Drawing near to listen… I think it’s significant that people didn’t stay in place but gathered around Jesus and came in close. They put themselves into position to hear him.

When people gather around there’s an atmosphere of intimacy. Physical proximity creates a special sort of place. In an intimate circle other things are shut out. When positioned close, we can hear better and see better. We are face-to-face with the speaker.

Drawing near puts our focus on the one who is speaking. It’s saying that the person and His words are important to us.

Drawing near is a physical movement, a change in location. It involves an exclusion of other things. It involves a commitment and deliberate action.

Drawing near is done for a purpose. You have a reason for moving closer: you don’t want to miss anything. You’re close enough to discuss, ask questions, have a conversation.

We can’t draw near in the same way that the sinners and tax collectors did, but we can put ourselves in a position of intimacy to listen closely so that we don’t miss anything.

What makes us successful is studying and meditating on the Word of God. These two practices will encourage us to stay on track and will guarantee it if we allow the Word to cut into us and cut away the things that hinder us, we will enjoy good success. The Word of God – the Bible – is the handbook to all aspects of life: relationships, business, family life, love, planning, finances, faith, illness… Following its precepts is vital to setting right goals, achieving them and living right.

In the first chapter of Joshua, God tells him to meditate on, talk about and act on His instructions, and that if he does these things every day, he will succeed in what he does. There’s good advice there – a very obvious cause and effect. A daily time of getting alone with God that includes scripture reading and prayer is practical and necessary for success. I like to include journaling – writing down impressions of what the scripture is saying, how I can apply it, and other thoughts that come to mind. Writing things down helps me remember and I’m better able to recall later on. Over time, the scripture affects the way I think. I see where I’ve gone wrong and how to get right again. I see where I am right and am encouraged. A great guideline for reading and journaling is the popular SOAP method, described here.

Set aside a regular time each day for Bible reading, prayer and journaling. We can do all the other things, but won’t be truly successful unless we do this. We eat a meal every day; let’s make this our daily spiritual meal.

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. Joshua 1:8 (NKJ)

Your words were found, and I ate them,
And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart;
For I am called by Your name,
O Lord God of hosts.
Jeremiah 15:16 (NKJ)

So it is with Christians who “church-hop”. I know many who attend several churches at once,  visiting one each weekend in rotation.

The problem with this practice is that with all the jumping around, these church-hoppers are not becoming rooted. They’re not allowing themselves the opportunity to become a full-fledged participating and thriving member of a church family. They’re always visitors and never members.

Why do people church hop? Maybe they’re afraid of commitment or that they’ll be asked to tithe or volunteer somewhere. Maybe they’re just trying to find a place they like. Maybe they like the variety of preaching styles or that it’s better to get a variety of viewpoints and not stagnate under one pastor.

Their problem, I think, is none of these. Their problem lies in their misconception of what church is. It’s not necessarily a fear of commitment. Generally, they regard church attendance in the same way as getting their kids to a ballgame, or going to the grocery store, or going to a parent-teacher meeting. They see it as an event: something else to fit into their lives because it’s the right thing to do.

What is church? It’s the body of Christ. It’s not an institution. It’s not an event on your calendar. It’s a living, breathing group of people who gather together in Jesus’ name to enjoy Him and each other and do the work of the Kingdom of God together. Church is a family reunion. It’s a party. It’s fun and goofy and serious and challenging and sobering. Like any family, it has its dysfunctions, but it offers has love, acceptance, forgiveness and grace.

Stop church-hopping and land somewhere. Stop making church all about you and your wants and instead make it about Jesus and where He wants you to be. Allow the Holy Spirit to put you in the body where He wants you. It will be a sure fit. Submit to His lead, participate, tithe and get involved. Plant yourself, take root, grow and bear fruit.

But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 1 Corinthians 12:18 ESV

I’ve had several occasions recently in which I made mistakes. Each time it was as  if the accuser came running up to me with his boney finger pointing at me, silently yelling that I screwed up. No one else was aware of this because it was all in my head. As I kept rehearsing the mistakes, the constant barrage of accusation escalated and I found myself so preoccupied with it all that I could no longer engage effectively in the conversation or activity around me.

Mistakes are inevitable. So is sinning. The accusation is also inevitable. The devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1 Peter 5:8 If we default to beating ourselves up and obsessing over how awful we are, we’re allowing ourselves to be devoured.

What’s our alternative? If we’ve sinned or made a mistake, we need to acknowledge it, repent and accept God’s forgiveness. We’re to make restitution when possible. He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us. 1 John 1:9

Keep in mind that even the most righteous among us falls. The key is to get back up again each time, and do it quickly. Proverbs 24:16

Keep in mind that God makes everything work for our benefit because we love Him and are called for His purposes. This is part of how we trust Him. Romans 8:28

Remember that condemnation is no longer a reality for anyone who is “in Christ”. Romans 8:1

And finally, we need to change our thinking – especially about ourselves – from our default position to those things that are true, pure, noble, just, lovely, good and praiseworthy. Meditating on these things requires discipline. Philippians 4:8

Jesus told a story to his disciples about a widow who kept after a magistrate to take up her cause and bring about justice. Due to her persistence, the magistrate did just that. The widow’s tenacity paid off.

Jesus’ point was that we should continue to pray and not give up until the answer comes. It’s something my pastor refers to as PUSH (Pray Until Something Happens).

I see something else in this story that is not mentioned often: It’s important who we ask for help. The widow kept pursuing the magistrate because he was able to take up and settle her cause. He had the authority, position, influence and power to help her. She did not go to her neighbor, her kids, her uncle… She went to the one who was able.

I pray to God and persist in prayer because I know He is able. He is the only one able to act for me, solve my problem, bring me justice and change my heart. I exercise faith in Him. When I go to Him I am acknowledging His power and authority.

On the third floor of this building is a window that overlooks the busy boulevard below. I pass this window often, and each time I look through it I notice that it really needs cleaning. It is so scummed with grime and other things that it obscures the view like fog. Colors are faded, details are blurred, light shining in is diminished.

When it’s dark outside, the view seems clearer.  The lights out on the street are clearly seen, and the film on this window is no longer obvious. The grime is still there but it’s just not as noticeable.

Even being so dirty, the window lets some light inside. But if the window were cleaned, how different and more pleasant the light quality would be. At night, the hallway light would shine outward through it like a sparkling beacon onto the street.

We’re like that window. Jesus commanded us to let our light shine before men. The trouble we have with that is that we don’t keep our windows clean. We allow the stains, grit and grime of sin, indifference and offense to cloud our ability to shine outward. And we fail to see that those same stains, grit and grime prevent light from shining into us. Windows go both ways… shining out into the darkness outside and allowing light to shine into us and illuminate our dark places.

Keep your windows clean.

“Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:15-16 (NIV)

Time is not my enemy. Someone recently remarked that time reveals God’s intentions. Ultimately, time is my friend. How I spend it is up to me. I can have all the time in the world but not have the time of day for someone. I can waste it or invest it.

Although we talk of making time, we don’t actually make time. We each have been given exactly the same amount of it in a day, like an allowance. We set it aside for things but cannot buy or produce it. Nor can we hold onto it. We can only use it.

We each have been given a sense of eternity.  God has put eternity in our hearts, and although we measure our lives by time, times and seasons, we generally operate on a “having all the time in the world” basis. So we have eternity, but time on earth runs out. It’s a paradox:  being eternal beings living within limitations of finiteness.

A friend sent me an encouraging email this morning that contained this statement:

WE ARE NOT HUMAN BEINGS GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE.
WE ARE SPIRITUAL BEINGS  GOING THROUGH A TEMPORARY HUMAN EXPERIENCE.

Spiritual beings are eternal. The Bible is clear that our eternity is based on how we spend our time here. We live like we’ve got forever, as if there are no limits, as if time is not running out. At the same time we live as if we have no time: no time for people, no time to fix the faucet, no time for interruptions, no time to make that phone call or go see Grandma. We despise delays in schedules and fret in traffic tangles. We dislike standing in line waiting for the next post office window to open up (thank God for e-mail). We don’t have time to read the Bible, to pray to God, to journal or to listen to someone’s problem. We don’t have time to listen to God. The thing is, we do have time. We just choose to use it in some ways and not in others.

God has made everything beautiful in its time. He established the times and the seasons. He determined a time to plant and a time to harvest. In between there’s time to cultivate and wait. God will actually sit and wait for us.

We were created for eternity. As eternal beings we are right now living in our eternity, right here in the midst of our humanness. We are passing though this stage of life. God blesses us here and also there. Jesus talked about “this world and the next”. This world is not our home or destiny if we know Jesus Christ. We don’t stop living when we die and then start up living again. We just change location, so to speak.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, He has put eternity into man’s heart… Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESV)

Job got a bad rap. He didn’t deserve what he got. His setback was not the result of bad living, and he knew it. His three buddies tried to persuade him otherwise, but he knew he was innocent. He spent a lot of time deflecting their verbal blows. That ongoing effort must have worn him down even further.

So Job went through crap, both figuratively and literally, since he was sitting on the dung heap. Yuk!

What was God doing during all this? It took Him long enough, but He finally responded to Job’s complaints and questions. What is interesting is how He responded… He did not directly address Job’s questions at all. Yet Job ended up satisfied with His answer.

What Job went through, I think, was a season of pruning. Pruning will most always feel wrong, feel bad, and cause us to consider ourselves and our ways. When everything seems to go upside down and we go through it, there’s a reason for it. We’re being pruned. Stuff that doesn’t matter is removed and we’re able to see that it really does not matter. We’re caused to run after God more fervently with our implorings. We seek Him more deliberately because we can’t figure it all out and fix the situation. We simply have to just let all the balls we’ve been juggling drop to the ground and lay there. There’s nothing we can do. If we don’t rely on God we’re toast.

We cannot save ourselves.

So we’re being pruned. Unpleasant as it is, pruning is the thing that makes us more fruitful. We produce more fruit and better – more robust and beautiful – fruit because of it. Seasons of crap are the fertilizer that nourish our fruit. They’re the strength-building vitamins and minerals that help us increase our strength and renew our determination. In God’s hands, the result of a pruning season is always better than before we were pruned. Pruning ensures our increase. It is not meant to defeat us. What appears to be a setback or disaster actually has consequences for our benefit.

Like Job’s friends did, there will be people who come around us and try to analyze our situation for us. They’ll point out that we must have screwed up somewhere or we don’t have enough faith, otherwise this wouldn’t be happening. They’ll want to rehearse all the details of our lives to determine what caused our demise. These sorts of friends may not be encouraging, but they are participating in our pruning. Did Job buckle under and cry uncle to his friends’ pressure to “’fess up? No. He stood on the solid ground of truth and did not accept their false accusations. There’s a lesson there for each of us.

There are times when setbacks are the consequences of our choices. But if you’re going through a season of crap right now – financially, emotionally, physically or spiritually – and it’s not due to what you’ve done, consider that God might just be pruning you, and that you’ll survive the season and emerge from the dung heap more full, satisfied and capable than ever.

I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. John 15:1-2

We don’t all follow the same set of rules, and not all rules are beneficial. Religious and philosophical forms found in human tradition actually ensnare and deny us our liberty. Rather than walking the in freedom accomplished by Christ’s death and resurrection, many Christians fall easily into following regulations as if the regulations themselves  had the power to save, heal or keep our hands clean in God’s eyes. Following rules lull us into believing lies without even realizing it.

No rule can transform us. No rule will increase our faith.

When we follow regulations imposed by human concepts we give them power over us. We live to follow the rule and measure our lives against the rule rather than follow the example of Christ. Jesus gave a few commands: love each other, make disciples, seek God’s kingdom, baptize, celebrate His last supper, etc., but He made no rules. If you think about it, even the Ten Commandments are not really rules. They each address relational concerns.

Rules and traditions keep us from living in the Kingdom of God. They remove joy and impose guilt. They are earthly rather than eternal. We can actually disqualify ourselves and miss the greater things of God’s desire for us when we focus on the incidentals. By following rules we miss out on following Christ. You see, Jesus Christ is a person. We have relationship with a person. We don’t have relationship with rules.

Paul addressed this in his second letter to Timothy when he cautioned against associating with people who had a “form of godliness but denying its power”. We will not live in the Kingdom of God by adhering to rules put forth by mankind.

We don’t like rules in general, but we find it easier to follow them rather than pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ. Relationships are hard. Rules are easy. Relationships require vulnerability. Rules are superficial. But rules don’t save us. Jesus Christ does.

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ…. Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: ”Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings.” Colossians 2:8, 20-22 NIV

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1 NIV

Lighthouse at Aquina, Oregon, USA

I enjoy engaging in apologetics, which is not making an “apology” for what Christians believe, but is instead making a reasonable argument for that belief. It’s similar to making a defense in a court of law or arguing a position in a debate. To give someone reasons why you believe something is true based on evidence rather than feeling or wishing can be effective.

Yet, to expand on a point I made in my previous post, few people are argued into believing something. Most of the Christians I know chose to become a Christian not through a tract handed to them or by who won a debate about creation or evolution, but by observing their friends, family, neighbors or or co-workers live genuine Christian lives. 

The greatest tool of persuasion is the life a person lives – how he or she responds to the situations and the challenges they face. We do not live in a vacuum. If we live genuinely, openly and consistently as a Christian, people will notice there’s “something different” about us. This is what Jesus was referring to in saying, “Let your light shine in front of people so that they may see the good stuff you do and give God the credit” (my paraphrase). I think that, if you’re a Christian and people are not asking you what’s different about you, you’re not living openly and letting your light shine. 

People don’t need to come to church services and Bible studies. They don’t need tracts handed to them as they pass by on the sidewalk. They need to see that Jesus Christ is the forgiver of their sins and the answer to their dilemmas. They need to experience real relationship and acceptance. They need to trust that they’re cared for and loved, no matter what. They need us to spend time with them, enjoy their company and engage with them. 

You can pray for your unsaved friends. You can read scripture to your unbelieving family members. But if you’re not pursuing relationships with them, they’re not going to have the opportunity to see Jesus in you, and it won’t matter to them what or why you believe.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16 NKJV

…having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. 1 Peter 2:12 NKJV