Notes of Faith November 22, 2023

Notes of Faith November 22, 2023

Gratitude Changes You

Just look at us! We’ve become overcome with gratitude! Gratitude can’t occupy the same area of space in your heart as carping and complaining. Which will it be? The truth that emerges from the center of you, from the core of your being, is revealed to you by the One who chose you, and this is worth celebrating. You’re possessed by God, you’re surrendered and blessed. As His loved child you possess all things.

It’s time to be grateful.

Look for small things to celebrate. The way your fingers move across the page of this book, the touch of sunlight on your neck, the sound of leaves scraping against the window. Pay attention to the small things and be grateful.

For who has despised the day of small things?” — Zechariah 4:10

When you purpose in your heart to be grateful, you’ll thank and praise the Lord all day long for no reason at all. You’ll thank Him for Himself alone, and that’s the purest form of gratitude to God.

You no longer need answered prayer to be grateful. You no longer require things work out the way you planned to be grateful (though we rejoice and celebrate these blessings!).

Your personhood now and forever is His, and you can exclaim with a sigh of grateful relief, “It is well with my soul.”

The studies made of the effects of gratitude on the overall well-being of a person are unanimously positive. It proves one thing: God created us to be grateful. A thankful heart frees you to love life.

Nothing opens the gates of Heaven like gratitude. In gratitude all things are yours.

In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

— 1 Thessalonians 5:18

It is good to give thanks unto the Lord, And to sing praises to your name, O Most High. — Psalm 92:1

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever. — 2 Chronicles 16:34

The purest form of gratitude to God is thanking Him for Himself alone.

Gratitude has been shown to reduce health complaints too numerous to name, but I’ve had clients tell me their ulcers have vanished, their headaches are gone, their skin has cleared up, and their bruxism (teeth grinding) has ended. Gratitude must start and end your day.

Deep inside the grateful heart is the treasure of the joy that the whole world seeks.

For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. — Deuteronomy 14:2

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. — 2 Corinthians 4:7

What do you need to be grateful?

An inmate serving a life sentence in a Texas prison wrote the following poem. He sent it to the prison ministry spearheaded by Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister.

A THANKSGIVING DANCE

I own nothing but these arms,

So I swing them,

So I clap them.

I have nothing but these legs,

So I lift them in dance.

I have nothing but my own hips,

So I sway them in a trance.

Except I may not even own this body

— but I move.

Even still I may not say where I go,

Yet I possess my soul.

“Dance, dance. Dance,” said He.

“I am Lord of the Dance” said He.

For all these I give thanks

To the One I owe,

(O my soul dance)

the fact that I exist,

that I breathe and that I know

the One from Whom all blessings flow.1

(Used by permission)

1. William Backus and Marie Chapian, Telling Yourself the Truth(Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2000), used by permission.

Excerpted from Quiet Prayer by Marie Chapian, copyright Marie Chapian.

Give thanks with a grateful heart to God, the provider and sustainer of everything for you. His grace is truly AMAZING!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 21, 2023

Notes of Faith November 21, 2023

El Shaddai

Scripture: Genesis 43:14; Psalm 131:2-3

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty [El Shaddai]... I have made you a father of many nations I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.” — Genesis 17:1, Genesis 17:5-6

And may God Almighty [El Shaddai] grant you mercy before the man so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you. — Genesis 43:14

Because of your father’s God [the el], who helps you, because of the Almighty [Shaddai], who blesses you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and womb. — Genesis 49:25

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me” Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will never forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands. — Isaiah 49:14-16

But I have stilled and quieted my soul;

like a weaned child with its mother,

like a weaned child is my soul within me O Israel, put your hope in the Lord. — Psalm 131:2-3

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. — Matthew 23:37

El Shaddai

In somewhat the same way as God is bigger than any and all of the names we can name Him, He is also bigger than the images our minds conjure of a single gender.

Scripture, in showing us facets of who God is, sometimes portrays God in terms we associate with the feminine gender.

The Hebrew name El Shaddai comes as close to capturing this aspect of God as does any of His names. The traditional translations of Scripture have consistently rendered this name “Almighty.” But to appreciate its full flavor, it will be helpful to examine its Hebrew roots.1 El is a shortened form of Elohim. It sets forth the might, the strength, and the excellence of God. Shad is the Hebrew word for “breast.” Shaddai pictures God’s fullness or bounty, His tenderness, His generosity, His desire to nurture us and make us fruitful. In one name, God’s attributes of might and tenderness are brought together!

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, El Shaddai appeared to him and said, “I have made you a father” (Genesis 17:5). Speaking in strictly human terms, it takes a woman to go to a man and say, “I’m going to make you a father!” Sometimes this announcement comes as a shock. Often the shocking aspect of this news is mingled with a great deal of joy and thanksgiving, along with some apprehension. Certainly all of these emotions were present as El Shaddai’s announcement was received.

You will be very fruitful — nations and kings will come from you.

— Genesis 17:6, paraphrase

It was Elohim Shaddai who gave birth to the nation of Israel. The prophet Isaiah described the birthing process thus:

Like a woman in childbirth I cry out, I gasp and pant. — Isaiah 42:14

Jacob is full of anxiety as he is about to send his beloved son Benjamin off to Egypt in response to the whimsical demand of the ruler who dispensed food.

May [El Shaddai] grant you mercy before the man,” he cries. — Genesis 43:14

Later, as Jacob is pronouncing God’s blessing on his son Joseph, he says,

Because of the El and the Shaddai, may you have blessings of the breast and the womb. — Genesis 49:25, paraphrase

Isaiah, in describing the love of God, says it is greater than that of a nursing mother. A unique bonding occurs as the mother holds her child close to her breast. She is the source of all the infant needs for nourishment as she holds the child close to the warmth of her body, within the sound of her heartbeat and secure in the safety of her arms.

A further dimension to this picture is added by the psalmist in Psalm 131. The psalmist feels like a weaned child. “Why am I being deprived of what, from my point of view, seems so good and so right?” he may have been asking himself. “This is what I need, God. Why can’t I have it?”

Have you ever asked God these sorts of questions?

God, who, like a mother, knows that the growing child must move beyond breast milk, still holds the child close enough to hear the divine heartbeat, allowing the child the warmth and security of being held tightly in divine arms.

Children’s questions may still be unanswered. But their souls are stilled and quieted “like a weaned child with its mother” (Psalm 131:2), because they know, without any doubt, who is holding them!

El Shaddai, almighty, tender God, hold us close to Your heart today.

This ancient name shows God simultaneously mighty and tender. Imagine God’s firm, loving hand on your back right now, leading you with intention and ultimate goodwill. Lean into God’s strength and kindness. How does that make you feel?

Robert B. Girdlestone, Synonyms of the Old Testament, reprint ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 32–34.

Excerpted from All the Glorious Names by Mary Foxwell Loeks, copyright Mary Foxwell Loeks.

Looking at the names of God given in your Bible you begin to understand His character and nature. One of my favorites is God is Love. It is His character and nature to be loving. If He were not, we certainly would be eternally punished for our debt of sin and rebellion against Him. But He did send His Son Jesus to die and rise again to offer us salvation and eternal life with Himby His grace through believing faith! What an amazing God we have!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 20, 2023

Notes of Faith November 20, 2023

You Are Already Saved

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?

Tuck God’s truths away in your heart.

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.

Did you look up any of the verses and ask God to speak to you through them? If not, please take some time to do so… you will be blessed!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 19, 2023

Notes of Faith November 19, 2023

It’s Going to Turn Out All Right

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Take courage. I am here!” — Matthew 14:27 NLT

God’s call to courage is not a call to naïveté or ignorance. We aren’t to be oblivious to the overwhelming challenges that life brings.

We must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. — Hebrews 2:1 NASB

Do whatever it takes to keep your gaze on Jesus.

When a friend of mine spent several days in the hospital at the bedside of her husband, she relied on hymns to keep her spirits up. Every few minutes, she stepped into the restroom and sang a few verses of “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” Do likewise! Memorize Scripture. Read biographies of great lives. Ponder the testimonies of faithful Christians. Make the deliberate decision to set your hope on him.

As followers of God, you and I have a huge asset. We know everything is going to turn out all right. Christ hasn’t budged from his throne, and Romans 8:28 hasn’t evaporated from the Bible. Our problems have always been his possibilities.

Feed your fears, and your faith will starve. Feed your faith, and your fears will.

We know everything is going to turn out all right. That’s the promise of Romans 8:28. But it’s hard to remember when all the possibilities of what could go wrong are swirling around us. When fear is plentiful, let’s fix our gaze on Jesus and remember this:

We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. — Romans 8:28 NKJV

God’s Promise to Me

The Lord is in control. He knows how it all turns out. And He promised it will be for my good. He will give me the courage to keep going and the hope to hold on.

*

Believe He Can

Don’t be afraid; just believe. — Mark 5:36

The presence of fear does not mean you have no faith. Fear visits everyone. Even Christ was afraid (Mark 14:33). But make your fear a visitor and not a resident. Hasn’t fear taken enough? Enough smiles? Chuckles? Restful nights, exuberant days? Meet your fears with faith.

Do what my father urged my brother and me to do. Summertime for the Lucado family always involved a trip from West Texas to the Rocky Mountains. (Think Purgatory to Paradise.) My dad loved to fish for trout on the edge of the white-water rivers. Yet he knew that the currents were dangerous and his sons could be careless. Upon arrival we’d scout out the safe places to cross the river. He’d walk us down the bank until we found a line of stable rocks. He was even known to add one or two to compensate for our short strides.

As we watched, he’d test the stones, knowing if they held him, they’d hold us. Once on the other side, he’d signal for us to follow.

“Don’t be afraid,” he could have said. “Trust me.”

We children never needed coaxing. But we adults often do. Does a river of fear run between you and Jesus? Cross over to Him.

Believe He can. Believe He cares.

Does the path ahead look uncertain, even frightening? Maybe this image will help. When a father leads his four-year-old son down a crowded street, he takes him by the hand and says, “Hold on to me.” He doesn’t say, “Memorize the map.” Or, “Take your chances dodging the traffic.” Or, “Let’s see if you can find your way home.” The good father gives the child one responsibility: “Hold on to my hand.” When fears threaten your faith, remember this:

My Scripture of Hope

You go before me and follow me. You place Your hand of blessing on my head. — Psalm 139:5 NLT

God’s Promise to Me

I don’t have to live afraid. Because God cares. He holds my hands and leads me safely to Him.

Excerpted from Calm Moments for Anxious Days by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.

Depending on God is never easy. We want to accomplish tasks and think we did it all by ourselves. Pride is the issue. Feeling that we don’t need anyone is the issue. We can do nothing without God! But we can do anything with Him!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 18, 2023

Notes of Faith November 18, 2023

Some of you may have noticed that you three “Notes of Faith” today. I left for Kentucky on the 16th of November and did not have a working computer until now. Though I may not get tomorrows edition out early, I hope to get it completed on the correct day. Pastor Dale

Getting Comfortable with the Reality of Flawed Friends

Most modern friendships last only until the first conflict. Like plastic cups, we toss them out and just grab new ones. But why would we expect deep relationships without deep conflict?

Here is the thing about your friends: they are sinners. Here is the thing about you as a friend: you are too.

This means all of our friendships and communities have the same active ingredient: sinful people like us. So we should not be surprised in the least that we hurt one another. Often deeply. On the contrary, we should expect to be hurt by our friends.

This is, at first, counterintuitive. It is easy to get caught up in romanticized visions of friends who have no conflict, share only laughter, aren’t bogged down with the ordinary pains of life, and are deeply grateful for one another’s commitment.

The problem with that vision is that it’s a total lie.

To be friends with sinners is our only option. You should expect to be friends with people who are downright selfish, who don’t care for you exactly the way you hoped, who miss opportunities, and who let you down. The question is,

What do we do with the painful reality that friendship hurts?

We will answer that question momentarily, but to ignore the question is to entertain a false vision of friendship without conflict. A false vision of friendship (like a false vision of marriage or a false vision of church community) is the greatest enemy to the real thing.

Bonhoeffer saw this when he wrote Life Together. In a work that is otherwise soaring with encouragement and hopefulness, his passages on false visions of community are the strongest rebukes in the whole text. “Innumerable times a whole community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God’s grace speedily shatters such dreams.”1

I love that Bonhoeffer sees the shattering of our false visions as a grace.

He is right. We often forget that it is our failures that God uses as the means for encountering grace. On hearing the voice of God in his own struggle, Paul writes, “

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.2

That logic of grace does not change on a communal level.

You may think that conflict with your friends is the barrier to deeper friendship. But that is true only if you do not practice forgiveness.

With forgiveness, conflict in friendship is the doorway to communal grace.

TO BE FRIENDS WITH SINNERS IS OUR ONLY OPTION.

Forgiveness is for us as much as it is for our friends who hurt us.

Practicing Forgiveness

The reasons to forgive are eminently practical.

Relationships cannot exist without forgiveness.

Either we forgive or we fall apart; there is no middle ground.

Given that all good friends will eventually hurt you, if you do not practice forgiveness, you will either be stuck in a cycle of endless resentment or never have a true friendship at all. In a moment that has elevated the spirit of cancel culture and downplayed the beauty of forgiveness, it is no surprise that so many are drifting into the loneliness of resentment. Here again we must swim against the current if we are to have friendships at all.

But even more than practical, forgiveness is profound. Here is the strange reversal:

forgiveness is for us as much as it is for our friends who hurt us.

In His parable of the unmerciful servant, Jesus told of a man whose debt was mercifully forgiven, but then the man went on to mercilessly demand repayment from others.3 The way he treated others showed that the servant didn’t understand what had happened to him.

The most important reason we forgive others is to reexperience the way Jesus has forgiven us. We learn it by practicing it.

Importantly, our forgiveness is not predicated on our friends’ apologies. We don’t forgive one another because of how good the apologies are, we forgive one another because Christ has forgiven us.4

In practice, this does not mean pretending your friends did not hurt you but rather first acknowledging that they did. Then, instead of inflicting pain to make them pay, you bear the burden of the pain. This is the logic of our salvation: Christ bore our burden so we wouldn’t have to. It is also how friendships work.5

I recently had a difficult conversation with a friend I needed to forgive. It began with a text saying, “Can we talk?” I recommend that. If there is someone in your life you need to forgive, then initiate with them. What happened next was we set aside an evening to be face-to-face and say the things we were hurt by. Unsurprisingly, there were mutual errors, and I had to apologize too. Also unsurprisingly, I didn’t get the perfect apology I craved. Yet remarkably, we left in forgiveness, with imperfect apologies accepted, and continue to work toward deeper friendship.

Without the practice of forgiveness, I know we would both still be burning in anger, incessantly turning over in our heads the things that were said, consumed by perceived slights. That is who we become without forgiveness. But because of the grace of Jesus for us, this conflict became the doorway to deeper grace. This friend and I have found a second chance and a more tender friendship.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community, trans. John W. Doberstein (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978), 26. To continue the quote: “Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves. By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.” (Ibid., 26–27.)

2 Corinthians 12:9.

Matthew 18:21–35.

Ephesians 4:32.

We will talk more about when it is healthy to leave a friendship, or what to do when someone is unhealthy and hurting others, but it does not change the primacy of forgiveness. Even in friendships that have to end, forgiveness should be extended first.

Excerpted from Made for People by Justin Whitmel Earley, copyright Avodah, LLC.

Wow! I never knew I was flawed even if I did notice a friend or two that was not quite perfect. All kidding aside, we have our deepest relationships when we realize that we are all sinful and need to forgive and be forgiven. Amazing how God shows us the way to do this, isn’t it? Just do it! Okay, enough of that. But we do need to forgive and ask for forgiveness and grow deep friendships.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 17, 2023

Notes of Faith November 17, 2023

Grief: Heads Up, Hands Off

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

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.

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.

God’s power is perfected in our weakness! We must give God our weaknesses and then let God work! In our grief, pain, suffering, we all too often try to solve things that we could not possibly solve. But God can! Let Him help you…

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 16, 2023

Notes of Faith November 16, 2023

Worship That Makes Dead Things Alive

Read Ezekiel 37:1–10.

I’m writing this on the heels of a really discouraging conversation. A friend I love has lost his faith in God — in His love, in His Word, in His existence.

His arrival at this place wasn’t sudden. It involved a journey of both of us watching the things he held precious get taken away. This loss includes watching what he thought his life was going to be give way over the years to what his life has become. As I listened to him, and as I ponder it now, I have nothing but empathy and sadness for him. To be honest, I’m cheating an eye upward — an accusatory side-glance to Heaven:

God, where were You? God, where are You?

I’m searching for a metaphor for what I’m feeling. I started with the picture of me standing by my friend’s hospital bed, hearing the beeping of the machines that are keeping him on life support. But that metaphor doesn’t go far enough. There’s still a bit too much hope in a situation like that. Really, it feels like I’m standing at my friend’s graveside. Past the point of hope.

A lot of people who come through the doors of the church carry dire stories in their hearts, often sealed in a chamber just under the surface. They might be like me — carrying the burden of the spiritual death of a loved one. Or they might be carrying their own deadness or the grief of a dead situation. Either way, it’s a feeling of utter hopelessness. It’s not 99 percent despair and 1 percent hope. It’s not life support. It’s death.

Sometimes we must strain through tears to remember that God works with dead things.

Dead things even seem to be God’s choice creative raw materials. The prophet Ezekiel shows us this. At the end of this story stands a strong, healthy army, but the raw materials aren’t wounded soldiers but bones. And the Bible wants to make it doubly clear how dead these raw materials are. These are dry bones. No tissue, no life, no moisture left.

God works with dead things.

So how does God do it? Well, He does it through a regular feature of a worship service: the proclamation of the Word of God. God interrogates Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?” Ezekiel’s answer is funny: “O Lord God, You know.” It sounds like a respectful way of saying, “Of course not! They’re bones! But I’m not about to say that to You, because You’re God.” And so God tells Ezekiel to proclaim, to prophesy. And as God’s Spirit moves Ezekiel to proclaim the Word of the Lord, dead things come alive.

It takes the rest of the Bible to fill out just how this moment worked. We must journey to the other end of the Scriptures to realize that any and all death-raising comes from the power of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God (John 1:1) and whom Paul calls the “firstfruits” of all subsequent resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20, 23). When Ezekiel prophesied, he was ultimately preaching the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ — who He is and what He has done. This is what hearing the Word of the Lord always ultimately means.

Worship services, at their best, are always held at gravesides.

God loves camping out with His people in valleys of dry bones. Why? Because worship services are places of prophecy, Spirit-filled locations where the Word of God can be unleashed to do resurrection work. Worship songs and hymns that sing the Word and allude to the Word; prayers saturated with the Word; sermons that preach the Word; sacraments and ordinances that give the Word to our five senses — they’re all, through the Spirit, packed with resurrection power.

Sometimes a service filled with that Word reminds our despairing hopelessness that there is hope, even at a graveside. When we’re reminded of the power of the resurrecting Word, we’re filled with hope that God can take the dead things in the world and bring them to life again. And so we can turn to prayer, particularly to ask the Holy Spirit to unleash the Word to faithfully do this hope-giving, life-inspiring work. And maybe, just maybe, a resurrection will be waiting for us on the other side of our dry-boned valleys.

Prayer

Aim your prayers in this direction:

Pray for the Holy Spirit to both “bring you out” into the valley where the deadness can be identified, and to fill all the elements of worship to proclaim the resurrecting Word.

Pray for silent sufferers who bring their despair into the worship service undetected. Ask the Lord to minister to their pain and to open the eyes of people around them to their need.

Pray bold prayers, asking for divine and miraculous intervention in any of the impossible dead places in your life or in the life of your church.

Excerpted from Before We Gather by Zac Hicks, copyright Zachary M. Hicks.

Good food for thought. We were dead in trespasses and sin and made alive through Jesus Christ and His work, paying our sin debt, and placing His righteousness to our account. Try some of these suggestions above.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 15, 2023

Notes of Faith November 15, 2023

Eternal Perspective or the Black Dot on the String

Perspective can be thought of as the way we think about life. Think about life in terms of its brevity. If eternity were a string of yarn wrapped all the way around the world, our life is briefer than a single dot placed anywhere along that yarn with a marker. We can live with just that black dot on the yarn as our understanding about life, or we can form our understanding of our black dot of life considering the rest of the miles of string.

Viewing this life in light of eternity will ultimately bring more joy in the present.

How do we gain an eternal perspective? It starts with knowing Scripture. Michael and I are both passionate advocates for biblical literacy, which is why our first co-authorship was a book on that subject titled Not What You Think: Why the Bible Might Be Nothing We Expected Yet Everything We Need. We know the power of God’s Word. We don’t point people to Scripture for the sake of knowledge alone but for the sake of seeing their lives transformed as they strengthen their relationship and deepen their intimacy with God.

Our current culture, Christians included, has the lowest biblical literacy score ever recorded in the United States.1 According to the American Bible Society’s annual report, Bible engagement in America has been mostly trending downward since 2014. Every year it has maintained or gone down by one or two percentage points until 2021, when engagement increased by 2 percent. Most interestingly, in 2022 the percentage of Americans engaging in the Bible decreased by 10 percent. That means roughly twenty-six million Americans reduced or discontinued their engagement with the Bible in one year.2

Bible engagement matters. If people of faith don’t know what the Bible says, they can’t apply its truth as the foundation that shapes their ability to have an eternal perspective.

A Christian’s belief about God matters because with proper theology, our hearts can respond to God and our lives can be shaped by truth.3

There is a significant misunderstanding in our biblically illiterate culture about what the Bible teaches. Consider a recent report from Ligonier Ministries on the state of theology, which shows that in a broad survey of Americans, 67 percent of people agree that God accepts the worship of all religions, 53 percent say that Jesus was a great teacher but not God, 71 percent agree that “everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God,” and only 51 percent agree that “the Bible is accurate in all it teaches.”4

According to research from 2022, 63–69 percent of Americans identify as Christian.5 While this means that nearly three out of four claim Christianity as their religious preference, that statistic represents a significant decline from the early 1990s, when 90 percent of Americans identified as Christian.6

The Top of Our Heart’s Desire

For believers, having an eternal perspective comes from knowing what God says through His Word, the Bible; knowing what it teaches; and identifying how that is relevant for your life. When we are left with only an earthly perspective, then we live life trying to get all we can out of that tiny “black dot” of life, and the ups and downs in this short life are the only thing we have to affect how we feel.

Living with only the black dot in mind will move our hearts to become more desperate for what we can hold on to and control in this world.

Whenever I think about the loss of the son I expected to adopt, if I am in the mindset of the black dot — meaning that I’m stuck in my earthly circumstances alone — the pain of the here and now is all I can see. I question God. I want to find happiness in this life, and having my son would have brought that. So why did God take him away?

On the flip side, when I’m able to step back to consider things in light of eternity, I view the situation differently, taking into account what God might be doing in my son’s life that I’m not privy to because I don’t see all that God sees. I can also see my pain in light of the hopeful future that is mine, knowing God will use it and work it together for His good. Developing my trust in God’s providence is the key to finding peace in this life because we have more to live for than our earthly circumstances.

When Jesus spoke to His disciples about this earthly and heavenly divide, He said,

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

— Matthew 6:19–21

In verse 24 Jesus reminded us that ultimately

no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

The word “money” is translated from the Greek word for mammon, which can mean riches, money, possessions, or property.7 The passage teaches us that we can’t have our heart devoted to two masters simultaneously, for one master will always trump the other.

We may have many different things we love and serve to varying degrees in life, but only one can take top spot. If that sole master is earthly — money, power, pleasure... and also family, parenting, ministry work, serving others — then our hearts can’t focus on our treasures being found in heaven. In claiming our best time and energy, they also take our hearts.

Viewing this life in light of eternity will ultimately bring more joy in the present.

Whole-Heart Commitment

Our identity is not made for an earthly gaze. Saint Augustine touched on this concept long before I did when he wrote, “Our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.”8 As image bearers created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), our heart’s very identity and desire is for our Creator, not the created. We are made to reflect God so that we can bring His glory into our world. Doing anything less than that will never bring us fulfillment and purpose.

God requires the whole heart, not our split attention.

Focusing on earthly things as ultimate will bring anxiety; centering our hearts on the eternal will bring not only treasures in Heaven someday but also greater peace and enjoyment in life here and now.

CENTERING OUR HEARTS ON THE ETERNAL WILL BRING NOT ONLY TREASURES IN HEAVEN BUT GREATER PEACE AND ENJOYMENT RIGHT NOW.

Maybe your life isn’t centered on possessions and money but instead revolves around your relationships. Relationships aren’t possessions and wealth, but even so, they can become idols when we value them more than we value God. To value the relationships in our lives is good and right, but when those relationships, like possessions and money, take our gaze off God and onto worldly things, we are idolizing something we are not meant to worship.

Shifting our perspective from the temporal to the eternal is a daily practice that changes everything. Ultimately the perspective shift to the eternal is a shift that focuses on Jesus, our greatest treasure. In his letter to the Philippian church, the apostle Paul wrote,

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ. — Philippians 3:8

Paul certainly had his fair share of suffering and hardship. He had faced death, been beaten and shipwrecked, and endured a variety of other hardships in his life — yet he still maintained his posture of gratitude (2 Corinthians 11:23–27). Paul’s hope was in Christ. He was looking to eternity and finding intimacy with God through the hardships and pain he faced in life.

Paul knew we would be wrestling between this earthly and heavenly perspective, admitting that

for we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in Heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling.

He then made this acknowledgment:

For we live by faith, not by sight. — 2 Corinthians 5:1–2, 7

We must walk in what we believe about eternity, not by what we see on this earth.

I don’t mean to sound trite or to imply that we should brush off the very real grief and hardships we will experience in this life. They are real and ridiculously tough. But while we acknowledge them, we must not forget to direct our hearts toward the hope we have in God and in His promises.

1. State of the Bible 2023, American Bible Society, accessed May 4, 2023, PDF, https://sotb.research.bible.

2. State of the Bible 2023, x.

3. Matt Capps, “Why Theology Matters,” Lifeway Research, August 3, 2015. https://research.lifeway.com/2015/08/03/why-theology-matters/

4. Ligonier Ministries, Ligonier State of Theology 2022, Lifeway Research, September 2022, PDF, https://research.lifeway.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Ligonier-State-of-Theology-2022-Full-Report.pdf

5. Gregory A. Smith, “About Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated,” Pew Research Center, December 14, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/12/14/about-three-in-ten-u-s-adults-are-now-religiously-unaffiliated/ ; Jeffrey M. Jones, “How Religious Are Americans?,” Gallup, December 23, 2021, https://news.gallup.com/poll/358364/religious-americans.aspx.

6. “How U.S. Religion Composition Has Changed in Recent Decades,” Pew Research Center, September 13, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-u-s-religious-composition-has-changed-in-recent-decades/

7. Strong’s Greek Concordance, s.v. “3126. mamónas,” BibleHub, accessed May 4, 2023, https://biblehub.com/greek/3126.htm

8. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 1, 1.5, archived on The Holy See, accessed May 4, 2023, https://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20020821_agostino_en.html

Excerpted from Beyond Our Control by Lauren & Michael McAfee, copyright Lauren and Michael McAfee.

I have asked of God that my perspective of life be not confined to the here and now but one that takes in a complete eternal understanding. It does bring greater peace and hope in the promises of God. I pray that you too, can focus on an eternal perspective so that the chaos and sin of this world does not drag you down with it.

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 14, 2023

Notes of Faith November 14, 2023

Who Jesus Is

When I was growing up, Madonna once said, “Jesus Christ was like a movie star, my favorite idol of all.”1

Napoleon Bonaparte went further: “I know men, and I tell you Jesus Christ was not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is between Christianity and other religions the distance of infinity.”²

And then there was novelist H. G. Wells: “I am an historian, I am not a believer. But, this penniless preacher from Galilee is irresistibly the centre of history.”³

There has never been a human quite like Jesus. He towers above us all in goodness and courage, in impact and influence. The greatest artists, leaders, and thinkers, all put together, are dwarfed by Him.

Yet Jesus did not come to impress us. He said He had come to save us, in total humility, as God come down among us. If He is who He says He is, and the Gospel is real, then this is very good news. He simply wants us to learn to reach out and trust Him to help and calm us, to forgive and restore us. If we are to live fully and empowered, then this has to be the first step.

So wherever you are with God — whether you are searching, are wanting more, or have turned your back and are walking away — this verse is truth:

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

Jesus wants us to learn to reach out and trust Him to help and calm us, to forgive and restore us.

Who Was Jesus?

At some point in life, most people find themselves asking this simple question. We all have to make up our minds, just as people did back when He was walking on earth. For them — and us too — there seem to be only three credible, possible answers:

He is out of His mind. (Mark 3:21)

He is possessed by Beelzebul! (Mark 3:22)

[He is] the Son of God. (Mark 3:11)

In other words, He was either insane, evil, or God.

I used to think, Couldn’t He simply have been a good teacher and good guy? But then I looked at His life and words. Do good teachers repeatedly claim to be God? Do they claim to be one with the Father? Do they say they have come to die for all of mankind? Do they raise people from the dead and walk on water and calm storms? Those are strong claims and strong deeds.

S. Lewis reasoned that “a man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be [insane]… or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice… But, let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”4

Who we decide Jesus is to us is a big question with big implications for our lives. But if we study the overwhelming and compelling evidence and then choose to believe that He is who He said He is—if we can take that leap of faith and ask, “Are You really there, and are You really good?”—it can be the start of an incredible journey and adventure. An adventure into life.

That’s why the offer He made two thousand years ago still stands for us today:

Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. — Matthew 11:28

Even today, for you and me, right now — that invitation has the power to change everything. If we let Him, He seeks us, saves us, strengthens us, supports us, and shows us how to live every day.

1. Scott Cohen, “Madonna: The 1985 ‘Like a Virgin’ Cover Story,” Spin, May 1985.

2. Clayton Kraby, “Napoleon Bonaparte’s View of Jesus,” Reasonable Theology, https://reasonabletheology.org/napoleon-bonapartes-view-of-jesus/.

3. Thomas A. Harris, I’m OK—You’re OK (New York: Quill, 2004).

4. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001). Mere Christianity: copyright © C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. 1942, 1943, 1944, 1952. Extracts reprinted by permission.

Excerpted from Soul Fuel by Bear Grylls, copyright BGV Global Limited.

We have a focus of life at our church, “It’s All About Jesus!” We even had shirts printed sharing this truth. Everyone must respond to the question, “Who do you say that I am?” That choice will decide your eternal destiny, living with Jesus in the glory of heaven in joy and peace, or suffering in hell, in agony and pain forever separated from the One who gave you life. Choose wisely!

Pastor Dale

Notes of Faith November 13, 2023

Notes of Faith November 13, 2023

We Have Sinned and Grown Old

Seeing Through Six-Year-Old Eyes

Article by Marshall Segal

Staff writer, desiringGod.org

One afternoon this summer, my 6-year-old came running through the house to find me. His eyes were wild with excitement. “Dad, you’ve got to come look — right now. Come look, come look, come look! Hurry, you’re going to miss it!”

We raced back to the living room, to the big window looking out over our backyard. From the day we moved in, that window has been our favorite room in the house. My son’s eyes searched one of the trees, searching and searching, and then he saw it again. “Dad, there! There! Do you see it? Do you see it?” And I did. Probably 25 feet up in one of our tallest trees was the backside of a big raccoon, comfortably perched out on one of the branches.

I mean, at first, we assumed it was a raccoon (too big to be a squirrel, too small to be a bear, too fat and furry to be a bird). We sat transfixed, watching that rear end — waiting for the animal to eat, or climb, or fall, or even just scratch an itch. Then it moved. Its tail swung down where we could see it, with its trademark black and gray stripes. “Dad, its tail! It is a raccoon!”

As I looked in my son’s eyes — and there was so much in those eyes — I saw a wisdom I once had and now sometimes struggle to remember. For that moment, he was my teacher, and I was his son.

Monotony or Creativity?

For the “mature” like me, raccoons are almost immediately a nuisance. They make homes under porches and climb down into chimneys. They tear away shingles and break holes in walls. When we see them, we reach for the phone to pay someone to come and remove them. Within a business day, if possible.

When my children see a raccoon, they see an entirely different creature. They’re not worried at all about the structural integrity of porches or the possibility of a four-legged home invasion. To them, animal control may as well be the KGB (just watch any animated movie with animal control workers). No, when they see a raccoon, it may as well be a triceratops. They don’t see problems; they see curiosities. They ask questions (lots of them): Where did he get his stripes? Why is he sleeping during the day? Does he have any friends? Can I pet him? We see trouble; they see beauty. We see monotony; they see creativity. We see a nuisance; they see a story.

Oh, how much we might learn from them, how much more we might see through their eyes. G.K. Chesterton writes,

Children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. (Orthodoxy, 81)

What 6-Year-Olds See

I recently felt my flabby imagination when our family went to pick KinderKrisp apples at a local orchard. Having tasted apples every week of their lives, it was our children’s first chance to actually grab one from a tree.

You could see their minds spinning, trying to connect the dots — they knew both apples and trees, but could not imagine them holding hands like this. They stared up in amazement as branches like the ones they’ve found in our front yard now reached out, wrapped in bright green cardigans, and nearly handed them the juicy red fruit. And, of course, they tasted better than any we ever bought from one of those bins at the store.

“God made a world even God could admire.”

To our shame, my wife and I weren’t connecting dots anymore. We were just trying to keep our kids from throwing apples at each other or bothering the innocent bystanders filling bags around us. So which of us saw the actual reality of the orchard? Who saw the apples as they really are — the 6-year-old or the 36-year-old? Chesterton weighs in,

When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o’clock. We must answer that it is magic. . . . The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, “charm,” “spell,” “enchantment.” They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. (71–72)

Our decades-long familiarity with this magic doesn’t make creation any less magical.

That we’ve watched God do his magic over and over and over again, doesn’t make it less miraculous. That we can begin to predict what will happen — birds from eggs, apples from trees, rainbows from storms — doesn’t suddenly render any of it “natural.” As much as modern science might have us think otherwise, nothing in all of creation is on autopilot. No, the Son of God “upholds the universe,” every apple of every kind in every orchard, “by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3) — even the ones in those store-bought bins.

God Has Not Grown Old

In this way, our cute, “naïve” children are our theology professors. Watch as Chesterton traces a typical boy’s imagination into heaven:

Grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. (81–82)

Don’t believe him? Then let God tell you in his own words:

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. . . . God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. . . . And God saw that it was good. . . . And God saw that it was good. . . . And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. (Genesis 1:3–31)

God made a world even God could admire. And we only assume he eventually got bored with it all because we’re not him, because we don’t see this world like he does — because we assume he’s like us.

“Give yourself some space to be curious again, to ask the questions you haven’t asked in decades.”

If you understand what Chesterton’s saying, you can’t see a sunset the same. It’s even more stunning when you realize (as a pastor once showed me) that God not only paints a new sunset for us every 24 hours, but that as the world spins, he’s always painting sunsets. He never puts the brush down. Somewhere in the world, right now, he’s ushering the sun below the horizon again, conducting her slowly with his brush, mixing in oranges, purples, and blues.

And as he does, his heart soars over what he sees. Because when it comes to sunsets, God is more my son than he is me.

Remember That You Forget

This dulling dynamic in adults is rooted in a subtle but dangerous forgetfulness. Chesterton warns us that, in the end, all of this is really not about raccoons, apples, and sunsets:

We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forgot. (74)

Have you been lulled into forgetfulness? Have you even forgotten that you’ve forgotten? Have the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things slowly choked out your ability for awe and wonder? Then find an orchard or a local park. Go outside at dusk. Take that walk you’ve wanted to take. Be on the lookout for the bunnies, squirrels, birds, and bugs you’ve trained yourself to ignore. Give yourself some space to be curious again, to ask the questions you haven’t asked in decades.

And if you happen to have one, take a 6-year-old with you.

I do love God’s creation and His involvement in it constantly lifts my spirit heavenward. The excitement of children is wonderful to participate in. It may take some time to figure out what they see, think, or are describing that has them so excited. But once we enter into their imagination or awe and wonder of something, we too, can enjoy simple things God brings our way with a child-like heart. Try it today. Let your mind go back to the simple thoughts and expressions of a six-year-old. What powerful and amazing glory God reveals to us every day that we take for granted. Acting your age may be for those who cannot see the glory of God. As for me, I want to gather my grandchildren and enjoy the wonder that they see in the world around them!

Pastor Dale