The Gods We Worship

In world history Athens Greece stands out with ideas and culture that influence us even today. It is said that democracy got its start here, and it was the place that Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates hung out. Even buildings are still today being designed using architecture from the Greek culture.

Another thing Athens was noted for was its gods. At least twelve main gods that we know of are recorded and there is also one extra known as the “Unknown God”. Along with these there were also many oracles, lesser divinities, and other personal gods that made up the subjects of worship in this city. Their kind of religion was known as polytheistic; which means that they worshiped many gods.

This idea of many gods troubles me. I know that there is only one God (I hope that you do also) and He is the Lord God Almighty. What troubles me so much is that the idea held by the Athenians concerning the belief in many gods still lives today, but it is deceptively hidden by our arch enemy, Satan.

What has happened throughout history is that people – smart, intelligent, educated people – have made themselves comfortable with the idea of God by formulating Him in such a way so that He is slanted to their ideas and thoughts. Their made up god believes what they believe and sees things the same way they do.  What makes this even more troubling is that generally they have no idea that they have done this.

I want to share how this happened with a group of people in the Bible, but it happened in a very strange way. These people developed their own view of the Lord God. This willful action actually caused them to stop worshiping the true God and start worshiping the other god (who was the one they had made up in their own imagination). It is important to note that this false god was still based on the true God. How weird is that!

Let's look at a story about them.

Matthew 15:1-9 NIV

1  Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,

2  "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"

3  Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?

4 & 5………

6  … Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

7  You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8  "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

9  They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'"

They worship me in vain – the idea of emptiness or uselessness is here.

The reason their worship was empty and useless is because they were not really worshipping God, but some false image of Him that they made up in their minds.

The Pharisees were a notorious sort in the Bible. Almost every encounter they had with Jesus was conflictive and divisive. What they did, every time they met Jesus, was try to force upon Him their own view of God. During their times of challenging and questioning Jesus, they came to the conclusion that Jesus just did not fit their view of God. He didn’t believe the way nor act like they thought He should.  And since He neither looked nor acted like their view of God, then He certainly could not be God.

How wrong they were.

It terrifies me that we also do the same thing at times.

Let me illustrate.

Once a friend told me a story how that someone he knew was involved in an affair and was contemplating divorcing his wife to marry the woman with whom he was having an affair.

His reasoning?

He said that he really believed in his heart that God wanted His children to be happy, and since he could not be happy with his wife, he therefore believed that God wanted him to divorce his wife and marry his affair partner with whom he felt he could be very happy.

This guy just created the god he wanted to worship.

He wanted His god to agree with him and act like he wanted him too, so this guy just created a god that he could feel good about.

This makes my stomach lurch…………

But before we have an attack of self righteousness and begin throwing stones, let us look at some of the gods we create when it is convenient for us to do so.

In our religious society today we make up gods also.

Here are a few of the more popular made up gods we know pretty well……..

- gods that believe there is only one translation of the Bible and no other is acceptable.

- gods that think hymns and organs are useless and out of date.

- gods that do not like contemporary Christian music or any music loud or fast in the church setting.

- gods that do not care what else we do as long as we go to church on Sunday and give money to it.

- gods that are legalistic and condemning of people because of their look or       dress.

- gods that always agree with our side and view of things.

- gods that don’t care what we believe or how we act.

These gods are made up after our own beliefs. We make them resemble the Lord God just enough and keep them in our churches settings just enough so that we can try to convince ourselves that our “god” must be the only “real one”.

If I were doing a preacher thing, I would stop right now and ask, “Which god are you worshiping?” – but I'm not going to ask that, because of two reasons. One, I am not doing the preacher thing, and two, we all would tend to give the same answer……. Think about it.

However, I would say this though.

When we approach God, we must do it with fear and trembling, being fully aware of the deceitfulness of the heart and mind that works from the sin that dwells in our flesh. It can really screw up our minds if we let it…but we don’t have to give in to it because believers are no longer slaves to it.

When we do give in, we do it willingly.

Listen, Satan can make a really pretty talk for us to hear when we give him the time. He can convince us to make God conveniently into our own image if we listen to him. That god that he has us make up is always against something or someone and is usually hurt or angry over something. (This happens all the time during church problems and splits.)

Here are some things to remember.

God is so much bigger than we are and we will never, in this life, wrap our minds around Him completely. He goes beyond our education and limited minds, and will never surrender His being God to my level of understanding alone. If we ever get Him fully figured out, then He stops being God Almighty and just becomes our god that we are comfortable with.

The truth is, it would be so awesome for us to abandon words and phrases like:

– God doesn't like……

– God feels……

– God will get you…..

– God is on my side…..

All of these make me sound like I have God all figured out, when really I don’t.

One of the sad things that I have seen is that people sometimes quote Bible verses just to make God say what they want Him to say in order to back up what they want to believe.

This is just another conjured up god to worship…

Scared yet?  I am. There are a lot of gods out there and I am afraid that we obscure the view of the Lord God by the idols we serve – our created gods.

I get amused, but saddened, by the public figures who conjure up their own god to back them when they get in trouble or get exposed for something. Their god agrees with them and is always on their side. I am amazed at people who claim that God is a liberal, or God is a conservative, or God is a Democrat, or God is a Republican, or God is a Catholic, or God is a Muslim, or God is a Baptist, or God is a Pentecostalist, etc. etc.

These folks, who use these phrases (sometimes they are just implied), are just trying to make up a god that fits their purposes for the time being. The good thing about this kind of god is that he will change quickly to fit the situation when they need him to. The bad thing is, he is a skewed version of the real Lord God. Not really real------just made up.

We are pretty good at conjuring up gods to fit what we want to believe and isn't it interesting that our god always believes what we believe?

You may question this whole idea and ask, “Dan, are you saying that denominational differences mean that each church faith is making up its’ own god?”

Nope.

Denominational differences stem from people seeing scripture through different viewpoints. It is when those viewpoints become so strong within people that they begin to mould God around them, that it becomes dangerous.

People who are becoming spiritually mature hold to the truth with an honest heart knowing that we, in our human frailty, can be mistaken—but never God or His word.

People who form gods hold to their understanding of the Lord, whatever that is, and then try to make God fit their own heart and mind. They are convinced that there is no possibility of them being wrong or mistaken. They find great comfort knowing that their god agrees with them completely.

So now what?

Trust these simple truths. 

1 – There is a God.

2 – You are not Him.

The Bible was not written for us to figure out God. Going there to learn about Him is great, but going there to figure Him out is futile and an arrogant move on our part.

The Bible was written to make us aware of God’s presence, and His provision of salvation through His Son. (Ok -- a lot of other things too. But I think you get the picture.)

Give Him the freedom to be more God than what you understand, and also trust Him to be the God that He is. (He can handle it—He’s been God for a really long time…)

Come before Him holding Him in awe.

Psalms 33:8 KJV

8  Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.

Come before His Throne with boldness.

Hebrews 4:16 KJV

16  Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Realize that He is more God than we can possibly understand.

Don’t make Him any less than what He exists to be. Just love Him and worship Him for who He is.

Humbly Submitted,

Dan

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The Four Second Freak-Out

This is one of my goals in life—maybe even a step beyond that.

Let me explain myself.

Since our personal history and environment affects us so much, I will start with telling you something that happened during my youth.  When I was growing up, I lived in a family situation where freaking out was pretty common.  I remember one time that my dad (before he came to know Christ) was really going ballistic in traffic as we were stopped by road construction.  As we sat there, my dad’s anger, frustration, and language flowed rather fast and very strong.  I remember how that it was not a pretty sight.

Even though I knew Christ as Savior (later my dad came to know Him, too), the surrounding influences on me to allow circumstances to send me into fits of frustration and fretting were very strong because I had never been taught how to react to adverse circumstances in any other way.  When I would face situations going against me, although my reactions were pretty different than my dad’s, I would still tend to freak out also.  My freak-out sessions would linger sometimes for weeks. (You know….unrest, anxiety, frustration, anger…..those type things.)

I remember that the church I was attending then was full of precious people who loved Christ and they were dear to my heart, but they never taught me that the Lord had freed me from actions such as these in my life. I am not sure why they never did. Most of the messages that I remember had to do with stuff like “Don’t cuss, don’t chew, and don’t run with those who do!”  Plus there was a lot of preaching on hell, fire, and damnation along the way. I am sure that these things had their importance for me and others at the time, but I still wonder why my church family did not also teach me about my freedom in Christ.

But as I began to grow in the Lord and in the knowledge of the Bible, I began to discover truths that began to help me take control of my “freak outs”.

Truths like…

Galatians 2:20 NIV
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. 
The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me 
and gave himself for me.

II Corinthians 5:17-18  (NASB)

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed
away; behold, new things have come.  Now all  these things are from God……..

Proverbs 3:5-6 NASB

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. 
In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.

                     “….do not lean on your own understanding…”

This part of the verse in Proverbs really explained my freak-out problem. I would lean on my own understanding every time I faced situations beyond my control.

No matter what else I may call it, this is what I am doing when I freak-out; leaning to my own understanding, education, strengths, and self.  I believe that this factuality applies to us all.

No matter our education, years of maturity, or how much Bible we know, Proverbs 3:5-6 indicates that our own understanding is flawed and inadequate. Yet, we find ourselves leaning on it way too often.

And even though I was learning these truths, it was still pretty difficult for me to focus on His peace when things would go wrong.

 I sometimes still struggle with that today…as some of you also do occasionally I’m sure.

However, over the years, I began to see that these Bible truths were to be made active in my life by claiming them through faith.

          (Faith – another blog, another day)

That is, I needed to believe what God said about my new life in Christ in these verses, and begin to live that way.

Over time I began to see a change in myself.  As I would consciously believe and trust the Lord’s promises, my freak-outs were beginning to take on a new face.  (I was growing in the Lord.)

In the beginning, I might would freak-out for several weeks over an issue that was troubling me.

As I grew and matured in the Lord (and in His truth) those freak-out times tended to be reduced to a much shorter time – maybe four days…sometimes.

As things went along, it seemed that I would remember God’s promises and His Word a little sooner every time a freak-out opportunity arose.  Times of quality freak-out were beginning to be less and less….closer to the four hour mark.

Now–a-days, I hover between the four hour and the four minute mark (just ask those I work with).  But I am not content with that.  Freaking-out hurts.  It hurts me mentally, physically, and spiritually.  You see, when I freak-out, it is making a very bold statement that I am just not trusting the Lord very much, and that I am leaning on my own understanding a lot. Leaning on my own understanding gets in the way of acknowledging Him in all my ways, and it blinds me to seeing the path He wants for me.

Ouch!

Now, my goal is that when the freak-out begins, I consciously want to bring my belief and trust in the Lord online much more quickly.

I am working toward the four second mark on my freak-outs.

The four second freak-out…..  Sounds good doesn’t it?

I know, I know.  You ask, “Wouldn’t it be better to not freak-out at all?”

Of course it would.  And if you are like a few of my Christian friends (including my spouse), you just trust the Lord so much that you don’t freak out at all. I love people like that and enjoy hanging out with them. These people are my heroes, and I want to grow in my trust in the Lord up to where their level is.

(In fact, when I am with these people and something freak-outable 

happens, I sometimes get the urge to say to them, “Don’t worry, I got it 

all covered! You just relax. I’m really good at this and I will take care of

the freaking-out for us both!”)

Am I getting there?

Well, yeah…sort of.  I am in that constant process of trusting the Lord more and more in my everyday living, and as I do trust Him, I have less and less freak-out time going on in my life.

But when I do slip up and freak-out, I want it to last no more than four seconds until I remember the Lord’s promises and actually, by faith, quietly trust in Him.

And who knows, I may someday become like my Christian friends, and even break the zero second mark.

Just quietly trusting the Lord no matter what…….

Philippians 4:6-7 GW

          Never worry about anything. But in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks.

          Then God's peace, which goes beyond anything we can imagine, will guard your thoughts and emotions through Christ Jesus.

Love Ya,

Dan

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Symphony of Worship - Part Two

(no transitioning –  just continuing from part one)

When Church leaders set apart worship from everything else, I fear that we are sending a message that conflicts with the whole life concept of worship before God.

This is easily remedied by those same spiritual leaders teaching and using a truly simple approach to scriptural truths.

Let us see a simple scripture with such powerful truth.

Romans 12: 1 says it all,

          Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as

          living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.

…No organs, no flair, no flash, no amps, no lights…Just our spiritual act of worship. How beautiful and freeing this truth is that I can worship any time, any place because giving myself (body) to the Lord as an act of worship. What if I do this every day and have a mind like this ongoingly?  Can’t this attitude of worship be in my life at all times? Of course it can. And it is then that I begin to understand more of how that worship is my life, not just a 30 minute a church service or a two hour concert.

Not too long ago as I was studying, I read an interesting phrase written by Sally Morgenthaler (a worship leader specialist who really got it).  After years of teaching on worship, she wrote these words, “Worship must finally become, as Paul reminds us (in Romans 12:1), more life than event.”

From this, we can gather that she is saying that worship is not just a scheduled event, but rather it is a way of life for every day that we live. I believe that this is what the Bible is teaching in this verse. We are to worship when we are working or driving a car; when we hold hands and kiss; when we are on the computer; and when we…well, do everything else.  Bringing this truth into our daily lives is so pivotal, that it would transform our marriages, homes, and churches in a supernatural way if allowed too.

In the scriptures, a worshipful heart and spirit is tied to everything else that believers in Christ do when they are sincere before the Lord. Worship, at times, can be an event with other believers, but even then it is what flows from our everyday living as we have been worshiping the Lord all the time in our lives already. It is difficult to allow worship to flow freely on Sunday, if it has been ignored all the rest of the week.

But let’s take a minute to look at this from another approach.  In the Old Testament, the Temple was built for the purpose of housing God’s presence so that the people could come there to sacrifice and worship the Lord God.  Most Christians are familiar with that teaching in the Bible.

So then, how does that knowledge apply when we read what Paul writes in this passage?

          I Corinthians 6:19  Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy        Spirit,  Who is in you, Whom you have received from God? ………..

I believe that it applies this way: Since worship goes on in God’s presence, and since we are the temple in which He dwells, then everything we do should translate into worshiping Him.  If we are not doing so, maybe there is something going on inside of us that hinders the worship that should be flowing from our lives.

Can I go to the movies and worship?  Sure.  What about when I am shopping or planting a garden?  Yes, I can worship during that too.

People who glitch up at this truth have not yet understood the truth of Romans 12:1. 

Romans 12: 1

          Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as

          living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.

The whole worship thing can also be shut down by more than just faking it….unresolved sin can also cut off our ability to worship. Worship is a spiritual act: ….not a fleshly one …not sinful.

          The words “holy and pleasing” have more to do with forgiveness than     with perfection. You see, when we have confessed and received forgiveness from the Lord, it is then that we are “holy and pleasing to God”.

If we keep sin close to ourselves, we can be sitting in the most fantastic place with a great “atmosphere of worship”, but still be faking it with empty motions.

Can I worship during the impure thoughts that occur when that gorgeous babe or hunk walks by?

Not so much so.

Probably not.

Of course not…..

What about when I have unresolved issues between me and my wife?  ....Another stopper.

No matter how reverent or loud the place of worship is, it won’t cover unresolved sin.

Stuff like this clogs up the spiritual pipes…worship stops right here.

Repent, confess and let Jesus fix it.

It is great and fun to have choirs, worship teams, drums, and bands!  I love them all!  And I say the louder the better!! (personal preference)

But just realize this about them, these things don’t define the worship experience alone and make it exclusive to themselves.  Some of the people I know get this, but sadly, there are still a great many who don’t. 

So then, what do we do? Draw from the scripture our teaching of worship. Replace the western culture definition of worship with a scriptural definition of worship, and then just live that life of worship of the Lord every day. What is wrong with that?

By the way, you can teach this to your friends too.

Yep, you really can worship when you wash the car, or change a baby’s diaper, or fix the tractor, or even while being intimate with your spouse.

For the one with an open, loving, and right relationship with the Lord, all the beautiful sounds of every part of their lives come together for a symphony of worship.

C ya,

Dan

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A Symphony of Worship - Part One

What your brain pictures when you read the title above will definitely influence what you think I am going to write in this blog.  But what I am hoping for, is that as we process these thoughts together, new ones may emerge to challenge and stretch our thinking. 

These new thoughts might even make you a little uncomfortable.  Knowing people as we do, there are some of us who are very comfortable where we are in life and really don’t want to entertain challenging truths.  However, for all of us that hunger to know more, and want to grow in understanding, I invite you to come and explore deeper roots with me.

At some time in history, words and titles like worship band, worship leader, worship service, and worship pastor did not exist.  They were created later to describe an act, person, or position.  While I fully believe that all of these titles were designated with wonderful intentions and have served us very well in the church, I also believe that sometimes the true view and meaning of worship has been skewed because of misunderstanding and lack of meaningful teaching.

I fear that many, in their church experience, have accidently been given the idea that worship goes something like this:

          Get up.

          Get ready.

          Go to the church building. 

          Get out of the car. 

          Say “hello” to my friends.

          Grab some coffee.

          Go to the auditorium. 

          Hear some great and powerful Christian music. 

Sing, clap, raise their hands and be excited.

          Then, worship stops and the preaching begins.

And, in reality, they may have focused on worship or, on the other hand, they may not have done anything more than just have a social, religious activity that feels really good.

We need to be aware that sometimes what we do in a church service could easily be done without the Spirit of the Lord even being present. Our self sufficient tendencies push us toward the direction that if the Lord decided to not show up at our church services, we could carry on just fine without Him.

When was the last time that someone you know sat in a dry, dead church service, and during the meeting they spoke up and said, “Hey everybody our worship sounds so manufactured and artificial, let’s just stop this service and pray for the presence of the Lord before we do another thing!”  (You probably won’t need a calculator to add up the amount of times you have heard of this being done.)

Fortunately, there are plenty of churches that are not dry and dead, but then again, so very many are because they have slipped into a comfortable blur of repetition based more on self gratification rather than on worshiping the person of Christ.

When a church service is carried on that way, who is it that has the courage to speak up in such a meeting? Normally we just let the service go on and hope for better next time. Some people just decide to leave such churches (they may not even know fully why) and then try to find another church that hopefully does “church” better.

Sometimes in our zeal and quickness to grow the church, we leave off some necessary teaching from the scripture – by accident or neglect—no matter, the result is the same.

Here is an example:  Many of us have the idea that worship is something we do at the church or in a home on any given day (usually Saturdays or Sundays) of the week.  Just step up to the average Christian and ask them when do they “go to worship.”  Most of the time, their answer will prove what I just said is right.

Usually when someone brings up the idea of worship, our minds run to envisioning a place, guitars, key boards, singing, and such, or it may go to organs and choir lofts. 

Now please don’t get me wrong, I love all of this stuff too! I admire all the gifted musicians and singers that God has given us for such wonderful enhancement to our church services. Some of the Godliest people I know are worship leaders, and I really do appreciate the great effort they put into designing a time during which we can worship the Lord together.  God has gifted them in such a special way.

But understand this fact, no building, piano, drum, choir robe, or worship leader/pastor is necessary at all for worship.  The problem comes to us when we begin to think that they are necessary.

I have sat in many church services when someone in leadership got up after the singing and said “Boy, that was some great worship today!” Usually when this is said it is referring to the great singing, not really to genuine worship. That person unknowingly has just reinforced several confusing ideas to not only the young or unlearned Christian, but also to the lost.  (Sadly, I too have done this …..before I knew better.)

Some of the wrong ideas promoted are:

         

          --Worship is always done before the preaching and is apart from everything

             else.

         

          --The only way to have great worship is with a really good band and loud music.

                  

          --If I am really worshiping, I must raise my hands or dance around.

          --If I am quiet and reserved, then I must not really be worshiping.

To me, when a ministry (knowingly or unknowingly) is promoting this understanding of worship, it allows Satan to gather several advantages over us.

Some are listed here:

          --He (Satan) will tell the untaught that prayer is not worship---it is just…well

                                                                                                            prayer.

          --Listening to the sermon is not worship, it is just learning.

          --Bringing my broken, weeping heart before God can’t be worship, because there

                                                                                    is no joy or praise involved.


(Part Two Next Week)

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Lie to Me…A Little Bit

            Isn’t it amazing how that we try to design our lives in the best possible way to milk approval and acceptance from others?  Believe it or not, we will willingly accept being lied to in order to get this from others.

            This is a concept that we developed early on in our lives from the flesh controlling us before we became believers in Christ.  It still tries to intimidate, control, and trouble us as we daily live our lives.

            Now, those of you who came to know Christ early in life may not have as strong a problem as mine, but you still live in a fleshly body that irritates and troubles you too.

Sometimes it really kicks our butts!

            ……… enough of theology for now; I don’t want you falling asleep on me!

But the truth really is, we like people to lie to us about certain things.  Most of the time, we Christians like to use a word that is more comfortable to us—exaggerate.

            Put yourself into this situation:

            A wife tries on a new pair of jeans, then turns to her husband and says the most dreaded words he can ever possibly hear.

            “Honey, do these jeans make me look fat?”  Immediately his mind starts racing toward answers while subconsciously considering suicide.

 Answers like these begin to pop up in his terror filled mind:

            A.  “Well Honey,  yea…a little.”

            B.  “Honey, I heard a noise outside and I need to go check it out.  You look fine.”

            C.  (Lie today, live tomorrow) “Of course not, dear!  You are looking thinner every

                   day!”

Her expectations of an answer are also running through her mind as she really desires affirmation:

            A.  “Please!! – I sooo want to not look fat!”

            B.  “Don’t answer if I do look fat because I like these jeans so much.”

            C.  “Honey, if you really love me, lie to me – a little bit.”

Hopefully he says the right thing in order to live another day, and so that his dear wife will feel good about herself.

            Sometimes we all think like this in the different situations of our lives.  We all like to be lied to – a little bit.  No one wants to be told that they have on an ugly shirt, or that their hair looks goofy today.  We subconsciously think, “Just tell me I look fine.”  (Lie to me—just a little.)

            Recently, I was in a meeting where that I was not lied to, not even a little bit.  It was a six month training class where I was learning how to be a better chaplain, pastor, and caregiver to those who naturally come into my life.  Part of the intent of this class was that we had to evaluate ourselves and each other very honestly.  Because these people would not lie to me and pamper my ego, at times it was very uncomfortable and I just wanted to run away to my safe place.

            One of the most important things that happened early on was one of the students (who happened to be a preacher also) looked directly at me and said, “Dan, I sense that you have a lot of pain in your life.”  I was taken aback and stunned…because he was absolutely right!  I thought that I had it hidden so well, but the Lord knew that it was time that I faced the truth.

            Immediately I had a strange, almost overwhelming urge to get alone with the Lord and weep before Him because of the hurt associated with my pain.  Later, when I did get to spend time talking to the Lord, I received a peace that I had not known so fully for a long time.  I felt free from much of the pain in my life.

           

Jesus’ words tell us in John 8:32, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

There is no doubt in my mind that the Lord had a “truth” meeting planned for me on that special day.  While being drawn by the Lord to face my pain, I experienced the grace of His forgiveness and tender healing of my heart.  You see, deep down, I had blamed the Lord for a lot of my pain.

            In my life, what I wanted was for others to lie to me and tell me that I was OK.  Usually people cooperated with my act very well and encouraged me that all was great, but really, the truth is, I was just hiding and managing all my pain.

            Apparently, the Lord loved me too much to leave me hurting in the way that I was, so He called me out to face it.  In His kind, gentle way, He soothed my hurting heart and healed much of my pain.

            Oh, now don’t get me wrong!  There is no doubt that I still have issues (probably a lot of the same ones as you), but now I am learning to run to the Lord for His forgiveness and healing of my heart.  There is nothing else like it.

Jesus said these beautiful words to us:

            “I am the way, the truth, and the life…”

            “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

He is willing to set you free from your pain also……are you ready for your “truth” meeting?  Just go to Him with an honest, open heart.

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About the Business..........

        Some wise people have given us memorable sayings throughout history.  A great many of these have been passed down through time to help anyone who might happen to pay attention to their wisdom. We usually are better off when we pay attention to them.

          Today, we also pass down phrases to remind us of things that we enjoy or like.  You might recognize one of these:  “I’ll be back,”  “Inconceivable!”, and “Toto, I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore.”  (Terminator, The Princess Bride, and The Wizard of Oz)   These phrases usually tie together faces, movies, and events that we once were exposed to and, at the moment, have some sort of meaning to us.

          Eventually, we all find ourselves quoting phrases of some sort or other.  Sometimes it is just because we know them and that they are fun to say.  One saying that I like to quote is, “Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies.”  This phrase happens to be from one of my favorite books and, believe me, I have no earthly idea why a preacher should be saying this…..but I still like to quote it….

          Recently, while I was praying over a subject to speak on, the Lord impressed on my mind a thought from scripture that keeps getting my attention every time I think about my own life.  It is found in the Book of Luke, chapter 2, in and around verse 49.

          Jesus happened to be twelve years old at the time and on a family trip to Jerusalem to attend the Passover festival that his family went to every year. After a few days the festival finally was over, and now it was time to go home.  As the story continues, we get the indication that Jesus was acting like a normal kid—probably horse-playing or doing something with his cousins, and as the whole group started traveling home, Mary and Joseph thought that Jesus was somewhere among all the relatives.  After a day’s travel, when they began to look for Jesus, it was discovered that he was missing.  As any loving parents would, Mary and Joseph turned around immediately and went back to Jerusalem.  Frantically searching, it took them another three days to find Him!  (Imagine the fear in a parent’s heart when their kid is missing for three days.  In verse 48 the word “anxiously” has the idea of “terror” in it.)

          After the scolding (yep, it’s there), Jesus said to His parents, “Didn’t you know I had to be about my Father’s business?”  The meaning of the word “business” here is house, affairs, or things. A literal translation records it as “……busy about the affairs of my Father.”  Jesus said, in the first recorded conversation that we have of His life, that He had to be busy about the affairs of the Father, and this phrase evidently guided the rest of His life.  Everything else He did from then on involved being busy about the affairs of the Father.

          As God’s children, I believe that this is a shining example and pattern for us all to follow.  When Jesus gave the call to others of His day (and eventually us also), to follow Him, this was a part of that call: continually concerning ourselves with the things of the Father.

         

Now, get a full picture of what I am saying about this.

          When I go to work each day as an executive (or whatever else I am),  I should be purposefully about my Father’s business.  When I go to work each day as a manager of people, waitress at a restaurant, or a checkout clerk at Walmart, my mindset should be about the things of my Father.  You see, the Father has a plan how each of these professions can be used to bless us personally, further the Kingdom of God, and just generally be used by Him to carry the gospel to others in a very powerful way.

          Of course all of this is good, but now let’s allow our thoughts to go even farther.  How do you think that it would affect my spouse or my children if I approached them as part of my Father’s business for me to love and care for them?  How would it affect me also as I dealt with them from this mindset?

          And what about the things I look at on the computer or who I talk to on Facebook, Twitter, or my iPad?  How would these relationships be changed if I approached them as things of my Father?  Would my language change? My thoughts? Would my desires in life find changes in their order of priority?

          Jesus’ whole life was defined by this phrase:

          “I must be involved with the things concerning my Father.” 

I ask ever so kindly, what kind of phrase describes the life that you are living now?

And……..

What does that phrase say about you?

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