Out On A Limb

To know His love
Ephesians 3: 16-19
We hear Paul, by the Holy Spirit, praying for us:
“… that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

Twice here he prays for us to have “strength”.
Oh my friends, we need strength, we need to be empowered to believe His love. Why? Because the enemy’s battle against us, the battle to doubt God’s love, is so fierce.
The battle is often shadowed with the pain of our past, and then the enemy strikes with the insidious doubt of God’s love, the “where was He?” is sown into so many of our memories.
And so, I pray for myself and for you my friends, that today God will give us the strength to battle in our “inner being” and to see, to experience, and to walk in the truth of how mightily loved we are, and then to be able to truly love well those He brings into our lives.
I love how verse 20 follows up this prayer to encourage our hearts:
“now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think…”
He will do this for us my friends, He is relentless in His purpose to convince us of His love.

Last night before I went to sleep I read this devotional by John Eldredge:

”You will be tested. Like Jesus’ desert trial, the enemy comes, probing the perimeter. He knows your story, knows where the weak spots are. But this is our training. This is the spiritual equivalent of, “Take a high guard, like this. Strike from high. Like this. Do it. Blade straighter. Leg back. Bend your knees. Sword straighter. Defend yourself.” This is how we develop a resolute heart. We make no agreements with whatever the temptation or accusation is. We repent the moment we do stumble, repent quickly, so that we don’t get hammered. We pray for strength from the Spirit of God in us. We directly—and this is the one thing so many fail to do—we directly resist the enemy, out loud, as Jesus did in the desert. We quote Scripture against him. We command him to flee.”

Here Eldredge compares the word “trials” to “temptations”.
When Jesus was in the wilderness being tempted by the enemy it was a time of trial. Trials are temptations, temptations to turn our heart from God and to believe the lies of Satan, and to make an agreement with those lies.

And so, when we are in a time of trial we must speak out loud, perhaps cry out loud, what is ACTUALLY true, the Truth of the Scripture.

I woke up this morning from a dream, no, a nightmare, of someone I loved being kidnapped and I fighting for them and weeping for them. I woke, literally out of breath from crying in my dream, and the enemy was right there saying that it wasn’t just a dream, that it is actually all true, this devastation is happening all around the world, and in a way it is happening now in the life of someone I love dearly.
I felt his mockery as I tries to shake it off as just a dream, because…it WAS true.

Thankfully I remembered the words from the night before. We are given the example by Jesus Himself to fight this enemy of our soul with the Word of God, with what IS actually Truth.
I began, breathlessly at first, to speak out anything in the Word that I’ve ever memorized.
The Lord’s Prayer
Psalm 23
Philippians 4
James 1
And it was there, in James 1: 2-4, that I took my stance, and my crying became a war cry:

“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of our faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

I spoke it out loud over and over: “Let your endurance have is perfect result.
Let your endurance have its perfect result.Let your endurance have its perfect result.”

The truth IS that we will come under temptation and trial, and that we can, by the power of the Spirit who raised Jesus from the grave, stand and endure and continue to turn our hearts towards and have faith in the steadfast love of our Father.
I began to think of the many loved ones I know who are standing strong in endurance.
Another version translates this word as “steadfastness”.
Steadfastness has become important to me, something that I pray for in my life.
And here it was, revealed in James 1, that steadfastness comes as a result of pressing through a trial, pressing through the temptation to turn my eyes away from my Beloved.

Psalm 119: 11 “Your word have I hidden in my heart that I may not sin against You.”

Lamentations 3:22  “The steadfast love of the Lord NEVER ceases…”

I see this morning that the temptation and the greatest sin against my Father is to allow my heart to be turned away from believing His steadfast love.

And so, I pray for you this morning my dear friends, that you would hide His word in your heart and cry it out when the fiery trials are sweeping through your life.

And remember that at the end of our Lord’s temptation and trial, there were Angels that came to minister to Him.

We often host weddings out here on our Ranch. This morning my Reb and I were helping lay tablecloths on a dozen tables for the event. The wind was making it difficult for me to lay the cloths correctly, but I  watched my Reb do it with ease.

“How are doing that!” I asked.  “I made the wind my Ally”, he said.

I watched as he stood and found the direction of the wind and used the wind to lay the cloths perfectly.

“I made the wind my Ally.”

I felt the Lord speak to my heart: “You will have winds in your life, storms, difficulties… But you can make them your allies, you can make them work for you rather than struggling against them. Recognize the direction the wind is coming from and use it to bring your heart to Me, to My love.”

Oh my friends, I know there is wind in your lives; many of you are buffeted by great winds. I am praying for you right now that you will not struggle by facing the wind, but turn your back to it and let it bring you to the loving arms of Jesus.

”I have said these things to you, that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Take heart. Make the wind your Ally.

I listen to a Daily Devotional, “Solid Joy”, by John Piper. I had to share this one with you my friends. You see, I believe the Word is given to us not to “show us how to live our lives”, or to give us the rules to be a “good Christian”, oh no, but rather for the one marvelous purpose of revealing God…revealing who He is and what His heart is for us. This morning it was His pleasure to open my eyes again to who He is. Oh, I love Him.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)

The reason God wants us not to be afraid concerning money or other things of the world is because that fearlessness — that freedom from anxiety — will magnify five great things about him.

First, not being afraid shows that we treasure God as our Shepherd. “Fear not, little flock.” We are his flock and he is our Shepherd. And if he is our Shepherd, then Psalm 23:1 applies: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want” — that is, I shall not lack anything I truly need.

Second, not being afraid shows that we treasure God as our Father. “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” We are not only his little flock; we are also his children, and he is our Father. He really cares and really knows what you need and will work for you to be sure that you have what you need.

Third, not being anxious shows that we treasure God as King. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” He can give us the “kingdom” because he is the King. This adds a tremendous element of power to the one who provides for us. “Shepherd” connotes protection and provision. “Father” connotes love and tenderness and authority and provision and guidance. “King” connotes power and sovereignty and wealth.

Fourth, not being afraid shows how free and generous God is. Notice, he gives the kingdom. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” He doesn’t sell the kingdom or rent the kingdom or lease the kingdom. He is infinitely wealthy and does not need our payments. So, God is generous and free with his bounty. And this is what we magnify about him when we are not afraid, but trust him with our needs.

Finally, not being afraid — not being anxious — shows that we trust that God really wants to do this. “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” It delights him. He is not begrudging. It makes him glad to give us the kingdom. Not all of us had fathers like this, who were made happy by giving instead of getting. But that sorrow is not the main thing any more, because now you can have such a Father, and Shepherd, and King.

So, the point of this verse is that we should treasure God as our Shepherd and Father and King who is generous and happy to give us the kingdom of God — to give us heaven, to give us eternal life and joy, and everything we need to get there.

If we treasure God in this way, we will be fearless and God will be worshiped.

John Piper April 22, 2018

(You can subscribe and listen to a reading aloud ever morning…I will be joining you)

A friend recently told me about a book: “Take Hold of the Faith You Long For”, by Sharon Jaynes. In it there is a picture of the Israelites marching around the city of Jericho. Day One, Day Two, Day Three, no seeming difference. Day Four, Day Five, who knows the mocking they endured? Day Six, what discouragement might have crept like a fog into their hearts? But they kept going. And then Day Seven dawned and  the stronghold was broken; the walls came crashing down; they saw the power of the God they had been proclaiming.

My friend encouraged me about the marching I have been doing. I have prayed over a loved one for years, proclaiming God’s goodness and power and purposes over her life. But the fog had rolled in these last few months, shadowing her life in a deep darkness and shadowing my vision of it ever being any different.

Our brother Paul encourages us in Galatians 6:9 “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.

“Do not grow weary”….This could be day seven.

The friends of Jesus had watched their Beloved tortured and crucified and then resurrected. But they had not heard from Him in a while. Were they discouraged? In John 21:6 we see that they went back to what they knew, what was familiar. They went fishing.  As they had done for years, they threw out their nets: once, twice, three times… all night the arduous labor of throwing these heavy, water soaked nets into the sea and dragging up emptiness. Then a strong voice from the shore called out to throw their nets out once again. Weary and discouraged from a night of labor; confident in their experience that casting a net in daylight would be of no use, they none-the-less threw their nets out one more time.

Could it have been the 7th time?

You know the rest of the story.

Friends, I am praying over your hearts right now. And I thank you for praying over mine. Let us not grow weary, but keep listening to our beloved and trustworthy Shepherd. Let us keep marching around the seemingly impenetrable situation, keep casting out our nets, keep forgiving, praying. loving… For who knows?

This could be Day Seven.

Jesus was angry, clearing out the temple, knocking over what had been “set up”.
I just love what He has shown me of His heart in this.

He said to them: It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer.”
”My house”, the place where God dwells.
This is a picture of our hearts.

Our hearts were created to be a place of prayer, a place of communion, of relationship.
Our Father wants us to pour out our hearts to Him and listen to His.
Oh friends, what have we “set up” there instead?

Too often our hearts have become a place of busyness, of bartering, and spending of the coins of our life in the exhausting desperate hope that we might have something to offer.

He does not want these offerings; our busyness breaks His heart and misses the created point of ours. His house, our hearts were intended to be a place of relationship.

Oh Spirit of Jesus, in your mercy, come and cleanse our hearts. Be relentless.

Psalm 139:23,24 “Search me, oh God, and know my heart;…see if there be any grievous way in me, (may we truly see that our busyness grieves His heart) and lead me in the everlasting way.”

Oh Jesus, lead us like the Shepherd You are. We have an enemy who deceives us and we have believed his lie. On own we cannot find the “everlasting way”, the way of relationship with You, the way our hearts were created to live. The way of Love,

We still our hearts and ask for these things in Your name.  Amen

My friends, I have been so strengthened in my “journey of the heart” in the book by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge: “The Sacred Romance”. I cannot encourage you enough to get this book and read it slowly, allowing your heart to believe it could be true for you.

My friends, I am praying for someone right now that I love dearly. I have been praying for her for years but especially during these last few months. Others have sensed  the urgency to pray for her as well and have joined forces with me. As we began, the Lord gave me this scripture: 1 Samuel. 16:7
” The Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Jesus spoke to my heart as we began this prayer assault on the enemy’s stronghold of this dear woman’s life, that I was not to look at what I would see; that things would appear disastrous and  that I would be tempted to despair. He assured me that He would be working to capture and heal her heart. I was not to be distracted by what I saw, but to keep praying, not in “my own understanding”, but to search the scriptures for His leading as to how to pray.

 I wonder if you too are praying for someone and it appears that your prayers are not  being answered and the situation is getting worse. That is how it is looking to me today. But I will be encouraged,  and I want to encourage you as well. For often, perhaps most often, God is working at a heart level, and what we can see does not represent His hearing us nor does it represent His responding to our prayers. He hears and He is moving. 

“Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.” Gal. 6:9

Father, comfort and steady my heart; comfort and steady the hearts of my friends, and by Your Spirit remind us of Your faithfulness, power and love in these situations that we are bringing to Your  hands today. In Jesus name and with confidence I pray, Amen. 

Galatians 6:9

Good morning friends,

I often find myself waking in the morning with self-assessment.

How did I do yesterday? Did I live the day in a way that really reflected my values? Did I truly love well, or did I just busy myself to fill the day with doing things that would cause others see me as loving and therefore think well of me?

Was I disciplined in my reading time, eating well, drinking water, exercising, household chores, checking my planner…or did I live the day doing what was easiest or what came up at the moment? How did I do? How will I do with this day?

Here it is again, daily self-assessment for the sake of a sense of well being.

Then the thought came to me, “Well, at least I ….”

“At least I read the Word and journaled.”

“At least I got my walk in and drank two liters of water.”

“At least I wrote the letter to the children I sponsor.”

“At least I cleaned my kitchen.”

“At least I spent time with my children.”

“At least I got the bills organized and paid.”

Self-assessment for the sake of a sense of well being.

What is the “At least…” that I can do today so I will feel alright with myself?

Then the Lord spoke to my heart…”Nothing, nothing is what you can do today so you will feel at peace. I love you , I gave myself for you to cover all your efforts that would never be enough to give you peace.”

I saw the two-fold danger of this “At least” living.

The constant striving to do “at least” something so I would feel less disappointed with myself  would keep me from living in the only sense of peace for which I was created…I am loved, so very loved by my kind and generous God.

And secondly, whatever “at least“ I was able to accomplish would be the measure that I would hold up in judgement against others,

“At least they should be…”.

Oh Father, free us from the quick-sand of “At least”. Cause us to be amazed at Your grace and affection towards us. Help us to stand and rejoice and live each day at peace in the overwhelming reality of Your love. Help us to live in kindness and mercy towards others.

Believing this is Your will, I pray in the hope and authority of Jesus.

Amen

I often find myself waking in the morning with self-assesment.

How did I do yesterday?

Did I live the day in a way that really reflected my values?

Did I truly love well, or did I just busy myself to fill the day with doing things that would cause others see me as loving and therefore think well of me?

Was I disciplined in my reading time,eating well, drinking water, exercising, household chores, checking my planner…or did I live the day doing what was easiest or what came up at the moment?

How did I do?

How will I do with this day?

Here it is again, daily self-assesment for the sake of a sense of well being.

Then the thought comes to me, “Well, at least I ….”.

“At least I read the Word and journaled.”

“At least I got my walk in and drank two liters of water.”

“At least I wrote the letter to the children I sponser.”

“At least I cleaned my kitchen.”

“At least I spent time with my children.”

“At least I got the bills organized and paid.”

Self-assesment for the sake of a sense of well being.

What is the “At least…” that I can do today so I will feel alright with myself?

Then the Lord spoke to my heart…

”Nothing, nothing is what you can do today so you will feel at peace.

I love you , I gave myself for you to cover all the efforts that would never be enough to give you peace.”

I saw the two-fold danger.

The constant striving to do enough so I would feel less disappointed with myself would keep me from living in the only sense of peace for which I was created…I am loved, so very loved by my kind and generous God.

And secondly, whatever “At least“ I was able to accomplish would be the measure that I would hold up in judgement against others,

“At least they should be…”.

Oh Father, cause us to be amazed at Your grace and affection towards us. Free us from the quick-sand of “At least”. Help us to stand and rejoice and live each day at peace in the overwhelming reality of Your love. Help us to live in kindness and mercy towards others.

Believing this is Your will, I pray in the hope and authority of Jesus.

Amen

Good morning friends, Today I risk the simplicity of sharing this message. I do know what it is like to walk with a broken heart, and would never want to be insensitive to the pain of others. But it is my hope that you will be lifted as I was today when a friend reminded me of the nearness and the power of Jesus. 

 In the familiar story of the paralyzed man lying by the pool of Bethesda, Jesus asks the profound question:

“Do you want to be made well?”

Thirty eight years this man had been suffering, waiting for help, watching others thoughtlessly pushby him, ignoring his pain and need. 

His response: “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

Oh friends, how often we look to others to help us, convincing ourselves that our wholeness is dependent upon their words, their actions and relationship with us. How we have believed our continued brokenness is the result of the thoughtlessness of others .

Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”  And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

Lord Jesus, help us see today where our hope is directed, show us if we looking for help from another to finally ease the brokenness in our lives. Reveal to us, in Your kindness that You are standing here before us, You have proclaimed that You are very near to the brokenhearted and that in You presence we can truly “rise up and walk”.