Opening Up Your Heart

Just had the third weekend in a row where we had some overnight guests staying at our home. What a tremendous blessing each and every stay, each and every guest has been.

The growth one can experience by putting oneself in the path of others is amazing. A small gesture of hospitality to show a little glimpse of your humanity, and the Lord opens up the doors to your eyes, ears and heart. Because opening up your heart is reflecting God's heart within you. Too often in the past my heart has been like the one above, a little prickly, a little thorny, a little hard to get close to as a result.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Psalm 51:10 (NASB)

I have found that taking up the task of helping others always results in huge benefits to you, as an individual, as a member of the community, as a heartbeat within the body of Christ. I have found it is infinitely more joyful to have a helping heart than to have any other type.

As in water face reflects face, So the heart of man reflects man.
Proverbs 27:19 (NASB)

Now all I need do is to remember to be this way...always.








Technorati Tags: God, Lord, Jesus, heart, hospitality, service

What Is Your Workplace?

I retired toward the end of 2007, so I thought at the time that I no longer had a workplace.

I realize how wrong that was.

I was limiting myself to the workplace as defined by the physical boundaries of the office of my employer at the time. I still define my workplace as the office of my employer. But it is a vastly different scope now. In seminary, in ministry, in volunteer situations, I am seeking to do the will of God, to be His servant and to focus on His workplace.

That workplace is the world.

As I look at what I try to do now, working for His kingdom, seeking His everlasting glory, I realize how fleeting, how ephemeral all the treasures of the world really are. Seek the approval of humanity, and those treasures will vanish in the cleansing fire of divine judgment. Seek the Lord and treasures get stored up in heaven, treasures that will not rust, nor be eaten by moths, nor stolen away from you as noted in Matthew 6:19.

It is liberating to work for the Lord, creation is His workshop so you are never out of place doing His will anywhere. No boundaries are set if you are following hard after Him. And there is always plenty of work to do, productive work to please the Master.

How I wish I had expanded my mind to grasp this sooner, for I spent too much time in too limiting a place; the workplace of man as opposed to that of God.

Glad I have a new job now, one that offers true job security and the most unbelievable benefit package off the face of the earth.

So what is your workplace?

We Are Not Our Own

We are not our own: let not our reason nor our will, therefore, sway our plans and deeds. We are not our own: let us therefore not set it as our goal to seek what is expedient for us according to the flesh. We are not our own: in so far as we can, let us therefore forget ourselves and all that is ours. Conversely, we are God's: let us therefore live for him and die for him. We are God's: let his wisdom and will therefore rule all our actions. We are God's: let all the parts of our life accordingly strive toward him as our only lawful goal...Let this therefore be the first step, that a man depart from himself in order that he may apply the whole force of his ability in the service of the Lord...From this also follows this second point: that we seek not the things that are ours but those which are of the Lord's will and will serve to advance his glory.
John Calvin - Institutes of The Christian Religion: 3.7.1-2

If we are not our own but God's, what Calvin notes that we are to do should be easy for us: Serve the Lord and advance His glory; but our wishes, wants and desires in the back seat. The fact that we struggle with this is an indication that the sinful self has not let go; pride and arrogance still struggle for dominance in a life which the heart and head knows belongs to God; but the flesh fights it still.

The fact is the flesh may never let fully go; the fact is the fight may continue until your last breath here on this earth. If that is true, just remember, we are not our own but His:

²¹They said to Him, "Caesar's." Then He said to them, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God's."
Matthew 22:21 (NASB)

We need to keep that in mind. Be in the world, not of it. Seek the Lord not praise of others. Strive to put God first in your life, and He will put your life in the order it should be in.

We are not our own. That is a good thing, for we surely make a mess of our own when left to our own.

Looking Forward to the New Normal

I am looking forward to developing a new routine for the summer, or maybe it is reestablishing an old one.

Reading books I want to read at my own pace. Following and commenting on blogs a lot more closely than I have been been doing. Sitting at the table for two with God a lot more than I have been doing. More prayer, deeper prayer.

More time in ministering to others as opposed to tending to self.

I think the greatest growth comes not only when we stretch ourselves, but when when we also stretch for others. Investing in others is so much more valuable than just investing in self.

I am looking forward to a valuable summer. I will try to keep you posted, but I may be too busy.

But I am out of school for the summer. I almost feel like a teenager. I said almost, I am too much of a realist to leave that word off.

God is Always in Season

We are the ones that either fall out of season or have not ripened enough into the fruit of the Lord.

Many of us suffer from the unbalanced tendency to "be ready" only "out of season." The season does not refer to time; it refers to us. This verse says, "Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season." In other words, we should "be ready" whether we feel like it or not...One of the worst traps a Christian worker can fall into is to become obsessed with his own exceptional moments of inspiration...If you make a god out of your best moments, you will find that God will fade out of your life, never to return until you are obedient in the work He has placed closest to you, and until you have learned not to be obsessed with those exceptional moments He has given you.

Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest: April 25 Devotional

God is always in season and as such we need to be ready to sample what he is offering us every day, whether we feel in the season or not.

Service to the Lord is unending (it is for our lifetime), it is uncompromising (it is paramount in our lives), but it is incomparable (there is nothing else in our lives like it).

You can serve for a season in a specific role or purpose and then move on, but be sure that serving the Lord is an eternal state once you place your trust and faith in Jesus.

But just because it is for eternity, do not think you should sit around thinking about it for a long time. Do it now.

How long should you think? I'll give you as long as it takes to share the Gospel:

Jesus died for our sins and arose from the dead.

There, I'm done. What are you waiting for?

Get busy.

True Service

It is one thing to follow God’s way of service if you are regarded as a
hero, but quite another thing if the road marked out for you by God
requires becoming a "doormat" under other people’s feet...Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and
exhausted— not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister? Some
saints cannot do menial work while maintaining a saintly attitude,
because they feel such service is beneath their dignity.
Oswald Chambers - My Utmost For His Highest

What Dwight Pentecost calls "taking up the towel", serving in humility, serving with selfless love.Not for your benefit, but for others. Possibly to your own detriment.

Service with a price, but one you are willing to pay. A high standard set by Jesus:

Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands,
and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God,got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.Then
He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet
and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. John 13:3-5 (NASB)

Service like this I struggle to perform. May I do better going forward.

How True

Wisdom.

The Next Generation

I recently read a journal post from two years ago that centered on the following verse:

And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come. Psalm 71:18 (NASB)

As I thought about it, about teaching the next generation, I realize this is something that God has put on my heart, sharing what I know with men and women coming up behind in the following generations.

Why teach? Why is it so important? What happens if we drop the ball on that particular duty? Another verse I think about often comes to mind:

All that generation also were gathered to their fathers; and there arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD, nor yet the work which He had done for Israel. Judges 2:10 (NASB)

This is when the problems of disobedience to God and the subsequent cursing started after the nation of Israel came into the promised land.

Why invest in our young? The church is only a generation away from fading out to almost nothing. The Lord will always protect a remnant in even the toughest of times, but don't we all want a flourishing and growing church, not a remnant?

My thanks to all that have picked up the cudgel and are beating away the darkness by teaching. What others sacrificed and served to do for us; we need to do for the next generation about the Lord.

How Much Is Too Much?

I have a question for those of you out doing ministry and service in the name of the Lord.

How do you decide when enough is enough? I am assuming that there is a thing as too much, I mean we have family responsibilities, job responsibilities, personal needs. How do you decide when you need to say no to the next volunteer project or service opportunity? How do you deal with the potential disappointment you may generate when you say no when you have been counted on in the past for saying yes?

I find my dance card filling rapidly as i make myself available and explain to people what I feel I have a heart to serve in.

Is it OK to say no to an opportunity you can handle today leaving room for one you may be more suited to tomorrow? Is it OK to say no even if the one you are saving room for is currently undefined or unknown?

I know I should listen closely for God's voice, but do you sometimes find that hard when the curtrent needs are beginning to clamor?

Please do not get the wrong impression, I am not at the end of my rope, not out on a ledge somewhere. Just thinking thin gs through and trying to plan a little ahead.

Is that so bad?

This Cannot be True

Ran across this the other day. It says a lot about how someone feels about people in general. While I think the number of "Nobody Cares" is quite high, it cannot be the whole world.

Because some people do care. And some people are doing something about the fact that they do care. me personally? Not doing enough, and I care about THAT. Have to work on that in 2009.

This is meant as humor, but this is a message in it. Those of us who do care are probably not all doing enough to show it to the rest of the world. I have been doing some stuff on the 12DoCC, but not enough. I am serving in church a bit, but not enough nor with enough of a servant's heart heart.

My hope for this Christmas season is that the population of "Nobody Cares" becomes a ghost town, or at least severely underpopulated. My wish is I do my part to drive people out of town.

Permanently.

The Discipline of True Obedience

We do have a tendency to jump into things without thinking does what I am planning to do really serve the Lord, I know I do that just about all the time. We lack a true discipline to obedience away from impulse to a reasoned approach to service to God and others.

Chambers reminds us in Utmost today that it is not Christ as Savior; but Christ as worldview, Christ as accountability standard, that we should be looking to. How many times do I think of Christ as my Savior and the Lord of my life, but then not follow through to be Christ-like in my intentionality, in my activity? Too many to bear counting.

I fall short at that level each and every day. I will continue to look for the transformation I spoke of earlier. And I will continue to try to get a little closer to His standard each and every day as I do.