For the Weary Warrior

This year has seen my family shatter and Joy unexpectedly taken several hours away from home. It has been a year of grief, conflict, tension, brokenness, and isolation. It has worn me down. My body is tired of carrying so much tension. My brain is tired of jumping through all the legal hoops. My heart is tired of sorting through the emotional aftermath. My spirit is tired of . . . well, my spirit is just tired. The enemy has been telling me I just need to quit – to shut myself up in a room, lick my wounds, and put it all away. In other words, to give up. I’m not going to lie – it has been tempting.
But the Spirit keeps bringing one verse to mind: Paul wrote, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up” (Gal 6:9). The word “weary” means be so exhausted as to lose courage. Notice it doesn’t say, “don’t admit that you’re tired.” It just says, “don’t give up. Because God is faithful.
I ran across this today in my Facebook memories and it explained so much about the past year and about what I am feeling. It was written by Francis Frangipane of In Christ’s Image Training Ministry. “There are times when we face extended spiritual conflict. We fight, endure, and finally prevail. Yet remember: our enemy is a “thief” (Jn 10:10). You may be so relieved that your main battle is over that you fail to notice your joy is gone. The obvious fight has been won but in your weariness your peace was depleted. Therefore, routinely take inventory of your soul. Wait before the Lord and listen. Make sure the thief hasn’t stolen any of the fruit the Holy Spirit has been cultivating in your heart — that your “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” are all functional and growing in you (Gal 5:22-23).” –www.icitc.org.
Paul and Francis are both right. We can’t give up. But we can rest. There is too much at stake to throw up our hands and throw away our peace and Joy and hope. I’m going to take the summer off from school and I’m going to enjoy every minute I get to spend with my girl. I going to let the Spirit of Christ nurture my spirit. I might even clean up my house. But I will not give up.
Beloved, I don’t know what battles you’ve been fighting, but maybe it’s time to rest a spell. Let the God who loves you heal and refresh you. Just don’t give up.

In God’s Hands

Joy was walking around the living room last night with her eyes closed. “Joy, you need to open your eyes so you don’t trip over something,” I said. “My eyes weren’t closed, Nana,” she insisted, “I was looking through my fringes.” Fringes, in case you didn’t know, are eyelashes. Her eyes were opened just enough to “see” through her lashes, though not enough to look like they were opened. And not enough to actually see where she was going.
Joy’s “fringe vision” made me think of Paul’s words: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; then we shall see face to face” (1 Cor 13:12). Paul was saying we have imperfect knowledge and understanding. This world in which we live often leaves us confused and, let’s be honest, fearful. The more we try to figure things out the more uncertain life seems. I get it. I’ve been living in the “fringes” for the last year plus. Everything has been turned upside-down and inside-out. I thought God and I had a plan – I thought it was a good plan – but God has other ideas.
Job, in the midst of his painful trial, said we all live on the “outer fringe” of God’s works and ways (Job 26:14). The Hebrew translates to the “mere edges.” In other words, because He is so big and so other, we can’t see what God is up to. We don’t have His perspective. We can’t see “the end from the beginning.” But He can (Is 46:10). Not like a fortune teller who can “see” what will happen in the future. This is the sovereign God of the universe who determines the future and sets things in motion to achieve His plan. He said “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand” (Is 14:24).
I trust God’s plan. I trust that everything He purposes will be good because He is good. I trust that nothing – not one single thing – will touch my life that has not been filtered through His loving, gracious, merciful hands. Yes, even the hard things and the unexpected things and the things that break my heart. Because I trust His heart. And I know that the plan is ultimately to conform me to the likeness of Son.
Beloved, you and I may not see everything from the fringes of His hand, but we can trust Him nonetheless because – even at the edges – we are still in His hand.

Of Doctrine and Demons and Truth

Paul wrote to Timothy, “Watch your life and doctrine closely” (1 Tim 4:16). Doctrine at its root is teaching – imparting information from one person to another. That’s my calling. But I’m not just teaching history or mythology or fantasy – it is truth. It is the Word of God. And it has the power to change lives. That is why I handle it with the utmost care. It is a huge responsibility.
There are a lot of teachers out there who will try to tell you what the Bible says. I’ve sat under some excellent teachers and some not-so-great teachers. Some teach from a classroom or a lectern, and some teach with their lives. Some teach by being godly examples and some teach us by being examples of what not to do or be.
Did you know that the devil has teachers too? Paul also told Timothy, “In later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons” (v. 1). You’d better believe demons are teachers too. But they don’t always teach in direct opposition to the Scriptures. They often teach in shades of truth. They will take just enough of the Scriptures to make it sound right, then twist it to get you off track.
For example, the culture’s favorite verse is “Do not judge” (Matt 7:1). But they do not understand the context. Jesus is speaking in the sense of condemning people – judging them unworthy of God’s grace. But He affirms “judgment” in terms of discernment. Like helping a brother remove the speck of dust in their eye (after clearing out our own). He says we do not throw sacred truth to dogs or pearls to pigs (v. 6). That is a judgment call. A few verses later, He said we are to be “fruit inspectors” (v. 15-120). He is calling us to wise discernment.
They also love verses about loving others. But they don’t understand that the most loving thing we can do is warn them about the coming wrath of God against those who do not believe in His Son. Humans want love, but the culture demands permissiveness in the guise of love. If my granddaughter wants to play in the busy road does love mean I let her go or I protect her from harm?
Do you see why I am such a stickler for careful Bible study and true doctrine? What you believe, what you think you know, affects how you live – and it affects your eternal security. Be wise, Beloved, only the truth will set you free.

Doctrines of the Faith: The Spirit in You

he Holy Spirit is one of the least-known persons of the Holy Trinity. He is not as “visible” in the Scriptures, but He is all over the scenes and people of the Bible. We know He works continually to advance the Kingdom of God in the world. But how does He work in the believer? Here is a very small sampling.

The Spirit enables us to know the truth about God.  1 John 5:6 says, “It is the Spirit who bears witness because the Spirit is truth.”  The Spirit is the conduit of Truth. He imparts truth and opens our hearts and minds to receive it.

The Spirit enables us to serve God. Paul said,  “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord works all of them in all men” (1 Cor 12:4-6). The good works we do for God are initiated by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, and brought to completion by the Spirit. 

The Spirit is the evidence that we belong to Christ.  John declared, “This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.  If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.” (1 John 4:2, 15). The Spirit also produces fruit in our lives which is further evidence that we belong to Christ.  “Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).  These fruits reflect the character of God and are only possible when we are surrendered to Christ and filled with His Spirit.

The Spirit is our Teacher:  “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” (John 14:26). He instructs us as we study the Scriptures and helps us put into practice what we’ve learned.

The Spirit is our “prayer partner.” He prays for us when we cannot pray for ourselves: “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express,” (Rom 8:26). I have depended on the Spirit so many times when I couldn’t find the words to express my heart.

The Holy Spirit is vital for the Christian.  In fact, if you do not have the Spirit you are not a Christian (Rom 8:9). Beloved, you can’t do this Christian life without Him. Thankfully you will never have to.

Yes, Jesus Loves Me

I was blessed to attend a Bible study group this week for the first time. As a teacher, it is a rare treat to have someone pour into me for a change. The worship was uplifting, the fellowship was sweet, and the message was timely: the Love of God. The speaker took us through several of the attributes of God’s love and she ended by leading us all through “Jesus Loves Me.” Yes, that is a sweet little song we teach to our children, but let me assure you, it is equally applicable to adults. There is something specials about singing that song with a group of seasoned ladies who have leaned on God’s love through the highs and lows of life.
But something interesting happened. Did you know that there are more verses to that song than we teach our babies? Do you know the words to all those verses? I don’t and neither did most of the ladies there. So we Googled the song. We all knew the first verse – no problem. And we all referred to our phones for the second verse – still good. And then we came to the third verse and we were not all on the same version. Suddenly most of us dropped out and let the leader sing a solo.
What happened? We looked to the world for the words. We trusted the internet to fill in the holes in our song. The lesson was clear to me. Trust no one else but God for truth. Sure it was just a verse in a simple, little song, and the words we pulled up were not blasphemous – they were just not the right words. But words – or rather The Word – matters. Paul urged Timothy to stay in the Scriptures that are the very breath of God (2 Tim 3:14-17). Peter confirmed that the Scriptures are given to man by the Holy Spirit – they are trustworthy and true. They are always the right words.
You may be tired of me beating the Berean drum, but it cannot be stressed enough – always, always, always take everything you hear and everything you read and lay it alongside the Bible and see if it is true (Acts 17:11). Do not take anyone’s word for truth if it does not agree with the living Word of the living God. Too much is at stake to be misled, even by one little, seemingly insignificant word.
Beloved, be a student of the Scriptures. Get to know God’s Word for yourself so that you do not fall for the wrong verse in the song. Because Jesus does love you, and you need to know it.

Dire Straits (no, not the rock band)

So it seems we are not done with 2 Corinthians 4:8-9. The Spirit “pressed” me to dig even deeper and He revealed some things to share with you. As I researched these verses one definition kept popping up: straits. Paul’s original audience would have caught it immediately.
We think of “straits” as extreme difficulty or hardship – as in “dire straits.” It is a very unpleasant place, a painful place, a hard place. I’ve been there and I suspect you have too. Sometimes it comes from someone else’s actions that crash into your life. Sometimes – at least for me – it often has my own fingerprints all over it. But it is often the consequences of living in this broken world.
Paul used the word when he said he was “hard-pressed (v. 8).” He was describing a “narrow, constricted place of great pressure.” You may recall from Geography that straits are those places between two land masses through which a channel of water runs – like the Strait of Gibraltar. It is a narrow strip that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa by 7 nautical miles of ocean at the Strait’s narrowest point. It is an important shipping passage from one body of water to another. But it is difficult to navigate and easy to get into trouble.
Sounds like life, doesn’t it? Paul also used this word in Romans 5 when He said “We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope” (v. 3-4). The straits are places of suffering. But they are also places of growth. Joy sometimes has “growing pains” because her muscles and ligaments are stretching and her bones are lengthening and it hurts. But she would remain in a little body forever without them.
Paul said that there is a purpose for the straits. They produce perseverance, character, and hope. How? Because God shows us His great faithfulness in the straits. He carries us through those narrow, hard-pressed places. Hear this this good promise: “Hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts . . .” (v. 5). The progression from pain to hope is a sign of spiritual growth. It’s what the straits are all about. If you’re being pressed today, Beloved, trust God to bring perseverance, character, and hope from it. Then sail on in the big sea of His love.

When You are Hard-Pressed

I ran across a powerful statement a few days ago that set me on a search mission in the Scriptures. Oswald Chambers said, “The burden that God places on us squeezes the grapes in our lives and produces the wine.” The Spirit brought Paul’s words to mind: “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor 4:8-9). In the Greek “hard-pressed” is both pressing grapes to produce the juice and pressing a person with trouble, suffering, and affliction. No wonder the Spirit directed me here.
I studied the rest of the words and found some interesting things. Paul said we will also be perplexed – which means to be uncertain about what to do in a situation. Anybody? Persecuted means to be harassed and troubled. Yep. That comes from people, from our own minds, and from satan. To be struck down means to be thrown face-down to the ground. (A perfect position for prayer.) All of these Paul said will be a reality in the life of the believer. They have all been a reality in mine this past year.
But here is what we will not endure: we will not be crushed – the Greek means to be crushed in spirit. Satan can press us, but, praise Jesus, he cannot touch our spirits. We will not be in despair – utterly hopeless. We will not be forsaken – left behind in a helpless state. We will not be destroyed – this refers to losing our eternal salvation.
Maybe this has been a pressing season for you – it sure has been for me. What do we do when we feel like the grapes at the bottom of the barrel? Paul said, “. . . we do not lose heart” (2 Cor 4:1, 16), but “fix our eyes” on eternity (v. 18). Because these pressing seasons – these “light and momentary troubles” (v. 17 – God’s words, not mine) are all about glory and eternal life.
Beloved, hard seasons are guaranteed. You and I will be pressed and perplexed, maybe even persecuted and thrown down to the ground. But God will not let us be crushed or left in despair or destroyed. He will use every difficulty to prepare us for eternity. The question then is, will we trust Him? Will we bring forth wine or whine?

Doctrines of the Faith: The Spirit in You

As we continue to look at Church Doctrine and consider the Third member of the Trinity, we find this gem from Paul: “The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God…no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God…we have received the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand…” (1 Cor 2:10, 11, 12). Put simply, because the Holy Spirit is God, He knows how God thinks. He “hears” God’s thoughts. Because the Holy Spirit indwells believers, He reveals those thoughts to us – Jesus said “He speaks what He hears” (see John 16:13-14). And when He speaks to our spirits we are convicted, commanded, comforted, challenged, encouraged, directed, and inspired. (Which, by the way, is how Peter explained the transmission of the Scriptures: “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but man spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet 1:20-21).)
What are we to do with the Spirit’s messages? Obey. Paul called it being “controlled by the Spirit,” “living according to the Spirit,” and being “led by the Spirit.” How does work? We “set [our] minds on what the Spirit desires.” We “set our minds on things above, not on earthly things (Col 3:2). When the Spirit says one thing and the world says another, we choose to meditate on and obey what the Spirit has said. The world tells us that God has no authority over us. Paul said that we are “obligated” to submit to God’s Word and His Spirit. And if we don’t? Paul said we are not God’s children. God’s children are Spirit-fed, Spirit-led, Spirit-filled people. (See Romans 8:1-17)
There is another aspect of the Holy Spirit in us that I want you to grasp. Paul said in this same passage that “the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children” (v. 16). Why is that important? Because the enemy and the world will try to tell you the opposite. Satan will hound you that God has rejected you because of your sin, that He could never love you. The Spirit says you are God’s child and God loves His children.
Give heed to the Spirit; believe and obey Him, Beloved. He is the very Life of God in you.

The Power of Your Words

This may surprise you, but sarcasm comes naturally to me. My mom was always after me about it. “If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.” That’s one of the reasons I tend to stay off of the Book of Faces after I post the day’s devotional. I do not trust myself to not get snarky. It’s just that – gosh – some people really deserve it.
But that’s the “old man” in me. That phrase comes from the Apostle Paul who wrote often about the tug of war between who we were before Christ and who we are to be in Christ. Even though our sin has been put to death by the Lord Jesus, our urges and desires remain until we are perfected. It is a life-long battle. For some, it may be drugs or alcohol or physical pleasure or materialism. But God has been working on my mouth for a long time for good reason.
Years ago I read in Isaiah, “I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my hand” (51:16). That verse grabbed my heart and I prayed that God would put His words in my mouth. The next day another verse came to life – very clear in its meaning and application for me: “If you utter worthy, not worthless words, you will be my spokesman” (Jer 15:19). Boom! I had a calling and a caution. I have bitten my tongue more than once – and failed to more than once.
Jesus said, “Men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken” (Matt 12:36). In the original Greek, that means idle words, useless words, lazy words, ineffective words. In other words, worthless words. So then, what are worthy words? Words that are productive, words that accomplish God’s good purposes, words that work hard for the good of others, words that edify. As Paul wrote, “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen” (Eph 4:29).
Solomon said, “The tongue has the power of life and death” (Prov. 18:21). Your words can do great harm or great good – you and I need to use them wisely and carefully. Beloved, let’s commit to speak only “apples of gold in settings of silver” (Prov. 25:11)

Church History: Suffering Saint Paul

“The Apostle Paul. 1600 – 1699” Unknown

Will you bear with me for one more day of Paul in the study of church history? No one else since the death of Jesus has influenced the church more than he. And he suffered tremendously for his efforts. He endured attack after attack – on his ministry, his message, and his physical body. His most vehement enemies were his former friends, the Jewish elite. They refuted his testimony of the power of the gospel and the identity of Jesus as God. They hated him because he had turned to the Way and was its most vocal proponent. For his faith and his submission to the call of Christ, he was judged in the streets and in the synagogue.
He was shackled, imprisoned, whipped, beaten, stoned, and more than once left for dead. But he would not give in nor give up. Each time the Jews thought they had him, he came back from the brink, more impassioned than ever to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Despite all he endured, his life’s motto was: “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21). Paul kept getting up because God was not finished with him and he regarded himself as a “drink offering” unto the Lord (2:17).
As we journey through the history of the Christian church, we will encounter many more martyrs. We will give them the attention and respect they are due for their sacrifice. They are so important to the growth of the Christian church that it is said that “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.1” Martyrdom did not end with the early Christians. It has continued in every generation and happens today. Many have lost their heart to Jesus Christ and their head to persecution.
Ancient tradition holds that Paul was beheaded by sword on June 29, 67 A.D. under the rule of the blood-thirsty Nero. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Rom 8:35). No – for the sword only brought him face-to-face with that love.
Persecution is coming for the church – hard and deadly persecution. Will you die for your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Perhaps the better question is, Beloved, will you live for Him until that day?

1. This quote is loosely attributed to both Tertullian and Augustine of Hippo