You gotta be kidding me

You gotta be kidding me.

If we want our God to answer our prayers, to take us seriously, then we need to change the way we pray, and the way we approach Him.  Christians today seem to want God to be the problem solver, the gift giving Father who showers His children with great riches.  We want our God to be our friend who sympathizes with us, holding our hand while we tiptoe through life avoiding all of the bad things.  Maybe we could make a change, altering the way we look at our God, changing the place in which we put our God and moving Him higher and higher in the way we praise our God. 

“We need to improve the quality of our Christianity, and we never will until we raise our concept of God back to that held by apostle, sage, prophet, saint and reformer. When we put God back where He belongs, we will instinctively and automatically move up again; the whole spiral of our religious direction will be upward.”  A.W. Tozer, The Attributes of God

In his last chapter of the Book of Psalms, King David sums it up this way.  “Praise the Lord!

Praise God in His sanctuary; Praise Him in His mighty firmament!  Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness!  Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet;

Praise Him with the lute and harp!  Praise Him with the timbrel and dance; Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes! Praise Him with loud cymbals; Praise Him with clashing cymbals!  Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.  Praise the Lord!

I think one point made by the King in his psalms was that there is no one worthy of our praise other than our God.  He repeats this over and over, and the fact that his entire book of psalms included this message is a testament to just where are hearts and our praise need to be focused.  There is no doubt that he maintained this day in and day out.  Now, I know what you are thinking.  How could we ever get anything done when all our energy is focused on praising our God.  The Apostle Paul offers this advice.  “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 10:31(NKJV).  This is how we give Him praise regardless of the time of day, regardless of the task at hand. 

Tozer puts it this way, when describing some of the approaches taken by the church.  He points out all of the “prosperity preachers” we have today, telling us that we can have better things if we make a change.  “If you want to pray strategically, in a way which would please God, pray that God might raise up men who would see the beauty of the Lord our God and would begin to preach it and hold it out to people, instead of offering peace of mind, deliverance from cigarettes, a better job and nicer cottage....” A.W. Tozer, The Attributes of God

We must remember to “pray strategically, in a way which would please God.”  We must remember  that God is worthy of all this and more.  Our God gives us the breath we breathe, the food we eat and the rest we need to make it another day.  What more do we need? 

The last answer you want to hear from God is “you gotta be kidding me.” 

Praise Him!!!

“in the world, not of the world”

Dusting Off our Bibles

Dusting off our Bibles

It’s Sunday morning, time to go to church, and we need to find our Bible.  Where did we leave that book?  This is not a good thing, that we are not keeping our Bibles well read, worn out around the bindings with pages fraying.  It may be time to dust off our Bibles, and our brains so that we can read and believe what God intends for this life of ours.  It’s actually not fiction, not romance, not sci-fi or some other genre of book.  It’s God’s own instructions on how to live a life that will never end. 

His story begins with a heavenly place where we commune regularly with our God.  He rewards us with this thing called “free will” so that it can be our decision to worship and follow Him.  This seems easy enough until we are tempted to have just as much knowledge that He has, so we eat the apple.  Sin comes to the world and the rest is history, or His Story.  He begins to show us His grace and mercy through the use of some of the least expected individuals, the prophets chosen to deliver His Word, and His people from slavery.  These individuals were not the kings and rulers, not the prominent citizens, not even the most believable of the clan, but He used them to get our attention.  But we still wanted things our way.  We still wanted to take what was rightfully ours, to use up what was rightfully ours, and to rule in a way that guaranteed our success.  And so we wandered around for 40 years or so. 

If we pay close attention to the story, we can see that what we are doing now, where we are headed and what the future may hold, was not what God intended.  We see a very dry place, a very sandy, windy, hot and dusty land ahead of us.  This is not a good thing, and in order to make the change, we need to dust off our Bibles.  We need to start taking the Word of God as the Word of God, and not the work of fiction or sci-fi we like to make it at times.  We should be reading God’s instruction manual for our lives and applying it daily, not just on Sunday, and not just when we feel we have the time. 

Around 2000 years ago, God sent His Son to us, to save us and to tell us that we were heading in the wrong direction.  We questioned, we argued and we debated His truth, His identity and His directions, even when He told us who He was and why we should believe Him.  “And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” John 12:47(NKJV)  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, walked this earth for a brief time in history.  He knew just why He was sent here.  He understood the reason for His existence and He tried desperately to get us to see things God’s way, and not our way. 

But just like Adam and Eve in the garden, we ignore the warnings and we do things our way.  We just go about our business, never noticing that we may be headed to that very hot, dry place, and that we may be there for a very long time.  It’s time to dust off the Bible.  It’s time to allow God’s teachings to become who we are, and not just some work of fiction to be enjoyed on a lazy summer afternoon. 

“in the world, not of the world”

Crawling out of the Cave

Crawling out of the Cave

Do you ever stop to think about just why God placed you here on this earth?  I have tried several times, making changes and doing new things, trying to get closer to what God wants from me, and possibly what He wants from us all.  There is one thing that I think we can all agree on.  We were all made to Worship Him.  We all have this innate desire to pay homage, to worship our God, thanking Him continuously for all that He does for us during our meager attempts to please Him.  One of my favorite Christian authors had this to say on the subject of giving God our praise. 

“Man alone sulks in his cave. Man alone, with all of his brilliant intelligence, with all of his amazing, indescribable and wonderful equipment, still sulks in his cave. He is either silent, or if he opens his mouth at all, it is to boast and threaten and curse; or it's nervous ill-considered laughter, or it's humor become big business, or it's songs without joy.”  A.W. Tozer, Worship: The Missing Jewel.

Even after all of the wonderful things our God has blessed us with, we want to simply withdraw from Him.  We want to take all of the credit for our achievements, our inventions, our knowledge and wisdom, giving no credit to the One who is responsible for our next breath.  I think it’s time we get back to the basics of living and breathing, and thanking our God for those simple truths.  “The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.” Psalm 14:2-3(NKJV)  It may be time to change our ways, to stop being so “corrupt” and pay attention to the One who deserves it. We need to come out of our cave.

When we offer up our lives to our God, giving Him all of the praise and glory for giving us our  next breath, we are getting back to the basics.  I can give many a testimony to the fact that we are not in charge.  I can vouch for a God that is in control of every aspect of my life, granting me the ability to live and breathe when I was not able to do this on my own. 

God, our loving and caring Holy Father, grants us the ability to make our own decisions, based on the gift of free will.  Yet we choose to “sulk in a cave,” focused on our own miserable existence, as opposed to keeping our eyes on Him.  We will often go the route of the cave man, being silent, or worse yet, bragging about our accomplishments and our abilities without giving God any credit at all. 

This is not the life God wants for us, after all, He has provided us with a world outside of the cave. 

“in the world, not of the world”

Finishing Strong

Finishing Strong

I can remember the days of training for that incredible feat of running 26.2 miles for no reason other than to prove I could.  Those days have not completely disappeared from my mind, and I will do another race soon.  But it’s my approach that has changed a bit.  It’s my goal of finishing strong that has been altered just a tad in order to allow for my step up in age groups.  I still have the dreams of finishing more towards the front of the pack, instead of bringing up the rear, but I realize a few changes will need to be made in order to finish strong.  Life can be this way as well.  It can seem, at times, like the long solo training run where you have no one to talk to, no one to encourage you.  Then there are other times where you find yourself running with thousands, getting more encouragement than you need, becoming distracted by the revelry and swept away in the pace of the crowd. 

The Apostle Paul addresses this issue when it comes to how to run a good race in life.  Paul describes how we all should be striving to finish strong because we know what our “imperishable crown” will look like.  “Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it.  And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown.  Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.  But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-27(NKJV)

The most interesting word in this passage is used to describe just how we should be in “temperate” in all things.  When I searched my thesaurus for words that could be substituted, a came across things like “calm” or “self-controlled.”  This is good advice when running a marathon.  The last thing you want to do is to attempt to sprint to the finish, or to fling your arms wildly at any time during the race. You want to be calm and controlled regarding every movement, every aspect of your gait.  This is the way God wants us to be in our race for the crown of Heaven.  Nothing compares to the “official at the pearly gates” congratulating us on a race well run, and directing us to the never ending buffet of grace and mercy. 

Running a good race includes finding the right pace, the right amount of fluids, the right shoes, and the right clothing to wear.  I could go on and on about the things one needs to run a good race.  Our lives can have the same needs, having the right attitude, the right approach to others and the right behavior to get us there. But the most important thing to remember is that we should be “temperate.”  This means we should have patience with others, we should be calm and controlled because we know we are going to finish strong.  We should feel as if we have won the race, even when we are at the back of the pack.  We should be proud to wear His medal around our neck because we can taste the buffet at the end, full of His love, His grace, His forgiveness and His mercy. 

“in the world, not of the world”

Cleaning up our Act

Cleaning up our Act

We all know that we do things, say things and create things we have no business even thinking about.  At times, we allow these impure and evil thoughts to show in our actions.  When this happens, we need to think about “cleaning up our act.”  I can find myself trying to clean things up that have happened in my past.  Trying to wipe up something after it has been spilled, if you know what I mean.  I realize that I needed to be much more careful, more mindful of things said or done, in order to avoid the sadness and misery that followed.  It would make more sense to simply avoid the heartache by changing the way I approach things, or “cleaning up my act.” 

God has a few cleaning solutions that we can apply regularly in order to avoid the stinky mess of our mistakes.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”   Ephesians 5:1-2(NASB) The Apostle Paul was preaching to the church in Ephesus about their actions, or lack of, when dealing with their salvation.  He was encouraging them to clean up their act.  He even goes as far as telling them how it may help the smell.

“But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know with certainty, that no immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” Ephesians 5:3-5(NASB)

It’s easy to think we do not act in a manner that would be offensive, or that would cause someone to misjudge.  But it is God who ultimately does the judging, not our fellow man.  We need to act in a manner that is pleasing to God, and not to our boss, not our circle of friends and not our neighbors.  We need to make sure we are acting in a fashion that is acceptable to our God, every day, all day.  We need to be mindful of our speech, our actions and our thoughts 24/7. 

When we read God’s Word, His instructions on how we should “clean up our act,” we may want to make sure we are using His cleaning solution to do the scrubbing. 

“in the world, not of the world”