One Nation Better than Another -- Amos 6:1-3

Amos 6:1-3


"How terrible it will be for those who have an easy life in Jerusalem, for those who feel safe living on Mount Samaria. You think you are the important people of the best nation in the world; the Israelites come to you for help. Go look at the city of Calneh, and from there go to the great city Hamath; then go down to Gath of the Philistines. You are no better than these kingdoms. Your land is no larger than theirs." (NCV)

"You think you are the important people of the best nation in the world."

As I have lived and tried to broaden my thinking as far as peoples and cultures and perspectives, I’ve come to realize that most, if not all, people have a strong sense of national and/or cultural identification. Most are unwilling to change their world view significantly, but want to have others identify with them. "If only we all agreed . . . if only we all had the same perspectives . . . if only we all shared one common goal . . . that would fix all the problems in the world."

That is one of the root problems between differing groups of people. Muslim insurgents have been claiming that if everyone followed Islam, there would be peace, but even now ISIS is killing off other Muslims for disagreeing with how they interpret the Koran. The gangs in Los Angeles fight because they are different gangs. "If you just joined our gang, there would be peace." But even within each gang, there is violence and fighting. Within marriages, one of the common complaints is that one spouse doesn’t exactly see eye to eye with the other. The result? Often, divorce.

There is an inherent egocentricity within the human heart that demands that others be like me, think like me, act like me. We all think we are the most important person in the world. We all think our position is right. We all think that we should encourage—or even demand—that others think and do as we do.

That is not how Christians are to live.

"For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. . . . Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:5, 11 NKJV).

We are born egocentric, thinking that we are the center of the universe. Once we become Christians, that person is crucified with Christ and that body (of sin) is to be done away with. We are no longer slaves to sin, but should reckon ourselves dead to sin. We are transformed to become theo-centric, God-centered. And when we become God-centered, we no longer demand that others see things our way, but rather we begin to see things God’s way.

And what is God’s way?

It is that one kingdom is no better than another. One place is no better than another. One person is no better than another. God created it all; He is in control of it all; and Christ died for all! Even the most evil person on earth our Lord Jesus Christ loved and died for. I believe this is why the thief on the cross was saved at the eleventh hour. This is why tax collectors were included with the original disciples. This is why Paul—who orchestrated the murder of Stephen (and lived with that guilt all his life)—was appointed to be perhaps the greatest of all apostles. To show us that our Lord Jesus loves everyone, died for everyone, and counts everyone worthy of being offered salvation. We are all the same.

"Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:1-4 NKJV).

"Prayers . . . for all men [people], for kings and all who are in authority. . . . God . . . desires all men [people] to be saved."

All. Paul doesn’t tell us to abandon where we are because the rulers are bad. (The fact is, rulers are usually bad because absolute power corrupts absolutely.) In fact, in the Amos passage, the Lord pointed out that feeling "safe" in one location, as opposed to another, is a false peace. There is no "safe" place except in the arms of Jesus. There is no nation better than another. There is no people better than another. Rather, if we want to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness (Is that our goal? To live godly?), then we are to pray for our rulers. That is "good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior." Why? Because even bad (or evil) rulers need the Lord. Because our Lord Jesus loves them; He died for them, too! We pray for people because God commands it. We pray for people so that they will be saved. We pray for people because the Holy Spirit in our lives demands that we put aside our egocentricity and begin to think like God thinks. We pray for people because that’s what our Father longs for us to do.

© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. 

For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

True Worship -- Amos 5:21-24

Amos 5:21-24


"The Lord says, ‘I completely hate your feasts; I cannot stand your religious meetings. If you offer me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I won’t accept them. You bring your best fellowship offerings of fattened cattle, but I will ignore them. Take the noise of your songs away from me! I won’t listen to the music of your harps. But let justice flow like a river, and let goodness flow like a stream that never stops.’" (NCV)

There are, these days, worship conferences. Some sponsor—usually looking to make money—will ask a number of worship leaders from mega-churches to come together and talk about how to "do" worship. When you attend the conference (or watch the videos posted online later), you see person after person talking about music—how to compose it, how to play it, how to sing it. Rarely does anyone talk about how to live worship and even then, rarely, very rarely, do you hear anyone talking about sin.

You see, discussions of sin should be the focus when we talk about worship. The Lord is much more concerned about the states of our hearts than the ability of the band when it comes to worship.

Near the end of the Lord Jesus’ life here on earth, an interesting thing happened. He and the disciples were traveling. "So they came to Jerusalem. Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple. Then He taught, saying to them, ‘Is it not written, "My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations" ? But you have made it a ‘den of thieves’" (Mark 11:15-17 NKJV).

House of prayer. Not a house of worship. Not a house of sermons. Not a house of programs. A house of prayer.

Prayer is first and foremost communication with God. It is interactive as it requires us to seek His face and then to listen to His voice. We pray and God responds. We pray and God acts. We pray and God changes who we are. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Philippians 4:6-7 NKJV).

Guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Prayer doesn’t change God; prayer changes us! As we are in His presence, we are accosted by our sin and our sinfulness. As we are in His presence, we become mindful of how little we have achieved (nothing!) and how desperately we need Him! As we are in His presence, we learn how much we deserve punishment and how great is His mercy. And only in and through prayer can our hearts and minds be changed so that we live out the justice and goodness that He so desires from us, so we can truly begin to worship Him as He demands.

You see, worship isn’t about music. We can worship through music, but we can also worship through giving a lift to a weary traveler, through talking on the phone to a despairing friend, through buying a meal for a hungry soul, through reaching out to a lonely child.

"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’" (Matthew 25:31-40 NKJV).

Just as our relationship with the Lord should flow out from us to a hurting world, so, if our hearts are right before Him, should our worship of the Lord. In Amos, the Lord is angry with the outward trappings of worship that have failed to reflect an inward heart change: "I completely hate your feasts; I cannot stand your religious meetings. I won’t accept your offerings. Take the noise of your songs away from me!" Why is the Lord so angry? Because justice and goodness are absent from the hearts of the worshipers. Worship without righteousness isn’t worship and the Lord hates it. Worship is only true worship when we understand our sinfulness, when we understand our need for the Lord Jesus Christ, and when we choose to act out His love in our lives.

"Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest? For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist," says the Lord. "But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word." (Isaiah 66:1-2 NKJV).

"Who trembles at My word." When we start taking God seriously, when we begin to believe that our sinful foolishness will result in His judgment, and when we allow that truth to begin to bring about change in our choices and our behavior, only then will He accept our worship in whatever form we bring it, good music or bad, skillfulness or ineptness, in a group or alone. God desires worship from our hearts and that only comes when we start to live out His commands in our daily lives.

© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. 

For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

Resisting Evil -- James 4:7-10

James 4:7-10


"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up." (NKJV)

I had my outside fence painted gray last year to match the house. Oh, I could have left it the original redwood color, but it just didn’t seem to go. So, I had it painted gray. If it had been red, I might have missed what happened yesterday.

I was in the house, talking on the phone to a friend, and looking outside at the yard. I enjoy looking at the yard this time of year. The few flowers I’ve planted are trying to bloom, the multitude of birds that I feed are busily scooping up as much seed as they can eat, and there are often fluffy white clouds over the mountains to the south. It’s a beautiful view.

So, here I was talking on the phone when I noticed a copper ribbon had gotten caught on the top of the fence. Finding things in my yard isn’t unusual because I live in the high desert and we get a lot of wind. I never really know what might show up. But here was this shiny, bright copper ribbon. "What in the world is that?" I thought.

And then . . . I saw it move. It was a snake! Now I’m all for live and let live with the creatures around me, but I have to admit. I’m just not a fan of snakes. I have no idea which are "good" snakes and which are "bad" snakes, so having them in my yard makes me very uneasy. But here I found myself on a phone call that I didn’t want to terminate "just because of a snake" and there’s this snake on my fence. A conundrum. The call was one of ministry. The snake was a possible threat. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just kept talking and watched.

After a few minutes, the snake dropped down into my yard. (Why couldn’t he have dropped down into the vacant lot behind me??) So, still on the phone, still listening and talking, I walked outside—not too close, mind you—to watch where this snake was going to decide to go in my yard! Amazingly enough, this is what happened.

The snake dropped to the ground and raised his head. He didn’t pan his head around, as if looking. He simply raised his head, as if smelling. (I’ve since found out from the Internet that most snakes have a good sense of smell.) It didn’t take long, perhaps a minute, and the snake headed for the bottom of the fence (that makes sense since now he’s on the ground) and began slithering, rather hurriedly along the bottom, looking for a space between the fence boards large enough for him to pass through. After a few tries, he found such a space and was gone, back into the other lot, before I knew it.

I didn’t have to fight the "evil" after all. The environment which I had created within my backyard was so uninviting to him—regardless of the flowers, plants, and water—that he wanted nothing better than to leave as quickly as possible.

Then the Lord spoke to me. "I sent the snake to teach you a lesson. Satan and sin will try to come into your life. They may even drop over the edge and look to see if the environment is inviting. But if your life is permeated with my Spirit, they will want to leave as quickly as possible. They can’t exist where I AM."

We never have to focus on evil. We never have to focus on the wiles of the devil (more than to know that he is crafty and will do whatever he can to deceive us). What we need to do is to focus totally on the Lord Jesus Christ and the Father’s love for us. We resist the devil just by being in the presence of the Lord and doing His will!

Look at the passage in James. James gives us the secret to overcoming any scheme of evil: submit to God – resist the devil. What’s interesting is that we don’t actually have to resist the devil. What we have to do is submit to God. By submitting to God, we resist the devil. When we are doing God’s will, the Holy Spirit so permeates our lives and hearts that the devil flees. He cannot exist in that environment.

So what’s involved in submitting to God, in doing His will? How do we do that? I believe there are three rather simple things: (1) Living humbly (v. 10); (2) living the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23); and (3) being content where God has put us (Philippians 4:11).


Living humbly
Humility is something that isn’t easily embraced in America. We are, as a country, arrogant. We believe we are important. We believe our opinions are right. We believe that we have rights that should not and cannot be violated.

Humility says that the other person is more important that I am, that I should spend my time and resources ministering to those around me (and trust God to take care of me). "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself" (Philippians 2:3 NKJV).

When we are humble, we put aside our "rights" and look to the needs and concerns of those around us. We drop into prayer at a moment’s notice when we see a need. If we have the resources (regardless whether we think we need them or not), we meet the needs of those around us, trusting God to take care of us. When we are humble, everyone comes first. We are willing to take the last place in line because we know that God is with us there.


Living the fruit of the Spirit
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another." (Galatians 5:22-25 NKJV).

Again, in this passage, we see the idea of conceit, of arrogance, placed against or in opposite to how the Christian should live. Paul tells us that our former life and its desires is crucified, dead. We stop living for ourselves and live for those around us, for those for whom our Lord Jesus died. We do that by being loving, joyful, at peace with God, patient (longsuffering), kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled.

The "list" of the fruit of the Spirit isn’t a list of separate characteristics, but rather interwoven and interrelated characteristics that cannot exist apart from each other. We can’t live out one or two of the fruit, but must live out all of the fruit. Love cannot live without peace. Faithfulness cannot exist without self-control. Kindness cannot be evidenced without goodness. And all of these exist upon a foundation of humility.


Living contented
"I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Philippians 4:11b-13 NKJV).

If we have learned to be humble, if we have learned to live out the fruit of the Spirit, then we will have learned to be content because the stuff around us—even the bare needs of life like housing and food—won’t matter because we will have learned to trust God in all things. We will have learned that Christ Himself is our housing and food, Christ Himself is the Supplier of our needs, Christ Himself is enough! And if we are living humbly, if we are living the fruit of the Spirit, if we are content in Christ, evil and temptation will flee! Just like that snake who couldn’t get out of my yard fast enough, Satan will drop in our lives, look around, and scurry away as quickly as he can because he will discover that we are living in the presence of the Almighty King of the universe and evil just isn’t welcome where He is!

© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved. 

For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

Do We Think Punishment Won't Come? -- Amos 5:16-17

Amos 5:16-17


"This is what the Lord, the Lord God All-Powerful, says: ‘People will be crying in all the streets; they will be saying, "Oh, no!" in the public places. They will call the farmers to come and weep and will pay people to cry out loud for them. People will be crying in all the vineyards, because I will pass among you to punish you,’ says the Lord." (NCV).

I recently read an op-ed about the rioting that’s been occurring in a small Missouri town as a result of the police officer shooting of a young man. While the details are so confused in the media (and I’m not, in this study, dealing with the original event), this op-ed is what drew my attention. Apparently, in sociology, history, and political science classes (check out the Internet), looting as a political statement (looting as being an ethical behavior) is being taught. Here’s a snippet of what this editorialist said:

"On a less abstract level there is a practical and tactical benefit to looting. Whenever people worry about looting, there is an implicit sense that the looter must necessarily be acting selfishly, "opportunistically," and in excess. But why is it bad to grab an opportunity to improve well-being, to make life better, easier, or more comfortable? Or, as Hannah Black put it on Twitter: "Cops exist so people can’t loot ie have nice things for free so idk why it’s so confusing that people loot when they protest against cops" [sic]. Only if you believe that having nice things for free is amoral, if you believe, in short, that the current (white-supremacist, settler-colonialist) regime of property is just, can you believe that looting is amoral in itself." (from http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/in-defense-of-looting/)

"Why is it bad to grab an opportunity to improve well-being (through looting)?"

While the author presents some interesting points about the issues of differences in culture, I think there is a more important underlying issue that we, as a society, are failing to address. We are failing to address it because we want to believe that God is non-existent, or if He exists, He truly doesn’t care to be involved in our affairs. We don’t want a God Who is a moral being, who insists on ruling His creation with moral laws, and who, if thwarted, will bring about punishment.

We don’t want to believe that there are behaviors that are immoral because we don’t want to be punished for our actions.

Currently, there is, sweeping the country, a philosophy in our public schools that bad behavior shouldn’t be punished. This philosophy is based on the premise that everyone is born good and really wants to do good if only they were given what they needed. (Perhaps even you believe that?) In schools, we are told to evaluate student behavior based on that student’s "inherent" need and then asked to change the environment in such a way that the need is met. The assumption is that when the need is met, the behavior will change from "bad" to "good."

I’m sorry, but that’s a crock! Why? Because scripture tells us that the unsaved will act only according to their nature (Romans 8). It’s not much better for the saved. We are told to choose righteousness, but also given admonitions to seek forgiveness when we sin. In other words, we are told that we will do bad (evil) things. We are born into sin and we will want to sin until we come to that place where, in humility and gratitude, we throw ourselves completely on the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him to become in us what we cannot become on our own.

The other choice is punishment.

The Lord will not—can not—allow sin to continue unchecked. "The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and great in mercy" (Psalm 145:8 NKJV). He is slow to anger, but at some point, His anger will be fulfilled.

While the scripture in Amos is unclear about timing, I have to wonder if the Lord is predicting that the people will cry out even before the punishment begins. Obviously the punishment hasn’t fallen full bore because they paid people to cry out for them. (Perhaps like we pay people in the media to express our opinions about things?) The people here weren’t crying so much in pain over the punishment as in protest of it and they wanted to hear the voices of others agree with them.

They wanted to believe that punishment wasn’t coming.

Is that what we believe? I think so. I often think we believe we are so privileged that God will simply tolerate our faults and allow us to continue in our sin because it makes us feel so good. The fact is, the Lord is aware that if we continue and continue and continue to sin, we will reach a point where we will choose not to stop. Our sins will be so familiar and comfortable, we would rather face a future punishment than give up our sin. The original King James Bible calls this a "reprobate mind" (Romans 1:28). The dictionary defines "reprobate" as "to condemn strongly as unworthy, unacceptable, or evil; to foreordain as damnation; to refuse to accept." A reprobate mind is a mind that has so rejected God that the possibilities of this person turning to accept salvation are zero.

There is a point where we can so turn away from God that we will never want to turn back to Him again.

We want to believe that punishment isn’t coming.

Rather than pay people to agree with us—rather than believe, as the editorialist appears to believe, that immoral acts can somehow be moral—perhaps it’s time we understand that we aren’t in control. That the Almighty God of the universe is the only One who can establish the rules of life and that His morality will demand punishment if we continue to disobey Him. Thankfully, rather than face our punishment, we can throw ourselves on God’s mercy, embracing the salvation given so freely through the death of our Savior, and avoid the punishment we so hate. But we should never believe punishment isn’t coming. Because it is and when it comes, it is always righteous and just.

© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.

For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

Are You a Fan or a Player? -- Ephesians 4:14-16

We should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love." (NKJV)

You can tell the change of seasons by what people wear. No, I’m not talking about the change of weather seasons (like winter or summer), but rather the change of sports seasons. Hats, jerseys, even face paint depict which season has begun and which team is favored.

America is sports-crazy! I don’t know about other countries, but here folks not only choose the teams they root for, but which sports they prefer. And now with cable TV, nine bajillion channels, and split screens, you are able to watch sports all weekend and more than one game at once. Just go into a local sports bar and you will see several games being played on the various monitors. (For people like me who crave peace and quiet, that’s not the place to go, but many love it.)

Inherent in sports watching is also sporting analyzing. In the lunch room, in the hallways, in the car, at the restaurant, people are talking how the coach missed this or a player missed that. Replays (in slow motion, of course) and reruns allow people to relive crucial moments over and over again, talking what should have been done differently, praising the attributes of their "own" team, and criticizing the faults of the opposing team. (There’s usually a lot of criticizing the opposing team.)

If you visit the local stadium early enough, you can see players, coaches, and fans mingling together. Unless you actually know the faces, it’s sometimes difficult to tell who’s who. They may all wear team paraphernalia or team colors, speak the same language, and have the same goals.

But’s there a huge difference!

Fans will never know or understand what it means to be on that field, to have the fate of a game or championship in your hands. They will never know the tension and effort that it takes for the coaches to analyze and design plays that will bring about victory. Fans will never understand that true sacrifice that it takes to play the game.

Fans sit back and observe, but they don’t truly join in.

As people who call ourselves Christians, we need to decide whether we are fans or players. We may call ourselves Christians. We may attend church, sing the songs, listen to the message, and interact in the parking lot with the others who are there. We may dress alike, speak similarly, and have the same goals (such as defeating what culture moral is the "sin of the hour"). But that doesn’t make us a true Christian. As the saying goes, "Being in a garage doesn’t make one a mechanic."

So what actually makes someone a Christian? Well, contrary to popular belief, saying the "sinner’s prayer" won’t make you a Christian. It can be the start, but it’s the start, not the process, and it’s the process that creates a Christian. Paul talks about this process in Ephesians, dividing it into three parts: (1) grow up in all things; (2) joined and knit together; and (3) the head, Christ.

Salvation is a process, a lifelong journey, in which it is possible to step off the path momentarily or even forever. Each day, each moment, we make decisions whether or not we will be obedient to our Lord or obedient to our own flesh, whether we will choose righteousness or sin. Using our analogy of fans and players, when we "grow up," the difference between fans and players is what happens inside our hearts. Fans of Christianity embrace all the trappings. They may or may not attend church, but they know the "speak." They have a Bible version of choice (and often defend it "to the death"). They often listen to Christian worship music and may be familiar with the different professional recording artists. They have seen the latest "Christian movie" and are demanding that everyone else go see it. They probably have a closet full of Christian t-shirts which they wear proudly and they are very visible, either in their communities or on the Internet, with their opinions about how the Christian life should be lived.

Players of Christianity—the Christians who are on the playing field—on the other hand are often too busy to be consumed with the trappings. They regularly join together in a physical meeting with other believers because the Lord commanded it, but rather than spending their money on CD’s, DVD’s, and t-shirts, are liberally giving to the poor, the needy, and to missions work. They are often seen volunteering at places that most other people wouldn’t even think about. They open their homes to the homeless, share food with the hungry, volunteer in schools in order to hug a lonely child, and visit those in prison. They are consumed with wondering if they are doing enough, but they continue to minister, even if it’s one person at a time, and everything they do is done because, in all the hours of prayer they spent, the Lord told them to. They would jump into a lions’ den if that’s what Jesus wanted.

Players are totally immersed in the process of salvation. They are working everyday to surrender themselves completely to the Holy Spirit. Their only goal in life is to live out the fruit of the Spirit in every encounter they have. They know they are interconnected with all other believers in the Body of Christ and they regularly interact within the Church in order to allow God to fully develop every aspect of His Church. They spent time in prayer and Bible study in order to continue to know Christ fully and the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10).

Players don’t advertise they are Christians. Like the tax collector who prayed, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13), players are constantly aware of the temptations to sin and stand humbly before God, greatly thankful for His love and mercy. They work to constantly love all others in the House of God because God loves them and because they are commanded to (John 13:35). But their light shines brightly because it’s the light of the Holy Spirit. It’s impossible to miss a player. You know immediately who they are.

The question becomes, which are we . . . fans or players? Which do we want to be?

© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.

For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

Don't Do the Lord's Work -- Colossians 1:24-29

Colossians 1:24-29


"I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. To this end I also labor, striving according to His working which works in me mightily." (NKJV)

"I now rejoice in my sufferings . . . and fill up in my flesh . . . the afflictions of Christ for the sake of His body which is the Church"

Paul rejoiced in his sufferings. In 2 Corinthians 4:17, he called them "light afflictions" (NKJV). What exactly were these sufferings, these "light afflictions?"

"From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness" (2 Corinthians 11:24-27 NKJV).

Paul was unjustly imprisoned, beaten, whipped, and stoned. He was shipwrecked three times, once being in the water for at least 24 hours. He was threatened, cursed, reviled and maligned. And yet, he rejoiced in those sufferings. No, Paul wasn’t mentally ill. He wasn’t a masochist. But Paul learned the secret of being a Christian because he wasn’t doing these things for the Lord. The Lord was doing these things through him.

The Lord is saying to us:

Don’t do for Me.

Be with Me and I will do through you.

"His working which works in me mightily."

It sounds foolish: "I am going to do this for the Lord, for the Master and Creator of the universe". But the fact is, that’s how most of us live out our Christian lives. We do for Jesus. We go to church to show Jesus how much we love Him. We sing worship songs to give Him praise. We read our Bibles to grow spiritually. We write opinions and argue on the Internet to try to change other people’s opinion in an order to do God’s work. (We actually use that phrase: "I am doing the Lord’s work." Do you see the irony? I’m doing God’s work. How arrogant we are.)

We do and do and do and do.

And the reason that we can’t begin to have Paul’s life—which, by the way, is as readily to us as it was to Paul—is because we are doing instead of allowing the Lord to do in and through us. The Lord doesn’t need us to do His work. He needs for us to be with Him, in His presence, in His peace, in His will. And then, once we are totally surrendered, He can easily do what He wants with our lives. He can, as He did through Paul, allow us to go into situations where we are greatly at risk, where we will greatly suffer, but we will be suffering for the sake of the Church!

Right now, most Christians I know don’t even want to die (and go to be with Jesus). And when we die, we want it to be peacefully at the end of a long life. Think of suffering? Not if we can help it! Paul was not only willing, but eager to embrace suffering for the sake of the Church! And with each suffering, he rejoiced! In Acts 16, after Paul and Silas had been whipped and thrown into prison, they were in their shackles (chains) "praying and singing hymns to God" (v. 25) so much so that the other prisoners were listening to them. They weren’t crying or complaining or petitioning to be released. They weren’t afraid or complaining about their unjust suffering. They were praying and singing hymns. These weren’t supermen. They were Christians who had discovered that life as a Christian is about being in the presence of Jesus and allowing Him to work in and through them, "striving according to His working which works in me mightily."

The Lord is saying to us:

Don’t do for Me.

Be with Me and I will do through you.

How do we "be" with Jesus? We pray and pray and pray some more. That is the first and most important step. Paul tells us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). This doesn’t mean that we have to be on our knees every moment (though having a lot of that kind of time is important), but it does mean that we have a constant communication with the Lord. We are in His presence, being with Him, and then He fills us with His Spirit Who will do mighty things through us.

© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.

For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com

Faith and Depression -- 2 Peter 3:17-18

2 Peter 3:17-18


"You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
The Internet is reeling with the news with the recent suicide death of a certain celebrity. It seems like every few years, someone famous dies in a particular way that garners an unusual amount of discussion and concern. But this is more than that. It seems lately that suicides are on the rise. In the past several years, at least two children of well-known pastors have taken their lives and I know there are many others whose deaths weren’t reported by the media, but whose families and friends still grieve at the horror of it all. 

One of the things that’s come out of this particular instance is a renewed discussion about mental illnesses, particularly clinical depression. And as someone who has contemplated suicide more than once in her life, I believe such discussions are valuable.

Yes, I have seriously contemplated suicide and once was at the verge when I was miraculously stopped. Does that surprise you? Unknown to me, I suffered from what is now known as PMDD, premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Of course, it was unknown to me at that time because it was unknown to everyone. But every month I would suffer from such depression that I would want to quit my job, leave my family, dig a hole and hide in it and literally die. It took every bit of self-control and some "tricks" I learned about dealing with my own depression to see me through years and years of suffering.

I even had a nervous breakdown (for which, great thanks to my Christian doctor at the time, I was treated for at home, rather than hospitalized, which he threatened to do several times over the months he treated me). I was also medicated, but even the medication didn’t help much. It was a very dark time in my life.

You know what I learned through all this? Yes, there are physical causes of depression, changes in our brain chemistry or tendencies toward these behaviors due to our genetic make-up. But what I needed most of all was the Lord. And not "just" salvation, though that has to be the starting point. I needed to increasingly surrender to the Lord, to His will, not mine, to His plan, not mine, to His control, not mine.

The only light at the end of my very dark tunnel was the light of Jesus Christ.

People need the Lord. I know that’s a line from an old song, but it’s so true. The only hope for those struggling with the darkness of depression is Jesus. And not just salvation! Yes, we need salvation. Everyone needs to be saved. But even Christians are committing suicide. "Salvation" how it is taught in America isn’t saving us! We need to continue, as Peter wrote, to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Look at what Peter wrote:

"Beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked."

　
This is written to Christians, Christians who have the ability to fall from their own steadfastness. The Greek word here, sterigmos, has to do with the condition of the mind. (It is in the mind where depression lives.) Peter is talking both about a healthy mind and a healthy spiritual condition. It may be, due to God’s mercy, that you can be a Christian and commit suicide; however, you will not even contemplate suicide if you are strong and healthy spiritually. It just won’t happen! So notice how steadfastness is undermined: by error! An additional meaning of this word is delusion. While depression seems very real and the darkness is overwhelming and debilitating, the fact is it is a delusion brought by the enemy! And a Christian who is spiritually healthy and strong will be able to defeat the delusion. The battle may be a long and difficult one, but victory is guaranteed! However, a Christian who is spiritually undermined and weak may be overcome by the delusion. They may fall from their own steadfastness.

Peter tells us to "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." The word really means to increase or enlarge. It means that our relationship with our precious Jesus must change every day. Every day we need to learn how to trust Him more, learn how to please Him more, learn how to surrender to Him more. If our faith isn’t changing everyday, isn’t increasing everyday, we are heading toward that fall from steadfastness. Our Christian faith cannot be stagnate. You cannot stand still as a Christian. You are either moving toward God or away from Him. You are either increasing your faith or diminishing your faith. You are either trusting Him more or trusting Him less. There. Is. No. Middle. Ground.

People need the Lord! He is the only solution to the suicide problem. He is the only solution to depression. He is the only thing we need. But we need more than salvation. We need to continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Him. There is NO OTHER WAY.

© 2014 Robin L. O’Hare. All Rights Reserved.

For permission to copy, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com