A Smoldering Wick

It's easy for me to compare my Christian walk with others. I justify my lukewarm “Christian” actions by slapping them up against other believers who seem to have slid further downhill than I. Drastically opposite this mindset is the temptation to place myself aside great heroes of faith. This latter comparison does not last long, for it produces a quivering lip and hasty change of subject. Then follows a chiding of emotions for thinking I could ever match up to those who have graced God’s presence, such as Jesus’ twelve disciples or even non-Biblical characters like Amy Carmichael or John Hyde.

If I cannot come close to their lifestyles how far I must be from Jesus’ own life example! I dare not even venture into His presence. My filthy clothes reek of sin, my head hangs low in shame and my overall countenance is that of fear and timidity. I turn from His glorious face after receiving a hard slap of reality. How could I even imagine I can come close to living up to His standard? How could my foolish heart ever venture to hope that I would be able to be in the same room as this righteous King, much less stand at His side? I stumble through my prayers pitifully, I am often forgetful of praising and my focus is constantly pointed toward myself instead of Him or others; I am spotted and speckled with sin.

God recognizes this helpless state and blesses any who sincerely cry out to Him in anguish over their sinful condition. Psalm 145:19 says that God “will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him, He will also hear their cry and will save them”. The word “cry” is translated as a plea for help, a call of desperation. There is another word for cry that is a little different. This describes a prayer taken from the depths of ones being and is usually triggered by fear. When the disciples saw Jesus walking on the water “they were terrified…and they cried out in fear”. The same word was used by a blind man who recognized Jesus as His only hope both for his spiritual eyes and his physical ones. “Many were sternly telling him [the blind man] to be quiet, but he kept crying out all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:48).

This kind of cry spoken of in the Bible is not masked by pride or tinted by self-promotion. It cannot be silenced by mere men because it knows there is only one cure for its condition and will not stop until it has grasped it. It seeks the cure not until it gets tired, depressed, sad or lonely but until it finds.

The author of the book “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire” said, “When we seek God, He will bless us. But when we stop seeking Him …all bets are off, no matter who we are”.  For all humans it is impossible to maintain this lifestyle requiring constant spiritual energy to dig deeper. We are as helpless as infants. This is when we cry out to our heavenly Father in desperation – for He is our only cure.  

Oh how I long to consistently be seeking God in all manner of living! However, my passion for God is is barely kindled and I still stand so far away from the woman He wants me to be. In His grace God has promised that in spite of my weakness, “a smoldering wick He will not snuff out” (Isaiah 42:3). 

Sin can appear to be harmless but in reality produces death. I must understand this plight I have brought upon myself  and embrace my true state of hopelessness in order to see how much I need God. Only then can I truly pray for help from the depths of my soul. Instead of dwelling in shame I need to be faithful in crying out, trusting that God alone has the power to turn my smoldering wick into a blaze fit for His Kingdom. 

You Restore My Soul

I stop. Someone is calling me.

You're speak to my heart, whispering my name so quietly that I can only hear Your precious voice when I refuse to let distractions rule my life. This gift of peace You offer me is exactly what I have been yearning for. For You know the desires of my heart and my unspoken needs.

I steal away from my endless list of what still needs to be accomplished. Perhaps it is not even what "needs" to be done but what I want or feel obligated to do. 

"My child, come....come and rest"

I follow wherever You lead me. Sometimes You call me to journey over rocky ground and other seasons You lead me by green pastures. Regardless, You always restore my soul. Today I follow you alongside still waters. 

I slide down a small hill and settle among the rocks. I am grateful for the solitude. 

A short distance in front of me the creek bubbles in merriment, 

It seems to laugh at the fast pace of all humanity, finding joy in its own daily routine. 

Surrounding me are remnants of branches. Winter has not left empty handed. As usual it has carried away all the leaves, everything green is long gone.  Even the trees looming over the brook are mere shadows of what they once were. Sighing, I roll over. Warm stones line my back. A breeze tickles my face. I glance up and see a green vine twisting up a tree. In the midst of things dead and decaying, this plant shines its face brightly, a reminder there is always growth regardless of the season. Human eyes are greatly limited to what they can and cannot see God is cultivating. There is always work being done.

Sunlight warms my face, as if God Himself is smiling down on me. By green pastures and quiet waters He has restored my soul. I know the sound of my shepherd's voice and I trust He guides me in the path of righteousness for His sake. When (not if) I face evil I will not fear, for He is with me (Psalm 24).   

A Key to Victory

It’s hard to live in a world not ruled by God. We are placed in a culture that thrives on living with the one consistency of sin. Many times when I venture out into the “real world” I feel as if I’m walking into a battle zone or fog of despair. This sounds dramatic but when faced with the reality of how things should be compared with how they are, even this description falls short. There is no question the path we are on has drastically swerved from our Creator’s intent.

Christians are supposed to stand out of this fog of sin. Yes, sometimes there will be steps backward, but they are to be moving consistently toward God. When I look around, this is not so. A vicious truth that continues to slap me in the face is that I have more faith in the power of sin than the power of God.  I am far more likely to have faith I will repeat a sin within the hour than that God will answer my prayers or keep His promises. This binds me to a lifestyle unable to claim victory over sin. Used to sin I expect it at every corner. I am not surprised to see it rear its ugly head anymore - it has become a fixed feature in my life. Of course the end result of this battle with sin must be defeat, for it always is. It cannot be any different...

Or can it? 

Confused at the discrepancy between the Bible's talk of victory over sin and my own lifestyle of continual failure, I glance around. Is anyone else living this life the Bible proclaims Christians have access to? I look again, what do I see? Christians, including myself, living defeated lives. Is it even possible to live otherwise?

Then again...perhaps the question is not, what do I see? but what do I know?

I know my God is greater and more powerful than sin. I know that through Him I have access to the same power. There is victory r on the other side of the door of which I have been given the key.

But this is different than what I see…

God knows this. That is why He has called us to “walk by faith and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). I take the Bible as fact and choose to believe that over my experience. Through Christ we all have been given the key. Let us not hold it feebly in our hands. Let us not slump in our cells, pondering why we are still in prison though we have been rescued. Let us stop looking at others, ourselves and everything but God and His word. Let us not use our physical eyes to determine what is fact and what is fiction! If you have the key,  pick it up. Unlock the door. Take a step. 

The result? 

Victory. 

Consistency.
Freedom from sin.

Coffee Shop Christianity

 “Coffee shop Christianity” is Christianity filled only with comfortable conversations that tiptoe around the more difficult aspects of the Gospel, skipping the parts that cannot be manipulated to sound desirable. When inquired about sin, it focuses just on grace, overlooking the ugliness of iniquity. When cries for help and justice are screamed, it turns up its music. When people who are in desperate need approach, it hits the gas pedal.

And while I’m peacefully sipping my latte, God’s heart is breaking over these things…

One of my dear friends is not a Christian.

Thousands of God’s children are starving and dying of thirst, both physically and spiritually.

Christians, the “body of Christ”, are living in fear and sin. My own life is far from being righteous.

My reaction? I’m ashamed to say I barely flinch.

Since when are any of these things not an emergency?

John Hyde echoed the same prayer I have been praying, “God break my heart for what breaks Yours!” when a friend interrupted him, “Why are you looking down at your poor self, brother? Of course your heart is cold and dead…. [If] you have asked for the broken heart of Jesus, His love, His burden for sin, His tears. Is He a liar? Has He not given you what you asked for? Then why look away from His heart to your own?” As I read this, the truth of it soaked into my mind - of course John Hyde's heart, along with our hearts, was incapable of feeling the deep feelings God’s was! Our human hearts are merely too human to experience this kind of gut-wrenching emotions God has on a daily basis. 

The truth that slaps us all in the face is that God’s heart will never be satisfied until every single one of His children are saved and all Christians are living in freedom from sin. The more I see God’s heart revealed the colder my human heart appears. I pictured my heart the way God revealed the Israelites to Ezekiel – as dead and unfeeling bones.

But then I hear God’s voice, “Can these bones live?”

In Ezekiel’s words, “Sovereign Lord, you ALONE know.”

God’s reply: “I will put breath in you and will come to LIFE. Then you will know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 37:3-6).

If the heart and breath our bodies use sustain us are of God and not man then without God we physically could not live. Friends what a blessing – that we would literally be nothing without Him!

This reality is so hard to grasp. It seems as if God must be living in anguish every moment of His life, there is so much sin and so many rejecting Him. This is a hard way to live – there is no easy way out! God’s feelings are intense. Just this week I was given two opportunities to feel a little bit of what God does and was overwhelmed by how cut to the core I felt over something that seemed so minor in the eyes of others.

When we ask the Holy Spirit to intercede to the Father on our behalf to receive His broken heart and He would breathe life into us, the Holy Spirit will purify us to a greater level. He will make us clean vessels for God’s prayers, tears, words and emotions to flow through. When our heart has been replaced with His, He can pray through us. When our breath has been replaced with His, He can breathe life into us and we can exhale life to others.

Let us not settle for “coffee shop Christianity”, but look at God’s heart instead our own. Is it too heavy a burden to live so full of anguish with God’s emotions running through us constantly? No, my friends, it is far from a life of sadness – it is a life of joy as well. Why is there joy? Because “the pure in heart…will see God!” (Matthew 5:8)

Because His Love is Better Than Life

“I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth, so that you will be mute and cannot be a man who rebukes them, for they [the nation of Israel] are a rebellious house. But when I speak to you, I will open up your mouth and you will say to them, “Thus says the Lord God…” – Ezekiel 3:26-27a

Ezekiel was chosen to be God’s mouth but was fully capable of misrepresenting Him, as all humans are. God realized this and out of grace caused Ezekiel to be physically unable to speak words that were not from Him.

Don’t Christians also have the honor of being God’s mouth? Don’t we have the responsibility to represent God with every word that we utter?

Yes, we’ve heard not to lie, gossip or condemn others, but have we gone further than that and decided not to let a single word pass from our lips that is not from God?

Upon giving our lives to Christ we surrendered our entire body to Him. Our mouths are no exception. Because they are not our own, every word that comes from our lips should be worthy enough for God to take complete ownership of. God has asked us to be vessels, empty of self and full of Him. Adding worldliness to God’s words diminishes the authority and power He instilled in them. 

This is much easier said than done…. In fact, in this light Ezekiel’s physical impediment sounds more like a blessing than a hardship. Coming from someone who is constantly surrounded by gossip, slander and flirtatious words, it is hard to remember that I’m representing Christ and that His words not mine should be spoken. Many times even in a Christian circle, these activities may seem harmless if not taken too far. This week God has been opening my eyes to how important speech really is. The way we speak is a huge part of who we are and it’s how we communicate to others. That sentence in itself holds a key problem: we. Our lives should not be about us – there should not be a “we” or an “I”; only a HIM. Words are such a practical way to die to self and the more we take every opportunity to say no to our flesh and yes to the Holy Spirit, the closer we are to exchanging all that we are for all that He is.

“Because Your love is better than life my lips will glorify You” - Psalm 63:3

God’s love truly is better than life and far exceeds earthly and human words, the only ones we have to offer. Let us remember that others do not need our words. Our words cannot comfort, cannot heal, cannot encourage, cannot help and cannot love but God’s words can do all that and much more!

“If You love Me, keep My commandments…” - John 14:15

My friends we do not do this because it is easy or because we want to…We do this because we love Him. We do this because He has asked us to. Let us spend time cultivating a relationship with Him where only His words leave our lips. He will give us grace when we ask and the more we speak God’s words, the more we can experience that His love truly is better than life and things in this world!

A Single Meditation

“Let the words of my mouth and MEDITATION of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my Rock, and my Redeemer” – Psalm 20:14

Something I previously missed when reading this verse is the fact that the word “meditation” is singular, it points out that our hearts have a consistent beat to them; an underlying theme amidst the chaos of feelings. The meditation we choose sets the stage for our lifestyle. Are we deciding to let our heart’s meditation be on God or self?

This Greek word for “meditation” means, “resounding music”. Our adoration for God should be so loud that it drowns out the rest of our thoughts, leaving an undistracted devotion for Him alone. What a beautiful picture! God does not ask to be honored in the many ponderings of our hearts. Rather, He desires to be the only meditation in our being.

“O God, You are MY God; I shall seek You earnestly; My soul THIRSTS for You, my flesh YEARNS for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water” - Psalm 63:1

My taste buds have already become too use to the world’s “water” and the energy I have spent seeking it has greatly diminished the effort going towards thirsting for God. It’s time to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8), that my soul will thirst and my flesh will yearn for God and my heart will never seek or meditate upon this dry and weary land again!

John Tayler said, “A pure heart is one to which all that is not of God is strange and jarring”. Let us, my friends, make God our single meditation that everything else seems strange and jarring!