All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of the life of the Lamb who has been slain. Revelation 13:8


Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Job 13:15


For from him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen. Romans 11:36

He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" Romans 8:32



















Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Death and her broken stinger

People are afraid of death.  People wonder how long they will live, and what will happen to them.  I’ve heard it said that history is a conveyor belt of corpses.  That was troubling, but it is true.  How secure is your footing on this place?  Many people believe that if they do a certain thing or live a certain way they will live longer than if they do some other activity or eat some other food.  This is probably true.

After this, we all die anyway. 

Our lives on earth cease, and we can no longer play, sing, teach, work, talk, share, invest, eat or drive, and the list goes on and on.  In this way, I believe most people think.  It would be sad to not be able to talk to my children, or my wife, or my friends anymore.  They might be sad not to talk to me anymore, and this is what most people dwell on.

This is why they are afraid of death.

There is a certain trepidation people have as they contemplate dying- only because they don’t know what is next.  In a sense, it is only because they haven’t done it before.  The problem they feel is that we can’t talk to someone who has died, and ask them what it is like on “the other side.”

This seems reasonable.

There are others that fear death because it will stop their progress.  Plans are being made, and things are being built to establish a strong foundation on the earth.  People plan for things like a home, a good financial standing, or maybe a good college education for kids or grandkids.  We strive to be the next Kennedys or the Rockefellers, and in America- who should or can stand in your way?  It’s the American dream.

Death gets in the way of this planning, and many don’t like death for this reason.

I believe many people fall in these categories in some fashion, and who can blame them? Isn’t it normal to fear death?

I meet with people that are sometimes dying, and sometimes they just know that they have lived many more days already than what they have left.  Many people I have met in have died-  sometimes just a few months after I met them.  Take a look at your local newspaper.  There are a multitude of reports to read of people who are no longer here, and this is just in your area!  As a benefit to my work, and my browing of a newspaper, I ponder these things.

It would be easy to say as a 31 year old that I have many more years to live, and that I should be able to work many years, and retire, and live with my wife while my kids go off and establish themselves in their own houses and lives.  Thus, this cycle of fearing death in their thoughts will begin all over for my children.  More and more, I don’t feel this way anymore.

I see helpless looks from people as they speak of a husband or wife who is terminally ill.  I see tears, and tears without hope stream from faces of people.  I would like to submit today that the more a person knows who God is, and the more He studies God, the more he wants to stay on earth, and tell others about this God. To share the hope God has supplied and live longer to glorify Him become daily passions.  I have begun to think that the problem with death is that I can’t glorify God any longer.  Forget about pain, unfinished business, lack of years of life, missing my family, my time here to praise, worship, and glorify Him would end.  This cannot be just.  I want to be able to worship him just as long as Billy Graham.  I want to live as long as Adam did, and be able to worship him for 900 years.  I want to be here just as long as someone else who lived a long time, and thus got a lot of opportunities to share out loud and with conviction, that He who sits high and lifted up deserves all my time and passions.  If I die, I cannot do this anymore.

The world does not and cannot think this way.

As a follower of Christ, I must.  O death, where is your sting?  If you feel any of the things in the first four paragraphs, that is the sting you feel.  Ironically, you may feel it now as you live.  With the right focus on God, even losing the ability to glorify God on earth doesn't phase you. 

In other words, if I live, I must live to glorify Him.  I must use my time to share, and shout and scream his praises, for in the next moment, I may not be able to.  But is that really so?  Does my glorying in the LORD cease?  That must be sad if it is true.  However, the greatest truth of death for a Christian is that instead of glorifying Him here, you begin to glorify Him in person, and you can see Him and His glory of which we cannot begin to describe fully.  What fear can there be?  Here, I can glorify Him in front of others, and the next step is to glorify Him in front of HIM.  What a privilege.  What an honor. 

If God truly doesn’t share all His glory with us here, and if we long to know Him, we must have a strong desire to see Him, and begin to fulfill our fascination with Him.  Death is only the beginning.  This life is a prelude.  Be fascinated with God.  The more you seek Him, the more questions you ask, and the more questions you ask, the more questions you ask.  In the process, you lose fear of job loss, losing friends, heart attack, or any unspeakable thing that might happen. 

Search for him as you would a hidden treasure.  Value Him as you would fine gold.  Give all your effort, desires, and means to secure Him. (Matt )  In Him is all treasure of wisdom and knowledge (Col 2:2-4).  By this manner of seeking and holding Him, truly you can shout “O death where is your victory, O death, where is your sting?”(1 Cor ).

Friday, March 11, 2011

God is seeking. He is looking at me.

March 10, 2011

The more and more I listen to messages about God, the more and more I feel uneasy. The more messages I hear about God, the more I long to hear more about Him.  The more I learn about God, the more I am amazed at what He has done, and what He will do.  The more I am confronted by God, the more grateful I am that He has saved me from his wrath.  The more I live with knowledge of this God, the more I seek to live with acknowledgment of this God.

There is an overwhelming flood from our world to live to seek our own ends.  We all have different capabilities, different ideas, different loyalties, and it is our selfish nature that drives us to complete and compete for these things.  Let no man stand in our way, but whatever another man wants to do, let him do it for it is his desire and ambition, and that must be good in and of itself.  For we should all say, “I should be seeking to build wealth and build a successful business, build a cohesive family, build strong relationships with family and friends.  I should be a hard worker, a providing husband, a good investor, a smart teacher.  I should maintain my vehicles, I should mow my grass, I should clean up after myself.  I should help other people, I should talk to others, I should care for others.”  All of this is the world’s philosophy, and I reject it.

God didn’t create us to take up space here, and to “do good.”  He created us to proclaim His name.  He made us to make Him known, and in all of our actions, praise Him and give Him the glory.  If we don’t do the things the world desires, that doesn’t make us any better than the world.  We just have different goals.  We are just another person who says, “I am doing this because its right for me.  If you do the other thing, then that is right for you.”  If I do all of the good in paragraph two above, I am nothing.  I sound very much like Satan did in Isaiah 14:13-14.  He said he wanted ascend into Heaven.  He said he wanted to be like the most High.  Isn’t it good to be like God?  Isn’t it good to be praised by other people?  Isn’t that what we say we are seeking?  To be like Christ?  Christ is God.  We are seeking to be like God.  That’s what Satan said so many years ago.  I seek praise continually.  We all want to be praised for our hard work, our good family, our loyalty to church, our commitment to things and friends, but isn’t that what Satan wanted?  He took his angel friends with him didn’t he?  He had good relationships too.  His peers applauded him.

When God stops you from the race, and pulls you aside.  He may ask, “Why have you cared for your family?”  “Why have you saved for retirement?”  “Why have you focused on a properly cared for yard?”    What will you say?  Because it was the right thing to do?  Because everyone told me I should be doing those things?  Because I just felt that it was the way things should be done? 

I don’t believe He will accept that.  When you face yourself directly with God, you will be crushed and humble.  You will be abased.  You will no longer do anything without thinking about how your actions reflect God’s glory or how they spurn his majesty.  There is nothing in between.  You must mow the grass for God’s glory.  You must care for your family with God’s glory in mind.  EVERYTHING must be done this way.
Satan did not.  He did what he did for his own praise and glory.  Those who left with him left for Satan’s glory and for their own glory.  The world does what it does for its own glory.  All the hospitals that get built by an unbeliever are built for another purpose than for God, and this does not glorify Him.  All the fruit trees that are trimmed in order to produce more fruit are not trimmed for His glory if that trimmer isn’t doing His job with God’s glory in his mind.  When we stop and think about all the things we do in just one day, we must not be glorifying Him enough.  With all our heart, soul, mind, we must worship Him.  ALL THE DAY.  None of us do this, and we fall short.  When you get a glimpse of the wrath He has prepared for those do not accept Him and recognize that you are just the same as they, your God is the only thing that stands between you and that wrath.

Grow from this point.  Throw yourself completely at his mercy and grace.  We need His grace every day.  We need Him to work through us to do what he commands of us.  We need Him to grant that we would do things with His glory in mind.  We must ask Him to do this for us.  We CANNOT do anything righteous by ourselves.  Saved or Unsaved.  No one can.

When I think about how God flung the universe from his finger, and created galaxy upon galaxy in a moment, I am confronted by His unceasing magnitude of power, His ever watchful eye over His creation, and His grace that maintains it all.  I know that He directs the hearts of men every day in every place in every nation, and has done so since the beginning of time.  How could I feel helpless?  In spite of what an unjust peasant I am, HE reached out from the foundation of the world, and plucked me out of the darkness, and out of his wrath. 

When you think about God and study Him, He changes you.  Ask Him to change you.  Throw your life into his hands.  Study the book he left for you.  I AM WHO I AM is still the God of universe.  His name is Jealous.  He is the Lofty One whose name is Holy.  His name is Almighty.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Regret from childhood

After writing the last post, I recalled another instance from childhood that haunts me.  I am going to remove names in this writing, but the story is true.

I don't know how old I was.  Perhaps 7 or 8.  Being raised in church, we were always told about God and the Bible.  It followed then, to be taught to tell others about what you have been told, and what you know about God.  I remember thinking just that.

One day, I was with my family and friends, and we were around relatives that weren't saved.  There was a moment when I met one of them who was much older than I was, and I decided to ask them if they knew about Jesus, and if they were saved.  You see, I cared very much for this person.  After I asked the question, they responded with a "What was that?"  I guess they didn't hear me.  Well, at the moment I had asked the question, someone had come around the corner, and had heard me ask, and then hearing the response and seeing perhaps that the other didn't really hear me, this "someone" shushed me along, and moved me away-instructing me not to ask at the time.

I never asked that question again.

I apologize for the vagueness; however, I have never spoken of this before.  I want to convey this truth that I feel:   God prompts you to tell others about Him.

As a youth group leader, parent, coworker, general church attender, I will NEVER instruct another to wait, or to ask another time.  That moment is the time!  My children will never hear their father tell them to hold that thought because I might feel awkward if they asked a co-worker of mine.  Might I be put on the spot?  Yes.  Might I not say the exact right thing?  Yes.  But I believe God is supreme, all powerful, all sovereign, and has ordained that at that moment, my child might ask someone about Jesus.  By shushing my child, I would be teaching them NOT to tell another, to be ashamed of what they believe, or acknowledge that others might feel a different way. 

Well, they might feel a different way, unless the Father calls them!  Who cares if they feel a different way!  Who cares if you lose your job!  Who cares what the world can do you!  They can't do anything that lasts.

For the person I asked, I don't know if they were saved or not.  I will always look back and feel regret that I couldn't finish, or that I didn't speak more loudly at first. 

For my children, and my friends:  If you are struck at a moment to speak the truth about your knowledge of God, just do it.  Who do you think put the thought in your mind?

Matthew 21:16, Matthew 16:25, John 6:44, Acts 18:10