Let's Run the Race

 

"Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of the faith. . . . Consider Him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." Hebrews 12:1b-2a, 3.

Let us run the race.

It is easy to get tired or discouraged or even depressed. Our minds and souls are bombarded from the media on how life "ought to be" and what our "rights should be." But life is rarely as we desire or even expect. Life instead comes crashing in with all kinds of problems, detours and hindrances. The greatest difficulty in life is probably the people with whom we interact on a regular basis. That may even include close friends and family. People are, simply put, irritating. We are, as a race, self-centered, irascible, and dull in our understanding. We try to communicate with each other and find that no one seems to understand us at all. The demands on our lives go on and on, seemingly without end. Heartache, pain, and problems multiply virtually overnight. Our best laid plans go by the wayside as the problems of life appear out of nowhere.

And yet, we are commanded as believers to "run the race." How is anyone supposed to do that? It’s hard enough to simply survive the moment. How in the world are we supposed to run the race? Who’s got the energy or the motivation?

Three things we need to do: (1) Fix our eyes on Jesus. Don’t look around at our problems, troubles, or circumstances. Don’t look to the future for hope or the past for comfort. Don’t cling to relationships, career successes, or even how many hits we get on social media. Rather, fix our eyes on Jesus, completely and unwaveringly. Look to Him and Him alone. Immerse ourselves in His Word, in His presence, in His love. No one and nothing else matters because no one else can take care of the problems we face except Him.

(2) Throw off the sin that so easily entangles. We need to clean up our lives and get rid of the filth. Get rid of the filthy language, the outrageous behavior, and the lusts of the flesh that we have convinced ourselves are some kind of comfort. We need to purify ourselves and focus on living righteous and holy lives. We need to learn how to use our life’s delete button to clean up our messes and become the Christians we were intended to be.

(3) Throw off everything (else) that hinders. There are things in our lives that aren’t sin but that still hinder us from persevering in the race. We need to aggressively throw those things off and focus on running the race set before us. We need to fix our eyes on Jesus and on Him alone.

And even, in all this, it’s possible to grow weary and lose heart. In those situations, we are called to consider how Jesus persevered for us and to trust the Holy Spirit to strengthen us through the hardest times so that we will continue to run the race just as our Lord did.

© 2017 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.

Putting Our Prayers Where Our Hearts Are

 

"Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him." Hebrews 11:6

When I was growing up, and even before that, when my parents were growing up, there seemed to be overall in American society a desire to know God. There wasn’t such a pervasive attitude of atheism (God doesn’t exist) or agnostism (it’s impossible to know if God exists). And as Christians, we were taught by our pastors and Christian leaders that people were created with a God-shaped hole in their hearts and that these people were constantly seeking to fill that hole.

I’m not sure that concept was true (it’s not taught in the Bible) and I’m not sure that it’s the right approach to witnessing. If it were, most people would be eventually compelled by their own desire to seek out churches and Christianity in an attempt to meet this heart-need. But many people don’t do that. Many unbelievers go on with their lives, outside the church, never darkening its doors.

The Church itself was commanded to go and make disciples. We weren’t told to wait within a church congregation and the unbelievers would somehow come in (even though we frequently pray that way). We have been told to go, to be among them, to interact with them, and then to make disciples. But how can that happen? If they aren’t interested at all in the things of God, they certainly won’t be interested in listening to us. How then can we even begin to approach them about their need for salvation? Paul Billheimer in Destined for the Throne proposed this:

"If [John] Wesley is correct in saying that ‘God does nothing but in answer to prayer,’ then this must include the salvation of souls. This, then, means that no soul is saved apart from intercession, and that every soul who is saved, is saved because someone—who would not give them up to Satan—prayed. God is the cause of salvation, yet our prayers are His appointed means." (pp. 64-65).

Let me pose a question: Do we actually believe (have faith) that salvation only comes from God and that Jesus is thoroughly able to save (Hebrews 7:25)? Then why are we reluctant to pray for those we want to be saved? I will tell you what I think. I think it is because we don’t actually believe that God can overcome their hardened hearts and we don’t want to be disappointed. But He has promised that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. Most of us have family members, friends, acquaintances and public figures that we would like to see saved. And most of the time, if we do anything at all, we barrage them with Facebook posts, Instagram messages, and even (if we are brave) face-to-face talk about their need for salvation. But . . . do we pray? Do we spend more than seconds here and there in intercessory prayer for them?

For many of us, nothing has worked to this point. Why not have faith in God and earnestly seek Him for their salvation? Our Father has promised to reward those who do this. Today is the day to trust the He will answer our prayers if we indeed pray!

© 2017 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.

Love Does No Harm

"⁹ Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. ¹¹ Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. ¹² Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. ¹³ Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. ¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. ¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. ¹⁸ If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone." Romans 12:9-18 NIV

Today, the United States will have a new President. Some people in this country are angry and afraid of this new leader and his team. Their anger and fear might even be justified. There is a growing fear that whole groups of people might now be excluded, might now be again oppressed, might now become invisible.

As Christians, our response—our responsibility—isn’t to place patriotism above our faith. Our responsibility is to love those around us, particularly those who are disenfranchised, to those who are afraid, to who are hurting. We need to begin to reach out, not worrying about whether or not we will be persecuted or harmed. We need to begin to care about individuals, not worrying about whether or not those individuals’ ideologies line up with our own political leanings. We need to bless. We need to mourn with those who mourn. We need to live in harmony with everyone, refusing to repay evil for evil. We need to live at peace with everyone.

We need to love our neighbors as ourselves (Romans 13:9). "Love does no harm to a neighbor" (Romans 13:10). We need to not harm, but rather to do good. Don’t you know that Jesus died for each and every person? Don’t you know that God’s heart is yearning for each soul, wanting to give salvation and mercy to each one?

I can tell you, from personal experience, if a person is hurt or angry or afraid, there may be no words that will comfort them. But we can love in ways that don’t harm. We can give a cup of coffee. We can share a meal. We can smile and say thank you. We can be kind and gentle and patient.

This is a day when the Church of America needs to stand up and become who she was meant to be. This is a day when the Body of Christ needs to reach out to each person and love them unconditionally.

 

Love does no harm.

© 2017 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.

 

 

 

And Then . . . Judgment

"‘In just a little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay.’ . . . But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved." Hebrews 10:37, 39
There is, I think, within all human beings the tendency to believe that if we ignore a truth, it will simply go away. I can remember my grandfather who refused to write a will because he was firmly convinced that, if he wrote one, he would die. His not writing it was his way of trying to assure that he wouldn’t die. Of course, one day, he finally did. Nothing will stave off death; it is a certainty of life. 

But there is more to it. Death isn’t simply a transition to another life similar to this nor is it, as some would believe, simply ceasing to exist. Death is that event which takes us out of time and places us into eternity. But before our eternal destiny is determined, we will all face the judgment of God. "People are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment" (Hebrews 9:27 NIV). The issue isn’t whether or not we will die or whether or not we will face judgment. Those two events are guaranteed facts of life for every human being. It doesn’t matter what we believe. It doesn’t matter how much we refuse to face it. At some future point, we will experience those two events.

The question then becomes what will happen at the judgment. If we have faith in the salvation of the Lord Jesus by acknowledging that we are sinners and that He has paid the penalty for our sins, then we will be saved! Saved from what? Saved from eternal damnation in hell. Saved from eternal suffering. But if we are among those who refuse to surrender to the Lord, then our judgment (and eternity) will be totally different. We will be condemned forever. The Greek word translated here "destroyed" doesn’t mean that our souls will cease to exist, but rather that our state of well-being will totally and completely cease. The Lord Jesus gave one description of hell as this: "[They] will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." (Matthew 8:12b NIV). Teeth gnashing is the act of tightening one’s jaw so much that the teeth grind against each other and the jaw muscles twitch. It is the state of complete and absolute unending agony. And that agony will have no relief, no respite. It will continue forever.

That is hell.

As believers, if we continue to persevere in our faith, we don’t need to fear the judgment. The Lord Jesus has already stood in our place and paid the penalty for our sins. We can approach God with complete confidence (Ephesians 3:12) because of what Jesus did for us. But daily we need to continually speak out the truth of eternity to those who aren’t believers. If they refuse the Lord Jesus, their fates are horrific beyond imagination. We need to love them enough to look past their rejections and continue to tell them about how much God loves them. Because one day, we will all face the judgment.

© 2017 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.

The Way Can Be Hard, but the End Is Glorious

"Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you endured in a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised." Hebrews 10:32-36 NIV

This past summer, my husband and I traveled around the country. During the last leg of our trip, we traveled Interstate 40 through the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona, and California. In the beginning, the desert, which can have its own unique beauty, was so interesting and wonderful to see. But then the journey became more and more arduous. The landscape began to lose any hint of plants and animals and for miles there was just dirt and heat. Increasing heat. When we finally reached Needles, California, the thermometer was dancing around 120 and, frankly, it was miserable. Even when we tried to escape inside somewhere air conditioned, it was so hot. To add to everything, we were towing our damaged fifth wheel which, at every turn, threatened to fall apart underneath us. What a glorious thing it was when we turned onto our own street in California and, in two very short miles, saw our wonderful home. We had persevered and finally arrived!

As Christians, life can seem like its more enduring than rejoicing. Sometimes we face illness and pain. Sometimes we face great loss. Other times we may face great financial hardships or relationship failures. Often we are confronted with the fact that we are living out the consequences of our own choices and our regret adds to our difficulties. And even if our own lives have less suffering than those around us, we are called to come alongside those others who are facing difficulties, to "mourn with those who mourn" (Romans 12:15). In persevering through these difficulties, it can be easy to lose sight of our faith. We have a tendency to buy into the idea that a "good god" would never allow suffering in the world. (And He doesn’t. Suffering isn’t the result of His blessings, but rather always the result of our sin.)

In Hebrews, we are called to persevere through even the darkest times so that we will receive what He has promised. The light is at the end of the tunnel and that light is the light of salvation, the light of our glorious Savior Who has gone to prepare a place for us. Our Lord Jesus, the perfect Savior because He also endured suffering as a human being, has called us to have faith in His promises and to endure. He has called us to have confidence in what He has said and done, knowing that even though at this moment we don’t see the end, if we persevere, we will be richly rewarded in Heaven.

The way gets hard, even seemingly impossible. But we need to keep our eyes on the prize. The end is more glorious than we can ever imagine.

© 2017 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.

This Sunday . . . Church?

 

22 Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³ Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. ²⁴ And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, ²⁵ not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:22-25 NIV

Why do you go to church? If you don’t go now, what would be the reasons that you might go? Were you, at one time, a church attender and have stopped going (for any number of reasons)?

Even during the time that Hebrews was written, there were evidently believers who embraced the habit of not gathering together with other believers. The actual Greek is even stronger in wording as it literally says "as is the custom of some." They developed a custom, or culture, of not gathering together. Even some of these early believers had determined reasons or perhaps even doctrines why meeting together wasn’t necessary. Perhaps they even felt it wasn’t prudent. I’m sure they had good explanations as to why they had come to these conclusions.

In the era of megachurches, many people have "dropped out" of church. They feel lost. They feel overlooked and forgotten. And why not, when you go to church and are simply one in a sea of faces? It’s why many larger churches encourage people to join home groups or Sunday School classes where they can get to know each other much more intimately and where each person has the opportunity to minister to others.

There was a time (it was a rather short time in my getting-longer life) when I didn’t attend church. I tried watching it through the media; I tried having "worship" at home. But something was missing. It wasn’t that I wasn’t learning about the Word. I was. It wasn’t that I couldn’t enter in the presence of the Lord. I did (and do often by myself). It was that I missed the opportunity to minister to other Christians in a regular, more intimate setting. Of course, I can speak words of encourage in various different venues (on the Internet, through phone calls, even through personal visits). But there is a closeness, an intimacy develops when you meet for worship together with the same people week after week, when you share that common experience of teaching, worship, and communion.

Look at the scripture in Hebrews again. Attending church, of course, is about worship. Of course, it is about learning from teachers and pastors. But it’s so much more than that! Coming together at church is about each believer having the opportunity to encourage others, to spur each other on toward love and good deeds. It’s doing ministry together and becoming accountable to each other. It’s about practicing being the Body of Christ.

If you haven’t been to church in a while, I would encourage you to seek the Lord about which fellowship you should join. If you are in fellowship already, I would encourage you to reach out to those around you in that fellowship. This Sunday, encourage them, pray for and with them, and spur them on to greater love and good deeds. It’s time that the Church began acting like the Church. Think about who we might become and what we might accomplish if we actually started working out what the Bible says in our lives . . . collectively!

© 2017 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.

    

We Desperately Need Saving!

 

"He [Jesus] is able to save completely those who come to God through Him, because He always lives to intercede for them. . . . He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself. . . . [Now God says,] ‘For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.’" Hebrews 7:25, 27b, 8:12 NIV

We have found a way, we think, to deal with the sinfulness in our society and within ourselves. We simply refuse to feel guilty. We brush guilt aside with pithy little sayings, even in the Church, because we don’t want to feel uncomfortable. We want to feel good about ourselves, to enjoy life, and to believe that, underneath it all, we are good people.

If that were all true, we wouldn’t need a Savior . . . and Jesus would have died for no reason!

However, we desperately need saving and we desperately need a Savior. The apostle Paul wrote to Titus (another missionary) and said: "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved to all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another" (3:3 NIV). Amazingly, that one sentence seems to describes America this very week. Groups living in malice (wickedness that is not ashamed to break laws) and envy (wanting what others have) are attacking each other, determined not to allow someone else to even have a difference of opinion. People are hated and hate others simply because they think the other person voted for the "wrong" candidate. They are afraid of a future that has yet to appear, afraid of circumstances that may never happen. They chase after all kinds of passions (sexual lusts) and pleasures, thinking that will bring them happiness.

We desperately need saving!

The Lord Jesus is able to save completely! When we come to God through Him, He intercedes for us. He was sacrificed for our sins and, when God forgives us, our sins are remembered no more! We might remember them, but God does not! They are covered under the precious blood of the Lord Jesus.
It is well worth humbling ourselves and admitting that we need saving. It is well worth humbling ourselves and look to our Savior. It is well worth humbling ourselves and confess our sins. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9). If we want to find a solution to the craziness in our society, we need to look no further than our need for a savior. And on this day celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and ministry, we need to know that Dr. King himself looked to the Savior and knew that the ultimate solution to the problems in this world was the Lord Jesus Christ: "Bound by the chains of his own sin and finiteness, man needs a Savior." (http://www.cbn.com/special/BlackHistory/ATS_MLK_Salvation.aspx)

Jesus is that Savior!

© 2017 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.