Jump on it

Hey Everybody,

I finally heard the new Pat Terry album this week. It’s only been 25 years since his last one. During that time he has written country hits for people like Travis Trit, Foster and Lloyd and others. In the 70’s he was the sweet heart of the contemporary Christian music scene. Somewhere along the line he started writing songs that were truthful, honest and based in the real world and it wasn’t long after that that he faded from the radar of the Christian music industry. One thing that’s not allowed in the Christian entertainment industry is honesty. Why should Christians tell the truth when they can sell fiction? Nobody wants to hear the truth.

The last three albums that he did impacted the way I understood the faith and the world in a deep way. Though they went out of print almost the day after they were released I still pull out my vinyl copies from time to time and I am always blown away. In a perfect world, I would have signed both Pat and his good friend, Mark Heard, to my fleeting and nearly imaginary record label in the early nineties but I went broke, Mark died, and Pat developed his writing skills in the country music industry.

His new album, called Laugh for a Million Years, is a masterpiece of presupositional art work. Pat simply assumes a Christian world view and writes accordingly. The result is a set of songs that deal with life, especially in the south, as it is: painful, hopeful, funny, faithful and meaningful while turning up truths in parts of society most of us would like to turn our backs on as if they were non- existent.

One such song is called Jump on It:

Granny’s on the front porch spittin’ in a cup.
Trying’ to fix a nightgown that the dog tore up.
Momma’s old clothes line finally bit the dust
Brother got a broomstick and propped it back up.
Coulda had a dyer or a sewing machine but daddy went and bought us a Trampoline
And we jump on it every chance we get Momma and Daddy and all us kids
We ain’t got much but we got this and we jump on it.

Brother does back flips with his eyes bugged out
Daddy says the back flip is what it’s all about
The whole town’s talkin’ they say it looks
like some white trash circus has hit the neighborhood
But we don’t know what in the world they mean
Momma says they’re jealous of our trampoline
And we jump on it every chance we get Momma and Daddy and all us kids
We ain’t got much but we got this and we jump on it.

Daddy says life is such a crazy mess
You gotta jump on your chances for some happiness
We all see what Daddy means way up here on this trampoline
And we jump on it every chance we get
Momma and Daddy and all us kids
We ain’t got much but we sure got this and we jump on it.


Maybe you think that’s a waste of words, I don’t know, but when I hear that I’m afraid I know people whose lives are so broken, they've been beaten down to the point of utter dysfunction so badly that all they want is a trampoline.

And it’s nice to say to them come to Jesus and everything will be ok. But when they come their brokenness seems to be too big for the Jesus we serve to do anything with them. And after awhile we just wish they’d go be someone else’s charity case or go buy a trampoline. Our Jesus is too small. Our God is too impotent. Our ideas of what salvation is supposed to be are too fictitious to do any good when the rubber hits the road and to be honest the hurting know that better than we (the liars who hide their pain) do and so often times they do opt for the trampoline.

I was talking to a friend the other day and we got to telling our stories which ended up being scarily similar in different ways. The common theme was the pain of life driving us deeper into Christ. The pain came – unexpectedly and instead of running from it we both chose to jump on it and though it hurt like hell and we wouldn’t wish it on our enemies; we both agreed it was the best thing that could have happened to us.

Every day offers us the opportunity to jump on it. We can jump on life or we can jump on death. We have the choice. Choose this day whom you will serve. I have a choice every day: Do I take the hard road of life or the easy road of death? Do I just go with the flow of culture and sit on my gluteus maximus in front of whatever form of entertainment that happens to be available? Do I jump on the trampoline of life or the trampoline of death? It sounds easy but it’s not. That’s why we have to choose every day, every minute of every day and when we choose wrong we repent and choose again.

The trampoline of life is there before you: Choose to Jump on it today.

Grace and Peace,

Brad

foundation 31

It has been a rough couple of weeks at work. The kind of weeks where everything just keeps piling on you and you lose track of everything else And so I found myself waking up at 5 this morning without a sermon – to busy and too tired to have even thought about what was going to go on here today. Well, that’s not exactly true I did think about it I just didn’t have the time to put the words down on the page. It topped off with a funeral yesterday – a funeral that for me was the epitome of our culture. It was an young girl who had become a star for cancer. She had song written about her. She became a tv celebrity when one of those make a wish tv shows came and re decorated her room. She always had a smile on her face. Everybody talked about the good things. They were positive. But just like the world of tv and radio they only told part of the story. They told you want they wanted you to hear. You see in the midst of this child’s with cancer the original family self destructed. There was divorce. There was remarriage. It became us against them. The last few weeks of the child’s life the father wasn’t allowed to see his own daughter. On the surface everything was sad but ok. We will put on a stiff upper lip and pretend that everything is ok so that we can give our daughter a celebrity send off to heaven where she will become an angel and get her wings. Yes, they actually said that- and it broke my heart. The whole thing reminded me of the shallowness of our culture. There’s a song by a guy named Peter Himmelman that says: My worlds’ a million miles wide but it’s one inch deep. There’s so much to desire but so little to keep. We have fashion, and trips in limousines, smiles for the camera and jokes while just behind the film production there is brokenness all around us. We don’t want to talk about the way things really are. We don’t want a god that will deal with those things and make them better. We want a god that will let us cover that stuff up, bury it in the back yard somewhere and live our lives as if everything is hunky dory. We prefer to live in Disney land than the real world. That breaks my heart because as long as we refuse to live in the real world God will refuse to bring us real healing. God will let us pretend all the way to the grave if we want to. He has made celebrity the king of our land because that’s what we’ve been doing in our families for decades: Putting on a happy face for all those that are watching while we’re dying on the inside. We have become so good at acting the part that when it comes right down to it we don’t think we need a savior anymore. Or if we want to play that game we will create a celebrity Jesus to pretend along with us one that doesn’t expect much of us, one that will turn us into angels when we die because we’re all going to heaven anyway: no matter who our savior is. You see most people don’t think they really need a savior. We’re really not that bad as long as you can look good on the outside then everything will be ok in the end. We live our little self centered lives expecting everything to work out in the end regardless. Just toss up a few prayers and you’ll get your angel wings. Maybe you can’t see it; I don’t know. But when I stop and get off the merry go round it becomes clear to me that we live in a clueless world where everyone just wants to be numb until their bodies are in the ground. We will serve whatever idols we can think of just so we don’t have to deal with reality. I caught a glimpse of the idolatrous nature of both the church and the world this week and at first it broke my heart but then I realized that given the pitiful condition of the world and the church there is a great opportunity to advance the kingdom of God when God gives the word. Everything around us is built on a foundation of sand and a single word from God and it will all come crashing down. Why hasn’t God given the word? Because his people are not ready to pick up the reigns and advance the kingdom. We’re still clueless. But I think he is stirring hearts and laying the ground work to begin to build. I am excited about that while at the same time realizing that means there is much repentance, much change that has to take place in the process. You see in a world without a foundation people who are rooted and grounded upon the solid rock will begin to shine forth like the light of day. I believe that God has called us to be that people. Just like the people of Nehemiah’s time we have been called out of our captivity. I don’t know if you noticed or not but it took around thirty years after they were sent back home before they began to be instructed in the law of God. Now I’m sure they had been getting bits and pieces every week at Sabbath school but now here in chapter 8 of Nehemiah they are finally being extensively taught the law of God. They spent one whole day listening to the law of God be read and “Then on the second day the heads of fathers' households of all the people, the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe that they might gain insight into the words of the law.” 14They found written in the law how the LORD had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast of the seventh month. 15So they proclaimed and circulated a proclamation in all their cities and in Jerusalem, saying, "Go out to the hills, and bring olive branches and wild olive branches, myrtle branches, palm branches and branches of other leafy trees, to make booths, as it is written." 16So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the Water Gate and in the square at the Gate of Ephraim. 17The entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them. The sons of Israel had indeed not done so from the days of Joshua the son of Nun to that day and there was great rejoicing. I want you to notice that this part of the law, which is a picture of Christ being our shelter in the wilderness and some would say a picture of the rule and reign of Christ, had not been observed in a long, long time probably 4 or 5 hundred years. All throughout the time of the book of judges, through Saul, and David and Solomon’s time, and completely through the time of captivity this law had been ignored. Why? Well, probably for much the same reason as we don’t keep some of the laws: Oh it’s not important. God doesn’t want us to do that and so bit by bit the law gets laid aside. Now I want you to understand that I do not expect us to keep this law because it as well as all the other feasts and ceremonies and sacrifices were pictures of the work of Christ. Now that Christ has come those sacrificial and ceremonial observances have been fulfilled in Christ and we are called to remember the work of Christ through baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Notice in the passage that during the time of that feast Ezra read from the book of the law of God daily, from the first day to the last day and they celebrated the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly according to the ordinance. They set aside time to study the law and get familiar with it. They were taught the law and it was explained so that they could understand it and apply it. That is something that is sorely lacking in the church today. Ministers, and I am probably guilty of this as well are talking about the word of God but not in a way that allows the people the ability to apply it to everyday life. Much like we did back in January they called a solemn assembly. Let me read chapter nine to you: 1Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the sons of Israel assembled with fasting, in sackcloth and with dirt upon them. 2The descendants of Israel separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their fathers. 3While they stood in their place, they read from the book of the law of the LORD their God for a fourth of the day; and for another fourth they confessed and worshiped the LORD their God. Then the preachers cried with a loud voice to the LORD their God: "Arise, bless the LORD your God forever and ever! O may Your glorious name be blessed And exalted above all blessing and praise! 6"You alone are the LORD You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them You give life to all of them And the heavenly host bows down before You. 7"You are the LORD God, Who chose Abram and brought him out from Ur of the Chaldees, And gave him the name Abraham. 8"You found his heart faithful before You, And made a covenant with him To give him the land of the Canaanite, Of the Hittite and the Amorite, Of the Perizzite, the Jebusite and the Girgashite-- To give it to his descendants And You have fulfilled Your promise, For You are righteous. 9"You saw the affliction of our fathers in Egypt, and heard their cry by the Red Sea. 10"Then You performed signs and wonders against Pharaoh, against all his servants and all the people of his land; For You knew that they acted arrogantly toward them, And made a name for Yourself as it is this day. 11"You divided the sea before them, So they passed through the midst of the sea on dry ground; And their pursuers You hurled into the depths, Like a stone into raging waters. 12"And with a pillar of cloud You led them by day, And with a pillar of fire by night To light for them the way In which they were to go. 13"Then You came down on Mount Sinai, And spoke with them from heaven; You gave them just ordinances and true laws, Good statutes and commandments. 14"So You made known to them Your holy sabbath, And laid down for them commandments, statutes and law, Through Your servant Moses. 15"You provided bread from heaven for them for their hunger, You brought forth water from a rock for them for their thirst, And You told them to enter in order to possess The land which You swore to give them. 16"But they, our fathers, acted arrogantly; They became stubborn and would not listen to Your commandments. 17"They refused to listen, And did not remember Your wondrous deeds which You had performed among them; So they became stubborn and appointed a leader to return to their slavery in Egypt But You are a God of forgiveness, Gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness; And You did not forsake them. 18"Even when they made for themselves A calf of molten metal And said, 'This is your God Who brought you up from Egypt,' And committed great blasphemies, 19You, in Your great compassion, Did not forsake them in the wilderness; The pillar of cloud did not leave them by day, To guide them on their way, Nor the pillar of fire by night, to light for them the way in which they were to go. 20"You gave Your good Spirit to instruct them, Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth, And You gave them water for their thirst. 21"Indeed, forty years You provided for them in the wilderness and they were not in want; Their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell. 22"You also gave them kingdoms and peoples, And allotted them to them as a boundary. They took possession of the land of Sihon the king of Heshbon And the land of Og the king of Bashan. 23"You made their sons numerous as the stars of heaven, And You brought them into the land Which You had told their fathers to enter and possess. 24"So their sons entered and possessed the land And You subdued before them the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, And You gave them into their hand, with their kings and the peoples of the land, To do with them as they desired. 25"They captured fortified cities and a fertile land They took possession of houses full of every good thing, Hewn cisterns, vineyards, olive groves, Fruit trees in abundance So they ate, were filled and grew fat, And reveled in Your great goodness. 26"But they became disobedient and rebelled against You, And cast Your law behind their backs And killed Your prophets who had admonished them So that they might return to You, And they committed great blasphemies. 27"Therefore You delivered them into the hand of their oppressors who oppressed them, But when they cried to You in the time of their distress, You heard from heaven, and according to Your great compassion You gave them deliverers who delivered them from the hand of their oppressors. 28"But as soon as they had rest, they did evil again before You; Therefore You abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they ruled over them When they cried again to You, You heard from heaven, And many times You rescued them according to Your compassion, 29And admonished them in order to turn them back to Your law Yet they acted arrogantly and did not listen to Your commandments but sinned against Your ordinances, By which if a man does them he shall live And they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck, and would not listen. 30"However, You bore with them for many years, And admonished them by Your Spirit through Your prophets, Yet they would not give ear. Therefore You gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. 31"Nevertheless, in Your great compassion You did not make an end of them or forsake them, For You are a gracious and compassionate God. 32"Now therefore, our God, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness, Do not let all the hardship seem insignificant before You, Which has come upon us, our kings, our princes, our priests, our prophets, our fathers and on all Your people, From the days of the kings of Assyria to this day. 33"However, You are just in all that has come upon us; For You have dealt faithfully, but we have acted wickedly. 34"For our kings, our leaders, our priests and our fathers have not kept Your law Or paid attention to Your commandments and Your admonitions with which You have admonished them. 35"But they, in their own kingdom, With Your great goodness which You gave them, With the broad and rich land which You set before them, Did not serve You or turn from their evil deeds. 36"Behold, we are slaves today, And as to the land which You gave to our fathers to eat of its fruit and its bounty, Behold, we are slaves in it. 37"Its abundant produce is for the kings Whom You have set over us because of our sins; They also rule over our bodies And over our cattle as they please, So we are in great distress. I want you to understand that we are in a position much like they were in. They are believers, they have the law of God. They have humbled themselves before God but they are still captives they are still slaves to the Babylonians. God has given them favor but they have not yet been given complete freedom. And so they are in great distress. It is time that we began to get distressed over the bondage that we are in. It is time that we began to pray that God would give us eyes to see the shallowness of our own lives and the way that captivity has us tied up into knots so that we can’t advance the kingdom. I believe that God has begun to move here in Immanuel in a new way. I believe he has started letting us rebuild his church. I believe he is in the process of growing us up while at the same time letting us see just how much growing up we have to do. I know in my own life he is causing distress over the captivity that I am in. He is letting me see that captivity more clearly every single day. The result is that I have begun to cry out to him like never before for deliverance. I have begun to long for the responsibility of freedom for the first time ever in my life. I’m tired of being a comfortable slave. I want to embrace the risk of freedom for the first time ever in my life. That is scary but at the same time it is exciting. I want to reap the rewards of freedom instead of receiving the meager rations of slavery. It is my prayer for all of you that God would open your eyes to see your own captivity and stir up your hearts to break free and embrace the risk and responsibility of freedom. Let’s pray. Oh father, grow us up. Save us from ourselves. Deliver us from our captivity. Give us a taste of real freedom so that we may hunger and thirst for it with all our heart, mind and soul. Be our God and let us be your people. In Jesus’ power and authority I beg of you these things. amen. We come now to the covenant table, the feast of the new covenant. The last verse of our passage today reads like this: "Now because of all this We are making an agreement in writing; And on the sealed document are the names of our leaders, our Levites and our priests." They were signing a covenant with God. And that is what we are doing when we take communion we are renewing our covenant commits to our covenant Lord.

Foundations 30

We’re still in the book of Nehemiah today. Chapter 7 is for the most part a list of people who came to Israel from the captivity in Babylon. You are free to look at that chapter on your own but I am going to skip over it today and move into chapter 8. I’ll start with verse 1: And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel. 2Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. 3He read from it before the square which was in front of the Water Gate from early morning until midday, in the presence of men and women, those who could understand; and all the people were attentive to the book of the law. 4Ezra the scribe stood at a wooden podium which they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Mattithiah, Shema, Anaiah, Uriah, Hilkiah, and Maaseiah on his right hand; and Pedaiah, Mishael, Malchijah, Hashum, Hashbaddanah, Zechariah and Meshullam on his left hand. 5Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up. 6Then Ezra blessed the LORD the great God. And all the people answered, "Amen, Amen!" while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground. 7Also Jeshua, Bani, Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodiah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, the Levites, explained the law to the people while the people remained in their place. 8They read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading. If we look at the previous chapter we find that there were around 43,000 people who came back from captivity to Israel. And so that gives us an idea of about how many people gathered to gather when it says: And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the LORD had given to Israel. I will be honest I long for the day when we can say that the population of Portland, what’s that about 13,000 people, want to get together to hear the law of God read to them. At this point in time I think 130 people wanting that might be a miracle. But that is where our hope lies – in God turning people’s hearts so that they desire to hear and do the law of God. Nothing could be better than that in my opinion. So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month. Notice that if you could listen with understanding you were in that crowd. They expected their children to be their listening to the same word of God that the parents were hearing. It wasn’t dumbed down for them. It wasn’t put into cute little stories. They heard the same words of the law that the adults did. Why? Because God understands that people are people. Being a child doesn’t give you a free pass to not obey the law of God. I believe God also understands that if you expect a lot from your children you will receive a lot from your children. Train up a child in the way they should go is to teach them the book of the law. It is to teach them what false witness, and adultery, and covetousness, and murder and Idolatry and everything else is. You see if you don’t train a child up in the law when they are young it will be hard to get them to bow the knee in submission to God when they are older. Because what you are doing is teaching them to be humble before God at a young age, submitted to law at a young age so that they can already be growing in grace and truth by the time they are ready to go out on their own. It’s time that we quit listening to the lies of educators and child psychologists and on and on and on and started training our children in walking on the path of life. I realize that for most of us we missed the boat. Our kids are out of the house and on their own and we didn’t have a clue what the path of life was when we started out so we didn’t know how to train our children up in the way that they should go. I understand that. So what should we do? Pray. Pray that God would intercede and cause our children and grandchildren to turn toward the path of life in spite of our lack of understanding. God is big enough to change us and our families if we humble ourselves before him. One statement that I hear over and over again is that the children are our future. It is true but it is also true that children who do not know how to walk on the path of life will create a future headed toward covenant curses. We have to decide now what kind of future we want to see blessing or cursing. If we want curses we do nothing. If we want blessing then we had better be falling on our knees before God begging him to change hearts because that is the future’s only hope for blessing. It’s interesting that Ezra read the law to them from early morning until midday and at some point other priest were translating the words so that the people could understand. Here we have a generation or two that have been raised in Babylon, they may speak fluent Bablyonian but it seems their Hebrew has gotten a little rusty. So they translate the word of God into the language of the people so that they could understand it. We see the same thing a few hundred years later they translate the scriptures into Greek so that the everyday people can understand. I think the key in all of this is that the goal is for people to understand the word of God so that they can begin to apply it. Knowing it intellectually doesn’t do you any good if it’s not applied to your life. We see this over and over again in scripture God provides a way of grace through the shed blood of Christ but the people who just go through the motions, understand it in their heads but don’t humble themselves and turn from their sins don’t find salvation. They die in the wilderness unpleasing to God because they refused to humble themselves before God. We demonstrate our love for God by obeying his commandments. It’s that simple. We have to know what they are before we can keep them. And that too has been a problem in the church: we continually lose the law. If keeping and doing the law of God demonstrates our love for him and we keep losing the law what does that say about our love for God? It makes me nervous I’ll tell you that. In verse nine we read: Then Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, "This day is holy to the LORD your God; do not mourn or weep." For all the people were weeping when they heard the words of the law. 10Then he said to them, "Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." 11So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, "Be still, for the day is holy; do not be grieved." 12All the people went away to eat, to drink, to send portions and to celebrate a great festival, because they understood the words which had been made known to them. What we see here is that the bible sees no such thing as a separation of the state from godliness. The state just as much as the individual is to walk in obedience to God’s law. It is in fact to be the enforcer of the law. The church is called to teach the law and explain the law. That is its sphere of governance. Education is the church’s responsibility. The government is called to enforce the law and punish evil doers. Oh that our governments would stop doing all that they are not supposed to be doing like education, food safety, fighting wars in other countries, paying the poor not to work, shaving the value off of our money and much much more and start enforcing the law and punishing evil doers. Our budgets would be balanced in a very short time and we would be free to move about and live with a hope of prosperity once again. In this passage the political leaders of the state and the religious leaders stand side by side UNDER the law of God. There are no loop holes to get out of obeying God’s law – Especially since the new testament because one of the signs of being a believer in Christ is that the LAW of God is now written on our hearts a new. I want you to understand that placing yourself under the law of god is not a sad thing. It is not a thing to mourn over. Now in this passage the people heard the word of the Law and they began to be sad. They were grieving over their rebellion and sin. But the law does so much more than convict us of sin. You see when the law convicts us of sin all it is doing is showing us where we are walking in death. It’s not saying stop having fun. It is saying stop killing yourself. The law of God is the path of life. It is the way of blessing. Without the law there is no redemption from our sin. We are saved because Jesus became the Lamb of God slain for the sins of the world according to the law. You see redemption is proscribed by the law. Now the law apart from humbleness before the law giver is a sentence of death. It is nothing but pride and self righteousness. It is choosing death in the form of religion without the power. God has called us to life. He has laid out the path of life for us in his law. If we want to live life to it’s fullest then we should search out the commandments and seek with all our hearts to conform our lives to the ways of God. I believe that is the essence of what 2 Chronicles 7:14 is about: If my people called by my name will humble themselves, pray and seek my face, I understand that to be seek my character that is revealed in my commandments, that is where the face of God is to be found. We humble ourselves before God – God I am a sinner in rebellion against you and in love with death. We pray something like: God help me, I have really messed up, I am in love with death please save me from myself. Then we seek his face – we become acquainted with his ways and the path of life by reading and hearing the law of God which continues to humble us before God. Then and only then will God begin to heal our land, our families, our own hearts. Nehemiah and Ezra also understood that the law is not meant to make you sad. It is to be a tool of rejoicing and gladness. It is your hope in the world it is the means of blessing and life in a cursed and dying world. Rejoice in the commands. Look at the passage: "Go, eat of the fat, drink of the sweet, and send portions to him who has nothing prepared; for this day is holy to our Lord. Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength." 11So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, "Be still, for the day is holy; do not be grieved." 12All the people went away to eat, to drink, to send portions and to celebrate a great festival, because they understood the words which had been made known to them. I pray for the day when it begins to really sink in that the law of God is the Joy of the Lord: It is our strength. It is life to our bones and to our families. It is the source of all blessing, real, deep and meaningful blessing in the world. Embrace the joy of the Lord and stop grieving. Trust the word of God which promises that if we will humble ourselves, pray and seek his face HE WILL HEAL OUR LAND. Don’t be afraid to give up your sin, don’t be afraid to humble yourself by forsaking death and rebellion and submitting to the law of God. Don’t grieve over having to give up your sin and the path of death that you are on. Instead embrace the path of life, enter into the joy of the Lord, walk in obedience and rejoice in your God. All the death and decay that is around us means nothing in comparison to what God is going to do in the lives of those who humble themselves, pray and seek the face of God. Please embrace the joy of the Lord and take hope in the promises of God. Let’s pray. Oh father, give us eyes to see the difference between life and death. Give us the will to chose life and rejoice in it and reject death and not grieve over giving it up. Keep your promises oh Lord. If we are walking in death pour out covenant curses upon us and our families. If we are walking in life pour out covenant blessings upon us and our families. Have mercy upon us that we may choose life in every area of our existence. In Jesus power and authority I ask these things. Amen. Be reminded of the Path of Life: "Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. 2"The LORD our God made a covenant with in Jesus Christ. 3"The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. 4"The LORD spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire, 5while I was standing between the LORD and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain. He said, 6'I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Sin, out of the house of slavery to rebellion. 7'You shall have no other gods before Me. 8'You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 9'You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing loving kindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. Go in Peace.

foundation 30

We are in Nehemiah chapter 6 today Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates, 2then Sanballat and Geshem sent a message to me, saying, "Come, let us meet together at Chephirim in the plain of Ono." But they were planning to harm me. 3So I sent messengers to them, saying, "I am doing a great work and I cannot come down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and come down to you?" 4They sent messages to me four times in this manner, and I answered them in the same way. 5Then Sanballat sent his servant to me in the same manner a fifth time with an open letter in his hand. 6In it was written, "It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says, that you and the Jews are planning to rebel; therefore you are rebuilding the wall. And you are to be their king, according to these reports. 7"You have also appointed prophets to proclaim in Jerusalem concerning you, 'A king is in Judah!' And now it will be reported to the king according to these reports. So come now, let us take counsel together." 8Then I sent a message to him saying, "Such things as you are saying have not been done, but you are inventing them in your own mind." 9For all of them were trying to frighten us, thinking, "They will become discouraged with the work and it will not be done." But now, O God, strengthen my hands. Let’s stop there for now. I want you to be aware that as God is in the process of growing us up and bringing healing to our lives and families it will cause the enemy to be stirred up. I know we have talked about this a couple times already. But we need to be aware that the battle will not stop until every enemy of Christ is turned into a footstool for him. With that in mind we need to remember what to expect when God begins to work in our lives. We need to expect to be getting better and getting healed and at the same time we need to be mindful that the enemy will continue to attack us from any angle he can. Too often the Christian life is portrayed as an easy walk where all your troubles melt away when you pray. Such is not the case. In the real world growing up is hard work and that is why very few people actually do it. I think we heard about an attack last week when Stephanie talked about the lies that had been spread about her family. That’s one of the methods that the enemy uses. We see that right here in this passage. The enemy is saying things about Nehemiah that are not true. They are saying that he wants to be king and rebel against the kind of Babylon. Nothing could be further from the truth and so Nehemiah has to confront the enemy with the truth. He has to stand up to the lies. One of the main goals of the enemy is to frighten you so that you will stop pressing into what God has for you. He wants us to be afraid of what might happen so that we will stop the work of God that has already begun. The wall is being built. The church is growing up and maturing. The people of God are repenting and changing in spite of the enemy. But the enemy just redoubles his efforts to stop the progress. The attacks are not always frontal attacks sometimes the enemy finds someone in the church to use as an ally. That’s what happens in the next section: When I entered the house of Shemaiah the son of Delaiah, son of Mehetabel, who was confined at home, he said, "Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple, and let us close the doors of the temple, for they are coming to kill you, and they are coming to kill you at night." 11But I said, "Should a man like me flee? And could one such as I go into the temple to save his life? I will not go in." 12Then I perceived that surely God had not sent him, but he uttered his prophecy against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. Here is a man in the church who is confined to his house, something is wrong with him that he can’t get out and about and he can’t do work on the wall. And the enemy uses this man to try and frighten Nehemiah by giving him bad words from a friend, from a so called part of the body of Christ. But Nehemiah sees through it. Notice that he calls what this guy did, false prophecy. I think too often times we have an unbiblical understanding of what prophecy is. Whenever we say this is what I believe the Lord is saying we are speaking prophecy even if it is about a construction project. Here in this example the man says the enemy is coming to kill you we need to run and hide. Notice that sometimes prophecy can be very practical. Notice also that Nehemiah understands that this simple request is a prophecy but it is a false one. The New Testament tells us in first John 4: Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world. Too often what we try to do is spiritualize these things and make them about religious stuff or make them other worldly but here prophecy is nothing more than a simple statement: these people are coming to kill you. Nehemiah test’s the spirit of the man who tells him this and he understands that this man is a false prophet. Another way of saying it is the guy was a liar. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t also a prophecy. I would go so far as to say that the gift of prophecy is not so much in revealing the word of God but in giving direction in what to do or not to do. God puts an idea in someone’s head and then it is up to us to discern whether that idea is from God or not and whether to pursue it or not. I am reminded of Paul and the prophet Agabus in Acts 21: On the next day we left and came to Caesarea, and entering the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, we stayed with him. 9Now this man had four virgin daughters who were prophetesses. 10As we were staying there for some days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. 11And coming to us, he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands, and said, "This is what the Holy Spirit says: 'In this way the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.'" 12When we had heard this, we as well as the local residents began begging him not to go up to Jerusalem. 13Then Paul answered, "What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." 14And since he would not be persuaded, we fell silent, remarking, "The will of the Lord be done!" Notice that the prophet says a simple statement. He doesn’t say don’t go. He doesn’t say go. He simply says this is going to happen. The response differs depending on who heard the words. The majority heard the words and said don’t go. They assumed that the will of the Lord was for Paul to remain free. But Paul heard the word of the prophet and understood that this was what God had called him to do and if the message was a true prophecy then he was ready to not only be bound but to die in the name of the Lord Jesus. The prophecy in some sense only confirmed what was already in Paul’s heart. And had he gone with the majority he would have been rebelling against God. This was a testing of Spirits. The Spirit of the prophecy was correct. The spirit of the majority was not correct and Paul had to discern between the two which was the will of God. I have been asking you over the last couple of months to listen for the Lord to speak to you because I believe that God still speaks, that he wants to speak and give us direction so that we do not have to stumble around in the dark. I believe he wants to tell us how to apply the word of God, the law of God, in everyday situations. He wants to tell us how to pray and what to pray for. But just because something comes to your head doesn’t mean that it’s from the Lord. We need to be discerning. We need to be testing the spirits. I believe I have heard some words from some of you concerning all that we are praying for and they are good words, words of hope that God is doing and going to do great things in the lives of those connected with our congregation. Those words mesh with what God has been laying on my heart as well but that doesn’t mean that they are going to happen in the blink of an eye. Look at what has transpired in the 30 weeks that we have been going through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah: over thirty years have gone by and the wall of the city is just being completed. As we will see in the next chapter there aren’t even very many people living in the city yet. But the word of the Lord had been given over 100 years before that God would raise up Jerusalem again after they went into captivity. God is faithful to keep his promises. God has promised to heal our broken hearts if we humble ourselves before him. He promises to restore our children to us. He promises to make us the head and not the tail. I believe that he is keeping those promises in our midst. But that doesn’t mean that we can all have happy family reunions next week. Change takes time. Growing up takes time. God is using us to lay a foundation for the future here. This is more about our great grandchildren in the faith than it is about us. Nehemiah is not doing the work he’s doing so he can have a nice place to retire. The city he is working on probably won’t be completed in his life time. The restoration of Israel to the promise land will be completed long after he is gone and as a matter of fact long after we are gone. The kingdom of God which is what Israel is a picture of takes a lot of life times to be built, especially since after it seems some construction progress a new generation comes along and tears down all the work that has been done. But we must take heart because God promises to advance the kingdom of God until it fills the whole earth. We must build for the future and not just for our retirement. When we understand that the world is bigger than our lives and our happiness then we will be more prepared to do what God has called us to with a long term vision. We need to be laying up a foundation, storing up building supplies for the godly generations that follow. I think it is important that we understand that our hard work in the kingdom must be passed on to the godly of the next generation. The sad part of that is that it may or may not be our own flesh and blood that get to be the recipients of our hard work. The kingdom of God is bigger than our families. And at the same time it shouldn’t have to start from scratch with each new generation. We should be able to build upon the foundation of those who came before us. Back in the passage we find out more about the latest attack from the enemy. It seems that this man was hired so that Nehemiah might become frightened and act accordingly and sin, so that they might have an evil report in order that they could reproach him. So once again Nehemiah prays down hard prayers upon his enemies: 14Remember, O my God, Tobiah and Sanballat according to these works of theirs, and also Noadiah the prophetess and the rest of the prophets who were trying to frighten me. I think we need to learn to start praying against our enemies – not the flesh and blood people who get in our way but the principalities’ and powers that we are really at war with. It’s time to begin to ask God to destroy the work of the enemy in our day and age. What does the scripture say: you have not because you ask not and you ask and don’t receive because you ask for the wrong reasons so that you may spend it on your pleasures. If you pray that the enemy would be destroyed in order that you can get ahead and prosper so you can retire early then you’re praying for the wrong things. We have to remember that we are called to die to ourselves, give up our desires and advance the kingdom of God. I’m learning that dying looks different in everyone’s life because we must each die to ourselves and we are all different. I have to die to lust and to quitting and running away. That means I have to learn to live life without being numb. I have to learn to persevere and to stand and face the things that life brings my way. That’s a lot of hard lessons for me. But that is what dying to myself means in my life. You on the other hand may need to die to self reliance or even success so that you can begin to trust God more. Some may need to learn to take care of others while others may need to stop taking care of others so that they can take care of themselves. Growing up in the Kingdom of God looks different for every person even though we are all dying to ourselves. One persons dying is not easier than another person’s dying it’s just different. Look at the next set of verses: So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. 16When all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence; for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. 17Also in those days many letters went from the nobles of Judah to Tobiah, and Tobiah's letters came to them. 18For many in Judah were bound by oath to him because he was the son-in-law of Shecaniah the son of Arah, and his son Jehohanan had married the daughter of Meshullam the son of Berechiah. 19Moreover, they were speaking about his good deeds in my presence and reported my words to him. Then Tobiah sent letters to frighten me. The work of building the wall has been completed. The call of Nehemiah has been fulfilled. The enemies of God lost their confidence because they saw that God was working in the midst of his people. Yes, the enemy was still around. He continued to try to frighten Nehemiah but God refused to let it happen and fear was beginning to show up in the enemy ranks instead. Now just because the wall is built around the city doesn’t mean that the kingdom has come in its glory. Look at the first few verses of chapter 7: 1Now when the wall was rebuilt and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed, 2then I put Hanani my brother, and Hananiah the commander of the fortress, in charge of Jerusalem, for he was a faithful man and feared God more than many. 3Then I said to them, "Do not let the gates of Jerusalem be opened until the sun is hot, and while they are standing guard, let them shut and bolt the doors. Also appoint guards from the inhabitants of Jerusalem, each at his post, and each in front of his own house." 4Now the city was large and spacious, but the people in it were few and the houses were not built. Too often what happens in the church is that great gains are made, revival breaks out, people get saved whatever and we get comfortable and let down our guard. But even though the wall is completed, great success has happened, much restoration has happened in the body of Christ, Nehemiah is not taking any chances and he makes sure to keep guards in place even as he begins to move on to new tasks. We must remember that we are at war. We must stay vigilant because the enemy would like nothing better than to destroy all that is being built up here at Immanuel. I find that it’s easy to get side tracked by stupid things. I’ve been doing pretty good the last couple of months staying focused on the warfare that is around us. God has poured out a desire to pray like I’ve never known before. I’ve been praying like crazy. But then early last week something happened, in keeping with the context with the passage let’s just say it was a false prophet that spoke out and instead of testing the spirit I listened to what he said because well he was in a position of authority over me – and well I like my job. I didn’t test the spirit I just laid down and died. I got angry. I beat myself up. I took it all on myself and the result was that I took my focus off the warfare. I quit praying. I didn’t want to pray because I was consumed with what someone said about me and how it reflected on me personally. But even though in the heat of battle I guess I gave up on God for a bit God didn’t give up on me. In fact, he used my giving up to take me where I needed to go to win a victory. He used my bad situation to answer my prayer. He did what was necessary to change the way I was looking at my situation so that I could see the true problem and solve it. You see the problem was another leaky roof and just like my roof at home ( which is no longer leaking by the way) God didn’t fix the leak in the roof. He could have. He has the power. But instead, he took a year of my life and worked on me doing everything that was necessary to give me the eyes that I needed to see so that I could take steps to fix the problem. God is in the process of fixing the leak in the roof but he is using me and has bee preparing me to do it. That is how God works in the world. He takes dominion over the earth through us. That is why we have to quit being ME focused and start being God focused because he know exactly what we need to be able to see in order to advance the kingdom and we are for the most part blind, deaf and dumb with regard to advancing the Kingdom. It is time for us to lay it all down before the king. It’s time to say do whatever it takes to me to get me where you want me to be. It’s time to let God be God and put ourselves in his hands so the job will get done right. I would challenge all of you to place your selves and all that you have and are at the feet of your king and master and like Isaiah simply say: Here am I. Send me. Let’s pray. Father, thank you for being you. Thank you for all that you are and all that you are doing. Please be merciful to us and give us eyes to see and ears to hear all that you are doing so that we may walk faithfully on the path that you have created for us. Advance the kingdom through our feeble hands. In Jesus name we ask these things AMEN.

Foundations 28

We are continuing on in Nehemiah today. We will start with chapter 5 verse 1 and to start with I will go to verse 13. Now there was a great outcry of the people and of their wives against their Jewish brothers. 2For there were those who said, "We, our sons and our daughters are many; therefore let us get grain that we may eat and live." 3There were others who said, "We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our houses that we might get grain because of the famine." 4Also there were those who said, "We have borrowed money for the king's tax on our fields and our vineyards. 5"Now our flesh is like the flesh of our brothers, our children like their children Yet behold, we are forcing our sons and our daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters are forced into bondage already, and we are helpless because our fields and vineyards belong to others." 6Then I was very angry when I had heard their outcry and these words. 7I consulted with myself and contended with the nobles and the rulers and said to them, "You are exacting usury (interest on loans), each from his brother!" Therefore, I held a great assembly against them. 8I said to them, "We according to our ability have redeemed our Jewish brothers who were sold to the nations; now would you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us?" Then they were silent and could not find a word to say. 9Again I said, "The thing which you are doing is not good; should you not walk in the fear of our God because of the reproach of the nations, our enemies? 10"And likewise I, my brothers and my servants are lending them money and grain. Please, let us leave off this usury. 11"Please, give back to them this very day their fields, their vineyards, their olive groves and their houses, also the one hundredth of a percent interest on the money and of the grain, the new wine and the oil that you are exacting from them." 12Then they said, "We will give it back and will require nothing from them; we will do exactly as you say " So I called the priests and took an oath from them that they would do according to this promise. 13I also shook out the front of my garment and said, "Thus may God shake out every man from his house and from his possessions who does not fulfill this promise; even thus may he be shaken out and emptied " And all the assembly said, "Amen!" And they praised the LORD. Then the people did according to this promise. This is a passage that is so alien to the way we live. How many of you would rejoice to be paying one 100th of a percent of interest on your loans? You see we don’t have a clue how much bondage we are in, in our culture, because it has happened slowly over time. If Nehemiah were to show up in our time he would not see a free nation. He would probably laugh when he heard someone say America was the land of the free. He would more than likely see a nation of slaves that work all day long to pay their taxes and the interest on their debt. We are blinded to our own plight because we are still allowed to be comfortable. Our captivity is a luxurious captivity and so we don’t bother trying to get out of it. But the truth is it is still captivity. I know that we are not a congregation that is able to lend money to one another. We are not collecting interest off of each other and so it may seem like this passage doesn’t apply to us. On the other hand, I think it is time we learned to think christianly and biblically with regard to economics. In exodus 22:25 and following we read: "If you lend money to My people, to the poor among you, you are not to act as a creditor to him; you shall not charge him interest. 26"If you ever take your neighbor's cloak as a pledge, you are to return it to him before the sun sets, 27for that is his only covering; it is his cloak for his body. What else shall he sleep in? And it shall come about that when he cries out to Me, I will hear him, for I am gracious. Look also at Leviticus chapter 25 starting with verse 35: 'Now in case a countryman of yours becomes poor and his means with regard to you falter, then you are to sustain him, like a stranger or a sojourner that he may live with you. 36'Do not take usurious interest from him, but revere your God, that your countryman may live with you. 37'You shall not give him your silver at interest, nor your food for gain. I want you to notice that no where in these passage does it say you should just give money to the poor. The exodus passage says lend and both passages say without interest or without making a gain on what you lend. God does not expect us to create a segment of the population that exists on handouts but at the same time he expects us to be generous to those in need. Notice also that he doesn’t command them to be generous to other nations. He doesn’t command them to give aid to the poor of the philistines, or the Egyptians. In fact, Deuteronomy 23: 19-20 says this: "You shall not charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest. 20"You MAY charge interest to a foreigner, but to your countrymen you shall not charge interest, so that the LORD your God may bless you in all that you undertake in the land which you are about to enter to possess. I want you to understand that interest is a way of taking dominon over the earth. It is a way of discipling the nations. Proverbs tells us that the borrower is servant to the lender. The covenant promise for obedience is that we will be the lenders and not the borrowers, the head and not the tail. I’m afraid we have forgotten all of these things in the church today. I’m here to remind you that these things are the path of life. If we want to begin to live life to its fullest then we had better begin to think christianly and act Biblically with regard to money, the poor, and the unbeliever. I was raised through my early 20’s to believe that God had a special place in his heart for the poor regardless of whether or not they were believers; that our call was to help the poor everywhere in the name of Jesus. I want you to understand that such ideology is one of the biggest lies the church has swallowed hook line and sinker. God has a heart for the repentant. The unrepentant deserve nothing but his wrath. Poverty doesn’t make God like you. Repentance does. Humbleness before God is the key to being favored by God. Poverty is a part of the curse; the pain of which is meant to draw people to repentance. The federal government once again showed its desire to be the God of the American people when in 1964 it began the war on Poverty. What that is, in effect, is a war against the covenant of God. The path of life says that we are to work six days a week if we want to live. We have enabled multiple generations to prosper in covenant breaking by telling them we will pay them not to work. Scripture is clear: If you refuse to work you should not be eating. We have no obligation as believers to give money or to lend money to those who refuse to work. Now at the same time we are called to be generous to those of the household of God and if a brother is in need you are free to lend money at no interest. You are free to give money if you so desire but you do not have to feel guilty about expecting to receive back the money you give to help someone out of a jam. We live in the time when the church loves to practice guilt manipulation and so we can turn on the tv and see pictures of starving babies that pull on our heartstrings and then beg us to help them but we never ask the question why are these children starving? The biblical answer is: Because starvation is one of the curses for covenant breaking. If we go into a nation that is facing the wrath of God because of generations of covenant breaking and we take away the consequences that God has poured out on them are we taking away their motivation to repent? Are we becoming idols to a nation that needs to fall on its face in repentance? These are the kinds of things that we need to be thinking about. I’m not asking you to be hard hearted. I’m asking you to think a little deeper than the pull of pity and guilt manipulation. You do not need to feel guilty for having what you have if you have attained it by working hard. Prosperity is a gift of God. Too much of my life was spent being made to feel guilty for being a white middle class American. I do not need to feel guilt about that. I need to feel guilty about my sin and then repent over it but if it’s not sin: I don’t need to feel guilty about it. I do not need to feel guilty about the condition of covenant breakers. Our call is to first and foremost care for the body of Christ, minister to its needs in a godly manner. Second, our call is to take dominion over the unbeliever by every lawful means at our disposal so that God may use that to draw them to repentance. Once they repent, they are a part of the body of Christ and should be treated like one. You see there should be group benefits for being a part of the body of Christ. We don’t understand that because we have for too long despised the concept of being a body in exchange for being a bunch of lone rangers with everybody doing what is right in their own eyes. If we are ever going to really fulfill the great commission and make disciples of all the nations then we are going to have to begin to think differently about economics and we are going to have to stop letting pity open our wallets and drain our bank accounts. We need to stop thinking only as individuals and start thinking as a body. What if we began to pool some of our money together and began to invest in business so that we could allow brothers and sisters to work six days a week at a decent wage? I don’t know what that might be. I just know that we have skills in this body that aren’t being fully used. I know that we have needs in this body that aren’t being fully met. I know that the territory around us needs to be disciplined and taken under the dominion of the King of Kings. I believe with all my heart that God can stir your hearts to action. I believe that God can speak to you. I believe he probably already has spoken to some of you about a lot of different things but you keep blowing it off as a crazy thought or a wild idea. I want to encourage you to hear the voice of God and be strengthened enough to tell what you hear to someone you trust. I want to encourage you to stop thinking about ideas and then not do anything about them and instead begin to implement steps to bring your ideas to reality. Because DOING what God puts on our heart to DO is how God advances the kingdom. NOT DOING what God puts on our hearts to do paves the road to hell. Look at the rest of chapter 5: Moreover, from the day that I was appointed to be their governor in the land of Judah, from the twentieth year to the thirty-second year of King Artaxerxes, for twelve years, neither I nor my kinsmen have eaten the governor's food allowance. 15But the former governors who were before me laid burdens on the people and took from them bread and wine besides forty shekels of silver; even their servants domineered the people. But I did not do so because of the fear of God. 16I also applied myself to the work on this wall; we did not buy any land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work. 17Moreover, there were at my table one hundred and fifty Jews and officials, besides those who came to us from the nations that were around us. 18Now that which was prepared for each day was one ox and six choice sheep, also birds were prepared for me; and once in ten days all sorts of wine were furnished in abundance Yet for all this I did not demand the governor's food allowance, because the servitude was heavy on this people. 19Remember me, O my God, for good, according to all that I have done for this people. I want you to look at these verses in the context of what we’ve been talking about. I want you to understand this and some of my conservative business friends would probably scoff at this but I want you to make sure you get this in your head. If God lays a business opportunity before you don’t go into it saying how can I make a huge profit out of this, how can I get rich? Instead we in the body of Christ should be saying how can I enrich my brothers and sisters through this endeavor? If you don’t want to pay taxes on the profit from your business then give the profit to your employees and prosper them. Our call is to build up the body of Christ and take dominion over our communities in the authority of Christ. Look at these passages: God got the king to make Nehemiah governor of the region of Judea but he doesn’t take his salary, he doesn’t even take the food allotment that he has been given instead he uses that to minister to the needs of the people and advance the rebuilding of the temple. As governor he doesn’t lord it over the people he gets down in the trenches and he works right beside the everyday Joes. He makes his entire staff do the same thing. Bureaucracy is not more important that building the body of Christ. He understands that THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is building the body of Christ to maturity. I understand that there is nothing more important in this world than building you up to maturity. I know how broken we all are. I know the depth of bondage that we are in as persons. I also know that it doesn’t have to stay that way. I believe that God allowed me to be broken throughout the course of my life so that he could begin to put me back together in order that I would be sensitive to the broken; so that I would have a heart that cries for God to intercede and bring healing and deliverance in people’s lives. You see I have spent my life in churches where they didn’t have a clue that the gospel was supposed to take away brokenness. I have lived my whole life in churches that didn’t think they had any hope of getting better unless Jesus came back. I am here to tell you with all that is in me: Those kinds of thoughts are lies of the enemy to keep you in the dirt and to keep you from growing up to be the person that you are meant to be. You need to stop listening to lies and start listening to the promises of God. If you will turn from you own ways and walk on the path of life then God promises to heal your broken heart. He promises in Jeremiah chapter 30 some wonderful things: 'It shall come about on that day,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'that I will break his yoke from off the church’s neck and will tear off their bonds; and strangers will no longer make them their slaves. 9'But they shall serve the LORD their God and Jesus their king, whom I will raise up for them. 10'Fear not, O bride of Christ My servant,' declares the LORD, 'And do not be dismayed, O Church; For behold, I will save you from afar And your offspring from the land of their captivity And The body of Christ will return and will be quiet and at ease, And no one will make him afraid. 11'For I am with you,' declares the LORD, 'to save you; For I will destroy completely all the nations where I have scattered you, Only I will not destroy you completely But I will chasten you justly And will by no means leave you unpunished.' 12"For thus says the LORD, 'Your wound is incurable And your injury is serious. 'There is no one to plead your cause; No healing for your sore, No recovery for you. 14'All your lovers have forgotten you, They do not seek you; For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, With the punishment of a cruel one, Because your iniquity is great And your sins are numerous. 15'Why do you cry out over your injury? Your pain is incurable. Because your iniquity is great And your sins are numerous, I have done these things to you. 16'Therefore all who devour you will be devoured; And all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity; And those who plunder you will be for plunder, And all who prey upon you I will give for prey. 17'For I will restore you to health And I will heal you of your wounds,' declares the LORD, 'Because they have called you an outcast, saying: "It is the bride of Christ; no one cares for her."' 18"Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will restore the fortunes of the body of Christ And have compassion on his dwelling places; And the city of the New Jerusalem will be rebuilt on its ruin, And the palace will stand on its rightful place. 19'From them will proceed thanksgiving And the voice of those who celebrate; And I will multiply them and they will not be diminished; I will also honor them and they will not be insignificant. 20'Their children also will be as formerly, And their congregation shall be established before Me; And I will punish all their oppressors. 21'Their leader shall be one of them, And their ruler shall come forth from their midst; And I will bring him near and he shall approach Me; For who would dare to risk his life to approach Me?' declares the LORD. 22'You shall be My people, And I will be your God.'" 23Behold, the tempest of the LORD! Wrath has gone forth, A sweeping tempest; It will burst on the head of the wicked. 24The fierce anger of the LORD will not turn back Until He has performed and until He has accomplished the intent of His heart; In the latter days you will understand this. I hope that you are beginning to understand this now. God has called us to stop thinking about our selves. He has called us to lay down our lives so that we can be a part of something much much bigger – the body of Christ. You see the body of Christ is only as strong as its weakest member. That’s why I have been asking you all for the last month to start praying for one of our weaker members. This month I want you to continue to do the same thing I want you to pour out your hearts to God that he would intervene in our congregation and begin to save us from our selves. For too long we have lived our lives as if God couldn’t or wouldn’t get involved in our lives. We have said we’re Christians but the God we serve wasn’t big enough to do anything about our everyday lives. He was barely strong enough to provide Sunday school teachers and a preacher. I here to remind you that God is bigger than that: Much much bigger than that. He is bigger than false Gods. He is the only God and I am asking you to pray until the false Gods in our midst are revealed to be nothing but a joke. I’m asking you to pray until God brings to repentance those who worship pagan Gods. I’m asking you to do one thing and that is beg God to act. Beg God to save us from ourselves in such a way that only he will get the glory and praise. So that his name will be exalted in our city. I’m not asking you to go door to door and evangelize the entire community so we can go on playing church the way we always have. I’m asking you to pray to God that he would save one small part of our body, save them from themselves and what is right in their eyes and save them to the uttermost. There is nothing more important than that. Let’s pray. Oh God, be our God, be our strong tower and mighty fortress. Be the God that your word says you are. Save us from ourselves oh God. Make us your people. In Jesus’ name and authority I pray – AMEN.

Foundations 27

Sorry I haven't been posting these life got hectic over the last couple of months - Brad This week we are going to get back to Nehemiah chapter 4 and the process of building the body of Christ. We’ll start with verse 7: Now when Sanballat, Tobiah, the Arabs, the Ammonites and the Ashdodites heard that the repair of the walls of Jerusalem went on, and that the breaches began to be closed, they were very angry. 8All of them conspired together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause a disturbance in it. There’s nothing new in this passage. The enemies of God still want nothing more than to destroy the rebuilding of the body of Christ. They do not want to see you grow up in Christ Jesus. They don’t want to see you get out of the bondage that so easily ensnares you. They don’t want to see you grow up and get out of diapers. They don’t want to see you mature in the faith because that means an end to their power, their sphere of influence. It’s just like the politicians in our day and age they don’t want to see people become responsible. They don’t want people to be able to take care of themselves and provide for themselves because it reduces their power. Why do you think the unions are in such an uproar in Wisconsin and Ohio? They are on the verge of losing power and influence. They don’t care if the government doesn’t have enough money. They don’t care about anything except keeping the power that they have accumulated. And so they will use any tactics they can to keep that power. I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t blood shed in Madison before all of this is over. God is showing us the true condition of American’s hearts. We are seeing the greed that reigns supreme. We are seeing the hatred for doing what’s right if it interferes with our bank accounts. The same thing was going on around Jerusalem at the time of Nehemiah. The enemies of God were getting ready to lose power and influence because the body of Christ was waking up and starting to grow up. It was beginning to mature and God’s enemies didn’t like it. Now if you remember from the last time I spoke: the church had already prayed in verses 4 and 5 of chapter 4 for God to intervene. They prayed: Hear, O our God, how we are despised! Return their reproach on their own heads and give them up for plunder in a land of captivity. 5Do not forgive their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out before You, for they have demoralized the builders. What we see is that they prayed and now after the fact, it looks like nothing happened because the enemy is still the enemy and is still giving them grief. I want you to understand something if you are striving to walk on the path of life and all hell seems to break out around you that should be a sign of encouragement to you because the enemy doesn’t need to give you grief if you are not giving him any trouble. He’s already won if you’re content to wear depends the rest of your life and suck your thumb. But if you start growing up then he’s got something to worry about. He has God to worry about because God is on the move when you start to grow up. God is doing something and the enemy loses power and influence every time you take a faltering step toward maturity. It’s important to remember that trouble or at least the threat of trouble ALWAYS follows any attempt to rebuild the things of God. I remind you of that because it can seem like God isn’t doing anything when you pray but look at the passage from the last time I spoke: they prayed to God and then they built half of the wall. All those people prayed and worked and in the midst of tribulation from the enemy God allowed the body of Christ to be repaired and built up. The aggravation didn’t stop but it also didn’t hinder the work of God. Now on the surface it doesn’t look like the enemy has been defeated does it? I mean they prayed for the enemy to be blotted out but the enemy is still present and giving them grief. Hear this: God doesn’t work in your time frame. He works in his. He does things in his time according to his plan. He is already answering the prayers to destroy the enemy but he is not through with the enemy yet. He is going to use them to advance his own kingdom. He is going to use the enemy to motivate the body of Christ to grow up even more. He is bringing trouble into the lives of the body of Christ so that they will be stirred up to want to grow, to want to pray, to want to seek the face of God. The enemy stirs up trouble and what does it cause the church to do? Verse 9 says: But we prayed to our God, and because of them we set up a guard against them day and night. 10Thus in Judah it was said, "The strength of the burden bearers is failing, yet there is much rubbish; and we ourselves are unable to rebuild the wall." I know verse ten sounds like the church was pretty hopeless but the truth is they were just being honest. We need that same kind of honesty. We need to understand that our strength is failing, that there is a lot of garbage in our lives that shouldn’t be there. We need to be aware that we do not have the ability to rebuild the body of Christ. If we live our lives that way what we are saying is we can’t do it: But God can. We must come to the end of ourselves so that God will receive all the praise and glory and honor. If that is not our attitude then we have become like the church at Laodicea saying: "I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing," the result of such an attitude is that we will end up being wretched, miserable and poor and blind and naked. Here is the paradox of the kingdom of God: If you think you have it altogether you’re a mess and you have no hope. If you understand that you are broken and helpless God will do great things through you. Back in Nehemiah they are praying and building, praying and building and then the second round of attacks comes their way in verse 11: Our enemies said, "They will not know or see until we come among them, kill them and put a stop to the work." 12When the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times, "They will come up against us from every place where you may turn," 13then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears and bows. 14When I saw their fear, I rose and spoke to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people: "Do not be afraid of them; remember the Lord who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives and your houses." I want you to see a couple of things in this passage. First, it is understandable to be afraid especially if you are aware of how weak you are. At the same time you must remember that this is the Lord’s battle not yours. Second, we must remember who we are fighting for: our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, our wives, our houses. There are lives on the line. I know we don’t like to think about this battle going on in the real world. We want it to be spiritual. But your children, grandchildren, friends and families lives are at stake not just in the spiritual realm but in every day life. The church has been so lax over the last hundred plus years that we are now seeing the spiritual battle blossom in the everyday world. The turmoil in every part of the world around us is the harvesting of seeds that we have sown, that our great grandparents, grand parents, and parents have sown. We are beginning to reap the harvest. I know we don’t like to think like this but we planted the seeds of Babylon in our country starting around the time of the civil war, they were the seeds of the government as provider, government as protector government as safety net, government as educator, government as God. And we have been slowly feeding that god until he is the dragon we are faced with today. You don’t need to look for anything else to see the Babylon of the book of revelation. He is here: the civil government becoming the do all and end all of a people’s life. That is the essence of the Babylon of scripture. You don’t need to wait for the European union or the Arabs or the Russians to do anything. Babylon is here now and living unopposed for the most part right here in America. And it is the church’s fault. That’s where we are at. Now I don’t want you to be discouraged by that. I want you to remember how the story ends: Babylon is defeated. BABYLON LOSES. Our call is to stand wherever we are when we wake up and see the situation for what it is. We are to stand with our weapons in hand. You see we have been made aware of the enemy’s plans. We have been called to stand against the attacks. We have been called to have our weapons ready. That is our calling. If you notice in this passage at this point in time the church didn’t have to fight against the enemy. All they had to do was stand firm with their weapons in their hand. Look at verse 15: When our enemies heard that it was known to us, and that God had frustrated their plan, then all of us returned to the wall, each one to his work. Sometimes being ready for a battle and standing firm is all it takes to defeat the enemy. Notice what they did after that: From that day on, half of my servants carried on the work while half of them held the spears, the shields, the bows and the breastplates; and the captains were behind the whole house of Judah. 17Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon. 18As for the builders, each wore his sword girded at his side as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me. 19I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, "The work is great and extensive, and we are separated on the wall far from one another. 20"At whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us." 21So we carried on the work with half of them holding spears from dawn until the stars appeared. 22At that time I also said to the people, "Let each man with his servant spend the night within Jerusalem so that they may be a guard for us by night and a laborer by day." 23So neither I, my brothers, my servants, nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us removed our clothes, each took his weapon even to the water. This is how serious the battle is around us. We need to be on the alert all the time. We need to have our tools in one hand and our weapons in the other. We build and fight, fight and build at this point in our growth and building. You see for too long we’ve been told that coming to Jesus was all that it took. Say the sinner’s prayer and everything is ok. But that was a lie. It was the lie that put the church to sleep. It was the lie that let Babylon become what it is today in our country and in the world. I was with my grandson Obi this week. He is three months old. He is full of life. He is alive 100%. But if I put him at the starting line of a race and left him there he would be dead in a week because he hasn’t grown up enough to take care of himself, he can’t crawl let alone run in race. He has to be nurtured, fed and cared for. He fights battles with little bitty viruses and bacteria that we can’t even see. They are things that probably won’t bother him when he gets older but right now they reek havoc on his little body. Many of us have been left on the finish line alone since the day we were born again. It’s a wonder that we’re still alive. Many of the people that used to be there on the starting line have died – they have left the faith and are growing up on bitterness and despair, hatred and lawlessness; they may be doing it in the name of Jesus but they’re not alive anymore. I’m calling out to you today and asking you to embrace growing up. Embrace feeding your soul on the word of God. I’m calling you to put the weapons in your hands – weapons like prayer and the word of God applied to all of your life. I challenge you to challenge God to begin to show himself to you and make himself real in ways you’ve never imagined could be changed. The time for depends and baby blankets is over. Infants will be crushed by the boots of the enemy that are fast approaching in this land. We are at war. We have been for our entire lives but I believe that war is going to begin to get ugly. I want you to be ready for that. I want you to be aware of just how big God is now because when the trouble finally reaches us we are going to need a huge God. You need to be aware that God is causing powers, spiritual powers who have been in control of nations for a long, long time to come tumbling down, Tanznia, Egypt, Lybia, and other countries. The hand of God is stirring the pot. It is not Islam that is stirring things up. They serve a dead God who can do nothing unless the God of heaven says so. Do not think for a moment that those nations becoming a democracy is a good thing. Democracy is simply the demands of 51% of the people. If 51 percent of those countries are Islamic they will have Islamic democracies. If they secular they will have atheistic, so called neutral democracies – neither thing is godly. The only hope that those nations have is to repent and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and his word. It is no different here in our own country. We have not had protests in the streets in our country over anything since I was a kid. God has stopped giving wealth to our government for a purpose. God is letting our sins begin to bear fruit. He is letting the economic lies that we have worshipped come home to roost. I want you to be aware, not afraid, but aware that God is moving. Continue to humble yourself before him, seek his face, pray, turn from your wicked ways so that he will see fit to raise you up to rule and reign for Christ in your sphere’s of influence. You need to be learning now how to apply the word of God to the situations of life. You need to learn how to pray with perseverance and expectation that God will actually do something now so that you will not be swept away by the coming flood. We need to start preparing now, laying out a vision and a plan as to what we are going to do should God use these troubled times to open the flood gates and draw people to repentance and faith. What will we do if 500 or a 1000 come to the faith in one day? What will be our response if we end up being the only people willing to lead local governments and make hard decisions? If we ask, God will answer. I want to remind you to continue to ask for a word from the Lord for our brother Ian. We are going to start focusing prayer in his direction soon. I believe that God is going to use him to show us what he can do and to remind us that he is in charge of everyone and he can raise up and throw down as he sees fit. Be encouraged. God is moving. God is stirring up the world. There’s an old song that says Just as an eagle stirs her nest so that her young ones can have no rest God in his own mysterious ways stirs up his people to watch, fight and pray. That is where we are at God is stirring. Our call is to get serious about watching, fighting, and praying. Let’s pray. Oh Father, We see you stirring the world unlike anything in recent memory. Powers are falling down and rising up, earth quakes and floods and other natural disasters are increasing. Oh Lord we ask that you would strengthen us for the battles to come. Grow us up so that we will be able to stand against the warfare to come, that we might run the good race and fight the good fight giving honor and glory to your name. In Jesus’ authority and power I ask these things So be it. Amen.

Whole Lotta Love

Hey Everyone,

I’m so tired of living in a world of Pseudo belief, a world where we say we believe in God as we bow down to ourselves. It is a world where we blame God for all the things that our rebellion has caused while at the same time telling ourselves that we are not as bad as they say- they, of course, being the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost who are still contemplating taking the last train to the coast (of some other galaxy).

In this world of pseudo belief and imaginary truth the human race has only committed a misdemeanor and if we are going to make it to the finish line we all need to get out our brooms and sweep those inconvenient truths under the rug. In this world we can simply talk people into being good. We can bomb people into being good because, well, people want to be good after all.

We are good when it comes right down to it the only thing that stops us from acting that way is a lack of government funding and the inequality of society. We really can all just get along. And squishy gooey emotions will take us boldly where no man (now person) has gone before: Peace on earth goodwill to man (persons).

I know such ideology sells books, wins elections, and fills the Bridgestone arena with the gullible that still believe pseudo God wants us to be healthy, wealthy, and wise with a twitch of the nose and no work or desire or need to change on our part.
When I was a child I thought as a child, I reasoned like a child, I whined like a child and I didn’t want to grow up.

In the world of the God of scripture (which I know has been rewritten by men who want to ruin a good thing with doctrine and truth) the human race, each and every one of us, has committed a capital offense against God. We deserve death for our rebellion because it runs so deep that it is a part of our DNA and can never be repaired. We have to die if we are ever going to live. We can’t get along because we love death more than we love life. That’s just who we are now and if I can’t be king then nobody will. Truth is the mess that is this planet is our fault because we love death even as we say we want to love everybody.

The only remedy is the brutal murder of an innocent man from a non-guilty new race of humans for the sins that altered your DNA. He dies for you and you get raised from the dead in him. You become a new human being with untainted DNA. You get washed in the blood. Contrary to gooey squishy emotions that is the only hope for the human race: ONLY hope. Justice is the only hope. Law is the only hope. And these two things are the only way to love a dead and dying world: Law that provides a way of redemption coupled with justice that provides the bloody sacrifice. From there grace applies the lawful remedy to whosoever will chose to die to death and walk on the path of life.

It’s too bad that the church has forgotten the foundation upon which it is built. I think Jesus may have been listening to Led Zeppelin this week. I hear him calling out to his pseudo bride:

You need coolin', baby, I'm not foolin' I'm gonna send ya back to schoolin' Way down inside, oh honey, you need it I'm gonna give you my love. I'm gonna give you my love, oh.

Once we become a part of the new human race we have to be schooled in the ways of love, lawful, truthful, absolute love: That has to come from way down inside at deeper than DNA level. We have to let that love permeate our being until we are abiding on the path of life with every step we take.

True love, real, godly true love, obeys the commandments. Jesus said: If you love me keep my commandments – guess what all the commandments are his commandments because he also said I and the Father are one, Not a prequel and a sequel: One, the same: exactly the same. (But of course we can never really know what Jesus said or didn't say because well the bible isn't completely true, what is truth anyway? All you need is love, not truth, truth isn't knowable after all -Have we really regressed to the 19th century?)

We seriously need some coolin’. I hope he enrolls us all in the schoolin’ of tough love and hard knocks real soon before the squishy, gooey emotion people get us all blown to smithereens in World War 29.

By the way law and justice are the only real love and contrary to popular opinion they will win and every enemy to them will be made a footstool for Jesus.

Grace and the peace that comes from the victory of the one and only King of Kings,

Brad

Gravity

Hey Everyone,

So…What is smooth sailing? I keep looking at the plan of my life expecting to see the perfect non-storm on the horizon. You know what I’m talking about that day or hour, or minute, or mili-second where everything fits together just like you thought it would. When does the roller coaster of life get to the downhill section? I’m hoping that it’s not already over.

Yesterday was one of those days where I was back in highschool running the 220 low hurdles again. You just get going on the race and then there’s another one of those manmade obstacles in your way that you can’t go around unless of course you want to be disqualified from the race…and they just keep coming.

I started the day off 30 feet in the air in a little aluminum box kissing a wooden beam like it was the blarney stone as I reached out to work on a microphone connection that some brilliant architect made nearly inaccessible to anyone who can’t fly. Four times up and down in less than an hour wore me out for the rest of the day. I was reminded of the longest 5 seconds of my life that occurred some 20 years ago when while painting someone’s second story my extension ladder decided to slide to the ground. I screamed like a girl, briefly, and then rolled over to see a perfect indention of a ladder rung where my kneecap used to be. (A quick lesson in how to spend $10,000 in 10 seconds while trying to make some extra cash).

It took me quite some time to learn to get back on a ladder or a lift.

My day started there and then seemed to come crashing down around me, at least the morning. The afternoon saw all of the morning issues resolved in a positive manner but it was too late for my mental state. I was foul inside. Even stopping to get comics on the way home didn’t help.

Well, maybe it helped a little. The owner of the store was having a deep philosophical discussion about the Joker from the last Batman movie. He was whining about how inconsistent the writers were because the joker kept saying he was chaos personified nothing but pure chance but he kept planning everything he did to the inth degree.

As I was checking out I couldn’t keep my mouth shut (which is rare in such circumstances) and I said something like: “What do you mean inconsistent? Scientists tell us that the world we live in is just one big accident but then they plan the trajectory to the moon.” He was befuddled for a minute and the guy in the green lantern shirt he was talking to smiled and said, “yeah, you’re right.”

But by the time I got back in my car the conversation was gone and I was back in a funk for the next few hours. As I was driving to church with Judy my enduring and longsuffering wife I stuck John Mayer in the cd player and these words began to turn me around:

Gravity is working against me and gravity wants to bring me down
Oh I never know what makes this man with all the love that his heart can stand
Dream of ways to throw it all away.

Gravity is working against me and gravity wants to bring me down
Oh twice as much ain’t twice as good and can’t sustain like one half could
It’s wanting more that’s gonna send me to my knees

Gravity stay the hell away from me oh Gravity has taken better men than me
How can that be?
Just keep me where the light is. Just keep me where the light is.

Keep me where the light is. I have to pray that prayer constantly because there is a part of me that loves the darkness. I don’t mean has a fondness for, I mean LOVES. There is a part of me that would climb into the darkest hole he could find and spend the rest of his days rotting in there. He would throw everything away; all the good, all the love, the friendship, the adventure, the joy – just to be left alone with his numbness, his highness, his oblivion in order to avoid his fears, maturity, responsibility, and risk of life outside the hole.

Gravity stay the hell away from me because I do not want to go back into that hole where I lived for so many years. I do not want to be pain free. I do not want to be risk free. I do not want to be numb again: ever. I wasted too many years there. I lost out on too many relationships. I stayed in diapers too long.

And so in the real world on the outside of the hole of numbness there are days that remind me of the joys of numbness but at the same time there are a hundred million other things that remind me of the emptiness of that so called joy and the fullness of living life straight no chaser. The good, the bad, the ugly (and the beautiful) being revealed as the course laid before me unfolds.

I was reminded of Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. When I looked that up at bible gateway it was encompassed by two other verses: Ecclesiastes 11:9 Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes : Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.

I’m thankful for the judgment of God in my life that has caused me to grow up (finally) in recent years and in doing so altered the desires of my heart.

And I also rejoiced in the other verse that sandwiched Psalm 34 and that was Deuteronomy 14: 26 (my favorite book in the bible) which speaks of one aspect of the tithe and says: You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. What a blessing. I don’t have to feel guilty about eating and rejoicing even though there are starving people out there somewhere. I don't have to feel guilty about having things and about spending money that God has blessed me with on WHATEVER I DESIRE.

I am a blessed man because God with his awesome power and might has changed the desires of my heart away from hiding in a hole of numbness to wanting to take the risk to walk on the path of life and learn what it really means to be alive.

By his Grace and with his mercy I shall never climb back in that hole.

Keep me where the light is.

Brad

I need your love so bad

Hey one and all,

I’m listening to the Wonder Boys soundtrack this morning. I’ve never seen the movie but I love the sound track. There’s an old blues song on there by Little Willie John called: ‘I need your love so bad’ and the lyrics hit me in a wonderfully hard way today.

You see I got derailed this week. The why or how isn’t all that important. It is the ease at which it happened that scares me. One stupid little comment and my life seemed to spiral downward. I quit praying. I quit pressing forward. I was offended. I was angered. I was afraid. I was a fool. AM is probably more appropriate than was.

I do not know the original intent of the words that poured over me like an acid wash burning me to the core. I’m not sure knowing the intent would change the way it was received. You see I have plenty of acid wash premade and standing by to pour on myself whenever the situation demands it.

It’s funny how words can pierce to my heart and lead me off the path of life in the blink of an eye. And in that blink out pops a petty, little, covetous old man who is greedy and self absorbed with the weight of the world on his shoulder and a grudge against everyone who has been able to actually do something with their life (which seems to be almost everybody he comes in contact with. Yes, he can even be covetous of the homeless and the mentally ill.).

It took me three days to see his reflection in the mirror and when I finally did, well, it just broke me open. I am such a putz. I thank God that he allows my heart to still be quick to run back to tenderness. I’m so glad that he doesn’t just hand me over to the enemy permanently. I certainly deserve to be there left to myself.

And so on the way to work this morning I found salt water in my eyes when I heard Little Willie John sing:

I need someone's hand, to lead me through the night
I need someone’s arms to hold and squeeze me tight
When the night begins an' the dew remains
I need your love so bad

I need some lips to feel next to mine
I need someone to stand up an' tell me, when I'm lyin'
When the lights are low, an' it's time to go
I need your love so bad

So give it up an' bring it home to me
Or write it on a paper, so it can be read to me
Tell me you love me an' stop drivin' me mad
'Cause I need your love so bad

I need a soft voice that will talk to me at night
Don't worry baby, we won't fuss an' fight
Listen to my plea, bring it home to me I need your love so bad
Ooh, I need your love so bad-yeah.

I need to be reminded of that. I need his love so bad. So bad. Nothing else matters. NOTHING ELSE MATTERS.

Now for those of you who only live in the New Testament I must emphasis that love is not a happy feeling, it is not a gushy ‘why can’t we just get along’ event. As long as we are outside of Christ there is no getting along. Love is walking in the law of God. The love of God pulls me from sin and puts me back on the path of life, the righteous way. I need that love so bad. I need to be walking on the path of life. That’s my only hope.

I wish I could beat that in the heads and hearts of everyone I know. I wish life were that simple. But it isn’t and we all have to learn or not learn to embrace the good and wonderful law of God on our own. I’m not much of an optimist when it comes to believing that will happen. And that’s why when I finally saw that my recent derailment had stopped me from praying that I was so broken hearted.

You see when I got side tracked I put down my only weapon of war. Yes, weapon of war. We are in the middle of a war and we will be until every enemy of Christ Jesus is made into a footstool for him to put his feet upon. There is going to be no truce with the enemy. There is only going to be victory but it is not a victory that will be won with money, or power, or weapons of mass destruction; it is a war that will be won by the weapons of prayer and the sword of the spirit.

You see I just wasted three days by not being in the battle. I put my family, my church, my writing at risk. I put it at risk because I gave the enemy time to build up resistance again. It doesn’t matter that I can’t see a physical outgrowth of my prayer. God calls us to prayer. He tells us that some things are only defeated by prayer and fasting. I'm finally starting to figure out that "some things" is a pretty all inclusive category.

You see when I fell off the path of life I stopped being humble. I said MY will be done not yours. That's what sin is. So that means not only did I stop praying but also that God stopped hearing anything I did say; as the psalmist says: If I regard wickedness in my heart, The Lord will not hear.

I realize that none of this matters if God is so tiny in his sovereignty that nothing we do matters. The same is true if God isn’t big enough to do anything to really change the world. I’ve been in both camps at one point or another and neither is satisfactory. God is completely sovereign but his sovereignty and his plan are so huge and so much bigger than anything that we can imagine that they include our prayers as instrumental in bringing about or limiting what God will do on the earth.

I need a huge God to put me on and keep me on the path of life, the path of law, the path of true love because I get a clearer picture of how much I hunger and thirst for death everyday and it’s killing me, literally.

Have mercy Oh God cause I need your love so bad.

Grace and peace,
Brad