To Know

How long does it take you to get to know someone? How well do you know your parents? How well do you know your spouse? How well do you know your siblings? What do you do to get to know someone you recently met through work or school? How well do you know your friends?

We know some people well and others not so well. We are close to family and friends. We know our workmates to some degree, but there are many things we don’t know. We know far less about people we recently met.

We know far less about someone we have seen from a distance. For example, we know very little about celebrities. We only know what they or their publicists are willing to share publicly. We don’t really know them, we only know their public persona.

To get to know someone, we spend time with them. The more time we spend with them, the better we get to know them. During that time, we talk with them. Through conversation, we relate stories and hear their stories. As we grow closer, we start sharing feelings and desires with one another. We begin seeing the inner person not just the outer shell.

The same approach holds true to get to know God better. As we spend time with Him, we get to know Him better. As we share our feelings, we grow closer to Him. When we listen for Him to communicate with us, we begin to hear Him speak to us. We learn to keep the communication channel open with God at all times.

Learning who God is solidifies our understanding and belief that He created us. We realize we belong to Him, that He cares for us, and will guide us through every step of our lives. Our faith is strengthened as our knowledge of who God is grows. Knowing we belong to Him gives us comfort, peace, joy, and contentment.

I pray we all grow in our knowledge of God. I pray we seek to know Him better. I pray each one of us realizes we belong to Him and He cares for us. Know who God is. Grow in knowledge of Him. Know you belong to Him. Know God cares for you.

Psalm 100:3

Know that the Lord is God.

It is he who made us, and we are his;

we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Watch God Work

What obstacles do you face today? Are there enemies who are looking to destroy you? Do you have a mountain to climb? Are you facing a major test? Are you hoping help will arrive soon? Have you thought of being still?

We face many challenges throughout our lives. Someone is facing an uphill battle today. Another is being chased by an enemy. Still others are being tested to the point of breaking. All are longing for someone to help, someone to pull them through.

We may lean on family and friends to help us in time of need. We may lean on the government to provide for us. Those may be good options. They may be able to provide for the physical needs temporarily, which may be enough to get us over the hump. They may be able to provide some emotional support for a while. Yet, there is another who can provide for every need.

God is always available to us. He promises to fulfill our needs. Not merely our physical and emotional needs, but our spiritual needs, too. Our spiritual needs are very important. Without those filled our lives are imbalanced. There is no peace.

God works in unconventional ways. He tells us to be still and allow Him to work on our behalf. That isn’t exactly our way of going about it. Most of us are doers. We take care of things ourselves. If we can’t get it done, we hire someone else, or rely on family or friends to get it done. Being still, doing nothing is not how we approach things.

Our approach is fine, if we’re talking about repairing a vehicle, buying groceries, planning a wedding, and the like. But it doesn’t work well when we are struggling with emotional and spiritual issues. God’s way of tackling it works. Our way often falls short.

There are times God steps in to take care of our physical needs, much like He did for the Israelites when they were fleeing the Egyptians. Notice when God is going to take care of it, He gives a clear message to be still. In other words, He tells us to get out of the way, to sit on the sidelines and observe. It is nonintuitive for us. We want to be in middle of the fight. We want to do something. But God says to stop striving, take a rest, and watch Him work.

I pray we all take time to be still. I pray we stop striving to fix things only God can fix. I pray each one of us recognize when God is telling us to step aside and allow Him to work. Be still. Trust God. Watch God work. Rely on God. Trust His promises.

Exodus 14:13-14 Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

Whole Heart

Have you spent time pondering what your beliefs are? Are there times when you feel as though there is a hole that needs to be filled within you? Do ever ask yourself if you truly know and understand who God is?

We were made for relationship. We can go back to the creation story and see that Adam was lonely, so God created a helper for him. It was not until there were two that satisfaction could be achieved. It was even better when there was three.

You see, when Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening, at that moment they were most satisfied. It was the relationship among the three that completed the circle of relationship. It was a relationship that God cherished as well.

God longs to be in relationship with us. He longs for us to know and understand who He is. He has put a plan in motion that will open our eyes fully in the end. When we are spending eternity with Him, we will finally fully know Him. Yet, we can know Him better today. We can spend time more time with Him building our relationship with Him.

God told the prophet Jeremiah He would give us a heart to know Him. He has done so. Our heart longs for a close relationship with God. We yearn to have the hole in our heart filled by Him, which only He can do perfectly.

I love that God promises He will be our God and we will be His people. We know when God makes a promise, He keeps it. We can count on God to be with us always. Doesn’t it feel wonderful and comforting to know God is with you?

Notice He says we will return to Him with all our heart. How amazing is that?! No more half measures. No more half-hearted, going through the motions worship. No more worries about this world. We will worship God with every fiber of our being. We will be filled with a joy that is beyond comprehension for our human minds. Can you imagine?

I pray we all seek a closer relationship with God. I pray we ask Him to fill the void in our heart. I pray we turn our whole hearts to Him. Seek to know God better. Trust God’s promises. Seek to improve your relationship with Him. Give Him your whole heart.

Jeremiah 24:4, 7 Then the word of the Lord came to me: “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the Lord. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart.”

Praises Lifted

Have you felt the exhilaration and pure joy of celebration? Have your spirits been lifted to new heights through music? What is it that brings you joy to the point of tears? Have you praised God with that kind of joy?

We shed tears for a variety of reasons. Most often we associate crying with being sad. But we also cry tears of joy and of pride. They are closely related. We can be both proud and joyful at the same time and they can move us to tears.

Perhaps we are both proud and joyful when a child accomplishes a major achievement. It may be a grandchild. The achievements can range from sports championships to music awards, from graduations to job promotions, from marriages to newborns. We have those proud parent moments that are filled with joy and the tears start falling.

The older I get, the more often those moments come. It may be rare that I cry tears of sadness, but let a child achieve something special and I get choked up quickly. I believe that is a tiny bit of insight into how God feels when we do something He wants us to do.

I also have found my spirit lifted to new heights when going to a Christian concert. Music has a way of lifting our spirits. Some songs sung in church will bring tears to my eyes. There is a moving in my spirit that touches me somewhere deep inside. Music often has connections. Some songs remind us of a loved one or a special event.

Our spirits are also lifted when we give praise to God. When we are thankful from deep in our heart for what God has done in our lives, we experience a swelling in our chest. We may even feel a little lightheaded or as though we are floating. Our eyes light up. We have a smile that cannot be contained.

Here is the kicker—God celebrates along with us! He is joyful when He hears us giving Him praise. I imagine Him saying, “_______ gets it. He/she finally understands who I am.” God loves us and loves to hear us give Him thanks for all His blessings.

I pray we all praise God for His blessings. I pray we sing praises to Him with a lifted spirit. I pray each one of us give God the thanks He deserves and longs from us. Praise God. Give Him thanks. Be joyful in spirit. Be lifted to new heights. Know that God is smiling on you.

Psalm 18:46

The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!

Exalted be God my Savior!

Be Amazed

What is your view of God? How do you see Him? Is He an awesome God, Creator of all things, Maker of beauty and wonder? Or is He a genie in a bottle who you expect to deliver your every wish? Have you spent time seriously pondering those questions?

How we see God, deep in our hearts, makes a difference in how we approach life. Seeing Him as the Creator of all things, the beauty in the world—waterfalls, mountains, rivers, flowers, and all kinds of animals—causes us to live life one way. Recognizing and appreciating He gave us the very life we live changes our outlook on that life.

When we see God as a genie in a bottle, we view life differently. It is all about what we want, what we desire, what we decide. We believe it is up to us to make every decision. We look at everything going on all around us as random acts and events. We fail to see God in them.

There is a stark contrast in those two viewpoints of God and life. One brings us occasional happiness, a fair amount of heartache, and leads to destruction. The other brings us joy at all times, a confidence God will make everything alright, and leads to eternal bliss.

Changing our viewpoint of God isn’t easy, especially in our fast-paced world. It requires us to stop, be quiet, and meditate on Him. It requires us to spend time truly seeing the amazing creation He created. It requires us to get out of our harried mindset and be calm before Him. It requires us to begin depending on Him rather than ourselves or someone else.

Seeing God as He truly is, Who He is, and recognizing all He has Created will change our lives dramatically. Our perspective on life and the people in our lives will be altered forever. Our trust that He really can carry us through whatever we face will come naturally. We can face tomorrow, no matter what it may bring.

I pray we all spend quiet time meditating on God. I pray we see His wonderful creation and are amazed by it. I pray we trust Him with whatever we face and live in the peace that only He can give. See God for who He is. Open your eyes and see His creation. Meditate on God. Allow Him to give you peace. Be amazed by God.

Isaiah 37:16 “Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, enthroned between the cherubim, you alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth.”

For The Sake Of…

What is the reason behind your motivation? Why do you pursue the things you pursue? What is it that drives you? What is foremost in your mind throughout each day? For whose sake do you get up each morning and do what you do?

Something or someone keeps us going. For those of us who are parents, often it is our children. For those who are newly in love, it is often the person you are in love with. For some, it is the passion they have for their work. We all have a reason to strive on with our lives.

The vast majority of us choose worldly reasons as our driving force. That is not say our children, the people we love, or our work should not be important to us. Yet some of us make them all we care about, which leaves us with little or no reason to continue with our lives, if they are taken from us.

Having lost both my Dad and my Step-Dad, I felt the loss and mourned their passing. Having lost my job, one I had held for nearly nine years, I was initially shocked, then confused. The loss of my job also ended my thirty-two-year career in the IT profession. However, none of those losses caused me to lose my reason for living. Were they hard? You bet! But they did not consume me.

What was behind my desire to continue moving forward with my life? The desire to continue living the plan God has for my life. My reason for living is to do the will of God. Now, don’t misunderstand, I fail at times. However, I know God uses my failures to grow me into the person He wants me to be.

What can you learn from this? My hope is you learn the same thing Paul wanted each of us to learn when he wrote today’s passage. He wants us to do everything for the sake of the gospel. He wants us to put Jesus and His story first in our lives. He wants us to use the story of Jesus to be the driving force in our lives. He wants us to share in the blessings that come by doing so.

I pray we all make Jesus our driving force. I pray we put Jesus first in our lives. I pray each one of us will filter our choices in life through the gospel. Care about others. Make the gospel your reason for living. Rely on Jesus to get you through hard times. Put Jesus first. Filter your life through Him. Share in the blessings.

1 Corinthians 9:23 I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

Focus Determines Fate

Our focus determines our fate. As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, there is an old saying, “You are what you think.” What are you focusing on? What are your goals? Do you have goals? Is there someone or something that drives your thoughts?

Whether we realize it or not, there is something or someone who drives our thoughts. Perhaps the more appropriate question is, do you know who or what that is? Recognizing how we are driven is key to making changes in our lives. We must change our driving force to make lasting changes in our lives.

As much as we may like to deny it, there are only two driving forces at work in this world—good and evil. Unfortunately, evil often masquerades as good, tricking us to focus on it rather than the true good. Our focus is on what appears to be good but results on bad unintended consequences. It is often shrouded in selfishness, meaning what we think will make us look good.

Our focus is often on the temporary. We focus on this world. We focus on today, tomorrow, next week. Being preoccupied by the goings on of this world takes our focus away from what it truly important, what is truly good—eternity.

Our lives may be long by human standards. We may live into our eighties, nineties, or perhaps live to be one-hundred years old. Yet that is all very temporary when compared to eternity. Our focus for those years can be momentary, on the here and now, or we can choose to focus on the eternal.

If we truly understood what was at stake, we just might make different choices. We might live life with urgency to tell others about Jesus, while also living slower lives, deciding not to chase the temporary objects of this world. We will admit this world is temporary in one breath and continue to chase the world’s glories the next.

Folks, if we want to focus on eternity, we must first be willing to give up this world. We must see it for what it is—temporary. We must allow God to put eternity into our hearts. The drive in our lives must change from being worldly to being eternal.

I pray we all set aside the temporary for the eternal. I pray we allow God to plant eternal desires in our hearts. I pray each one of us takes time to evaluate our focus and what’s behind it. Desire the eternal. Focus on eternity. Allow God to put eternity in your heart. Fix your eyes on the unseen.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

The Cost of Freedom

As we head into this weekend to celebrate our country’s Independence Day, we often see freedom in commercials, on billboards, on social media—basically everywhere we turn. Have you taken time to contemplate what freedom for our country and as a Christian means?

As someone who served in our military for twenty years, I take our freedom seriously. I believe we need to protect our freedom. I also believe freedom comes with responsibility. As the saying goes, freedom isn’t free. If it isn’t taken care of, it will be lost.

Our Christian freedom had a cost as well. It cost the Son of God an excruciating death after having been severely flogged. It cost Him having His Father turn His back on Him. The Apostles, His mother, and other followers were distraught. They were shocked. They saw their dreams of a free Israel die with Him.

The good news is He rose again on the third day. We often gloss over those three days of mourning, sorrow, pain, and lost dreams. The freedom we enjoy in Christ cost many people dearly. True, the pain and sorrow ended in a relatively short period of time, but their dream of Israel being free of Roman rule was not realized.

Lest we minimize the dream the Jews had of their nation being a mighty nation as in the time of David, spend a few moments contemplating what it would be like to live under the rule of a foreign country. Think about being forced to obey foreign soldiers as they walked the streets of your town. Ponder having to obey laws enacted to elevate the foreign power while reducing the local population to nothing more than servants.

As we celebrate the freedom we enjoy, both in our country and as Christians, let’s reflect on the cost of that freedom. Let’s also take on the responsibility to maintain our freedom. For most of us, our freedom has been handed to us with little or no sacrifice. However, it doesn’t eliminate the sacrifice someone else made so we may enjoy our freedom.

I pray we contemplate the cost of our freedom. I pray we give thanks to Jesus for being willing to sacrifice for us. I pray each one of us takes on the responsibility of maintaining our freedom. Enjoy your freedom. Take your freedom seriously. Work to maintain freedom. Be thankful for your freedom. Be responsible with your freedom. Celebrate your freedom.

Galatians 5:13-15 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.

Continually Seeking

Have you experienced believing something was true for most of your life only to find out it was not? What was your reaction when you found your belief was disproved? Were you upset? Were you in disbelief? Was it an ‘ah-ha’ moment?

The most common false truth most of us experience is our belief in Santa Claus. When we get to a certain age, we discover it is really Mom and Dad who put all those presents under the tree. For some, it is devastating. For others, it is discovering their suspicions were correct.

As Christians, and especially non-Jews, we often hear the Israelites are God’s chosen people. As we read through the Old Testament, we often believe God was only interested in them. The remaining millions of people who resided in countries around the world were of no concern. However, that is a false belief.

We see in today’s passage that God was concerned with the rest of the world. We see that He was seeking the non-Jews, Gentiles, despite the Israelites being His chosen people. In fact, Israel was chosen to be the light to all nations, all people throughout the world. This was not something designed to be held in check until Christ came, He was the culmination of the redemption plan.

We might wonder why God did not reach out to the Gentiles before Jesus’ ministry. Perhaps we should first look at ourselves. Being human, we put ourselves first. The Israelites did the same. Though they were to be a light, they often did not shine their light in the world but turned it inward.

How did God solve this problem? He sent His Son who chose a dozen common men to spread His gospel throughout the world. He simplified His message and clearly stated He came to save all people in every nation. This is the message we are to continue spreading today. Just as Isaiah wrote more than seven hundred years before Jesus walked this earth, God is continually seeking each and every person across the entire earth.

I pray we all continue to spread the gospel. I pray we fulfill the message God gave Isaiah. I pray each one of us become the light to everyone we meet. Work for God. Fulfill His plan. Be a light. Tell others about Jesus. Tell others God is seeking them. Tell them about God’s salvation.

Isaiah 49:6

he says:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant

to restore the tribes of Jacob

and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,

that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

On The Spot

Have you ever worried about being caught on the spot and not know what to say? Does it concern you in your job? Is it a concern with your friends? Is it the reason you don’t talk to people about Jesus? Do you know there is help?

There are times in our lives when we get put on the spot. We are asked a question we either don’t know the answer to or we don’t want to give the answer. We feel trapped. We stumble, perhaps stutter, or even freeze up completely.

When it comes to answering questions about Jesus, we can keep it simple. Especially if we don’t feel knowledgeable. The first thing we do is state the obvious from our beliefs and faith. Keep it short and to the point. We don’t need to provide a grand theological statement to our friends. Honestly, they would probably think we were overstepping our own knowledge anyway.

Second, if we don’t know the answer to a specific question, be honest. Tell them you don’t know, but you can point them to someone who does. They will respect that. Oh, I know, you think your friends will think you are simply pawning them off on someone else. But here is what you need to remember, if you point them to someone who can provide them the answer to their question, they will be glad you did rather than trying to dream up an answer.

Third, here is a nice little exercise I have often done and found to work. I take breath and say a quick prayer. Something like this, “God provide me the answer I need for this question.” It takes less than two seconds in your head. It gives you peace that you are relying on God to provide the answer. You realize it is okay to say you don’t know. And sometimes, just sometimes, God provides an answer that you didn’t know beforehand, surprising you, and allowing you to learn something along with your friend. That is the Holy Spirit working in you!

Yes, we have the Holy Spirit in us, and He is working. We may forget that from time-to-time. But the good news is, He hasn’t. God provides us insights at some of the strangest times. Yet His timing is always perfect. Even when it comes at the very last second.

I pray we all come to feel comfortable relying on the Holy Spirit to provide answers. I pray we realize it is okay to say we don’t know. I pray each one of us will ask God to provide answers for us when we are put on the spot. Trust God. Trust the Holy Spirit. Be okay with saying you don’t know. Give your friends answers to their questions about God.

John 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.