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” NIV. Invite God to play through you, and God will make the song beautiful to Him. The world may hate the sound of it, but playing it faithfully produces a joy that is independent from the approval of man, and fixed on the One through Whom all true joy comes. The music expresses God’s love for us, and our love for Him, and every note carries a beauty in the ears of God, because He Himself inspires it and gives it weight in a divine composition.

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