Home at last!

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 Today's Devotional Thought:

 1 Peter 1:3-5, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time."

Kay Warren writes these provocative words in Christianity Today: "Heading home to California … a friend and I passed through the Dallas–Fort Worth airport. On the way to the connecting gate, we heard loud patriotic music playing and saw a group, mostly women, wearing colorful hats, cheering, and waving American flags. The troops were coming home, and here was their welcoming committee.

Two women encouraged us to grab flags and join in. We were early for our next flight, so we took places in the makeshift greeting line. At first, a few soldiers just dribbled by. We whooped and waved our flags furiously. Then the pace picked up as dozens of men and women in uniform came barreling through. We kept repeating: "Welcome home! We're glad you're back! We appreciate you!" Some soldiers wiped away tears, while others displayed huge, self-conscious smiles. …

After 45 minutes, it was time to catch our flight. We hugged the organizers and thanked the vets who had come to honor this generation of soldiers. As we sank into our seats for the flight, we felt humbled by participating in this sweet moment of coming home. It was impossible not to draw the obvious spiritual parallels. These men and women had taken oaths of faithfulness and service. They had fought courageously, lived with deprivation, danger, and disease, and took unbelievable risks, all for the good of our nation.

But as great as America is, it is a temporary place. No nation lives forever. As believers in Christ, we are all soldiers in the Lord's army. We, too, take oaths of fidelity, sacrifice, and service. Our oaths of allegiance are to a kingdom that shall never end—a country where there is never a mistake in leadership, where justice flows down like a river, where poverty, disease, terror, hunger, and greed hold no power.

Scripture teaches us about the welcome and rewards we will receive when our battle on earth is over. Artists, writers, and theologians have all taken stabs at imagining what those moments of heavenly welcome will look like. … That afternoon … we were visualizing the very moment when we would step into eternity.

As my friend Elizabeth and I looked at each other, the same thought crossed our minds. Through misty eyes, she said, "If I get there first, I'll be on your welcoming committee. I'll be jumping up and down, screaming, 'You made it! I'm so proud of you!'"

I laughed and said, "Oh, you're not going to beat me. I'll be there before you. I'm older. I'll be at the head of the line to greet you!" In that moment, heaven was more real than the smell of the stale coffee in our foam cups.

What I'm really wondering about is this: Will we be surprised at who gets the biggest welcome? I'm not coveting more high-fives, but I am dimly aware of something so profound and holy that I can barely put it into words.

All of us fight unseen battles every day, each believer a secret soldier locked in battle with forces no one else can see. The bravest among us are not necessarily those who fight with guns or tanks. The bravest person you know might be your husband or wife or neighbor or coworker who goes on living one more day when every bone in his or her body says it's no use. …

How much could we lighten the load for another just by telling him how brave we think he is? Oh, to be so merciful with fellow soldiers fighting their personal, hidden wars.

Best of all, how much better when we bring undisclosed struggles into community, where victories can be celebrated together, great losses mourned together, and where whoops of encouragement can provide even the most weary soldier the courage it takes to keep on keeping on, one more day. [Kay Warren, "The Loudest Cheers in Heaven," www.christianitytoday.com (5-28-09)]

In your battles, fighting your daily spiritual wars, remember what you are fighting for. We have an inheritance that is eternally kept for us in heaven. All life is a river flowing inextricably to our eternal destination—that great unfathomable homecoming on the streets of gold. We will inhale the sweet pure air finding it heavenly and hear the cheers, whoops and hollers for our arrival. Then we shall finally whisper the sweetest word that any battle weary soldier has ever longed for in the darkest of nights. A word so precious, so beautiful, we have only dreamt of it with tears and a longing ache. Finally we will whisper it, "Home!"

 Prayer: Our Father, how sweet will that day be to find our feet upon the celestial streets, to hear the cheers, to see our Savior(!), to bow before Your presence, and to know finally, unalterably, we are home. How we long for that day! While we remain give us strength for the battle at hand. Give us endurance. Help us to finish well. We love You! You are home for us and we will not be home until we see You face to face. In Jesus, amen.

A debt you cannot repay...

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Today's Devotional Thought: A Debt You Cannot Repay

Romans 6:10, "The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God."

John Zahl tells of a time he felt indebted by another's generosity. He writes, "A few years ago, a friend and the owner of a local high-end department store gave me a very generous gift certificate. When I went to use the gift certificate he met me at the store, and walked with me as I selected a sports coat, a dress shirt, and a pair of shoes. I made sure to look at each of the price tags (on the sly) so I could overshoot the gift certificate enough and put some cash back into the store's register, thereby showing my gratitude for his generosity.

"When I got to the register, I put my wallet on the counter and got out my credit card, but he placed the gift certificate in front of me and said, "Well, it looks like you've only spent a little more than half of your credit with us." I was shocked. In that moment I realized he had only been charging me half of the ticket price, which meant that I was still in his debt.

"In a few weeks I returned to the store with my wife determined to show my appreciation by overspending the gift card. So this time we approached the counter as a unified front, and with a huge armload of clothing and accessories. I handed our friend the gift certificate, and got my wallet out. He took the gift certificate in hand and started entering the purchases into the register.

"Finally, when the bags were full, he turned to us and said, "You're not going to believe this, but I've rung everything up, and the total comes to exactly zero." We started protesting: "That can't be right. The total should be well above what was left of our store credit."

"Then he said, "I don't think you understand how this gift certificate works. No matter what you throw at it, the total will always read zero." We finally understood his arrangement. In our attempts to buy our way out of the debt, we had completely missed the value of the gift, which this generous man took such pleasure in bestowing upon us." [Adapted from John Zahl, "A Gift (Certificate) That Never Expires," Mockingbird blog (2-23-15)]

Paul tells us that, "Jesus died to sin once for all." In the Jewish system of forgiveness a continual offering for sin had to be made through regular animal sacrifices. In this system the sinner had to pay for their sins by regular sacrifice. You sin, you pay. You sin, you pay. You belly up to the register of God’s forgiveness and you better have your wallet ready.

"Jesus died to sin once for all." The gift God gives us through Jesus--His incalculably costly grace--paid for all our sins: past, present and future. No matter what we bring, or how much we bring, to the register of God's justice, when we show our gift certificate of Christ's sacrifice, the total always equals zero.

John learned two things: first, that he could not repay the generosity of his benefactor. We sometimes think we must earn the generosity of God's forgiveness. We keep a running tally. If our good deeds outweigh the bad, we have earned forgiveness. Not so. A gift paid for is no gift at all. It is only an insult to the Giver. We can never repay forgiveness, only receive it.

Secondly, John learned that by trying to bring enough items to the register he was demanding greater generosity from the giver. That may have shown the giver to be more generous, but it also cost the giver more than was needed. It showed a lack of gratitude (even though John was doing so to show his gratitude). This is Paul's point in the beginning of the chapter, "What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means!" (Romans 6:1). To show our gratitude to the Giver we use the gift as little as possible.

Receive the gift of the one who died to sin once for all. Praise God for His generosity! Thank God for His grace!!

Prayer: Our Father, we are amazed and awed by Your unmerited generosity. We accept your grace as humble, poor in spirit, children. We have nothing to give in return but our gratitude shown by our determination to use the gift as little as possible. Holy Spirit, rise up in us and enable us to live such lives of gratitude. We are forever in your debt Jesus. It's in your name we pray, amen.

The Imposter Syndrome

Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

In 1978, two American psychologists, Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes, observed what they called "the impostor syndrome." They described it as a feeling of "phoniness in people who believe that they are not intelligent, capable, or creative despite evidence of high achievement." While these people "are highly motivated to achieve," they also "live in fear of being 'found out' or exposed as frauds."

If it sounds familiar, you aren't alone. The amazing American author and poet Maya Angelou suffered from the Imposter Syndrome. She shared that, "I have written 11 books, but each time I think, 'Uh oh, they're going to find out now. I've run a game on everybody, and they're going to find me out.'" Despite winning three Grammys and being nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award, this huge talent still questioned her success. Marketing expert Seth Godin, even after publishing a dozen best sellers, confessed in his book The Icarus Deception that he still feels like a fraud. [Carl Richards, "Learning to Deal with the Imposter Syndrome," The New York Times (10-26-15)]

As a Pastor I've discovered, through getting to know people, that there is a spiritual form of the "Imposter Syndrome." I find it in those whose lives are bearing the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) yet are doubting their salvation. Maybe not all the time. Maybe just when they mess up, make a mistake, sin. Instantly they wonder, "If I died right now would I go to heaven?" They get the sense, even after they repent, "If people knew, they'd think I was an imposter, a hypocrite," and they wonder if they just may be. Do you know anyone like this? Do you suffer from the Imposter Syndrome?

It's been my experience that the Imposter Syndrome is often born from an "and" mentality of salvation. We know salvation is a free gift given through Jesus and nothing we do can earn it. Yet, there are moments when we can fail, fall short, and question our salvation. Why?

Because somehow we have made salvation an "and" proposition. It's faith in Jesus...and. This is what Paul is warning against in Galatians 5. There were some teachers who were teaching that it was faith in Christ and circumcision. Paul calls this type of thinking a "yoke of slavery."

He says, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free." The idea that salvation is faith in Christ and my good deeds (or personal righteousness) will always leave us under a yoke and wondering if we're imposters. The freedom we have in Christ is this: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..." (Romams 8:1).

 Prayer: Holy Father, we know we are sinners. We need Your forgiveness. Help us to realize that Your grace is big enough and strong enough to hold us even when we fail. We thank You for the grace You give through Jesus Christ, our Lord, in whom we pray, amen.

Turn to God...

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Today's thought:

Mark 1:35-37, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: "Everyone is looking for you!"

The people are coming to Jesus in droves. He is healing the sick, the diseased, the disfigured. His ministry is in full force. There is more to do than hours in the day. A huge amount of pressure weighs upon him but this is what he has come to do, has left the glories of heaven and the presence of the Father to do. There are miles ahead of him that day. There are hoards of people to deal with that day.

And yet, while it was still dark, he gets up, sneaks away to a solitary place alone, and prays to His Father. This was Jesus pattern. When the heat was on, when the pressure was mounting, when the schedule was insane, when his life was dripping with stress, Jesus priority was time alone with God. He, when he was under the greatest pressures, turned to the Father knowing that God would give strength and peace to achieve all that was on the agenda.

Robert C. McFarlane was a well-known businessman in the Los Angeles area. He moved to California from Oklahoma in 1970, and within just a few days of his arrival—due to a disastrous misunderstanding with a close friend—he had to take control of an insurance agency. He did not want it, but he had to make it succeed in order to save the large amount of money he had invested in it.

By the spring of 1973, he was in the third straight year of constant strain and stress in the operation of the business. He had recently been converted through the ministry of the Rolling Hills Covenant Church in Southern California in answer to the prayers of his wife, Betty, and her many Christian friends.

One day that spring, the continual danger of defeat, the dark hours of effort, the frustration at every turn, and the hardened memories of the cause of his financial difficulties came upon him with special force. As he drove toward his office, he suddenly was filled with a frantic urge to turn left onto the road out of town and just disappear. But into the midst of his inner turmoil there came a command: "Pull over to the curb."

As he relates it, it was as if the words were written on the windshield. After he pulled over, there came to him, as though from someone with him in the car, these words: "My Son had strains that you will never know, and when he had those strains, he turned to me, and that's what you should do."

After hearing these words, Robert sat at the wheel for a long time, sobbing aloud. He then drove on to his Long Beach office, where he faced 22 major, outstanding problems. All the most significant problems—whether they concerned company disagreements, clients deciding to remain with his agency, payments by clients of late premiums, or whatever—were substantially resolved by that day's end. [Dallas Willard, Hearing God (InterVarsity Press, 1999); used with permission] It's amazing what God can achieve in our lives if we just turn to Him.

Don't miss time alone with God today. Get up early. Go to bed late. Find the time. Jesus' priority is our mandate. What Jesus needed, is for us, a necessity. Don't make God command you to turn your car over to the side of the road. Don't let it get to that. Turn to Him now and often.

Prayer: Father, we need You. Every hour we need You. Be our strength and peace. Grant us victory today over the enemy and the allure of this world. Let our words be a balm for the hurting, encouragement to the discouraged, a beacon that leads to You. Let our minds be the fertile ground for the seeds of Your word. Let us see Your glory. And let us give You glory. In Jesus name, amen.

Will the circle be unbroken?

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“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8).

New Tribes Mission reports on the way one group of Bible translators came to communicate the fullness of God's love to an African tribal community:

“The verbs for a particular African language consistently end with one of three vowels,” explains Dennis Farthing from the NTM Missionary Training Center. “Almost every verb ends in i, a, or u. But the word for 'love' was only found with i and a. Why no u?”

Dennis says the Bible translation team included the most influential leaders in the local community. In an effort to truly understand the concept of “love” in this African language, the missionary began to question them.

“Could you dvi your wife?”

“Yes,” they answered, “that would mean that the wife had been loved, but the love was gone.”

“Could you dva your wife?”

“Yes,” they responded, “that kind of love depends on the wife’s actions. She would be loved as long as she remained faithful and took good care of her husband.”

“Could you dvu your wife?”

Everyone in the room laughed.

“Of course not!” they replied. “If you said that, you would have to keep loving your wife no matter what she did, even if she never got you water and never made you meals. Even if she committed adultery, you would have to just keep on loving her. No, we would never say dvu. It just doesn’t exist.”

The missionary sat quietly for a while, thinking about John 3:16, and then he asked, “Could God dvu people?”

There was complete silence for three or four minutes; then tears started to trickle down the weathered faces of the elderly men of the tribe. Finally they responded, “Do you know what this would mean? This would mean that God kept loving us over and over, while all that time we rejected His great love. He would be compelled to love us, even though we have sinned more than any people.”

The missionary noted that changing one simple vowel changed the meaning from “I love you based on what you do and who you are,” to “I love you, based on who I am. I love you because of me and not because of you.”

Dennis concludes, “God encoded the story of His unconditional love right into this African language. For centuries, the little word was there—unused but available, grammatically correct and quite understandable.” ["THE QUESTION THAT MADE THEM LAUGH” by Cathy Drobnick, published by New Tribes Mission on usa.ntm.org, January 3, 2013]

Have you embraced the fact that God dvu's you? John tells us, “God is love” (1 John 4:8). Love is part of the nature of God. When we say, “I love you,” what we mean is I feel an attraction or affection towards you because of some quality, action or ability you possess. Our love must be, to some degree, based on the object we love. The reason(s) why we love is outside ourselves.

When God says, “I love you,” His reasons for loving you are not in you but in Him. God’s love for us is an act of His will. He is choosing to be committed to you not based on who you are, your goodness, your past or anything you can do for Him. This is because God’s love is perfect within Himself. Being a triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) God’s love is complete within himself lacking nothing. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves the Spirit, the Spirit loves the Father, etc..., a never ending circle of love. Both the agent of love and the object of love is complete within Himself. Our love is incomplete because the object of our love is outside ourselves. Our love is always based upon the other person being loved.

This idea that God can love us not based upon who we are or what we do is absolutely foreign and alien to us. So many seek to earn God’s love, be worthy of His love. We feel God loves us when we are good and God does not love us when we mess up or fail to meet His standards. This misunderstands the very nature of God.

This idea becomes further incredible when you realize that God’s love let’s us into the circle of His love. When we love God back we are completing the circle, stepping into the circle of love that the Father has for the Son and the Son the Spirit and the Spirit the Father. Then we too can have “God-love” for others. We can love others because we love God and because God is love. We can love others not based on who they are or even what they do to us or for us. We can love them simply because we love God and He first loved us (1 John 4:19, “We love because He first loved us.”).

There is nothing quite like the love God has for you. Will you love Him back today? Will you complete the circle? Will the circle be unbroken? Then, when you love others because you love God, you step into the very nature of God and become, in a very real sense, the picture of God’s love for others who don’t know Him. Then they will see, not only that God is, but that God is love for them.

Prayer: Father God, we bask today in the glow of Your love for us. Thank you that it is a love based not on who we are, or our accomplishments, but based on who You are and Your accomplishment of salvation given through Your son Jesus. Help us to complete Your circle of love that we may love others as You do that they may believe that you are and that you love them. In Jesus name, amen.