Obedience and God’s Blessings

Genesis 26 – Isaac and Abimelech

¹ Now there was a famine in the land—besides the earlier famine of Abraham’s time—and Isaac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines in Gerar. ² The LORD appeared to Isaac and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. ³ Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. ⁴ I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, ⁵ because Abraham obeyed me and kept my requirements, my commands, my decrees and my laws.” ⁶ So Isaac stayed in Gerar.

God always knows what is best for us and he will communicate clearly what we should and should not do and where we should and should not go if we will listen to him. God knew things that Isaac could not possibly know so when God instructed him not to go to Egypt the smartest thing Isaac could ever do was obey his  voice.

I wonder what pain and misery Isaac avoided and what blessing he enjoyed because he listened to God. God ultimately wants all of us to trust Him enough to listen to His voice and live in obedience to his will so he can bless us.

This passage reminds us that Isaac was blessed partially because of the faithfulness of his father Abraham. I want to follow Abraham’s example and walk with God in a way that allows my family to be blessed as a result like his was.

God, teach me how to listen to your voice and help me to trust you enough to obey quickly when I know you have spoken.

What is Church Really About Anyway?

The title of this blog poses a question that I have been wrestling with for several months now.  There was a time not so long ago when I thought I knew the answer but more recently I have had to rethink everything. I have been taught for years that everything rises or falls on leadership and though there is truth in that statement it does not reflect the whole truth.
Here’s the rest of the story. If you’re a layperson whether the congregation thrives or dies is ultimately up to you and the other members of your church family. Your pastors can teach, preach, coach, lead and inspire but the ultimate outcome will be a result of how the congregation relates to God, to one another and to their community.

A congregation that is truly being the church brings people into a loving, life-giving relationship with God and others that is transformational. When people are experiencing a community of faith like this they want to share the benefits with the people they care most about in their web of relationships. Those receiving invitations accept because they believe they’ll receive something of worth based on the experiences of those whose lives they have seen transformed. This is what the church is really about – lives transformed by the power of Christ.

Congregational renewal is a renewal of the people’s understanding of their relationship with God, with each other and their relationship with their community. The end result is a congregation that is a life-giving resource in the lives of both those that already attend and those that soon will come at their invitation.

Are You Getting Enough Water?

We have four beautiful flower pots at our church that are reminding me of something we all know but tend to forget. Just this past week they reminded me that some things are essential to life and water is one of them.  I have been watering these pots regularly since a couple from the church donated them and put them in place about a month ago. They have been thriving and looking really gorgeous with blooms and green foliage abounding and then I had to be out of town for three days and I forgot to ask anyone else to water them. You know what happened don’t you. You are right, the lack of attention showed up big time as the plants began to wilt.

Have you ever wondered just how intentional Jesus was in choosing the metaphors that He used to so ably communicate about faith and life? When He identified Himself as Living Water I think it was very intentional and absolutely on target. You and I can identify with the flowers in the pots can’t we. We may be in a pretty nice pot (a decent church) with pretty good soil (decent worship / preaching)  but without water (His presence) we soon find ourselves fading and slowly but surely dying.

How many people on any given Sunday come to church dry and leave dry because they convince themselves that they can make it just fine without Living Water? How many of us do not take the time throughout the week to nurture our walk with God by spending one on one time with Him until we are nourished, refreshed and grown?

The flowers I spoke of earlier revived quite nicely after being doused with a few buckets of water over a couple of days.  I could almost hear them saying, “Don’t let this happen to you because hearts can dry up too you know.” Without regular intake of living water we fade and soon wilt on the inside.

How is your heart today? What helps you best experience Him as Living Water? Do you have anyone in your life that you are trust enough to ask them to check on you when you begin to neglect your heart?

Will The Real Church Please Stand Up

The current sermon series we are working through has surfaced a number of questions for me. One of the big ones being, what goes through God’s mind when we blow off something that He says is important?

Have you ever stopped to think about how much disobedience God sees in our individual lives in a days’ time, a weeks’ time, or a lifetime? I wonder if there is any connection between this tragedy and the waning influence of the corporate church in our world today.

You know you have lived a while when you begin seeing current trends developing in the world around you and you immediately begin comparing them to those of former days. During my lifetime I have seen the world’s attitude toward the church shift from one of total trust and deep respect to one of nearly total disrespect and complete distrust. I am wondering if the churches lack of respect toward God, modeled by the personal disobedience of believers, and the world’s decision to view the church as nearly irrelevant don’t overlap.

Do you suppose the repeated public reports of moral lapse in the lives of professing believers have damaged the credibility of the church? If George Barna’s data can be trusted we may be digging our own hole. His surveys have found that there is little if any discernable difference between the moral decisions and behaviors of those professing faith in Christ and those that make no profession of faith at all. This seems to be true for both clergy and laity.

Protestant pastors and Roman Catholic priests alike have both been in the public eye far too often because of moral indiscretions of one form or another. It makes sense that if religious leaders cannot be trusted to relate responsibly to the wives and children of those already attending the church that it will be nearly impossible to convince those not yet attending that the quality of their lives would be improved by doing so. I wonder how different our world would be if the reports of pastors and priests centered on how they and the people were engaged in acts of loving service to the community? I wonder if our communities wouldn’t take us a lot more seriously if we showed them a lot more of Jesus and a lot less of ourselves.

Any time the church fails to connect strongly with Christ it appears that is only a matter of time before it also fails to connect with the culture as well. I believe this disconnect develops because it is impossible to avoid misrepresenting Christ when we are content to try to do life in our own power and not His.

How are you revealing Jesus in the living of your day to day life? What is your picture of an ideal church? What kind of impact would that church have on the surrounding community? What can you do to raise the odds of that ideal church becoming a reality? Are there any areas of your life where you are not taking God seriously but need to? Take a second to leave a comment with your thoughts. Thanks.

Missing the Celebration

As I sat in worship recently I happened to glance across the sanctuary and I saw a person that looked completely disengaged and withdrawn from what was going on in the service. The facial expression I observed seemed to be  marked by anger and pain.  Knowing the person well and being aware of at least some of the past experiences that were responsible for what I had observed saddened me.

I thought to myself this person is completely missing the celebration that Christ intended to be life giving and life changing.  As I processed these thoughts I began reflecting on an experience I had as a kid when I also missed out on a celebration.  In my case it was not a worship service but a birthday party that was the context. My reason for missing the celebration was not past pain but a complete lack of understanding of what a birthday celebration was all about.

I had never attended a birthday party before so I did not understand when everyone began bringing presents to my cousin and he began opening them. My birthday is a week before Christmas and people do not normally have birthday parties during this incredibly busy season so I was completely unfamiliar with what was happening and why my cousin was the only person receiving gifts.

Finally someone noticed that I was off in a corner and came over to ask me if I was ok.  I told them that I felt sad because I didn’t understand why everyone was giving gifts to my cousin and I was totally left out. I don’t remember if it was my mom or my aunt or someone else that explained to me that this party was  about Merle and not me.  That explanation helped a little and someone else gave me the gift of a dollar bill which I appreciated but I still felt pretty sad and a bit unimportant. I remember wishing that the three or four other kids present would all receive gifts wrapped in pretty paper like my cousin had.  I don’t remember ever reflecting on this experience in all the years that have come and gone since that day but as I unpack it now I wonder if that is why I enjoy giving gifts to others as much as I do.

As I have reflected a little more on this experience the thought crossed my mind that some people go through a lifetime waiting for their day. The day when they are the focus, the day when they receive the gifts, and they are the focus of the celebration. Ultimately, deep inside, we all know we were created to be part of a great celebration. We all know we were made with a need to be included, valued, and loved by God.  The incredible truth is that He has a gift with your name on it.  He wants to throw a celebration centering on you. In fact He says that all the angels of heaven rejoice and celebrate the day you come to faith. Make sure that you don’t miss your day of being adopted into the family of God. Also make sure you don’t miss any of the other days that will follow as He extends the healing power of His love and grace throughout the balance of your life.

I hope my friend that was missing the celebration of God’s presence in the worship service the other day can find the healing of God’s grace once again and be set free from the bondage that is enslaving her. I hope you can find that freedom as well.

A New Beginning

For most of my life I have not been accustomed to spending much time in reflection but that is something I have been working hard to correct this past year.  The past two days I have logged a lot of hours in the car and that has given me some uninterrupted think time that has allowed me to process some of the new beginnings I am experiencing.

I have identified three new beginnings that are each having a profound impact on my life. The order in which I share them is a bit random and not intended in any way to reflect a greater or lesser importance with their individual placement. The first has to do with new relationships, the second with a new role in my life and the third centers around entering a new day with the church.

The new relationships I am enjoying are a direct result of my involvement in the small groups our church is making available. This journey began for me when our staff agreed to work through the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality material together.  We knew that we could not ask our people to do anything that we were not willing to do as well.  Over the course of several months we  honestly shared with one another  many of the significant life experiences that had marked our  lives in both positive and negative ways.  The time we invested in getting to know one another below the surface paid incredible dividends. Because we were willing to risk enough to share deeply from our life experiences we were able to build a much deeper trust level than we had previously shared.  This was a very healing experience for me personally because I have lived most of my adult life emotionally withdrawn from people.  I felt justified in my decision to let very few people into my life because of some pretty deep wounds I had suffered very early in ministry.  I have also been blessed to be a part of a couple of other small groups made up of  laypersons from our church family.  These groups have enriched my life in some pretty amazing ways as well.  I am a big advocate of small groups because they can be so life changing and can add so much value in so many ways. If you are not already in a group today I want to encourage you to join one.

The second new beginning I am enjoying is a new role that I am absolutely thrilled to fill. I became a grandparent on March 29th when Gray Daniel  Harrison made his entrance into our family and my heart. I had been praying for his safe arrival for months but I was blown away when he finally came – all twelve pounds and one ounce of him. When our daughter-in-law Stacy began experiencing a number of health problems late in her pregnancy I prayed even more that both her and the little one she carried would be safe.  God certainly kept his hand on both Stacy and Gray through ten hours of labor and the eventual c-section that was necessary.  I don’t know much about being a grandparent yet but I have learned that living fourteen hours away is a really tough thing to deal with.  Gray is six weeks old today and he is growing like a weed. He now weighs nearly sixteen pounds and is twenty-five inches long.  When I think about how quickly he is growing I struggle with the thought that I am missing out on all the little things that are a part of his growth and development each day.  I struggle even more when I think about how difficult it will be to be a significant part of his life in the years to come.  I am not the first person to be in this position and I will not be the last but that is not giving me much comfort today.  If you have some helpful insights about how to best cope with this reality let me know.

The final new beginning has to do with a new day in the church.  Following more than twenty years of consistent growth our church entered a season of stagnation that has been tough to accept.  This has been a painful experience that has driven us to our knees and brought us to a whole new level of dependence on him.  God is helping us now to experience a new season of growth in his grace, love and healing.  We are learning to pray, worship, serve and love in a way that has a depth and freshness that we are all excited to be a part of.  God is working daily to continue shaping us into a prevailing church that experiences the coming of his kingdom.  I am excited about the new day the Lord is leading us into. The future is bright because of all that God is planning to do in and through us.

Where is God helping you to experience a new beginning? I would love to hear about some of the God activity in your life if you could take a moment to share it.

What If We Rethink Church?

My friend Dave Kendall put me onto a YouTube video that really resonated with my heart. It asked a question I want to wrestle with for a few moments – What If We Rethink Church?

I want to use some of the key thoughts shared in the video as a jumping off point for this blog.

What if we think of church not in terms of what it is has become but more in terms of what it was once was in the beginning and must become again? What if church was less about Sunday and what happens in a building and more about Monday through Saturday and what happens through Christ’s Body? What if church was not just a place we go but something we do to make Christ real and accessible to people in the streets?

What if church were once again an active verb like it was in the book of Acts and not looked upon as an irrelevant noun because it was so out of touch and out of sync with the real needs of the world today? What if the resources of the church were not released exclusively for the meeting of the needs of the already convinced but were mobilized to also impact the lives of the broken and hurting that have not even begun to explore the claims of Christ?

Last night I caught a glimpse of what part of the answer to these questions might look like.  My small group was scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. in our home and at the designated start time only my wife Cheryl and I were present. All sorts of thoughts began rolling through my mind about the potential reasons why no one had shown up. At about 6:15 the members of the group came rolling in all together. I noticed they were all smiles and before I could ask anything about their tardiness they quickly apoligized about being late and then explained that they had taken food out to a couple in our community that had lost their home in a fire just a day or two previous. In about two seconds I went from being so ticked off that no one was coming to the group that I was just going to change clothes and mow the grass to being so proud of what they had done in the name of Jesus that I wanted to bust. These guys and gals did not ask this hurting couple to come to a church building to find Jesus instead this small band of believers followed Jesus to the door of the temporary housing where the couple are staying and made His love for them so real that they could not escape it.

I caught a second glimpse of what the answer to these questions might look like as I was waiting for my sister-in-law Twana to come through her heart surgery this morning at Christ hospital in Cincinnati. As I waited with the other family members present a guy dressed in surgical scrubs came over to us and introduced himself as a chaplain. He explained that he had stepped out to give us a quick update on the progress of the procedure but he would be immediately returning to the surgical suite to continue praying over the team as the operation continued. I had never heard of a chaplain that was allowed into the surgical suite during an operation so I quickly asked a couple of questions about how he happened to land in the position. Dave explained that he was a missionary that raised his own support and tried to serve each day there in the hospital in a way that made the love of Christ real to people. Real to both those he served with in the medical community and those on the receiving end of their care. I was immediately impressed with the thought that Jesus would probably be doing some of that same kind of marketplace ministry were He here in the flesh today.

Then it struck me - Jesus was present in the flesh of both the small group members serving in His name and Dave as he ministered there in the hospital. Our church is in the midst of “Rethinking church” in a way that is making God smile. We are realizing in a fresh way that when He is alive in us we are blessed with daily opportunities to make Him real to those we share life with. I am wondering what stories you have to share about your part in making Him real to those you are crossing paths with?

Experiencing God

It has been a while since I have received what I would view as a clear word from the Lord.  On an emotional /spiritual level this has translated into a pretty dry, down time for the past several months.  Two things happened today that brought a fresh measure of joy into my spirit.

The first is pretty mundane and the second a tiny bit mystical. I will try to quickly share both here in the context of my very first blog post.  The first part of the more mundane experience was nearly imperceptible at first. On the way to a luncheon meeting in Cincinnati I wanted to drop my putter off at Golf Galaxy to have a new grip put on so I could pick it up on the way home. I knew if I stopped that I would be a few minutes late for my meeting. This was not a life or death decision either way so I was a bit surprised when I had a clear sense that I should not stop and drop the club off. I followed the simple leading and continued on to my lunch meeting.

Following my meeting I stopped by the Bethesda North hospital to see one of our guys who is there recovering there heart surgery.  On the way out of the hospital I met a guy that was a part of our church family until about eight or nine months ago.  I stopped to talk with him and after a few moments of catching up I asked him how things were going with his walk with the Lord. He got real teary and replied that for the first time in about a dozen years he had his whole family back in church. In that moment God spoke to me saying, “I am at work in the lives of the people that stay at Winchester and I am at work in the lives of those that choose to leave. ”  That quick word was a great reminder to trust Him with things that I have no control over. If I had stopped at Golf Galaxy the timing of the rest of the day would have been off by several minutes and I would have missed this moment with God. Paying attention to a very small, very slight leading led to a moment of encounter with God that brought joy and reassurance to my spirit.

The second God moment of the day which is a bit more mystical came as I was listening to an audio book on the way home from the hospital. The book is by John Eldridge and is entitled “Walking With God”, a neat book definitely worth a listen.  In the specific segment I was listening to Eldridge was sharing a personal experience from a season in his life when he was complaining to God about some things that were not going as he had planned.  He said that it seemed that God listened patiently to his ranting and whining and then simply said, “John, don’t get so fixated on what I am not giving you that you miss the things I am giving you.”   In that moment the Spirit of God witnessed clearly to my heart that this was a word for me as well – “Don’t get so fixated on what I am not giving you that you miss the things I am giving you.”  I don’t need to bore you with all that this word meant to me but it meant a ton.

God is showing up in my life these days in simple ways that are refreshing my spirit and enabling me to experience more of the joy of His presence. My encouragement to you – Don’t Miss His Joy in either the mundane or the mystical and don’t be bashful about sharing with me where He is at work in your life as well.