Notes of Faith November 14, 2021

Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him. — Psalm 95:2

Have you ever noticed how after Halloween, many stores immediately bring out their prelit trees, ornaments, Christmas wreaths, and candy canes? The weeks between Halloween and Christmas are often a blur of colored leaves and turkey, prepping for gift shopping, and holiday parties.

In the frenzy of holiday preparations and Black Friday deals, it can be all too easy for us to skim over Thanksgiving. Sure, we serve the turkey and gravy, and mention what we’re grateful for, but do we linger on giving thanks? Or once the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals come out, do we immediately focus on all the things we want and all the savings we could have? Are we more excited about counting the gifts than we are about counting our blessings?

When the retail world becomes loud, ask the Lord to speak louder. When your eyes become focused on the newest, shiniest gadgets, ask Jesus to fix your eyes on Him and His gifts — and on the greatest gift of salvation.

Don’t let autumn and its season of gratitude get lost in the blur of Christmas fanfare. Let Thanksgiving have its day — and its attitude — in your heart.

Father, I’m so grateful for an annual reminder to give You thanks. Keep me focused on all I have, not on all I want.

Growing in Gratitude

Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. — Psalm 98:4

In this world of both instant communication and Instant Pots, it’s important to remember that some important things come slowly. Hear the wisdom of radio host and author Nancy Leigh DeMoss:

The grateful heart that springs forth in joy is not acquired in a moment; it is the fruit of a thousand choices. ~ Choosing Joy

As much as we may want to live with a heart rooted in gratitude, we can’t flip a switch or push a button to make that happen.

Arriving at the point is a process, and by definition a process takes time.

Every new day gives us countless opportunities to develop gratitude. Think of it: with everything we see, hear, taste, touch, think, and experience, we can choose to be grateful. Review your day so far. Identify a handful of moments when you expressed thankfulness — and another handful when you could have, and be grateful now!

Many things develop and improve over time. Today let’s be encouraged that we are more thankful today than we were yesterday — and that we can choose to be even more thankful tomorrow.

Lord, give me a keener awareness and appreciation of Your goodness every day.

Excerpted from 365 Devotions for a Thankful Heart, copyright Zondervan.

It’s November! The month of thankfulness! Before we move straight to Christmas planning, shopping, wrapping, and celebrating, let’s remember every day to be thankful. What are you thankful for?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 13, 2021

A year before Mum’s death, I was sitting in a departure lounge waiting for my flight to board when that dreaded announcement graced our ears: “The 3:30 p.m. flight to Dallas, Texas, will now depart at 5:40 p.m. Thank you for your patience.”

I looked at my fellow passengers and questioned the announcer’s gratitude for the passengers’ “patience.” It was our flight’s third delay, and tempers were flaring. I picked up my briefcase once again and returned to the coffee shop where I had spent much of the last two hours. I ordered a cup of tea and was settling in to read my newspaper when I became aware of someone standing in front of me. I looked up. A woman about my age, tall and slim with short blonde hair, smiled and asked, “Would you mind if I joined you for a moment?”

“No, of course not,” I said.

“I heard you speak at a conference,” she said. “We have similar stories.”

“When was that?” I asked. “It was last year, in California,” she said. “It led to this.” She pulled up the sleeve of her sweater to reveal a tattoo on her wrist. It was a semicolon. “May I ask what that means?” I said. She looked down at it and rubbed her fingers over the black ink. “It’s about choosing to live one more day,” she said. “I’m part of a movement.” “What’s the movement?” I asked.

“It’s called Project Semicolon.” She explained that it was a community of support for those who struggle with thoughts of self-harm and suicide. For those who battle mental illness or addiction. It was a community for those who needed to share the truth. She’d been at the conference hosted by Saddleback Church, she said, and it had changed her life. “I joined Project Semicolon after I heard you speak.”

I remembered that conference well. Kay Warren had invited me to be a keynote speaker at the annual Church and Mental Health Symposium, a conference rising from the ashes of Kay and Rick’s son Matthew Warren’s suicide. I remember being unusually nervous as I flew out to speak that first night. I wasn’t quite sure what I could add. The lineup of speakers was impressive and intimidating — United States Surgeon General Vice Admiral Vivek Murthy; Paul Summergrad, former head of the American Psychiatric Association; former congressman Patrick Kennedy; and many, many more.

I was the speaker on the opening night, which I was grateful for because it meant I didn’t have to follow any of the other specialized presenters. I remember my opening line so well. It’s something I couldn’t have said for most of my life.

“Good evening. My name is Sheila Walsh, and I am profoundly grateful for the gift of mental illness. It means that I can look into the eyes of someone else who is suffering and say: me too.”

Me too.

Such little words. But how I would have welcomed hearing them from someone in the weeks before I was hospitalized! In those days the church rarely addressed any area of mental illness.

I looked at the woman across from me in the airport coffee shop. “So, what does the semicolon mean?” I asked.

She looked down at her wrist again and said, “A semicolon is used when an author could’ve ended a sentence but chose not to. I am the author, and the sentence is my life.”1

She told me that when she raises her hands in worship, that little tattoo becomes an offering to God, a daily acknowledgment of her brokenness and her faith.

“That’s powerful,” I said.

“I need to go now. My flight’s boarding,” she said, picking up her backpack.

I thanked her for sharing her story. And I meant it. I needed to hear her words.

After she left I thought about the little tattoo on her wrist. What was it about that symbol that helped her so much? Perhaps it reminds her to fight through the darkest nights of depression. It gives her something to focus on. It tells her to hold on. It’s a tangible declaration to her weary soul that her story is not over yet even when her mind tells her it should be.

Further, perhaps it lets her know she is not alone. It reminds her of the community around her who says “me too.” Shame thrives in hiding and solitude. It whispers,

You’re all alone. You’ll never be enough. You’ll never change.

Freedom begins in a community of “me too” people, people committed to helping you carry your burden. Being part of Project Semicolon has given her that kind of community. They don’t understand because they are experts. They understand because they’re honest about their own suffering, and they help her combat the lies. They help her see the truth about herself, and they accept her just as she is. That kind of community deprives shame of the oxygen that keeps it alive.

Speaking the truth about her life to those who understand her path has given her strength to keep walking.

After she left, I sat and considered Christ’s encounter with Zacchaeus, a man despised by everyone who knew him. He was Jewish, yes, but he was also a tax collector for the Roman occupiers.

The Romans gave this unsavory job to local recruits and allowed them to keep a percentage of whatever they collected. Zacchaeus and his colleagues took more than what was owed.

They were parasites living off the vulnerability of their own people. When Christ decided to share a meal with Zacchaeus, the people were horrified. How could Jesus spend time with a man who was bleeding them dry?

This was His response:

The Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost. — Luke 19:10

I considered the verse and thought about the study I’d done on it years ago. The word used here for lost means “destroyed, ruined, broken beyond repair.”

I thought about the woman, about her semicolon tattoo. I thought about Jesus, who didn’t come for those who are doing-just-fine-thank-you. He came to save those who were and are willing to acknowledge they are broken beyond repair. And even now, in His tender way, He comes to the doors of our hidden places and invites Himself in for supper.

Jesus comes to us in the secret shadows and bids us into the light. He wants to be in communion with us, wants to help carry the load of the pain and shame we secret away in isolation.

I don’t think I’m the only one who has constructed walls around parts of myself. We all know that pain is part of life, but when too much of it happens all at once — when it happens too early in life or when we feel helpless to combat it — the pain can make us believe we don’t want to go on. It’s why we build a secret place inside ourselves where it can hang out. The pain might follow us there, but we believe it can’t hurt us as much if it’s walled up. And we falsely think that the world can’t see it either.

We can pretend that everything is okay. And perhaps that’s a sort of saving grace for some of us as children. When I think of the stories women have shared with me through the years — stories of the worst kind of abuse and betrayal — I’ve wondered how they’ve made it. Perhaps some have survived by burying the pain deep inside, but I believe now that others have discovered the beauty of living open, yet broken, with Christ.

My new friend with the tattoo doesn’t pretend that her pain is gone but brings it into the light of a crucified Savior. He helps her carry it with hands scarred by love. His resounding “Yes!” to the Father’s plan to save us took Him down a brutal bloody path, but it gave life to each one of us who will say yes to Christ and no to the lies that would keep us hidden.

Reflections

I know your story is different from mine, but pain is pain and you are not alone.

In Luke 19, Christ makes His way into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. The crowds welcome Him with open arms, shouting,

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest! — Luke 19:38 NIV

Then Luke tells us that as Christ looked over the Holy City, He wept “because you did not recognize it when God visited you” (Luke 19:44).

Luke moves away from that panoramic picture and focuses on the weeping face of Christ. Why do you think Christ wept in that moment?

I wonder if Christ ever weeps over us when — even as we raise our voices in worship — our hearts, our shame, our pain is hidden? Is there something you have hidden away inside that you need to bring into the light of Christ?

My friend Ann Voskamp inks a little cross on her wrist each morning as a reminder of the One who was wounded for her so she doesn’t have to wound herself. What would help you to remember the relentless love of Christ during the messy moments of life?

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. — Psalm 46:1 ESV

Excerpted from In the Middle of the Mess by Sheila Walsh, copyright Sheila Walsh.

When you’re not doing-just-fine-thank-you, when your walls are high and your heart is hidden, remember there’s a flock of others, as well as our own King Jesus, who can say “me too.” The Me Too movement that has swept across the globe holds power because it’s a linking of arms with others who understand pain. We are better when we tear down walls, tell our story, and put a semicolon at the end of it. Not a period. 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 12, 2021

So Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “Please heal her, O God, I pray!” — Numbers 12:13

Miriam had dared to speak ill of Moses. But Moses was not only her brother, he was a prophet of the Lord. God took this offense so seriously that He caused Miriam to be covered in leprosy. It certainly wasn’t always the case, but in this instance her illness was a direct result of her sinful actions.

Moses’ immediate reaction was to cry out to God on her behalf.

He prayed that Miriam would be healed of her affliction Moses expressed such humility in not only forgiving the original offense, but also pleading for the consequences of that offense to be removed from her.

How many of us have seen another individual dealing with the unpleasant ramifications of his or her behavior and failed to feel any compassion?

Perhaps we thought to ourselves, “Well, that’s what he gets,” or some such sentiment. Maybe we even fail to pray for our own healing because we feel that we deserve whatever it is that has happened to us.

There are two things that make all the difference when it comes to a seemingly undeserved healing. First, God is a merciful God, and His mercies are new every morning (Lamentations 3:23).

Second, prayer is a powerful thing. The prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much good (James 5:16). Let’s pray for the healing of those around us.

God of mercy, I pray for those around me, that they would know Your peace, healing, and love.

Excerpted from 100 Favorite Bible Prayers by Stacy Edwards, copyright Thomas Nelson.

Every single one of us deserves ugly ramifications for our wrongdoings… which is why we need the prayers of those around us and the forgiving mercy and grace of God. Let’s pray today for compassion for people who are bearing their consequences and pray for them to be miraculously healed and saved into faith or greater faith! 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 11, 2021

Today, in this country, we are still blessed to be able to worship God and to thank Him for this and many other freedoms.   Jack Countryman

Lord,

We bow before You in humble thanksgiving for Your gifts of power and strength, fortitude and might! We claim the riches of Your glory and the fullness of Your grace that come through the indwelling of Your Spirit within us. We pray for our nation to remain firm and steadfast in the knowledge of Your truth and the promise of the victory that is ours through Christ, who loves us.

I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man… to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. — Ephesians 3:14-16, Ephesians 3:19

[I pray for fellow believers] that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. — Colossians 2:2-3

When we stand together as a nation united under God, willing to defend the rights that have been given to us, we will be blessed.

The freedom we so enjoy comes with the responsibility — of every citizen — to defend that freedom. God can also use His people in this land to share His love and offer encouragement to neighbors. May His Spirit be our Guide as we go forward as His people and as Americans who need to guard our land.

*

When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. — Matthew 6:6

Time and again, the Bible urges us to go to God in prayer and reminds us that He has promised to listen to our prayers and answer them. Since our nation’s very first days, God’s work in this country has been both invited and sustained by the prayers of His people. Throughout history the persistent, prevailing, intentional, and never- ending prayers of God’s people have made a difference in this nation, a difference that we won’t fully know this side of Heaven.

*

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the God of gods! For His mercy endures forever. Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords! For His mercy endures forever. — Psalm 136:1-3

I don’t think we could adequately thank the Lord for the work our forefathers did to establish this nation on Christian principles and with protection for the freedom to worship God.

We are still blessed today to be able to worship God and to thank Him for this and many other freedoms. May we willingly and boldly defend the precious rights we enjoy, the rights to attend the church of our choice and to elect the leaders of our country.

Excerpted from If My People by Jack Countryman, copyright Jack Countryman.

Today in the USA, it’s Veterans Day, a day to celebrate the courage and sacrifice of our veterans. It began as Armistice Day to mark the anniversary of the end of World War I.

“To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.” — President Wilson

After World War II, Raymond Weeks, a WW2 veteran, came up with the idea of expanding Armistice Day to become a celebration of all veterans — an annual National Veterans Day. It became law nine years later on May 26, 1954.

Today, raise Old Glory up the flagpole and pray for our veterans! 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 10, 2021

I believe the global predicament with COVID-19 is far more than just a medical crisis. In fact, everything we are facing — economic crises, political crises, financial crises, familial crises — goes much deeper than what’s on the surface. Everything visible and physical is preceded by that which is invisible and spiritual. If you want to address the visible and physical, you must identify the cause and cure to that which is invisible and spiritual. To put it another way, if all you see is what you see, then you do not see all that there is to be seen.

I believe this disruption we are experiencing has been allowed in order to precipitate a spiritual realignment and center us back toward God. Second Chronicles 15:5-6 says,

In those times there was no peace for those who went about their daily activities because the residents of the lands had many conflicts. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every possible distress.

In these verses the Bible describes a world in chaos and individuals without peace. When the people of Judah and Benjamin went home, there was family conflict. City rose up against city and nation against nation. There was no peace in the land.

At the end of verse 6 it says,

 For God troubled them with every possible distress.

Wait a minute. Who is behind this chaos and lack of peace? The Lord took the blame.

In the Old Testament, when God’s people departed from Him, judgment followed soon behind. With the sacrifice of Jesus, God recast His relationship to the world. Second Corinthians 5:19 says that the world was reconciled to God through the death of Jesus Christ.

No longer does the Lord God rain down fire and brimstone or send floods, like in Noah’s day, but we can experience the passive wrath of God that is described in Romans 1:24, Romans 1:26, Romans 1:28. The Scripture says that God turned them over to impurity. Then, again, later in the chapter, God turned them over to disgraceful passions. A third time, God turned them over to a corrupt mind.

Because the people of God no longer took Him seriously, choosing to dishonor Him and drift away, He let them experience the consequences of their behavior and see what life looked like without His provision.

Romans 1:21-24 describes what happens when an individual, family, church, or nation depart from God:

For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals, and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts. — NIV

Yes, we know God exists everywhere, but I am talking about the relational absenteeism of God. It is as if God has said, If you don’t want Me, you’re going to have to see what life is like without Me. So I believe God is interrupting the normal, natural, and preferred order of things on every single level. God is sending a worldwide message.

Returning to the Old Testament story, 2 Chronicles 15:3 speaks to the causes of the chaos and crisis at that time:

For many years Israel has been without the true God, without a teaching priest, and without instruction.

He didn’t say there was no belief in God; he said their belief was not in “the true God.” The Israelites had replaced “the true God” with idols.

Many of our churches have failed as they have bowed to culture and dumbed down His deity by ignoring His Word. We are no longer teaching unapologetic truth. We are teaching what we think or what feels good to the people. We teach what is popular and preferred.

There are two answers to every question: God’s answer and everybody else’s. And everybody else is wrong. God has spoken and He does not stutter.

His Word is perfection, ever relevant, speaking to all issues, for all of life.

God defines marriage. God defines gender. God defines identity.

God defines what it means to be parents and how children should respond. God defines religion and how the church operates. He creates and defines governments and how they should be run. He has spoken on how the citizens of a nation are supposed to act. God defines sexuality. We don’t. When we start to redefine seminal issues like these, chaos will ensue.

In creating our own rules and parameters, we insult God.

When there are no teaching priests in the land and the pulpits allow society to vote on what God has said, we do not conform to God’s standard. We only make people comfortable with their own standards.

God speaks to the issues of righteousness and justice and how to handle the poor, pursue equity, and stabilize economic structures and personal finances. The mission of a teaching priest is to declare God’s truth with love and clarity on every issue in society.

God’s Word must become the current standard by which all issues are addressed, by which all people must conform, and by which all systems must be adjusted. No matter how high or how low, regardless of political, social, or economic position, the teaching priest must never kowtow to the culture. The leader must speak with spiritual authority and Holy Ghost power.

The best way for the servants of God to love and care for the people is to speak God’s truth. The pulpit must preach in a way that overrides the opinions of society or what your parents may have taught you. God’s Word must override what professors or politicians have to say. It overrules what the media is trying to promote. We have no more time for clever sermonettes or cute Christian phrases. This is a season for preaching the full counsel of God’s Word with grace but without apology.

The desire of God is relationship with His people. Make knowing Him your goal. God will bless us, our families, and our culture as we learn that the God who causes distress also alleviates the distress when we return to His side.

~ Dr. Anthony Evans

The passive wrath of God is a frightening concept. When we decide to dishonor Him, not listen, and go our own way… He let’s us do it and allows us to experience the consequences that follow.

We are called to live holy and pure lives, teaching truth in love, waiting upon God to complete His work in us and those around us.  Stand firm in what you know to be true . . . the Word of God!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 9, 2021

Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand. 

— Isaiah 41:10 NKJV

Father, how grateful I am for Your awesome love and that You are with me at this moment when I need the comfort only You can provide. I am afraid. I am shaken to my core. But You know all about my fears — how deeply they affect me, where they originate in my heart and mind, and how they ultimately paralyze me from moving forward in important ways. Thank You, Father, for helping me overcome the things I am afraid of and offering me Your peace and security.

Father, it is amazing how situations such as the one I am facing can knock me off my feet and throw me off balance. I know that happens because I feel weak and frightened when I lack control.

However, I recognize that when I wrestle with such fears, they ultimately exist because of what I believe about You. I am focused on myself and the challenges rather than You. Therefore, please reveal where my fears have taken root and why they exist. Lord, remove the lies I believe and the issues that prevent me from fully embracing who You are.

Continue to give me strength and courage through Your Word.

Comfort me with Your nearness, and reassure me of Your constant presence. Teach me about who You are so I can stand strong against these fears and declare in faith, “My God is wiser, more loving, and more powerful than any problem I could ever face!” Help me to daily place my focus on Your unfailing character and life-giving principles so that I can be courageous — a person who obeys and pleases You in every way.

Father, I am grateful that You want me to be free and won’t let me remain in bondage —You don’t want me to be a slave to my fears. You desire for me to enjoy the abundant life You created me for. Therefore, You bring my fears to light so that You can deliver me from them and I can be free.

So I will set my heart to believe You and will say as David did,

Whenever I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
In God (I will praise His word),
In God I have put my trust;
I will not fear.
What can flesh do to me? . . .
In God I have put my trust;
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me? . . .
For You have delivered my soul from death.
Have You not kept my feet from falling,
That I may walk before God
In the light of the living?
(Psalm 56:3-4, Psalm 56:11, Psalm 56:13 NKJV)

I bless and praise You for Your kindness and the patience with which You heal my wounds. Thank You, Father, that I can have victory over my fears because of who You are and what You’ve promised. You said I can have confidence because You will be my God, You will always be with me, and You will protect me with Your righteous right hand. You are the all-powerful and all-wise God who defends me. Truly, You are worthy of all the honor, glory, power, and praise! And my soul rests secure and in peace because of You.

In Jesus’s name I pray. Amen.

Excerpted from When You Don’t Know What to Pray by Charles F. Stanley, copyright Charles F. Stanley

I will trust in You!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 8, 2021

Truth About the One Percent

Article by David Mathis
Executive Editor, desiringGod.org

At best, most Christians spend about one percent of our waking hours in corporate worship.

Here’s the math: If you sleep each night about seven hours (which most adults need, at minimum), and the weekly gathering of your local church is about 75 minutes — and you attend faithfully, essentially every Sunday — that makes for roughly one percent of your 120 waking hours each week.

Perhaps it’s striking to you, as it has been for me, to realize that most of us spend only one percent of our waking lives in the church’s weekly gathering. What a surprisingly small percentage this is (especially if we presume that church life essentially amounts to Sunday mornings). Not to mention what we give our lives to — and how much time — the rest of the week. Last year, according to one survey, the average American spent almost eight hours each day on new and traditional media. That adds up to more than fifty hours per week on our screens.

The gathering of our local churches is but a tiny sliver of our waking lives — lives now filled less and less with undistracted, productive labor, and more and more with consuming content through our devices. What do we need to remember about this surprisingly tiny and absolutely vital one percent called corporate worship?

Just One Hour

First, consider what a relatively small part of church life the weekly gathering is. However large Sunday morning looms in our conception of what the church is (which, as we’ll see below, can be for good reasons), we do well to realize that being the church is not a 60-to-75-minute weekly event. We are not only the church when we gather; we are the church as we scatter to our homes, schools, workplaces, and throughout town. We are the church, waking or sleeping, 168 hours per week.

“Being the church is not a 60-to-75-minute event. . . . We are the church 120 waking hours per week.”

One sad aspect of modern life in our unbundled, disbursed existences, spread apart by automobiles, is we tend to think of church as a single event each week, rather than an all-week, all-of-life reality. If we are in Christ, we are members of his body, 24/7/365. Church is not a weekly service; church is Christ’s people, called to daily lives of service, love, and worship, not just in the sanctuary but on our streets and all through our towns.

If being the church is just a single gathering, and not all week, how much can we really bless and be blessed by one another? When will we practice our precious New Testament one-anothers? A few quick minutes before and after the service will be woefully inadequate for the portrait the apostles paint of our life together.

More Than One Percent

Being the church includes one-anothers we cannot fulfill with a single one-percent event: showing hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9), welcoming one another (Romans 15:7), having fellowship with one another (1 John 1:7, 11–12; 2 John 5), caring for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25), doing good to one another (1 Thessalonians 5:15), encouraging and building up one another (Romans 14:19; 1 Thessalonians 4:18; 5:11), and outdoing one another in showing honor (Romans 12:10).

The everyday one-anothers of the new covenant shine out all the clearer when life gets its hardest, in conflict and relational pain: bearing with one another (Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:13), being kind to one another (Ephesians 4:32), submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21) — not lying to one another (Colossians 3:9), not passing judgment on one another (Romans 14:13), not speaking evil or grumbling against one another (James 4:11; 5:16).

It requires more than just one percent to live in harmony and be at peace with one another (Mark 9:50; Romans 12:16; 15:5). So too, most importantly, with the climactic one-another: love one another (John 13:34–35; 15:12, 17; Romans 12:10; 13:8; 1 Thessalonians 3:12; 4:9; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 3:11, 23; 4:7), through bearing one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2) and serving one another (Galatians 5:17).

One growing error today, among Christians who have an impoverished view and experience of the all-week reality of the church, is to assume that the main ways to serve and do good in the church is to be “up front” on Sunday morning speaking, singing, reading, praying, preaching, or passing plates. Such assumptions betray an impoverished understanding of the 168-hour reality of being the church. After all, God “gave . . . the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:11–12). The “work of the ministry,” to which the whole body is called, is not a half-hour message from one to the many, but the saints one-anothering and representing Christ in living rooms, coffee shops, backyards, and workplaces.

Most Important Hour

Then, side by side with putting the one percent in context, we also emphasize that corporate worship is our “single most important weekly habit” as Christians — and we might talk, with disclaimers, about the corporate gathering as “the single most important hour of the week” in the all-week life of the church.

Of course, who are we to say, from God’s perspective, what’s the most important hour of any given week in our individual lives? God may consider another hour of our week, when he calls us to sacrificial love, more important, and a higher spiritual service of worship, than the corporate gathering. Indeed, let’s make allowances for that. And we might still say, in general, by default, and as a local body, this is together our most important hour week after week as we gather to worship Jesus.

The reason corporate worship may be our single most important weekly habit, and one of our greatest weapons in the fight for joy, is that corporate worship combines three essential principles of God’s ongoing supply of grace for the Christian life: hearing his voice (in his word), having his ear (in prayer), and belonging to his body (in the fellowship of the church).

In corporate worship, we hear from God, in the call to worship, in the reading and teaching of Scripture, in the faithful preaching of the gospel, in the words of institution at the Table, in the commission to be sent as lights in the world. In corporate worship, we respond to God in prayer, in confession, in singing, in thanksgiving, in recitation, in petitions, in receiving the Communion elements in faith. And in corporate worship, we do it all together.

“God didn’t make us to live and worship as solitary individuals.”

God didn’t make us to live and worship as solitary individuals. Personal Bible meditation and prayer are glorious gifts and essential, not to be neglected or taken for granted, and all the more in the information age flooding our brains with other, often competing content. Our individual spiritual habits are appointed by God as rhythms for personal communion with him that thrive only in the context of regular communal communion with him.

One Hour and All Week

Corporate worship is only one hour in 168 each week — and only one percent of our waking lives as the church. And yet, our weekly corporate worship, gathered together to receive God’s word and respond in reverent joy, is our most important hour. We might feel like these two truths are in tension, but in the end, they are not. They are twins — friends, not foes.

Regular, meaningful engagement in the church’s most important hour of the week changes how we live, as the church, for the rest of the week, and how we live as the church in our 120 waking hours shapes our engagement in the one-percent event. A church that genuinely, faithfully worships Jesus together each week is all the more prepared to live as the church each hour, and a church that lives as the church all week enjoys the sweetest worship together each Sunday.  See you next Sunday!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 7, 2021

Article by Greg Morse
Staff writer, desiringGod.org

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

A great exchange lies at the heart of the Christian faith. God’s people contributed their sin, their failures, their guilt, and exchanged them for forgiveness, for joy, for Jesus’s righteousness, leading to eternal life. Have you marveled at this recently?

Allow me to tell the story again.

Scripture depicts God’s people as a woman who formerly had nothing but sin and shame (Ezekiel 16; Hosea 1). Yet somehow, the righteous King of heaven decided to pursue her for marriage. She was poor, naked, and diseased beyond hope of recovery. She laid on her sickbed, unable to rise; he sat on the throne of heaven, worshiped by angels. She committed sedition against this King, cursing him in her sin — despite all his unceasing kindness and provisions.

The last thing she expected — indeed the last thing she looked for — was the love and forgiveness that this King would ensure she acquired.

He Came to Become Sin

From heaven, he came and sought her. He came to the ancient ruins of Eden, taking a human body and reasoning soul to visit the fallen realms of his earth.

And although he created the world, the world did not know him. Taking wonder deeper, he traveled even to Israel, his own people, and they still did not recognize him. He taught among them as no one before. He healed their sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead to life.

As he hinted at his identity, Israel’s spiritual watchmen did not grow relieved or enthralled, but incensed and jealous. They rejected him, refused to follow, questioned him at every turn, stirred up the people against him, and in the end, crucified him. Yet not without his consent. He gave himself willingly unto death, bringing his Bride — still ignorant and dead in sin — to life. He embraced that wrath she deserved. He became sin, our sin, that we might be forgiven.

Second Exchange?

I hope you’ve heard that story before — love hearing it over and over. Heaven has no greater to tell.

Yet as we feast upon its bounty, drawing strength for each new day, do we forget this was a two-way exchange? For myself, I often emphasize what Jesus took on my behalf: wrath, punishment, death, sin, abandonment. Before the cross, I gratefully sing,

Here we have a firm foundation,

Here the refuge of the lost;

Christ, the Rock of our salvation,

His the name of which we boast.

Lamb of God, for sinners wounded,

Sacrifice to cancel guilt!

None shall ever be confounded Who on him their hope have built.

What remains less in view, though, is what we get in return beyond canceled debt. C.R. Wiley observes,

Most Christians are familiar with salvation as accounting, but they think in terms of single-imputation. They believe that our sins have been imputed to Christ and that’s why he died on the cross, so that he could pay for them. But that’s where it stops for them. They think that Christ’s death has left them with a zero balance. (Man of the House, 111)

But notice again the verse: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Christ does not merely forgive; not merely cancel debts. He gives righteousness in such degree that we become the righteousness of God. Christ’s perfect life is ours — his perfect obedience reckoned to us. Our accounts burst with the eternal riches of the perfection of Christ.

Our ‘Not-Yet’ Fight

O believer, though you still put the flesh to death daily, and carry a cross through a fallen world, remember Christ has made you, in a real and living sense, perfect — right now.

“O believer, Christ has made you, in a real and living sense, perfect — right now.”

Yes, you still sin, but every sin that lies ahead is paid for at the cross. “By a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14). Your ongoing sanctification, as slow and arduous as it runs, confirms a remarkable reality: By Christ’s one offering, he has perfected you already. We feel the “not yet” of continuing to fight, but how often do we delight in the “already” of our holy status before God?

Why does this matter practically? As we realize our standing in Christ — the great blessing we have in not only giving the penalty of our sins to Christ, but receiving his perfect life — we know we are loved and accepted before we make great strides in the Christian life. And reckoning this allows us to make the greatest strides in the Christian life.

As Chosen Ones

Notice carefully the order of Paul’s words in one example among many:

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians 3:12–13)

As Paul commands us to put on the radiant clothing of compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, and love, he inserts a phrase bearing the weight of ten worlds: Put these on as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved.

“You have no need to work your way into his love or achieve his holiness. Christ has done it in your place.”

Put on these virtues — or, in another place, simply “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14) — as a chosen one, one already holy and beloved. Continue to pursue a life worthy of the gospel with this sure gospel footing: You journey forth already holy, already beloved of God. You have no need to work your way into his love or achieve his holiness. Christ has done it in your place.

Bringing Holiness to Completion

Through this side of the great exchange, he welcomes you before you continue making those strides in humility, meekness, and love. You do not put on Christ to become definitively chosen, holy, and beloved, but as a response to what Christ accomplished two thousand years ago. As we progressively “bring holiness to completion in the fear of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 7:1), we do so already basking in the statements that we stand holy and beloved in Christ. Our growth in Christian living is growing into what we already are in union with our Savior.

At the heart of Christianity is indeed a great exchange, a double exchange. Christ, our great Groom, became our sin and bore the wrath we deserved. And in exchange, we get his perfect life and all that justly comes with it: God’s love, eternal life, heavenly rewards, unity with each other, restored and unbreakable fellowship with God. We are rich beyond measure, having God himself as our treasure, and this empowers us to live wholly (and holy) for Him.                          

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 6, 2021

Article by Marshall Segal
Staff writer, desiringGod.org

Is it strangely possible that love is both pervasive and yet endangered in our day? The label is certainly plastered, like bright yellow tape, across anything and everything around us. Or, perhaps more accurately, society has made love a big-beige wall, drained of the definition or vibrancy it once had, so that anyone can decorate it however he or she likes. “Love” has come to mean whatever anyone says it means — and to suggest otherwise is, of course, “unloving.”

That those four letters are overused and abused, however, does not alter what love is. We could, for instance, start calling our mailbox a “tree,” and even convince our neighbors to do the same, but it wouldn’t erase the living realities of roots, and bark, and branches, and leaves that grow green, then yellow, then red, then fall. So what might we be losing by blurring the lines of what we call love?

Who Can Love?

Love, we know, not only has a definition but an identity, a personality, a name:

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7–8)

Only those who know God, the true God, can love, because this God, and only this God, is love. Drawing on texts like these, John Piper helpfully defines love as “the overflow and expansion of joy in God, which gladly meets the needs of others” (The Dangerous Duty of Delight, 44). If that’s true, that means millions — billions — of people think themselves loving while having never truly experienced or extended true love.

“Millions of people think themselves loving while having never truly experienced or extended true love.”

Closer to home, many of us, even in the church, consider ourselves loving without having wrestled with what it really means to love. We mistake not-loves for love, and therefore often fail to pursue the real thing.

What Love Is Not

In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul wrote, perhaps, the most familiar and cherished lines on love ever written. And while weddings today might lead us to believe the chapter was written for bright-eyed grooms and their brides dressed in white, he was actually writing to an ordinary, conflict-afflicted church struggling to love one another (1 Corinthians 1:10–11).

While we could focus on what he says love is and does, Paul also teaches us that pursuing love requires carefully discerning what love is not. For instance, “Love does not envy or boast” (1 Corinthians 13:4). It is not arrogant or rude, irritable or resentful. It does not insist on its own way. In fact, he begins the chapter not with startling examples of love, but by distinguishing love from four common not-loves. Notice how we can practice each without practicing love.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1–3)

Serving Is Not Love

The first of the four warnings is to the spiritually gifted. Our giftings, even our spiritual giftings, are no sure evidence of love. Don Carson writes, “The various spiritual gifts, as important as they are and as highly as Paul values them, can all be duplicated by pagans. This quality of love cannot be” (Showing the Spirit, 84).

What kinds of gifting did Paul have in mind? He gives examples in the previous chapter: the gifts of wisdom, knowledge, healing, miracles, prophecy, spiritual discernment, and speaking in tongues. The apostle encouraged, even charged them to practice these giftings. Evidently, though, some were given profound spiritual insight and an unusual ability to articulate those insights, but still lacked love. They probably assumed they were loving the church when they really loved being gifted and needed and seen.

And still today, some of us pursue gifting, and insist on using our abilities (whether in our churches, our communities, or our careers), but we do so without love. We’re more concerned with being needed, being productive, being successful than we are with loving others. We likely see this best when what others need from us diverges from the ways we want to be serving.

Knowing Is Not Love

Others in the Corinthian church pursued knowledge, and assumed their knowing made them loving. But even if we had all knowledge and understood all mysteries, Paul says, we can still lack love. In fact, the more we know, the more susceptible we may be to temptation, because “knowledge puffs up” (1 Corinthians 8:1). If Satan can’t keep us from the truth, he’d be happy to see us fill our minds with knowledge if it means enflaming our sense of pride and emptying our hearts of love.

So how do we distinguish between proud knowledge and good knowledge? Paul says, “‘Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know” (1 Corinthians 8:1–2). Pride betrays a knowledge running low on love. As godly knowledge grows, though, so does its sense of humility. Gold in a leaky boat will sink the boat, but gold in a well-built boat adds weight that strengthens and stabilizes the boat, even through heavy storms.

Those who know more, with love, have an increasing sense of just how much they do not know — and of how little they deserve to know anything they do know. And they use whatever knowledge they have not to stoke their personal sense of worth or image, but to build others up in their walks with God. They wield their knowledge to comfort, to encourage, to teach, to heal, to correct, to restore, to love.

Giving Is Not Love

“If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). On the surface, it’s hard to conceive of a scenario like this. Could a man really give away all he had, even his very life, without love?

The apostle says yes. How could that be? Because people make radical sacrifices for all kinds of reasons, and usually not because of “an overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others.” In fact, many of the reasons have nothing to do with God at all. And as we’ve already seen, if an act has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with real love.

Sadly, our own reasons for giving, serving, and sacrificing, even in the church, sometimes have little to do with God. We want to appear generous. We want more power or influence. We like the feeling of having others indebted to us. We want to be rid of a guilty conscience. We want to fit in with some crowd or cause. “If men do great things and suffer great things merely out of self-love,” Jonathan Edwards warns, “that is but to offer that to themselves which is due to God, and so make an idol of themselves” (Charity and Its Fruits, 87).

Whenever the roots of our motivation stray away from our joy in God, our love will starve and wither. We will give, even give much, and gain nothing of eternal fruit or significance. Sweat, bleed, and even die as we might, our deeds can never cover a lack of love.

Believing Is Not Love

Perhaps most surprising of all, some even make the pursuit of faith a detour around love. “If I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:2). These people might say, “Of course I’m loving, look at what I believe.” To which, Paul might say, “I will know what you really believe by how you love.”

And he’s not alone. “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? . . . Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14–17). Our acts of love could never save us, but neither can a faith that does not work through love (Galatians 5:6). We can have faith enough to hurl mountains into the sea, and yet still not be willing to climb the hills of love God has put in front of us.

“Genuine faith is not as concerned with moving mountains as it is with knowing and enjoying God.”

Believing and even expecting great things from God does not prove we belong to God; people in every religion, and even some pagans, hope for great things from God. But none of them — none of them — can love like anyone who truly knows Jesus. Genuine faith is not as concerned with moving mountains as it is with knowing and enjoying God, and the more it learns and enjoys of him, the more its love overflows into the needs of others.

Notice that Paul says four times, “If I have not love,” not, “If you. . . .” Even as he rebuked the heated and divided church, he modeled the kind of humility he longed to see in them. He knew how much even an apostle’s heart could be prone to resist and avoid the high costs of love. So are we similarly aware? Have we allowed our love for one another to grow cold behind the veils of our knowing, our serving, our giving, our believing?

No Greater Privilege

For all the ways “love” is used today, any real experience of love is a treasure beyond counting. Those who truly love prove not only that they know God, but that they are known and loved by God. If we see any genuine love in ourselves, we see God in us. Edwards captures something of the miracle in this love:

The saving grace of God in the heart, working a holy and divine temper of soul in the gift of faith and love must doubtless be the greatest blessing that ever men receive in this world; greater than any of the gifts of natural men, greater than the greatest natural abilities, greater than any acquired endowments of mind, greater than any attainments in learning, greater than any outward worth or honor, and a greater privilege than to be kings and emperors. (Charity and its Fruits, 74)

The love that God empowers is the greatest privilege on earth. When we love one another, God is pressing the wonders of his own heart into the cracks and corners of his kingdom — into our families and friendships, into our churches, into our neighborhoods. Without love, no matter how much we know, give, or do, we are and gain nothing. But if we walk in love, we gain more of God and we become more like God — and we hold out real love to a world whose God is love.

We so desperately need to learn to love!  When we experience real love we see God and offer to all around us His love.  Let us continue to grow in His grace and knowledge but offer the greatest of all – LOVE!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 5, 2021

For He will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. — Malachi 3:2-3

The embers glowed as the blacksmith stoked the fire. One callused hand held a piece of metal to the anvil while the other clasped a hammer. Then he thrust the metal into the fire and pounded. Clang. Thud. Clang. In the fire, the metal was transformed. The duet of the fire and the hammer continued until the blacksmith’s work was finally complete — a masterpiece, a tool.

Loss transforms us, reshaping and redefining who we are.

Yet the refining process isn’t anything easy. Sometimes it creates terrible pain and discomfort as you place yourself in the divine Blacksmith’s hands. He pounds His hammer on your anger, then your fears. Another crushing blow upon your blaming and your tears. You’re relieved that it’s finished, but then you feel the heat. You try to escape, but your fight is futile.

Finally you yield to the fire of surrender. The flames melt your pride, guilt, doubt, resentment, and unforgiveness. There’s nothing left to melt or pound, you think. You’re in the process of being transformed into a masterpiece in the divine Blacksmith’s hand.

Our journey into the fire of surrender may happen all at once or at numerous times throughout the different seasons of grief.

When we choose to surrender our grief, God can and will transform it. Our fear becomes faith. Our doubt becomes trust.

Our hurt becomes hope. God can reshape us too. Rather than adopting the identity of widower or childless parent, we can let God help us forge a new identity as a comforter, advocate, supporter group leader, or hope-lifter to help others.

Should you decide to enter the fire of surrender and start the process of reshaping, remember that God is the master Refiner.

He will transform you and your loss into a productive masterpiece.

God, my loss has transformed me. I’m not who I used to be, but I’m confused about who I need to become. I’m afraid to change and move forward in my journey of grief. Is now the right time for me? I don’t want to resist Your transforming power. Help me yield my loss and my potential to You today. I will enter the fire of surrender and allow You to pound and refine me. You are the master Refiner who can remove all the impurities of my grief. Transform my loss and my being into a productive masterpiece that You can use. Amen.

Excerpted from Grieving the Loss of a Loved One by Kathe Wunnenberg, copyright Kathe Wunnenberg.

Loss will change us. For the worse we if don’t process it with the Lord. But, if we submit ourselves and surrender to Him, loss and grief can transform us to look more like Him and into comforters of others who are bereaved. 

Pastor Dale