Encouragement for broken people

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows,
is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families,
he leads forth the prisoners with singing . . .
Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
who daily bears our burdens. - Psalm 68:5-6, 19

So do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. - Isaiah 41:10

We all need to be encouraged, especially when we are in a place of brokeness. I know our culture doesn't value brokeness, but God does!

When we come to God in our brokeness, He ministers to us. Broken people are open people, people open to God's will and way, people dependent on His grace, love and mercy. Broken people are the kind of people God works in and with.

When have you come to God in brokeness, seeking Him and not something from Him?

When have you humbled yourself before God and surrendered to Him, setting your agenda aside for His? How did God respond?

When have you needed God's encouragement to strengthen you and lift you up? In your brokeness, how did God work to make you whole?

Dealing with Reality

One of the most well known statements Jesus makes about Himself is in John 14:6. He says:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

This is obviously a very powerful line with lots of implications.

• If Jesus is the way then His ethic for life is the right one, the best one.
• If Jesus is the truth then His teaching is the chief authority on every subject, the right one and the best one.
• If Jesus is the life then He has the answers for the deepest issues of the soul, the right ones and the best ones.

But in the world that we live in today there are so many people who are relativists. Essentially this means that they say my way or truth or life is true for me, but your way, your truth and your life is true for you. There is no absolute sense of truth and that's OK.

This is true for most Americans, and, frighteningly, most Christians. But how can this be? If Jesus is THE way, truth and life how can there be arguably equal alternatives?

Rather than simply going to blows over this, I wonder if there is a different way, a way that is even more in line with Jesus' intention in John 14:6. Today I participated in a discussion where one of the people suggested that we substitute the word "truth" for the word "reality."

In this way, all that Jesus is, says and does is "reality." We are not arguing over philosophical ideas and prepositions, but the true nuts and bolts of our day to day lives.

For example: If I have a glass of coke, you can argue all day long that it is milk, but that won't make it so. It is still coke.

In the same way: If Jesus teaches, lives and commands us to "Love your enemies" or "be reconciled to your brother" or "settle matters quickly with your adversary" (Matthew 5:21-26) this way is the best, the only right reality for relationships no matter what we do or don't do.

I can argue against it, say it isn't for me and reap the consequences, but it doesn't change the reality.

I wonder if this doesn't call us to actually have to deal with the implications of Jesus' teaching and life more, making it impossible to excuse or deny. Everyone has to deal with reality one way or the other!

What do you think? Is this a helpful way to understand better what Jesus was saying? Would this be more effective in communicating to people far from God or confused about absolutes?

How do I make sin a thing of the past?

One of the questions I get asked most as a pastor goes something like this, "How can you really know that you are right with God after you have confessed your sin and asked for forgiveness?" And a follow up question seems to be, "Why do I continue to feel guilty all the time if the sin is really in the past?"

There are several lines of attack at this answer:

1. Guilt and Godly sorrow are two different things. Guilt tends to be a self-centered thing. I feel guilty and I want to do something about it so I can feel better. The motivation for dealing with guilt is me and not God. With guilt I am sorry for how my actions affect me. Godly sorrow is different:

Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret . . . - 2 Corinthians 7:10

Godly sorrow is different because I am sorry for how my actions hurt/offended God and others. Sometimes we don't sense we are forgiven because we feel guilty, but we haven't felt Godly sorrow.

2. We must trust in what God said about Himself and about us. Look at 1 John 1, Romans 7-8 and many other scripture passages. God is a a forgiving God. Either we accept what He says about forgiveness or we essentially say we don't believe in Him. Sometimes we don't sense we are forgiven because we simply don't believe God can or will forgive us so we never receive it.

3. There is and must always be a restitution step with sin. We don't simply confess sin in a prayer and then walk away like its no big deal, until we are right back in the same spot confessing again and again. Sin is a serious thing and rectifying sin is a big deal too. As much as it is possible, when we experience Godly sorrow and after we have confessed our sin to God, we should endeavor to make restitution for our sin. Here is what I mean. To make sin a thing of the past we should have:

• A sense in our mind, heart and spirit that we would do anything to undo what was done.
• A wholehearted commitment, no matter how embarrassing or humbling, to right the wrong.
• A complete determination, no matter what the cost or sacrifice, to NOT to do it again.

Sometimes the sense of forgiveness doesn't come because we refuse to take these important steps of restitution.

Without these three things we WILL NOT be right with God and we will continue to carry our sins. With these three things accomplished, we will experience real, true and lasting freedom.

Are there any elements you think need to be added to this list in order to make sin a thing of the past? What other roadblocks have you come up against in your spiritual journey?

MINE!!!

“There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry out: ‘Mine!’” – Abraham Kuyper, theologian and one-time prime minister of Holland

This is such a simple and yet profound truth!

Sit with a small child and he or she will cry out the same thing, "Mine!" They do this when they are jealous and they think someone is going to take their toy away. Their interest is only about themselves and what's in it for them.

God is jealous too, but not like a small child. God's jealousy is not narcissistic and self-absorbed. His jealousy is out of a pure, loving desire to have us be in the center of His loving presence and His work in the world, to be totally under the leadership and protection of His Holy Spirit.

When we go astray, Christ calls out, "Mine!" He wants to protect us and guide us down the right path.

Jesus' call of "Mine!" is for our benefit, but it encompasses ALL of our lives. There are no areas about us that God is not interested in, no places where He doesn't wish to protect and guide us to Himself.

So here is the question for us to consider personally: Do we accept Jesus' claim of "Mine!" as a good thing or a bad thing? I don't mean intellectually. I mean at the the heart level. Does it make you feel at peace with God and open to follow Jesus further or does it make you want to recoil from his presence or rebel and run?

A final question: Are you comfortable with your answer?

Regime Change

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. - Romans 8:1-2

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INDEPENDENCE OR AUTONOMY!

I know that is an uncomfortable line for most people to hear, but it still remains true. All things in life are inherently spiritual. Everything we say, think and do always draws back to a fundamental foundation. In that regard, we essentially never make a totally free choice.

It all comes down to what power we live under and serve.

And there are only two powers at work: sin/death or the Spirit of life.

Every human being, whether they know it or not or whether they like it or not, live under one of these two powers. Each one of these powers represents, in effect, a regime and each regime makes demands on us and requires our service.

The power of sin/death is a regime that is opposed to all things having to do with God's will and way. It demands absolute loyalty from its citizens and will always lead them, implicitly or explicitly, away from God. Likewise, the sin/death regime will direct its citizens toward sin. For example, it will encourage lusts, self-indulgence, hatred and discord, etc. It will even convince its citizens that this is the normal and best way, that there is no other way. And while the citizens of this regime follow the power of sin/death they move toward their own eventual self-destruction. Everyone starts out as citizens of this regime, under this power.

On the other hand, the power of the Spirit of life is a regime centered in God's very heart and mind. It too demands absolute loyalty from its citizens, but will lead them implicitly and explicitly, toward God and away from sin. This regime liberates people from the paths of destruction they are on and adopts them as brand new members (citizens) of a new regime. As citizens of a new regime, the Spirit of life produces fruit in the lives of its citizens, fruit of the Spirit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. While there are still hints and reminders of the old regime in our lives, we are always driven more and more away form sin and toward God and the Spirit's fruit. In time, we not only are new citizens, but we begin to look more like it too.

This is possible only because Jesus, our liberator and Lord, sacrificed His life for us on the cross. That was and is no small thing, something fit for a child's Sunday School lesson, but not really valid for us grown ups. No, Jesus invaded the regime of sin/death and made a way for us to escape to His regime, the Spirit of life. It was our only hope and there was no other way. Because of Jesus, we have the opportunity to escape the regime we started in and live as citizens of His regime.

Which regime are you living under? When did Jesus free you form the regime of sin/death?

Where do you see the fruit of the Spirit taking root in your life?

How does this Holy Spirit thing work?

Any person who seeks after God and who makes Jesus the Leader and Forgiver of their life will experience the living presence of the Holy Spirit inside them. No Christian is left out of this. All of us have received the same Spirit in the same full measure.

But what does that really mean in a practical way? I recently re-read one of the clearest, most straight forward passages on this subject in the Bible - John 16:5-16.

When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment . . . - John 16:8

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. - John 16:13

He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. - John 16:14

Now that is pretty simple. I have found that the Spirit works in my life more through gentle nudges and leadings or through what Bill Hybels calls "a whisper." When the Holy Spirit "whispers" I am able to see things I didn't see before - through God's eyes and not my own. I am more aware of what is and isn't true. I am reminded of what is right and wrong and sometimes, when there are several good options open, what is better and best. I believe through a "whisper" God has given me exactly the right words to say to diffuse an argument or to bring reconciliation to a conflict. One final thing, I have had many times where the Spirit "whispered" and I was convicted of a sin I had done, was doing or was considering in the future.

Now that's my personal experience. Additionally, I have seen the Spirit transform pretty complicated situations and lead people to make decisions big and small to leave a path that didn't honor God to walk a path that did.

In short, I am a sold out believer in the power of the Holy Spirit and His "whispers." I find that if I trust His leading even when circumstances don't go my way, I can never go wrong. He can take the most complex and make it simple, the darkest places and make them light and remove the greatest obstacles to bring clarity.

What has been your experience with the Holy Spirit?

How do you understand Him to work in your life?

How do you know when He is "whispering?"

Is Jesus the right guide?

A couple weeks ago a man named Ed Stafford completed something that no other human being ever did before. He walked the entire length of the Amazon river from its beginning in the mountains of Peru to its end in the Atlantic Ocean. The journey took him 859 days!

Now, I cannot imagine doing something like that myself, but I want to play a scenario out with you. What if you were dropped in the middle of the Amazon Rain forest far from any civilization, with no GPS tracking systems, no maps, no compass, nothing? Like me, you would probably be dead in a short time - maybe even some animal's dinner, but that's another story for another time!

So what would you need in order to reach safety? An expert guide!

You and I would need a guide who knew which way to go and how to get there, how to pace ourselves, what things we could eat and what water we could drink, how to protect ourselves from the elements and from dangerous animals, etc. We would need that guide for our very survival and if someone was offered an expert guide in a position like that and they refused it we would think they were pretty dumb.

But here is the thing, we have all been dropped into similar situations spiritually and far too few of us are really following the guide we have been given. That's right, Jesus Christ, the one, true expert guide worthy of all our trust has offered Himself to us and we have implicitly said "NO."

We haven't made a sign or broadcast our refusal openly, but we have simply ignored Him, acted as if He couldn't really understand our situation or used Him as a desperate source of last resort. Either way, we have tried to go it on our own and not with Him as our guide.

Here is where I want us to think: If Jesus is powerful enough and smart enough for us to entrust our souls to Him for eternity, wouldn't it stand to reason that we should trust our marriages to Him, our jobs , our relationships, our finances, etc.? If He is really our Lord, then He must play the role of guide in our life, leading us out of a dangerous jungle of sin, broken promises and garbage toward the kind of life He created us to live.

What do you think about the image of Jesus as the guide for the direction of our life?
What prevents us from trusting Him to guide our life?
When He isn't playing that role, what should we do about it?