Galatians 1:3-4

“Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father” (NKJV).

Every good story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Every life, though, has a beginning, a middle, an end, and an ever after, an eternity. Paul here talks about the end of the Christ’s life and the ever after of ours as believers.

Just after the Lord Jesus’ birth, the angels announced His birth to the some shepherds in the neighboring fields: "Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10b-11 NKJV). The Lord Jesus suffered and died and that is the good tidings of great joy. He became the Savior that we needed and, in order to become that Savior, He had to give Himself completely which meant He had to die. More than dying even, He had to become sin, to have our sins laid upon Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). He not only died. He took our punishment so that He might deliver us.

I wonder how many of us actually want to be delivered? How many of us are looking for the “ever after?”

Phoebe Cary (1852) wrote:

One sweetly solemn thought
Comes to me o’er and o’er;
Near’r to my home today am I
Than e’er I’ve been before.

I wonder if being one day nearer to heaven is actually a sweet thought for me? The Lord Jesus suffered and died to deliver me from this present evil age. And even if I don’t go Home today, He has also delivered me from feeling tied to this world. In the words of the old hymn, “This world is not my home. I’m just a-passin’ through.”

I think I need to be more focused on passing, and less focused on homesteading.

© 2010 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Psalm 23:1-2

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.” (NKJV)

He leads me. I wonder? Do I follow? Or do I expect the Lord Jesus to follow me and bless the things that I choose?

We got an opportunity to see a flock of sheep alongside the road the other day. The little ones were running after their mothers and all the sheep were quietly eating under the watchful eye of their shepherd. They had complete trust that they were fine and that the grass provided was good for them.

They trusted their shepherd. Do I?

There is something very simple and yet very difficult in the statement: The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. It is almost an if-then statement. If I allow the Lord to be my Shepherd, I shall not want. So, if I don’t allow the Lord to be my Shepherd, what then? I think about the many times that I’ve gotten myself into a bigger mess than I can deal with. Suddenly I find myself crying out for God to save me. Likely He’s shaking His head, wondering why I didn’t follow Him long ago. How many times has He bailed me out, only to find that I’m too stubborn to learn from my own mistakes and choosing my own way again?

He leads me beside the still waters.

There are so many times in my life that I’ve been attracted to that which is turbulent and frenetic, only to find that I’m unhappy and discontented. Then I long for the stillness, the quietness of peace. And I go back seeking for the Shepherd. How old will I be before I learn to simply seek His way rather than my own?

I shall not want.

So much of my discontent is about what I don’t have, much of which I likely don’t need. As my husband and I have—like many in America—learned to readjust our lives as a result of downsizing, outsourcing, and reduced lifestyles, I’m learning that there is so little that I really need: His love, His salvation, His presence. Everything else is so little and often so unnecessary. If only I could learn to be content with what is important and leave everything else behind.

This year, as I look toward Advent, I want to learn how to be content with the treasures in heaven that last.

© 2010 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

1 Corinthians 3:16

“Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (NKJV)

Almighty God has many titles and descriptions. He is Creator of the universe which means, that while He can exist within our universe, He also exists outside of it and apart from it. We cannot, at least in these present forms, separate ourselves from the universe and its laws. We cannot ignore gravity and fly through the air or ignore time and travel to distant pasts. We cannot stop breathing and continue to live nor separate our atoms and continue to exist. But God is separate from all these things. He is God and as Creator is apart from creation.

He is Master of the universe. He controls all, rules all, oversees all.

By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us,
O God of our salvation,
You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth,
And of the far-off seas;
Who established the mountains by His strength,
Being clothed with power;
You who still the noise of the seas,
The noise of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
They also who dwell in the farthest parts are afraid of Your signs;
You make the outgoings of the morning and evening rejoice. (Psalm 65:5-8 NKJV)

And yet, the God Who is Creator and Master has also deemed it not only possible but needful for His very Spirit to live within us who are believers. It’s an amazing thing to me, something that continues to confound and surprise me.

I know that I often become so preoccupied with the things around me that I forget that God Himself lives within me and has a plan for me that is far better than anything I could imagine. I’m so busy trying to fix things and organize things and simply “do” that I forget that He has already done it all, has already worked it all out, and as a seal of His love for me placed His very Spirit within me. I don’t have to rely on a priest in Jerusalem to go into the Holy of Holies to approach Him for me. I can drop to my knees—literally or figuratively—and meet Him at the Throne with any request, any need, any plea and He is there. God with men. God with me!

This Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent. The day the Church celebrates the angel visiting Mary with the news that she would be the mother of the King, the One named Emmanuel, God with us. But today—and everyday—I can celebrate the fact that Emmanuel lives within me, desiring to change me into His image, saving me, keeping me, loving me. I am but a simple woman and often wrong in many of the things I decide and do. But God continues to love me and continues to pour His Spirit into me.

It’s simply amazing.

© 2010 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

1 Timothy 1:2

To Timothy, a true son in the faith (NKJV)

Paul talks about “a true son in the faith.” Timothy wasn’t his genetic son, but he was his spiritual son. How many spiritual children do we have?

We don’t talk much in churches these days about discipleship, though we should. And I think that’s the kind of “sonship” to which Paul was referring. Paul, previous to his conversion, had been trained as a rabbi. There was a unique relationship between rabbis and their followers (or disciples). The Hebrew word is talmid and carries with it the idea of completely imitating one’s rabbi. The rabbi lived in such a way that his life was worth imitating and the talmid lived in such a way to completely imitate the rabbi, even to the matters of what to eat and what to wear.

Twice in 1 Corinthians (4:16 and 11:1), Paul urged the Christians to imitate him (as he imitated Christ). This is a true sense of discipleship, much more than intellectual learning. And through this “imitation,” the disciple (or talmid) would become like Paul who himself was striving to become like Christ. In a very real sense, Paul was creating a spiritual genetic bond that mirrored the physical genetic bond of blood families.

How many spiritual children do we have? Are our lives such that another (younger) Christian would be safe to imitate us? Would they even want to?

The Lord Jesus described false teachers as ravenous wolves (Matthew 7:15) and told us that we could discern them by their fruits. These “fruits” are the fruit of the Spirit described in Galatians 5: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (v. 22-23). Paul confirms that those who have crucified the flesh and its desires will walk in the Spirit and manifest this fruit.

We need to strive to become mature believers who are worthy of being followed. That means crucifying the desires of the flesh, regardless of its enticement in order to manifest the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. The Church is, first and foremost, a family. We should be “birthing” new babes in the Lord and then raising them through discipleship as our spiritual sons and daughters. Do we get excited when new souls come into the Kingdom? I would hope that would be what we long for . . . more than anything else.

© 2010 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

1 Timothy 1:1

“Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ, which is our hope” (NKJV)

How much of me is me and how much is the Lord Jesus?

Paul writes two very interesting things in his introduction to this letter. First, he defines himself. He is first, foremost, and always an apostle of Jesus Christ. That is, there is nothing else in his life, no other priority, no other demand upon his time or efforts. It’s interesting because Paul was also a tentmaker, a traveler, a teacher. He was also a Roman citizen (which not everyone was in those days). He could have defined himself in any number of ways . . . but he doesn’t.

How do I define myself? Do I say first that I am a disciple of the Lord Jesus? Or do I first call myself a wife, a mother, a teacher, a woman? How we think is how we eventually act. Our thoughts drive our decisions. If we think of ourselves first as believers, as followers of the Lord Jesus, I would think that would color our decisions in a certain way.

However, Paul does something else that is also interesting. He says that he is thus (an apostle) by the commandment of God. In other words, what’s most important to Paul is whatever is important to God. What God wants (in Paul’s life), God gets. Can I say the same thing? In fact, being honest, throughout my day, do I even care about what God wants in my life? Do I stop to ask Him? Consult with Him? Or do I simply make the decisions I want and then ask Him to bless those decisions?

John the Baptist made an interesting comment about the Lord Jesus in John 3:30. He said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (NKJV). While that was a different context, I think it has relevance for me. In my own life, in my own walk, I must decrease and He must increase in me. In Galatians, Paul writes:

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (2:20 NKJV)

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Can I really say that? Can I say that I have been crucified and now Christ controls me? An old hymn says

I’ll go where You want me to go, dear Lord
O’er mountain or plain or sea
I’ll say what You want me to say, dear Lord,
I’ll be what You want me to be.

Can I say that? Can I live that? I want to learn to surrender like Paul did, so that nothing else matters except for the Lord Jesus.

© 2010 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.

Joshua 1:8

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (NKJV)

I was reading Tozer again this morning and got to thinking about how much I actually think about God. I know that I don’t think about God enough. Not at all enough. That phrase Tozer used in an earlier article – Always and always God – comes to mind. Is that my life? If I am honest, I have to say no.

My friends liken me to the Energizer Bunny. I’m not really a Type A personality, but I like to keep busy. And my definition of “busy” is being way more busy than most of my friends. I like to have lots of projects going at the same time; I’m comfortable being a multi-tasker. So, I work, go to school, volunteer, write.

I’m very busy. And very occupied.

And it occurred to me this morning that I’m so busy that I’m occupied with keeping my life organized rather than being occupied with the Lord. Is there any time, any space, for me to stop and meditate on Him?

“You shall meditate in it day and night.”

Do I even have a day and night in which to meditate? Tozer wrote:

“The best way to control our thoughts is to offer the mind to God in complete surrender. The Holy Spirit will accept it and take control of it immediately. Then it will be relatively easy to think on spiritual things, especially if we train our thoughts by long periods of daily prayer. Long practice in the art of mental prayer (that is, talking to God inwardly as we work or travel) will help to form the habit of holy thought.” (Born after Midnight).

I would like to think that I’m surrendered to God, but if I’m honest, I know that there are many parts of my life that I want to control, rather than to give control to Him. I have to ask myself honestly whether or not I use all of my activities to fill a silence so that I can’t hear His voice. I hope that isn’t true, but I need to spend more time with the Spirit, asking Him to reveal my heart to me so that I don’t end up deceiving myself. Is there anything in my life that I would refuse to give up if He were to ask? Have I even asked Him if I should be doing those things? Ours is a very self-absorbed society based on having what we want when we want it. I know that I often don’t ask God about the decisions I make. It’s time that I started doing that.

© 2010 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.