Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Nonstop travels
When you travel you will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Counterfeit Gods
Idolatry
Taking some "incomplete joy of this world" and building your entire life on it
In Ezekiel 14:3, God says about elders of Israel, "These men have set up their idols in their hearts." God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and then turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the centre of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfilment, if we attain them.
The very things upon which these people were building all their happiness turned to dust in their hands because they had built all their happiness upon them. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.
We can locate idols by looking at our most unyielding emotions. What makes us uncontrollably angry, anxious, or despondent? What racks us with a guilt we can't shake? Idols control us, since we feel we must have them or life is meaningless.
Abraham
When Abraham listened to God and brought Isaac up to the mountain, he was not just exercising "blind faith." He was not saying, "This is crazy, this is murder, but I'm going to do it anyway." Instead he was saying, "I know God is both holy and gracious. I don't know how he is going to be both -- but I know he will."
In Psalm 130:4, we see that "the fear of God" is increased by an experience of God's grace and forgiveness. What it describes is a loving, joyful awe and wonder before the greatness of God. The Lord is saying, "Now I know that you love me more than anything in the world." That's what "the fear of God" means. This doesn't mean that God was trying to find out if Abraham loved him. The All-seeing God knows the state of every heart. Rather, God was putting Abraham through the furnace, so his love for God could finally "come forth as pure gold."
Abraham's agonising walk into the mountains was therefore the final stage of a long journey in which God was turning him from an average man into one of the greatest figures in history.
Like Abraham, you could take a walk up into the mountains. You could say, "I see that you may be calling me to live my life without something I never thought I could live without. But if I have you, I have the only wealth, health, love, honour, and security I really need and cannot lose." As many have learned and later taught, you don't realise Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.
Like Abraham, Jesus struggled mightily with God's call. In the garden of Gethsemane, he asked the Father if there was any other way, but in the end, he obediently walked up Mount Calvary to the cross. We can't know all the reasons that our Father is allowing bad things to happen to us, but like Jesus did, we can trust him in those difficult times. As we look at him and rejoice in what he did for us, we will have the joy and hope necessary - and the freedom from counterfeit gods - to follow the call of God when times seem at their darkest and most difficult.
Replacing idols
In Paul's letter to the Colossians he exhorted them to "put to death" the evil desires of the heart, including "greed, which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:5). But how? Paul lead out the way in the preceding verses: Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, se your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind 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. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthy nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Colossians 3:1-5
Replacing idols entails joyful worship, a sense of God's reality in prayer. Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol. That is what will replace your counterfeit gods. If you uproot the idol and fail to "plant" the love of Christ in it's place, the idol will grow back.
Rejoicing and repentance must go together. Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair. Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change. Indeed, it is when we rejoice over Jesus's sacrificial love for us most full that, paradoxically, we are most truly convicted of our sins.
Paul directed that we should "rejoice in the Lord always" (Philippians 4:4), but this cannot mean "always feel happy," since no one can command someone to always have a particular emotion. To rejoice is to treasure a thing, to assess its value to you, to reflect on its beauty and importance until your heart rests in it and tastes the sweetness of it. "Rejoicing" is a way of praising God until the heart is sweetened and rested, and until it relaxes its grip on anything else it thinks it needs.
The great pastor and hymn-writer John Newton once wrote about this struggle: If I may speak my own experience, I find that to keep my eye simply on Christ, as my peace and my life, is by far the hardest part of my calling... It is easier to deny self in a thousand instances of outward conduct, than in its ceaseless endeavours to act as a principle of righteousness and power.
Taking some "incomplete joy of this world" and building your entire life on it
In Ezekiel 14:3, God says about elders of Israel, "These men have set up their idols in their hearts." God was saying that the human heart takes good things like a successful career, love, material possessions, even family, and then turns them into ultimate things. Our hearts deify them as the centre of our lives, because, we think, they can give us significance and security, safety and fulfilment, if we attain them.
The very things upon which these people were building all their happiness turned to dust in their hands because they had built all their happiness upon them. The greater the good, the more likely we are to expect that it can satisfy our deepest needs and hopes. Anything can serve as a counterfeit god, especially the very best things in life.
We can locate idols by looking at our most unyielding emotions. What makes us uncontrollably angry, anxious, or despondent? What racks us with a guilt we can't shake? Idols control us, since we feel we must have them or life is meaningless.
Abraham
When Abraham listened to God and brought Isaac up to the mountain, he was not just exercising "blind faith." He was not saying, "This is crazy, this is murder, but I'm going to do it anyway." Instead he was saying, "I know God is both holy and gracious. I don't know how he is going to be both -- but I know he will."
In Psalm 130:4, we see that "the fear of God" is increased by an experience of God's grace and forgiveness. What it describes is a loving, joyful awe and wonder before the greatness of God. The Lord is saying, "Now I know that you love me more than anything in the world." That's what "the fear of God" means. This doesn't mean that God was trying to find out if Abraham loved him. The All-seeing God knows the state of every heart. Rather, God was putting Abraham through the furnace, so his love for God could finally "come forth as pure gold."
Abraham's agonising walk into the mountains was therefore the final stage of a long journey in which God was turning him from an average man into one of the greatest figures in history.
Like Abraham, you could take a walk up into the mountains. You could say, "I see that you may be calling me to live my life without something I never thought I could live without. But if I have you, I have the only wealth, health, love, honour, and security I really need and cannot lose." As many have learned and later taught, you don't realise Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you have.
Like Abraham, Jesus struggled mightily with God's call. In the garden of Gethsemane, he asked the Father if there was any other way, but in the end, he obediently walked up Mount Calvary to the cross. We can't know all the reasons that our Father is allowing bad things to happen to us, but like Jesus did, we can trust him in those difficult times. As we look at him and rejoice in what he did for us, we will have the joy and hope necessary - and the freedom from counterfeit gods - to follow the call of God when times seem at their darkest and most difficult.
Replacing idols
In Paul's letter to the Colossians he exhorted them to "put to death" the evil desires of the heart, including "greed, which is idolatry" (Colossians 3:5). But how? Paul lead out the way in the preceding verses: Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, se your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind 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. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthy nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Colossians 3:1-5
Replacing idols entails joyful worship, a sense of God's reality in prayer. Jesus must become more beautiful to your imagination, more attractive to your heart, than your idol. That is what will replace your counterfeit gods. If you uproot the idol and fail to "plant" the love of Christ in it's place, the idol will grow back.
Rejoicing and repentance must go together. Repentance without rejoicing will lead to despair. Rejoicing without repentance is shallow and will only provide passing inspiration instead of deep change. Indeed, it is when we rejoice over Jesus's sacrificial love for us most full that, paradoxically, we are most truly convicted of our sins.
Paul directed that we should "rejoice in the Lord always" (Philippians 4:4), but this cannot mean "always feel happy," since no one can command someone to always have a particular emotion. To rejoice is to treasure a thing, to assess its value to you, to reflect on its beauty and importance until your heart rests in it and tastes the sweetness of it. "Rejoicing" is a way of praising God until the heart is sweetened and rested, and until it relaxes its grip on anything else it thinks it needs.
The great pastor and hymn-writer John Newton once wrote about this struggle: If I may speak my own experience, I find that to keep my eye simply on Christ, as my peace and my life, is by far the hardest part of my calling... It is easier to deny self in a thousand instances of outward conduct, than in its ceaseless endeavours to act as a principle of righteousness and power.
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Church of the Master Presbyterian Church
Mark 5.
The man in the tomb was cutting himself but still he ran ahead and worshipped Jesus. He worshipped FIRST, before he was delivered from his situation.
Protocol --> Progress.
The demon spirit went into the pigs but the pigs didn't want to be with the spirit and so they chose to drown instead!
Worship will take you to restoration. If God has pulled you out of a tomb, you owe Him some worship!
The man in the tomb was cutting himself but still he ran ahead and worshipped Jesus. He worshipped FIRST, before he was delivered from his situation.
Protocol --> Progress.
The demon spirit went into the pigs but the pigs didn't want to be with the spirit and so they chose to drown instead!
Worship will take you to restoration. If God has pulled you out of a tomb, you owe Him some worship!
Affirmations
1. I am in charge of how I feel and I choose to feel happy.
2. I can handle whatever comes at me.
3. I am capable of tackling this project. I am going to own it.
4. I deserve it.
5. I look forward to tomorrow and the opportunities that await me.
6. My quirks are not weaknesses.
7. I have good instincts. Trusting my gut is always a good move.
8. I will work hard and because I work hard, I will succeed.
9. Good things will happen today.
10. I will work to provide other people with value and encouragement.
11. I am worthy.
12. I live with purpose. I will create change through my purpose.
13. I am in control of my life. (GOD IS IN CONTROL OF MY LIFE.)
14. At this moment, I am where I am meant to be.
15. I am surrounded by beauty.
2. I can handle whatever comes at me.
3. I am capable of tackling this project. I am going to own it.
4. I deserve it.
5. I look forward to tomorrow and the opportunities that await me.
6. My quirks are not weaknesses.
7. I have good instincts. Trusting my gut is always a good move.
8. I will work hard and because I work hard, I will succeed.
9. Good things will happen today.
10. I will work to provide other people with value and encouragement.
11. I am worthy.
12. I live with purpose. I will create change through my purpose.
13. I am in control of my life. (GOD IS IN CONTROL OF MY LIFE.)
14. At this moment, I am where I am meant to be.
15. I am surrounded by beauty.
Friday, November 11, 2016
Living on the Edge
Part 1, chapter 4 reflections
1. THINK: What or who might be the "Isaac" in my life?
School work, wanting success
Tim
2. REFLECT: What do you fear the most about releasing your "Isaac" and allowing Christ to be Lord of your life? What might be the underlying issues? Security? Significance? Control?
What if my grades become bad? If I don't have that sense of success? I don't want people to think badly of me... I want to be the best. I want to succeed in life. I want to control what I study and do it so that it is "perfect," although it never is!
3. UNDERSTAND: What past experiences with family or other people make it hard for you to trust God? Could past abandonment, neglect, or divorce be unresolved issues making it hard to trust God?
NA
4. SURRENDER: Why not take a moment right now to talk with God about what you are thinking, how you feel, and ask Him to direct your next steps.
Lord, I want to surrender my life to you. I want to give you everything, I want to let you take charge. I want to be moulded by you, and I want to put you as my priority each and every day. Lord, would you please come and show me how I can study and be a diligent student while always always always putting you first? Would you please remind me constantly to communicate and open, reveal myself to you? Help me to remain silent at times, so that I might be able to hear your words. Help me to contemplate the choices that I make everyday, so that I might be able to bring glory to you. Help me to reach out to you, and to make my heart quiet for you, so that I will be able to be in your presence all the time.
How can I put you before my school work, and the feelings of satisfaction that I derive from it? How do I humble myself, so that you are ahead? How do I ensure that you the Lord of my life, and that school work is not an idol? Help me Lord, to love you and to communicate in a seamlessly manner.
Amen.
1. THINK: What or who might be the "Isaac" in my life?
School work, wanting success
Tim
2. REFLECT: What do you fear the most about releasing your "Isaac" and allowing Christ to be Lord of your life? What might be the underlying issues? Security? Significance? Control?
What if my grades become bad? If I don't have that sense of success? I don't want people to think badly of me... I want to be the best. I want to succeed in life. I want to control what I study and do it so that it is "perfect," although it never is!
3. UNDERSTAND: What past experiences with family or other people make it hard for you to trust God? Could past abandonment, neglect, or divorce be unresolved issues making it hard to trust God?
NA
4. SURRENDER: Why not take a moment right now to talk with God about what you are thinking, how you feel, and ask Him to direct your next steps.
Lord, I want to surrender my life to you. I want to give you everything, I want to let you take charge. I want to be moulded by you, and I want to put you as my priority each and every day. Lord, would you please come and show me how I can study and be a diligent student while always always always putting you first? Would you please remind me constantly to communicate and open, reveal myself to you? Help me to remain silent at times, so that I might be able to hear your words. Help me to contemplate the choices that I make everyday, so that I might be able to bring glory to you. Help me to reach out to you, and to make my heart quiet for you, so that I will be able to be in your presence all the time.
How can I put you before my school work, and the feelings of satisfaction that I derive from it? How do I humble myself, so that you are ahead? How do I ensure that you the Lord of my life, and that school work is not an idol? Help me Lord, to love you and to communicate in a seamlessly manner.
Amen.
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