Instead of letting our thoughts take us captive…
For the weapons of our
warfare are not of the flesh
but have divine power to
destroy strongholds. We
destroy arguments and every
lofty opinion raised against
the knowledge of God, and
take every thought captive to
obey Christ.
2 Cor. 10-4-5
“Now the Lord is the Spirit,
and where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is freedom.”
2 Corinthians 3:17
God, in His grace and mercy, put in the hearts of men and women to establish a nation that would be free to worship Him without outside influence.
Free to believe in the one, true God, free to follow Him, free to call on Him, free to have and read His Word, free to gather together in His name, free to obey Him rather than our sinful nature, and free to tell the world the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It would seem we’re at a crossroads in our country right now. Sin abounds because the Spirit doesn’t.
But there is hope.
There is anger and violence in the streets.
But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Bitterness and unforgiveness grows.
But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Sin and lawlessness spread.
But where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
The world doesn’t need more fun programs, or coffee shops, or topical, feel-good messages, or a weakened, compromised, watered-down version of the Word of God so no one’s offended.
It needs the power of the Spirit of the Lord, and by Him to know Christ and the freedoms He gives.
It needs us to put away the old self and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
It needs us to stop being influenced by the world so we can influence it for Christ.
It needs us to walk in newness of life, a life of obedience to Christ, so we don’t grieve the Holy Spirit, and instead be filled with Him.
And by the power of the Spirit of the Lord in us it needs to hear that Christ loves them so much that He died for them to forgive them of their sins, to restore their relationship to God, to give them a new heart and a new mind, and to fill their hearts with love and peace and forgiveness.
It needs to hear that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Romans 10:13
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?” Romans 10:15
God gave us a land with freedoms to give the chance for every heart to be free. But so many hearts are painfully held captive to sin, and the enemy is having a field day.
I believe God is calling His children, for whatever time we have left, to boldly speak His name, and in His Spirit, free as many of those captive souls as possible, so they, too, can be filled with the Spirit and true freedom.
And we are here now for such a time as this.
“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:14-15
Oh Father, forgive us for allowing the comforts of the world make us complacent. Please forgive us for any sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Fill us with your Spirit and give us a heart of love for the lost and a vision of how you would have each of us reach the world around us. Whatever you have us do, may we be careful to continue to do it in the strength of your Spirit and not in our own. Thank you for this unique nation you’ve given us, where we’ve been afforded so many freedoms, freedoms we have largely taken for granted. And thank for the freedoms you’ve given us in Christ, to love you, to serve you, to carry out the good works you’ve prepared for us to do, and to know that someday we’ll live with you forever. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.
A lot of Christians have given up on church. Many have been hurt by the church; many feel like it’s a waste of time, that they’re not learning anything anyway; and many believe their faith is strictly between them and God so they don’t need church.
I get it. I get all of those.
And I’ve read a lot of reasons why we should go to church.
But I want to tell you why we must go. Why we need to go.
When I read in Isaiah 53 that the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior of the world, Jesus, is “despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” I understand. Granted, to a far lesser degree, but I understand living a life like that. I fully understand living a life of rejection and sorrow, and I understand grief being a very close acquaintance.
By the time I came to know Jesus as my Savior when I was 26, I had already lived a lifetime, a very long and painful one. I knew Grief better than anything else, including love.
And for the next 14 years after I was saved and going to church, I knew God loved me, but God knew much of that was head knowledge. He knew Grief was still a closer acquaintance. And, oddly enough, He was about to increase the pain.
And yes, I know that doesn’t sound very appealing, but His plan was something far greater than I could have anticipated.
So for the next 15 years, through sickness and so many things that can come with it, I became even more acquainted with Grief, yet, at the same time more acquainted with the God of love in that grief.
Because that description of the Savior in Isaiah is not of a God in the heavens, far-removed or oblivious to our human suffering. He is not a God who is unfeeling or detached. In fact, the letter to the Hebrews tells us that “we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15)
This is a God-Man who understands my pain.
He is a God who is “near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)
That word contrite means “crushed (literally powder, or figuratively contrite): – contrite, destruction.” And the root word of contrite is daka which means “to crumble; to bruise, to beat to pieces, break in pieces, destroy, humble, oppress, smite.”
Brokenhearted. Reduced to powder. Crumbled, bruised, beaten to pieces. Yeah, I understand that. Maybe you do, too. But in my brokenness God was closer to me than I could have imagined. He was faithful to not only keep my faith in tact, but to grow it.
Still, during this 15 year period, being attacked from within and without, with no understandable cause or reason, led me to desperately need to feel God’s love. I needed it to move that impossibly long distance from my head to my heart. I needed it to become my beloved companion in place of the old acquaintance.
Since salvation I’d settled for the belief that love was as close to me as it would ever get, and knowing Christ as my Savior, it was indeed closer than it ever was before. I had been content with the head knowledge, but the increased pain and suffering meant the head knowledge wasn’t enough anymore. I needed to feel God’s love.
So I began to pray just that – that God would let me feel His love. It wasn’t just a desire or a hope, but a need. I needed His love to survive. I needed Love to knock grief to the ground and live with me as my constant, Beloved Companion.
I prayed and prayed that prayer over the course of several months.
And gradually God began to lay on my heart “…if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36) More and more those words filled my mind, and honestly, I didn’t connect them with my prayer at all. I believed God was going to do something, but I thought maybe it had to do with a family member or a friend.
During this same time I started going to a women’s Bible study at our church. I hadn’t been to one in years and I was excited to connect with women over the study of God’s Word again.
After every Bible study I’d drive home and catch myself smiling and full of joy. These women were so kind, so loving and accepting, and they had no idea they were being used by God to answer my prayers. They just loved Jesus and because of that, they loved me.
And then one day, as I stood there talking and waiting for the study to start, two of the women walked in with bunch of flowers for my birthday, and the group sang Happy Birthday. That was the day grief (and his buddies rejection and sorrow) took a backseat to Love.
God did a miraculous work of forgiveness in my heart, and suddenly the past was in the past. Both my mind and my heart were renewed, and I felt like a new, new creation.
Jesus used those precious women to show me how much He loved me, and bring to life in my heart those words “…if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” And so I was.
That is why the letter to the Hebrews goes on to exhort all of us “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)
God has built into us a need to gather together with other believers to meet spiritual needs. That’s the way He’s chosen to operate in and through our lives. But when we don’t fulfill that need in the highest, God-given way, we find a million other counterfeit ways of trying to fill that need to meet together as friends, even as friends close enough to consider themselves family – social media, causes, clubs, bars, stadiums, gangs. But they will always leave us unsatisfied and unfulfilled.
We need each other. But we need to feed our souls and our faith, not just our flesh. We need a setting with other Jesus-loving, Spirit-filled believers, our family in the faith, to love us (and us, them), to encourage one another in our daily walks with Christ, to keep us focused and moving into an even deeper walk with Him, the Savior of our souls, the one who understands our pain, and is there again and again to rescue us, to heal us, even more than we can imagine. And with our ever-renewing hearts, glorify Him with the good works He’s prepared for us to do. And the darker it gets out there, the more we need it.
Now, does that mean my life is perfect? No. Grief doesn’t like to be knocked down, and when it’s found a comfy place to live for a long time it doesn’t give up that place easily (and satan doesn’t like it a whole lot either).
It tries to get up, again and again, and that’s why I need to keep going back, to be surrounded by my brothers and sisters in Christ, and encourage one another in love so we can then take that love on the road with good deeds, like my Jesus-loving friends did. Their love and good deeds in Christ changed a life, glorifying Him, and that’s what this life is all about.
And yes, I know it’s not always easy to find a Spirit-filled, Bible-believing/teaching church. Political correctness and a desire to be liked, among other things, don’t stop at the front door of every church.
Just pray. God knows your heart and He will answer your prayers for a body of believers who worship in Spirit and in Truth, a body that will accept you in the love of Christ.
Don’t give up. We need you.
* * *
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for the body of Christ, the family you’ve given us where your love and joy can come alive, where we can join hearts and worship you in spirit and in truth. I pray for each person reading this. For those who need a good spiritual home, I pray you would lead them to one. I pray you would remove any fears, grant forgiveness for past pains, and help them to step out in faith. For those who have one, I pray you would use them in the church homes you’ve placed them to show your love in tangible, Christ-honoring ways. For churches who may be a little stuffy and not used to acts of love, oh Lord, may you fill them with your Spirit, and lead them to a better way, where giving and receiving your love is as common as breathing. May you bring revival in the Body, and throughout the world. In Jesus’ holy and precious name I pray, amen.
My dad felt like he was living on borrowed time. His dad and his oldest brother died in their early 50s, so every day he made it past that I think he felt was a gift.
The reality is we’re all living on borrowed time. Gifted time. Each day we have to love, to give, to learn, to grow, to prepare, is a gift given to us by God.
So what are we doing with our gift? Shoving it in a corner? Kicking it around?
Or embracing it, valuing it, and using to its greatest potential?
I recently watched an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. The one where Marie takes them all on a trip to Italy. Everybody is soaking in the beauty and joy of the experience, except Ray. He doesn’t get it and he complains throughout the entire trip, until near the very end.
He stopped complaining and started looking around. He noticed the beauty of the landscape, the culture, the people, and his perspective changed.
He fell in love with everybody and everything, hopped on a bike and did his level best to soak up and spread as much beauty and joy as he could before it was time to go.
And I thought about how sometimes that is our life, especially when our outlook has been skewed by pain and suffering. Our perspective is dirtied from the trials and we can go through life not getting it. I think far too many people do that, even Christians, and that’s a tragedy.
We who have been changed, who have been given new life and made into a new creation have the opportunity to have a new perspective. Sometimes it takes some time, and always some forgiveness, for our hearts and perspectives to be cleansed and made whole so we can fully see the beauty that’s all around us.
But every day we wake up we can ask God to purify our hearts, give us His perspective and start living our lives in Him now so we don’t wait until the end of our trip to get it. To start soaking up and spreading the beauty, love, and joy that God surrounds us with every day.
Sometimes I think of myself in my last days, and wonder what I’ll think of. What will I wish I had done? Who do I wish I’d been? If I keep living the way I am, will I be happy that I lived that way? Is there anything I wish I’d done differently? What do I hope people thought of me and say about me? Will I have made an impact for good?
Will I have carried out God’s plan for my life? Will I have lived in service to Him, carrying out the greatest command to love Him with all my heart and with all my soul and with all my mind and with all my strength? And will I have loved my neighbor as myself?
None of us is promised tomorrow. But we do have today.
And every day we have a choice.
The world is more than happy to sweep us up with it in its hurried, materialistic, unforgiving, angry, joyless way. That way is easy. Just stand there and it will take you with it.
Or, we can choose to take the narrow road – the one Christ walks. Few take it because He’s on it and instead of doing our thing, being our own god, we must follow Him, and to some that seems restrictive.
And in a way it is, cause here’s the kicker: Jesus said to walk that road we must carry a cross. He said each person must
“deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it,
but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
And He goes on to elaborate:
“What good will it be for someone to
gain the whole world,
yet forfeit their soul?”
Why do we have to deny ourselves? Because in our flesh dwells no good thing. Only in dying to our flesh and letting Christ live His life through us is there true life and freedom.
That narrow road of cross-carrying and self-denying opens to freedom from sin and its regrets, from shame and guilt, to fullness of joy and love and purpose.
That narrow road is where life is.
And we never walk it alone. The resurrection power of the Holy Spirit is with us, upon us, and dwells within us to forgive, cleanse, and lead us on in our walk, no matter where it goes. And ultimately, of course, it leads to eternity, where we won’t be judged for our sins (as long as we’ve believed in Christ as Lord), but we will be rewarded according to what we have done.
“Be very careful, then, how you live – not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”
Ephesians 5:15-16
“I’m telling you it goes by fast. If you don’t give it your all you’re going to regret it.”
~Kobe Bryant
If you want to know how to get on that road of following Christ, or have any questions, please feel free to leave me a comment or email me by clicking on the post card to the right. 
You get on a plane bound for Paris. Your future spouse is waiting, along with your wedding party, your officiant, and all your guests. You fly for what feels like forever and finally land, only to find out you’re in Belgium instead.
Now, Belgium is nice, but it’s not Paris, and it’s not what you planned. The pilot profusely apologizes when he realizes he’d set his course one degree off. One degree? How could one degree cause such a mess?
God told Adam “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Genesis 2:16-17
Enter the serpent. The master of “It’s only one degree…”
He says to Eve,“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?'” Genesis 3:1
Already he’s begun planting doubt and confusion in her mind. “Wait, did God say that…?” And she replies,“We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden(so far so good), and you must not touch it, or you will die.”
Uh oh. One degree off.
The serpent retorts,“You will not certainly die. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Funny how satan always makes it seem like we’re missing out on something when in reality he is enslaving us.
Of course we know the rest of the story. Eve goes one degree off by adding something God did not say (“you must not touch it”) and she’s suddenly off course. Then, as she’s off the path God plotted for her, her pride takes her another degree by doubting God’s motive, and then another by coveting, and she walks over to the tree, plucks the juicy fruit, and takes a bite.
She hands it to her husband, he shrugs his shoulders (conveniently forgetting what God had told him), and he takes a bite, too.
And suddenly sin enters the world. And the story continues to this very day, and the world is a million miles off from what God desired.
Yes, we have Christ and the cross, and anyone who puts their faith in Him is forgiven of all their sin. Jesus Christ has defeated the enemy and through Him we have victory over sin and death.
Still, the battle is not over. The war of degrees continues, and we are warned “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8
Jesus may have won our souls, but satan’s looking to swallow our lives, our service to the Lord, and our witness to the world. And he does it one degree at a time.
“Did God really say…not to eat that, not to drink that, not to watch that, not to read that, not to smoke that, not to go there, not to do that? Everybody else is doing it. Your friend is doing it and see what a great person he is? Your Christian friend posted it and it sounds inspirational. Yeah, that’s not what the Bible says, but it’s the 21st century. Your pastor is reading it. It’s a Christian book, right? So what about the parts that aren’t exactly scriptural. It doesn’t matter.”
One degree. And then another, and another.
Just a meme. Just a book. Just a movie. Just a piece of fruit.
Discernment gets walked out of the cabin and relegated to the backseat. We base beliefs on who is saying it, rather than on what is said. On its popularity, rather than God’s Word. On our political affiliation, rather than our position in Jesus Christ.
We adopt beliefs because they sound good, and though they may be part truth, they may also be part untruth – just one degree off – and we adopt the belief, mixing it with some truth, and then other untruths we are bombarded with from the world are built on that, decisions are made based on those unscriptural beliefs, and soon we look back and around, and we’re lost. We’re far from God, and the lion is crouching in the bushes, stealing God’s plans and replacing them with needless pain and suffering.
Maybe the question we all need to ask ourselves is – who is my pilot? Me or God? My feelings or God? The world or God?
He will never lead us off course. Yet when we find ourselves off the path, with Him, through Christ, there is an abundance of mercy and forgiveness. We are always one prayer of repentance away from being whisked back to God’s side, walking with the Spirit again.
There may be consequences of our sin, though, which is why God lovingly warns us to always be alert and of sober mind. Let us “resist {the devil}, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” 1 Peter 5:9
We’re all in the same boat, or plane, in keeping with my original analogy. We need each other’s prayers and encouragement and strength as we walk this walk, and we can only do that as long as we’re walking next to our Lord, and not off eating fruit that’s bad for us.
God’s given us an entire garden of life-giving fruit. Let us revel in His provision, stay on course, walk with Him and do His will, and remember that one day we will see “Paris” – the great place of the marriage of the Lamb and His Bride.
“Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad
and give Him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and His bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean,
was given her to wear.
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God’s holy people.)”
Revelation 19:6-8