Notes of Faith November 24, 2021

Understanding Bible prophecy and discerning the signs of the times indicates we are in the season of the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The signs of nature (Luke 21:11), the condition of society (2 Timothy 3:1-4), the spiritual condition of the church (2 Timothy 4:3-4), the state of world politics (Matt 24:6-7), technology (Luke 21:26), and most importantly Israel being back in her land (Zechariah 12:3), all shout the message that He is coming soon. Given that fact, we should all consider how living in the season of the Lord’s return should impact our giving. As Christians, we need to live with an eternal perspective.

Biblical Stewardship

Biblical stewardship requires the handling of time, talents, and treasures according to the instructions of God. The foundational principle of biblical stewardship is that “God owns it all.” If you keep all of it or hold something back, then you are acting as the owner. Giving cheerfully to God engages both His blessings to a faithful steward and His hedge of protection. Jesus also gave several warnings about the sin of materialism. “And He said to them, ‘Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions'” (Luke 12:15).

Tithes and Offerings

The meaning of the word tithe is “the tenth part.” Today, some Christians use the word tithe to describe all giving to the church. You can give 3%, 5%, or 7% of your income, but you can’t tithe unless it is at least 10%. The tithe represents the least portion a person should return to God and not the maximum. Leviticus 27:30 states, “A tithe of everything from the land, whether grain from the soil or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD.” There are three key applications of the tithe here; it “belongs to the LORD”, it is “holy”, and is “set apart” to be presented to God, and therefore not used for any other purpose.

I believe that tithing is not part of the Law because the practice began long before the Law was given to Moses. Abraham tithed to the high priest, Melchizedek, (Genesis 14:20) 430 years before the law was given to Moses. Jacob promised a tithe to the LORD (Genesis 28:22). This principle of giving back to God who blesses us represents what is best for the people of God, at all times, under all circumstances.

Every individual or family operates on one of four levels of financial giving. The first level of giving is offerings—any giving that is less than 10% of your increase or income. The second level of giving is to give 10%, which is the tithe. I believe biblically this belongs to the church. The third level of giving is tithes and offering.

This means that beyond the tithe, offerings are given to the church, Christ-centered ministries, or the poor, needy, widows, and orphans. This level of giving is described in the book of Malachi.

The fourth and final level of giving is proportional giving, which increases as God prospers us financially. When God provides additional financial resources, we increase our giving to the church, Christ-centered organizations, and individuals to even higher percentages. Paul lauded such giving by the believers in Corinth (1 Corinthians 16:2).

How Now Should We Give?

In Matthew Chapter 6, Jesus provides some important instructions on biblical stewardship that we all should understand. Jesus tells us: “Do not store up for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.”

Why are earthly investments so fleeting? Because your wealth on earth is temporary. It will leave you while you live, or you will leave it when you die.

The Bible contains 2,350 verses that discuss the handling of money or possessions. I believe money is mentioned so much because it is the number one competitor with Jesus Christ for our love and devotion. Jesus himself said, “No one can serve two masters; for he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24).

There is a strong relationship between how someone handles money and how they live out the Christian life. How you handle money is an external, visible indicator of the condition of your heart and your relationship with Christ. Therefore, it is important to know that how you handle money is a spiritual matter of the heart. Proverbs 27:19 indicates, “As water reflects the face, so a man’s heart reveals the man.”

In this season of the Lord’s return, we should increase our giving because of the imminent expectation of the Lord’s return for the Church. A good question to ask yourself is, are you storing up money beyond what you need or what is reasonable? We as Christians need to pray about this and do as the Holy Spirit leads us.

The Lord considers our motives and our means when we give, just as He did the poor widow who gave all she had in Mark 12:43-44. He offers us this important warning, “If you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” (Luke 16:11).

For followers of Jesus Christ living in the season of the Lord’s return, the time to give is growing shorter every day.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 23, 2021

While He was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” — Matthew 17:5

Many of us share a common fault in our conversations with others. So often, we fail to listen. We are so immersed in preparing to articulate our next brilliant thought that we are prone to not hear what the other person is saying. How many times have we been introduced to someone and as soon as we walk away cannot even remember the person’s name? On the mountain of transfiguration, the Father gives us some good advice. He introduces His Son, affirms His pleasure in Him, and then admonishes us to “listen to Him” (Matthew 17:5 ESV).

One of the things we often forget about prayer is that it is communication with the Lord. And communication is a two-way street. We talk… and, if we are smart, we listen even more than we speak.

Perhaps one of the most overlooked and forgotten elements of prayer is taking the time to listen to Him. He still speaks to us through His Word and by His Spirit. God is essentially saying to us here, “This is My Son; I love Him; I am pleased with Him. Stop talking so much and listen to Him.”

After the resurrection, Jesus showed up on the road to Emmaus to perfectly illustrate this need in all of us to take time in prayer to stop talking and simply “listen to Him.” For three years the disciples had walked with Christ, talked with Him, virtually lived with Him, when suddenly it all came to an abrupt and crashing conclusion: Jesus had been viciously executed and His body tossed in a cold, damp tomb. Then, all the disciples “forsook Him and fled” back to their own abodes (Matthew 26:56).

Two of these followers headed home to Emmaus, a village seven miles west of Jerusalem. As they walked in discouragement toward the sunset that afternoon, they exclaimed to one another,

We were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. — Luke 24:21

But they had buried that hope when the body of Jesus was placed in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. Dejected and dismayed, they were walking proof that there is never power in the present when there is no hope in the future.

But, then — suddenly — the resurrected “Jesus Himself drew near and went with them,” but they “did not know Him” (Luke 24:15-16). After this incredible encounter “their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:31). And their response?

Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road? — Luke 24:32

Isn’t this one of our most pressing needs today? That is, burning hearts that come from listening to Him along our own Emmaus road.

LISTEN TO HIM AS HE SPEAKS TO US THROUGH HIS SPIRIT

Their hearts were set on fire when “He talked with [them] on the road.” Jesus was doing the talking, and they were doing the listening. Their hearts did not burn when they talked to Him, or when they talked to each other about Him. Their hearts began to burn with a new passion when they stopped talking to Him and to others and started listening to Him, spirit to Spirit.

There comes a time when we need to stop trying to perform, stop offering our petitions, even cease our praise for a moment, and simply be still and listen to His still small voice speaking to our spirits, and heed the admonition of our heavenly Father to “listen to Him.”

LISTEN TO HIM AS HE SPEAKS TO US THROUGH HIS SCRIPTURE

The Bible remains a sealed book until God’s Spirit opens its truth to us. We may gain a head knowledge of Him through the Bible, but we will never be able to understand a heart knowledge, a spiritual discernment, until, like the disciples, He talks to us along the road and opens the Scriptures to us (Luke 24:32). And we do the listening.

Jesus “expounded” to them in all the Scriptures the things that concerned Himself (Luke 24:27). The word expound connotes the thought of translating something out of a foreign language. The Bible is really a foreign language to those who do not believe.

Beginning at Moses… He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

From the Pentateuch to the Prophets Jesus preached Jesus.

From Moses to Malachi He revealed how the entire Jewish Bible speaks of Him. As He spoke to them, a shadow of the cross fell over the Jewish Bible. He was that ram at Abraham’s altar in Genesis. He was the Passover lamb in Exodus, whose spilled blood meant freedom from slavery and deliverance from death… and still does. He was that scarlet thread out Rahab’s window in Joshua. And the good shepherd of whom David spoke in the Psalms? Jesus was that shepherd. As the disciples listened, they understood that Jesus was the suffering servant spoken so eloquently about by Isaiah. And He was the fourth man in the midst of the fiery furnace in Daniel. No wonder their hearts began to burn within them. He was doing the talking… and they were doing the listening.

The disciples’ immediate response was noteworthy. They “rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem” to exclaim to all the others,

The Lord is risen indeed! — Luke 24:33-34

Their glowing hearts turned into going hearts. With beating, burning hearts they scurried back to Jerusalem, around the corners, down the narrow alleys, up Mount Zion, to find the others and share the good news. And they shared it not with an emaciated question mark, but with a bold exclamation mark: “He is alive!”

One of these Emmaus followers was named Cleopas. His companion is left unnamed. I like to think this is so in order for you and me to find ourselves in his or her place as we walk on our own road today. Perhaps you are reading these words with your own hopes dashed and your own dreams smashed.

Stop.

Look.

Listen to Jesus’ Spirit through His Scriptures.

He is still speaking. And if you listen, you just might walk away with your own heart burning within you.

“Listen to Him.”

Excerpted from The Prayer Code by O. S. Hawkins, copyright Dr. O. S. Hawkins.

When you pray, do you do all the talking? Stop and listen! What has the Lord said to you when you’ve stopped to listen?

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 22, 2021

Nothing is so strong as true gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as true strength.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Have you ever seen gentleness de-escalate a tense situation? If so, maybe you were the source of that gentleness.

The Bible tells us that a gentle answer can calm a person’s anger (Proverbs 15:1). Gentleness almost always contributes to contentment as well as peace. Throughout His life, Jesus showed us by His example the power of gentleness. See in Matthew 11:29 the way He described Himself:

Accept my teachings and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in spirit, and you will find rest for your lives. — NCV

And consider His gentleness with a woman caught in adultery.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law were ready to stone her in accordance with Jewish law. Then Jesus made this simple statement:

Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her. — John 8:7

When no one did, when each one walked away, Jesus was alone with the woman. To her He said simply,

Go and sin no more. — John 8:11 NLT

Choose gentleness today. Refrain from judging others. Treat the people you encounter the way you would like them to treat you, the gentle way your Good Shepherd treats you. Psalm 23 is perhaps the most beautiful expression of Jesus’ gentle ways with us:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me

beside quiet waters,

He refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths

for His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley,

I will fear no evil,

for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff,

they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely Your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Extend Grace

Grace is the face that love wears when it meets imperfection. ~ Joseph R. Cooke

The world was a kinder place when people interacted face-to-face. It isn’t easy to say rude things when you’re looking someone in the eyes. Slamming someone over social media or with a flippant text message is much easier — and that is happening far too much. Freedom of speech has lost its filter.

Thoughtless, disrespectful, hurtful comments run rampant today in social media, late-night talk shows, and even the news.

How do you deal with rude people? When someone is rude to you, maybe your first reaction is to be rude right back. Rudeness responding to rudeness destroys peace. There are better ways to deal with a person’s lack of courtesy and kindness.

Recognize that someone’s imperfections are just that. If a person makes a disagreeable comment on your social media post, cuts in front of you in the grocery line, or, ignoring you, keeps talking on their cell phone, don’t take it personally. Their behavior is about them, not you. So rather than allowing something to upset you and steal your contentment, practice grace by taking the following steps:

1.      Take a deep breath.

2.      Remember what you’re committed to in your heart.

3.      Lead by example and treat them the way you would like to be treated.

4.      Go one step further and offer authentic listening, an act of kindness, or help with something you learn they are dealing with.

5.      Extending grace to difficult people takes practice, but remembering how many times you have received grace makes extending it to others a little easier. Blessing people with grace — with the grace of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, or patience — can help break the cycle of upset in the world. Become a beacon of grace and peace.

Grace is the face that love wears.

Excerpted from Love the Life You Have by Jean Fischer, copyright Thomas Nelson.

Social media is an angry place, isn’t it? Starting today, let’s put on the gentleness of the Lord. Let’s be the ones to de-escalate online and off. When something starts to get heated, let’s be the face of the love of Jesus!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 21, 2021

My grandfather was a Dutch immigrant with ten children. He and Grandmother took seriously the instructions God gave Moses for the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 6:6-7, believing this to be a parent’s responsibility:

These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get  

As the family gathered around the table for meals, one of my grandparents read from the Bible. It was a kind of spiritual dessert. They had enjoyed physical food from the hand of God; now they would enjoy spiritual food.

My father was one of these children. Later, when his four offspring sat around his table, he initiated the same practice. (As far as I know, his brothers and sisters have done similarly in their homes.) We never discussed whether or not we wanted to do this; it was just always done and never, to my knowledge, questioned. Reading material was chosen according to our ages.

Often at the evening meal we read from a Bible storybook, but at least once a day we read short selections from the Bible. For some reason we read Proverbs more than any other single book; my parents must have believed that book contained an extraordinary amount of wisdom for everyday living. To the children in our family this was a logical thing for a family to do.

No one left the table, unless for special reasons, until we read the Scriptures together. This was no legalistic ritual; it was family habit.

Thinking back, I remember numerous instances when our friends called for us and we asked them to wait until we had finished dinner. Dessert may have been served, but none of us considered the meal finished until we had read together.

As I recounted this to a group of young couples recently, one father asked me, “Didn’t you all grow up resenting your father and Christianity?” I felt an aching kind of amusement at his question. It was quite the other way around! In all honesty, I could say that our parents and memories of family life are extra dear because of this. Four new families have come out of our parental home, involving fourteen more children. Each family follows the pattern we learned at home. Our expectations are that each of these fourteen will pursue a similar practice in their homes in years to come. I smile when I visit my brothers’ homes and hear them stop in the middle of the reading to ask a child they suspect is not listening, “David, what was the last word?” That’s what my father used to do. It will be fun to see if the grandsons use the same device on their children.

The Goal

The goal of family Bible reading is to teach children to think biblically.

That’s a large goal: to think biblically. It means a good bit more than quoting certain Scripture verses or participating in quizzes.

It involves squaring up our thinking with what the Bible says about God, about man, about sin, about redemption, about human need, and about righteousness. Thinking biblically insists on an understanding of the vast sweep of what Scripture reveals to us. It is the gauge against which we measure our ideas and our lives.

• How has God worked in human history?

• What is His goal?

• What is His essential nature, His character?

• What is the nature of human beings?

• What are their basic needs?

• How does the death of Jesus Christ fit into the picture?

• How do we know what is true?

These are only some of the questions we answer in learning to think biblically. The ability to quote salvation or assurance verses is inadequate unless the verses fit into a larger concept of the character of God and an understanding of His righteousness.

Knowing favorite biblical heroes and specific stories becomes most meaningful when fit into a larger view of what their lives demonstrate about people or about God’s character.

Parents, not uncommonly, invest time with small children, reading them favorite Bible stories and speaking of salvation.

The failure comes in teaching children through their teens how this information fits together to form a true basis for life. Our goal is a valid world/life view. This cannot be scolded into a person; we can only expose young minds to great truth and discuss it with them.

Whether a child adopts a Christian world/life view is not our responsibility. Our job is to expose the child to what we believe is true. (See Honey for a Teen’s Heart for a larger treatment of reading the Bible with teens.)

Our need for a word from God is never finished.

He speaks to our situation, ministers to our problem areas. We receive fresh insights, daily reminders, and new promises because the Bible is indeed profitable “for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). We demonstrate our confidence in the authority of the Bible as the Word of God by the way we use it in our homes and by our personal obedience to it. No amount of emotional, cozy feeling will stand the rigorous test of exposure to secular culture. Our faith has intellectual content; we must know what we believe.

Emotional warmth flows out of the application and obedience of these great truths.

Attaining the Goal

Begin early to teach your children about God and His Son by reading together from Bible storybooks that fit your child’s age.

Stories that relate biblical teaching to real life give opportunity for in-depth discovery as children grow. Often questions at the end of the story give children the fun of remembering and taking turns. Never before have publishers offered such creative full-color books, good writing, and excellent graphics.

You’ll find yourself learning afresh as you teach your children.

I’d like to share the idea that has worked best toward attaining the goal in our family life. We have given this simple method years of trial and are pleased with its effectiveness in making the Bible meaningful. We began with four-year-old Mark to read aloud from the Gospel of Mark. We chose this gospel because of its short narrative passages and incidentally because it was called Mark. Father had a plan: Everyone at the table (and this included our numerous guests) had to ask a question and answer one. We made a game out of it: sometimes the question was directed to the person on our left, other times to the person on our right. We’d have to listen carefully, because sometimes the question we had thought to ask was usurped by someone whose turn came first, and we would have to think of another.

At first our questions were simple. Where did Jesus go? What did Jesus do? Who went with Jesus? Children pick up the idea rapidly. Then we began to interject another kind of question.

Why did Jesus say that? What does He mean? And then, What can we learn from Jesus about the way we ought to act? In these questions are the three elements which open up any text: fact — what does it say? interpretation — what does it mean? application — what does it mean to me?

Children’s questions invariably center on facts, but before long you will find them asking deeply penetrating ones. If Jesus could raise Lazarus from the dead, why did He let his dear friend John the Baptist stay dead? Why did the Jews say Jesus had an evil spirit? Increasingly we delved into the meat of what the text was saying. Mark was delighted when his father introduced a two-part question, and thereupon set out to explore the possibility of a three-part question. Together, as a family, we dug amazing truths out of the text — and no one in our family would say this was either dull or painful.

This method requires that everyone think through what the passage is saying. Ideas go through the thought processes and come out of the mouth.

We experience a great thing: the joy of discovery.

Adapted from Honey for a Child’s Heart: The Imaginative Use of Books in Family Life, now updated and expanded, by Gladys Hunt.

The goal of family Bible reading is to teach children to think biblically. It doesn’t have to be a perfect time around the table. Try something new! Just start! 

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 20, 2021

Notes of Faith November 20, 2021

You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee?

"Because someone bumped into me!!!"

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup.

Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

*Whatever is inside the cup is what will spill out.*

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which WILL happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

*So we have to ask ourselves... “what's in my cup?"*

When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility?

Anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions?

Life provides the cup, YOU choose how to fill it.

Today let's work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation; and kindness, gentleness and love for others.

(Shared from a friend whose cup is full of goodness and inspiration.)

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 19, 2021

Article by Jon Bloom
Staff writer, desiringGod.org

The most morally beautiful, winsomely attractive command Jesus ever uttered also happens to be the most difficult to obey:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37–40)

It’s a breathtaking statement. All that God requires of us, everything Scripture contains regarding “life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3), summed up in two simple commands.

“In their simplicity, these two commands encompass everything. Obeying them, however, is anything but simple.”

In that simplicity, these two commands encompass everything. Obeying them, however, is anything but simple. And there’s the rub. Because these commands are so sweeping, they can feel overwhelming — in fact, impossible. As a result, we can assume that we’re not required to take them all that seriously. This is a serious mistake.

Is Love Even Possible?

We might wrongly assume that while obeying these commands was once humanly possible in Eden, and will once again be humanly possible in our glorified state, they are humanly impossible now in our fallen state. And so they’re really more like lofty ideals, ones we don’t need to think hard about. We might even assume their purpose is to merely reveal our inability to fulfill them and our need for Christ (Romans 7:22–25), and that as part of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, Jesus obeyed these commands perfectly on our behalf (Romans 8:3–4). Therefore, Jesus doesn’t really expect us to obey them now.

While it’s true that Jesus purchased our justification through his perfect obedience, what Paul wrote in Romans 13:9 and Galatians 5:14, and what James wrote in James 2:8, make it clear that the apostles believed Jesus expects us to seriously seek to love God with our whole being and love our neighbor as ourselves — now, in this age, even today.

Who Models Discipleship for You?

The community around us either confirms or confronts our faulty assumptions about love. We often allow our peers to inordinately determine for us what discipleship looks like. If many Christians around us assent to but don’t rigorously apply these two great commands, their example can influence us to implicitly assume Jesus wants us to affirm his commands’ ideal rightness, but doesn’t really expect us to work hard in consistently living them out.

But as Paul’s rebuke of Peter in Galatians 2 illustrates, peer influence can lead us into serious disobedience. The whole New Testament witness bears out that it’s precisely the radical way we live out Jesus’s love commands, all of which are essentially expositions of these Great Commandments, that demonstrate we are his disciples (John 13:35).

“The most morally beautiful, winsomely attractive command Jesus ever uttered also happens to be the most difficult to obey.”

We must not allow these facts — that these commands are difficult to obey, that we aren’t ultimately justified by our obedience, or that others around us fail to obey them — to form our assumption that Jesus doesn’t expect us to seriously obey them. Because he does. In fact, he expects us to structure our lives around obeying them.

How in the World?

This brings us back to how overwhelming these commandments can feel. If we take them seriously, they force us to ask, How in the world am I supposed to obey them? That’s exactly the right question to ask ourselves.

Have you ever spent serious time meditating on these commands to love?

I don’t mean merely listening to sermons, lectures, and podcasts about them, or reading numerous books and articles about them, and forming the right theological answers. For Christian teachers who produce such resources (I’m preaching to myself as I write this), I don’t mean merely putting in the arduous work of historical-grammatical and hermeneutical research and developing effective homiletical or literary communication skills in order to accurately understand and teach this text within your systematic theological framework. Don’t misunderstand me: these are important. But they don’t necessarily result in rigorous real-life obedience.

I mean, have you ever spent hours seriously pondering and working out specifically what it means for you to intentionally pursue loving God with your whole being in the tiny part of the world where God has placed you, and loving your neighbor as yourself among the eternally significant souls whom God has placed there too — especially needy ones, perhaps even an “enemy” (Matthew 5:44), maybe one you come upon along the road, so to speak (Luke 10:25–37)? Jesus doesn’t mean for us to be paralyzed by these all-encompassing commandments; he means for them to form our fundamental approach to life. He means for each of us to seriously ask how in the world we are to obey them and put in the rigorous effort of prayerfully discerning what obedience might specifically mean for us.

And he has by no means left us without help. He has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide us (John 16:13), the gift of the New Testament to provide plenty of examples of breaking down these sweeping commands into specific applications, and the gift of one another in the church to assist us in pursuing this “more excellent way” of life (1 Corinthians 12:31).

Count the Cost

It isn’t until we have pondered what these commandments truly demand of us that we can determine if we’re truly willing to pay what it costs. Jesus says as much:

Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? (Luke 14:28)

Jesus said this after declaring what his commandments cost his disciples: they must renounce everything. It’s a high cost.

But the cost itself is an expression of love. Our renunciation isn’t primarily about how much asceticism we’re willing to endure for Jesus’s sake; it’s about where our treasure is and how much we love it (Matthew 6:21). Which is why Paul wrote, “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). Jesus’s call, to paraphrase Jim Elliott, is for us to give up what we cannot keep, to gain what we cannot lose.

If You Love Me

Jesus’s commands to love — these most morally beautiful, winsome imperatives — are the most difficult, most costly words to obey.

That’s why at the end of his Sermon on the Mount, after giving specific examples of what a life of love looks like, Jesus says, “The way is hard that leads to life” (Matthew 7:14). And it’s why one of the last things Jesus said to his disciples before his crucifixion was John 15:12–13:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

When we read that statement, especially in the light of something he said just minutes before — “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15) — we can hear both the echo of Jesus’s two great commandments and his expectation that we take them with the utmost, life-shaping seriousness.

Pursuing living a life of love.  It is certainly not easy but one the we are commanded to live and one which brings both joy and suffering.  Seeking the very heart of God, to live as Jesus lived, is fulfilling our greatest purpose in life.  And will bring the greatest eternal reward.  Let us love!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 18, 2021

Grief doesn’t come with a handbook.

There are guidelines, of course — clinical scales that help determine phases of denial, anger, acceptance, and a few others.

And while a useful tool, serving in some ways as an emotional mile marker, these scales follow anything but a linear order. Grief invokes chaos, shuffling these “steps” and “phases” out of line and often leaving us disoriented and internally off-balance.

Acceptance is the one step in the five clinical stages of grief that felt impossible to me. Denial, depression, even bargaining seemed to take their places at different times on different days.

Anger, though rare, certainly reared its head in moments as well.

But I remember sitting on my counselor’s deep-cushioned couch, staring at the word acceptance written on her whiteboard and thinking, Impossible.

It seemed so final. So permanent. Like giving up my will to fight in the bloodiest battle I’d ever endured. I rarely concede, and I hate the idea of throwing in the towel. It feels so unnatural not only because it is grossly incompatible with our culture but also because it seems like a personal affront to my strength and fortitude and ability to survive. We live in a white-knuckle world with white-flag disdain. Surrender is weakness, defeat, and vulnerability.

Surrender meant admitting that Ben was really gone.

But in the wake of any kind of loss, we must eventually accept what we can’t change or control. We do this by consciously putting our pain in the hands of the Savior.

You see, in the Kingdom of God, submission is gloriously upside down. Getting low actually lifts you up. The power of surrender in Christ comes from knowing the one who has already laid everything down. Surrender takes every ounce of burden off of us.

Death + Jesus = life.

Sin + Jesus = salvation.

Heartbreak + Jesus = restoration.

And our job is to give it all to Him and get out of the way. Our job is to stop trying and keep trusting. Our job is to believe Jesus when He said, “It is finished,” even though we’re stuck in a nightmare that feels like it will never end (John 19:30). Jesus said,

If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for Me, you will find it. — Matthew 10:39

This was a tough truth for me to face — a difficult command in and of itself but unfathomable in the midst of grieving my husband. It wasn’t the answer I wanted. It also isn’t the answer the world gives.

Jesus doesn’t tell me to fight harder or stay busy; He tells me to give my sorrow to Him and be still. Give Him the hurt, the questions, the fear, and watch Him work.

But as the days slipped further and further from my last with Ben and everyone else’s lives marched on, I felt as though my only hope was to hold tighter, to cling with everything I had, so the world wouldn’t forget his memory and time wouldn’t continue widening the gap between us. I’d convinced myself that maybe if I held on tight enough, if I kept my life just how it was before the day he died, I might be okay.

The first thing I had to surrender was the grief itself. I thought I had.

My prayers and Instagram posts and coffee conversations with people said I had. I truly was doing the best I could, and I continued to praise God along the way. But as hard as I tried, I made plenty of mistakes. The world kept praising me for how well I was handling everything, but behind those praises, I felt like a fraud. I knew all the moments I’d snapped and yelled at my parents or sisters for no reason. I knew the nights I’d drunk myself to sleep because I was afraid to lie awake again in our bed alone. I knew all the people I’d avoided or lied to, pretending I didn’t get their messages because I felt too depleted to talk. I knew the ways and occasions I had handled grieving far from well, and they burdened me. That behavior wasn’t who I wanted to be, and it wasn’t helpful. My deep, unaddressed pain was, as my therapist put it, “coming out sideways.”

On top of the shame I was feeling because of these sideways behaviors, grief had also totally ransomed my memory. No matter how much I strained to remember or how reflective I was, my mind seemed to have taken a complete sabbatical. I simply couldn’t remember things! I couldn’t remember times Ben and I had shared, things he’d said, even intimate physical details about him. It was like my hard drive had been erased. I felt captive to my grief and frustrated that it seemed to be getting the better of me.

Then one bitter December day, I went to see my therapist. I shared with her about my struggle to remember and the regrettable “sideways” reactions.

I kept staring at the whiteboard and at that word: acceptance. I couldn’t imagine accepting everything that had happened, but even more than that, I didn’t want to accept that I had, at times, handled my hurt so poorly. I blamed myself for making mistakes and looking so faithful to the world when I’d failed on many occasions. I’d thought I was doing well, but maybe I couldn’t handle grief as well as I thought I could.

I started to cry with frustration, eyes on the floor. Then my counselor asked me two questions: “What would Ben say to you?” and “What would Jesus say to you?”

Excerpted from Lemons on Friday: Trusting God Through My Greatest Heartbreak by Mattie Jackson Selecman, copyright Mattie Jackson Selecman.

Are you grieving? Give Jesus the hurt, the questions, the fear, and watch Him work. Heartbreak + Jesus = restoration.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 17, 2021

He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water, and came toward Jesus. — Matthew 14:29

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately… and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
~ Henry David Thoreau

Sometime ago we went on vacation to a dude ranch in Arizona.

My wife, who grew up vacationing there, insisted that my experience would not be complete until I knew the exhilaration of a truly challenging horse ride. We went on a trail ride, but it was far too tame to count as there was no possibility of falling and receiving a serious injury. The truth is that I have spent very little time around horses and have never actually met one I trusted, but of course I wasn’t about to admit that.

So the next morning I rode out with five ranch hands to take the herd of horses to pasture about three miles away. I was very interested to meet my horse du jour. Often horses receive their name from some notable aspect of their temperament; when you get a horse named Pokey or Valium, you pretty much know what to expect. My horse was named Reverse, based on his particular eccentricity of going backward anytime someone was foolish enough to pull on his reins. I made a mental note not to do that.

The trip out to the pasture was uneventful. We dropped off the herd and were on our way back when one of the ranch hands decided to make a race of the return trip. His horse took off at full gallop and the other four immediately started racing to catch up with him.

Reverse started to make his move. Instinctively, I pulled on the reins as hard as I could. Reverse rose up on his hind legs and took a few steps backward – just as Silver used to do under the Lone Ranger – and then took off like a bat out of… a cannon.

For the better part of a mile, Reverse ran a dead heat (the word dead sticks in my mind). We were not sauntering or trotting – this was all-out sprinting as in a scene from a movie. The five ranch hands were college-age guys who lived on horseback all summer long, racing their horses as fast as they could. Reverse and I passed four of them. I say “Reverse and I,” but the truth is, he was doing most of the work. I was just waiting to die. I was looking in the adjacent creek bed for the rock my head would split against once I was thrown off.

Exodus 15:1 came to mind: 

I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.

While I was wondering how Nancy would spend the life insurance policy, the strangest thing happened. I realized there was a good chance I would survive this, and then it became one of the most exhilarating moments I had all week. I had a few moments of what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow” – my own private optimal experience.

For a few moments I was completely captivated by a single activity. All I could hear was the pounding of Reverse’s hooves; all I could feel was the rush of the wind in my face and the swaying rhythm of the gallop. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the startled looks of the four horsemen of the apocalypse whom we passed up (a moment I enjoyed immensely). I felt alive – from my now-hatless head to the toes of my stirrup-straining feet. I started laughing from sheer adrenaline. By the time we pulled up to the fence, I knew this had been the ride of my life. I would not have missed this experience for anything.

Of course, when we pulled to a stop at the ranch (which to my great relief Reverse decided to do gradually), male pride would not allow me to indicate that this dash had been at all unplanned. “Yes, a decent mount,” I said. “His wind isn’t quite what it could be, perhaps, but never mind.”

My only choice had been to say yes or no to the ride. I had to decide whether I had enough faith to ride the horse.

When I mounted that horse, I did not have a clue as to what was going to happen to me. I did not know all the details of what would happen.

If I had known, I might have said no – but then I would have never known the exhilaration of the ride. Once I took a single step, once I got into the saddle, a whole world of experience was set in motion. Everything else was up to the horse. I could not control it. But I could have missed it.

Exhilaration

In some ways, the high point in the story of Peter comes in the middle of the passage. It is contained in a single phrase: Peter… started walking on the water. There are many other parts to the story – the storm; the fear that came before this and the fear that would follow; the failure and critique.

These are all important parts to the story, and we learn from them because we are familiar with storms, fear, and failure. We may ignore or deny them at our peril.

But they are not the whole story. In the middle of the passage is the remarkable occurrence: Peter walked on the water.

Peter knew the joy and freedom of experiencing God’s power after taking an enormous risk.

I think that during those moments Peter was storing up memories he would carry to his grave: the feel of the water somehow standing solid beneath his feet; the rush of the wind in his face; the startled looks of the boatmen as he passed them by (a moment I’ll bet he enjoyed immensely). I think he knew this was the walk of his life.

I wonder what might have gone on inside Peter’s mind…

I can’t believe it. Nobody thought I’d actually get out of the boat – I didn’t think I’d do it myself. When I let go of the side, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was afraid I’d die. Yet now I find myself actually doing what Jesus is doing. I don’t know how it’s working – I’m not walking any differently. Yet something – Someone – is holding me up. I think I’m beginning to understand now. It is true: He really is the One. I don’t see how things can ever be the same after this. I don’t see how I could ever settle for life in the boat again.

Most especially, I think Peter was remembering the look on Jesus’ face, because I suspect that Jesus beamed to see that one of his followers could trust him that far. I think, for as long as this walk lasted, that their eyes did not leave each other for an instant. Getting out of the boat was Peter’s great gift to Jesus; the experience of walking on water was Jesus’ great gift to Peter.

Excerpted from If You Want To Walk On Water, You’ve Got To Get Out Of The Boat by John Ortberg, copyright Zondervan.

Can you imagine that moment of stepping out of the boat? Don’t you want to experience that thrill of faith? In what area of your life do you need to get out of the boat and walk on water?

Excellent book!  If you want to get a copy or borrow mine, I encourage a reading and increasing of your faith.  Lord, I believe, increase my faith!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 16, 2021

Article by Marshall Segal

Impatience is a dark and prevalent sin that we love to explain away. We were worn out. We were busy. We were distracted. The kids were being difficult. We were carrying too much at work. Our spouse was short or cold or harsh again. We didn’t sleep well last night. What excuses do you reach for when your patience runs low?

I usually reach for tired. If only I got enough sleep and enough quiet time to myself, I often think (or even say), then I wouldn’t be so impatient. I’m a patient person who gets impatient when I’m tired. Can you hear yourself arguing that way? No, the truth is that I’m an impatient person whose impatience often crawls out of hiding when I’m exhausted. Weariness never makes any of us sin; weariness, and other pressures like it, only bring our sin to the surface (Matthew 15:11).

So where does impatience come from? At bottom, impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives.

What We Cannot Control

Impatience is a child of our pride and unbelief. It rises out of our frustration that we do not control what happens and when in our lives. We see this dynamic in the wilderness, among the people God has just delivered from slavery and oppression:

From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God. (Numbers 21:4–5)

“Impatience grows out of our unwillingness to trust and submit to God’s timing for our lives.”

Even after God had carried them out of Egypt, and walked them through the Red Sea, and wiped out their enemies behind them, and fed them with food that fell from heaven, they still grew impatient. Why? Because the life God had promised them, the kind of life they really wanted, didn’t come fast enough. The path he had chosen for them was longer and harder and more painful than they expected. They grew angry over how much they could not control. So much so, in fact, that they even began to long for the cruelty of Pharaoh — at least then, they got to choose what they ate (Exodus 16:3).

Our impatience has much in common with theirs. We don’t get to decide how much traffic there will be. We don’t get to decide whether our kids will cooperate at any given moment. We don’t get to decide when we’ll get sick, or when an appliance will fail, or how often interruptions will come. So many decisions are made for us, every single day, without our consent or even input. And God’s plans for us are famous for upending our plans for ourselves.

So when we are confronted with our lack of control, when life inevitably interrupts what we had planned, when we are forced to wait, how do we typically respond? Impatience tries to wrestle God for control, while patience gladly kneels, with hands spread wide, ready to receive all that God has planned and given. Impatience grumbles, while patience rejoices, even while it experiences real pains of delay.

So where does patience come from? If impatience is a child of our pride and unbelief, patience springs from humility, faith, and joy.

Humility Subverts Impatience

Humility subverts impatience by gladly admitting how little we can see in any given moment, however difficult or inconvenient the moment may be. As John Piper says, “God is always doing ten thousand things in your life, and you may be aware of three of them.” When we grow impatient, we overestimate our own ability to judge our circumstances, and we underestimate the good God can do through unwanted inconveniences and unexpected delays. The humble receive the same inconveniences and delays as callings, not distractions — as God revealing his will and timing to them.

The humble are patient toward God, and they are patient toward others. “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” Ephesians 4:1–2 says, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.” Humility fosters the kind of patience that love requires. Every truly loving relationship is an exhibition in patiently bearing with one another, because our sin both makes us difficult to love and keeps us from loving well.

“Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (1 Peter 5:5). Do you want to grow in patience and experience a fuller, richer stream of grace from God? Wrap yourself in humility.

Faith Subverts Impatience

If humility subverts impatience by admitting how little we can see in the midst of our trials, faith subverts impatience by holding firm to God’s promises, even when life calls them into question.

Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. (James 5:7–8)

Farming well requires waiting well, and so does living well. Faith trusts that God is both sovereign and good, that all of his promises are true in Christ, that suffering produces endurance, that Jesus really will return and make all things new, and so we can afford to wait, to bear, to be patient. The patient continue to sow, even when the ground seems hard and the harvest uncertain, because they know they will eventually reap (Galatians 6:9).

And where does James go in the next verse? “Do not grumble against one another” (James 5:9). This kind of faith subverts our impatience with one another. The farmer believes the seeds will sprout and bear fruit, so he endures the dry weeks or months with patience. The Christian believes he will soon experience fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore — and not alone, but with everyone who has ever believed — so he endures offenses from other believers. He doesn’t grumble like others would. The promise of what’s to come makes him more durable in love, more gracious in his judgments, more patient in conflict.

Joy Subverts Impatience

This faith, however, is not merely a trusting in verses, but an overflowing joy in experienced wonders. The apostle Paul prays that the church would be “strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (Colossians 1:11). The patient are not secret grumblers; they’re not simply bottling up irritation and bitterness and hiding it from others. Their patience flows out of the wells of their joy in God. They’re too happy in him to be undone by interruption or inconvenience.

Where do we see this kind of resilient joy? Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:1–2, “We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.” They did not grumble like Israel in the wilderness. They did not resent what they could not control. No, when their lives were upended and they were thrown into the fire, their joy not only held, but overflowed in generosity.

“The patient are too happy in God to be undone by interruption or inconvenience.”

The patient can wait and embrace inconvenience because whatever happens today or tomorrow or next Tuesday, their Treasure is unthreatened in heaven and therefore their joy is secure. Their happiness is not tied to their plans, so when their plans are disrupted, their happiness holds and continues pouring over in love.

Joyfully Accepting Disruption

The same miraculous patience appears in Hebrews 10:32–34:

You endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one.

They joyfully accepted the plundering of their property. They were not just willing to have their possessions vandalized and stolen because they followed Jesus, but they were glad to suffer for his sake. If we were in the same circumstances, would others be able to say the same of us? Would we so joyfully accept the plundering of our possessions, our homes, our budgets? Do we now joyfully accept the upheaval of our schedules, the derailing of our dreams, the setbacks in our work, the monotony and difficulty of our parenting, the trouble of our lives?

We will if we, like them, know that we have a better possession and an abiding one — if we know that we have God forever, and in him more than enough to endure whatever we’re called to endure for now. Patience flows from a humble embrace of what we do not know and cannot control. It flows from our deep and abiding trust that God will follow through on his promises, however unlikely that may seem at the moment. And it flows from hearts that are profoundly happy to have him as our exceeding joy.

Is this article speaking only of patience or also about being bound by this world and the things in it?  I struggle with not fighting back fiercely against tyranny and ungodliness, but in the process make myself out to be god, serving my own choices and desires.  Lord, help me to be patient, knowing that You are sovereign and that all things do work together for good to those who love You and are called according to Your purpose.  Praying for grace, mercy, and  . . . patience for all of you!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 15, 2021

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. — John 3:16 NKJV

Tuck God’s truths away in your heart. Holding on to those promises and thinking about them every day is a form of self-care that should not be underestimated. The truth is that God loves you so much He sent His only Son to die for you. Even when you feel overwhelmed, reminding yourself how deeply and unconditionally you are loved will help. This truth allows you to take a few deep breaths, slow down, and let God’s love for you surround you with comfort and peace.

Prioritize quiet time with your Father this week, and explore some of His other promises:

• Joshua 1:9

• Isaiah 26:3

• Philippians 4:7

• John 15:7

• Mark 13:11

• Romans 8:28

• 2 Corinthians 7:6

• Psalm 116:5-6

• James 1:2-3

• Deuteronomy 33:27

• Genesis 15:1

• James 4:8

• Hebrews13:5

Which of those promises is your favorite? Why?

Which of those promises have you already seen fulfilled in your life?

Talk to God

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. — Colossians 4:2

Maybe you pray when things are tough, and you pray a little less when life feels easy and it’s going your way. But your relationship with God will flourish when you talk to Him like a friend. God doesn’t just want a laundry list of your accomplishments or failures for the day. He wants to hear how you’re feeling, what is worrying you, what you’re dreaming about, and any other little thing on your mind. The more you open your heart up to Him, the more you will feel His peace and His presence in your life.

How often do you talk to God?

What do you usually pray about?

What’s something that you don’t usually talk to God about that has been burdening you? How can you start sharing that with Him?

Listen to God

The LORD will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail. — Isaiah 58:11 

Prayer is only half of what it means to have a conversation with God. If you spend all of your time talking, you miss out on the things God is trying to tell you or show you in return. Sometimes caring for your spiritual health is about being still and listening for God. He often works in ways that are mysterious, but His ways are not your ways. When God “speaks” to you, it may be subtle, like guiding you toward specific people or nudging you to read a verse in the Bible. Listening to God might mean paying attention to the things on the path before you.

The more time you can spend listening to and paying attention to God’s presence, the easier it will be to notice those little internal nudges from the Holy Spirit that steer you away from a certain choice or prompt you to go talk to a stranger.

Spend quiet time today just breathing and listening for His voice.

Is being still and listening already part of your prayer life?

If not, how can you start adding in this practice?

Have you ever heard or felt a reply from God when praying? How did it make you feel?

Excerpted from The Weekly Self-Care Project, copyright Zondervan.

Holding onto the promises of God and reminding yourself of them is a sweet form of self-care. Give yourself the gift of remembering God’s goodness, what His Word says, and how much He loves you. Take a few moments today and practice the presence of God. Just enjoy Him, tell Him your heart, listen for His voice. He loves you!

Pastor Dale