Philosophy of Life and Ministry
[Acts 20:24] “But I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself, so that I may finish my course and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly of the gospel of the grace of God.”
Everybody lives for something or someone. Children often live to please their parents. The athlete lives to please his coach. A spouse might live to please their husband or wife and children. An employee labors to please his boss. The CEO works to please a board of directors. Let’s face it, some people live to please no one else other than themselves.
It is amazing the things people live for and invest their lives in. Some get caught up in saving extinct trees or animals. Others are consumed with civil rights and politics. There are some people who expend untold amounts of energy building a legacy to carry on after they are gone. Some work endless hours to build empires that eventually will be passed on to someone else.
Paul’s philosophy of life and ministry are captured in Acts 20:24. Notice how different it is from most philosophies of life and ministries. Paul right at the heart of it all minces no words and parts company with all who seek to lavish their lifestyles with comforts, securities, and accolades. He says, “I do not consider my life of any account as dear to myself…” The word “dear” means valuable, costly, honored, or esteemed.
Think about how many live their lives in order to be highly esteemed and honored by others. Paul was not concerned with any of that. In fact, he repeatedly wrote that he chose to die to those things. “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I might gain Christ.” [Phil 3:7-8]
Christ is the one who deserves to be honored, treasured, and highly esteemed in our lives. He is the one who should be the focal point rather than us counting our lives as dear in the eyes of others. Many may not struggle at that point but most will fall prey to the trap of counting our lives dear to ourselves. We have ongoing love affairs with ourselves day in and day out. We consider our lives valuable to us and worth whatever price luxury, riches, convenience, pleasure, and comfort requires. We are enamored with the American dream and see God’s dreams as inconvenient, risky, and completely out of touch with reality.
Where are the men and women who do not count their lives dear to themselves? I know there are some because young men and women often sacrifice the American dream to follow God’s dream to some foreign nation and readjust their lives to a foreign culture all for the sake of serving Christ. Such people are often considered extremist. What a shame that normal New Testament Christianity is now considered radical and extreme. The truth is that few have learned the secret of not counting our lives dear. That secret can be learned from Paul in [Gal 2:20] and [Gal 6:14]. Crucifying our lives in exchange for the life of Christ to be lived through us is the secret. Hudson Taylor, the devoted missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, called it the exchanged life. When a person experiences this reality it is easy to relinquish the reigns of our lives over to the one who died to set us free from the domain of darkness and the slavery of sin. We die a spiritual death that results in a yielded life as a devoted slave of Christ to do His bidding. Such living is a small token of gratitude for the new and everlasting life we have through Christ.
The thing that motivated Paul was to finish the course and ministry which he had received from Christ. Many have started out well with Christ only to quit along the way or to crash and burn before reaching the finish line. Some grow weary and find the way of discipleship difficult. Others get tripped up by sin and find themselves ensnared in the enemy’s trap. Paul was focused on finishing strong. His eyes were on the prize. HisThe word “finish” means to complete, to accomplish the goal, and to bring to fulfillment. You know what I see regularly. Rather than God’s people getting focused on completing the kingdom ministry assignments He gives, many are content to shirk responsibility and cower in fear while living with the bedfellow of timidity.
Finishing the course God has set for your life will not prove to be boring. I assure you from personal experience that if you commit to finish the course God has designated for your life you will find yourself on the most thrilling adventure you can imagine. Still the majority holds back and half heartedly live their faith in a world that is looking for finishers and completers not beginners who get sidetracked by the lesser things of life.
If Jesus Christ is your Savior then He has a ministry for you. Everyone is not called to be a pastor, youth pastor, or missionary. Everyone does have a ministry. It might be teaching a small group, taking a short term mission trip, working in disaster relief, caring for the elderly, loving and investing in children, or involving yourself in a ministry that does not even exist yet but is waiting for your leadership to be given birth.
What will you do when you stand before Christ and the refining fire of His presence begins to burn through the things you invested your time, energy, your talents, and your resources in? If you ducked and dodged your course of ministry not completing it, what then? You will suffer loss [I Cor 3:10-15] and you will have wasted your life on trivial things that did not matter in the light of eternity.
There is no greater ministry than testifying about the gospel of the grace of God. Bring others to Jesus and do something that has eternal significance. It is not our job to do the saving but only the sharing. Christ is able to save all whom He chooses. I am thinking back over my life and thinking back on the number of people the Lord has saved and allowed me to testify about God’s redeeming grace. There was Bobby, Nick, Joe, Jennifer, Sue, Karen, Bill, Mindy, Averon on my college football team, Carrie, Cody, Bruce, the twin girls in Cuba along with the lady walking down the street, dozens and dozens in revivals all across the state of Texas and several other states along the way, teenagers at youth camps, adults in their homes, college students during a campus crusade, friends, family, and people right here from the Paradise community. Nothing gives my heart a charge like seeing people transformed by the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. He is mighty to save. Why not join in the adventure of winning souls. Completing this ministry makes life worth living and you will join God on the adventure of a lifetime that matters in the after life. Renounce your life, embrace your ministry and finish the course. I am not saying it will always be easy but I assure you it will not be boring.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Living to Promote the Glory of God
Living to Promote the Glory of God
[Mark 11:23-24] Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted to him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they will be granted you.
I was seated at my desk early this morning seeking the Lord in prayer and was captured by Jesus’ words in Mark 11:23-24. I felt Him tugging and stretching my heart to believe Him for greater things. Soon tears began to trickle down my cheeks as I cried out to the Lord for miracle after miracle, mostly related to expanding His kingdom. I begged and pleaded with God to intervene in the affairs of life and ministry all around me and in missions work.
Soon my heart felt aflame with Jesus’ words that if I would not doubt but believe I could have the things for which I had been asking Him. Impossible things. Unattainable things. Impractical things. Unfeasible things. That’s when it really hit me right between the eyes, that if I really devote myself to a life of believing prayer I will also be devoting my life to promoting the glory of God. That revelation only served to intensify the flame burning in my heart and my desire to see the Lord do the impossible. I prayed as fervently as I ever have at any time in my life for anything.
One by one I brought both ministry and personal mountains before Him and asked that each one be removed out of the way so that His glory could be promoted further. I want to be one who lives on the cutting edge of faith and who lives daily to promote God’s glory through answered prayer. I know full well what I am yearning for - I am asking for God to continually push my life and ministry toward risk, attempting the impossible, facing challenge after challenge, inviting open criticism for presuming upon God, and enduring ridicule mixed with skepticism when the miracles are delayed. I have experienced all of this before on numerous occasions, but when God comes through and I get the privilege of testifying about His faithfulness it is worth it! Praise God, it is worth the delays, the hours spent in solitude with the Father, and all the skepticism just to watch God come through and bring greater heaps of grandeur on Himself. I live to see that happen!
I love to hear the gasps in the crowd when a miracle is detailed. I love to watch the stunned faces as people hear about how the Lord turned the impossible into something possible. I am deeply moved when I see faith growing slowly in the hearts of those who were once filled with fear and doubt as they hear what their God has done for someone else, encouraging them to hope again for God’s help in their situation. I live for that. I live for God to be glorified over and over again through miraculous, astounding, extraordinary, and phenomenal acts that defy logic and explanation.
I cannot tell you how many times I felt alone in this pursuit, but I can tell you that I have found solace and comfort by reading the biographies of Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, John Hyde, Rees Howells, David Brainerd, and E.M. Bounds. They forged the trails of faith and blazed a path to demonstrate that miracles were not just intended for the days of Acts. It has been a lonely pilgrimage but I have sought to bring others along with me. God longs to work in our day as well and I for one intend to live so that His name, His power, His mighty acts, and His glory will be promoted in this generation and in the generations to come.
What mountains are you facing right now? What impossible thing is intimidating you into cowardly unbelief? What stands in the way between you and the dream God planted in your heart? What looms so large over you that it causes you to hesitate and withdraw to safety and comfort? I plead with you to stop retreating and look your mountain square in the eye. In faith I exhort you to tell your mountain to get out of your way in the name of our valiant and strong Lord. Gather those who will believe with you and pray to promote the glory of the Lord.
How long will we live in the shadow lands of complacency and comfort when the fragrance of the miraculous is floating on the breeze? Where are the pastors who will charge ahead on their knees and watch the Lord shove open doors that have been closed too long? Where are the intercessors who will give themselves no rest and the Lord no rest as they plead for the salvation of souls without ceasing? Where are the churches that will bend their ears to Heaven and follow the Lord’s promptings by faith into grandiose kingdom expansion projects, regardless of the risk or the cost? Who will shirk fear and personal security and run toward the risk of promoting the glory of God in your corner of this world?
Do we really believe? I asked myself that same question over and over again in my prayer time this morning. I looked at two very large mountains that I have been facing for a long time, one of which I have been battling for over eight years. It is the mountain that stands in the way of me getting my books published. Doors have been repeatedly shut and prayers have gone unanswered but I hammered away at that mountain this morning in prayer until there is nothing left but a mole hill. My books will be published and distributed around this world. It is the will of God to publish my books and I pledged to give all the sales of my book Behold the Faithfulness of God to our church’s building fund for the expansion of our facilities.
I have been laboring in prayer over the other mountain for going on three and half years now. It is time for me to dismiss unbelief and doubt and watch the glory of God shine brilliantly through His miracles again, even though I have been told that believing God for a miracle house for my family without going into debt is impossible. Why is it impossible? Are God’s resources limited? Does He not provide for His own? Is the miracle of a house any more taxing for God than making provision for a house payment? Is God glorified by my going into debt? Would the glory of God be promoted around the world through my family receiving a miracle house? Would others be encouraged to believe God in their situations? Would ministry take place in that house? As the answers to those questions rise in my heart they crowd out any remaining doubt and fear, and I am able to boldly lift my request to my mighty God.
The reason so many live in doubt and unbelief while making excuse after excuse is simply because we live in a day of miracle famine. I hate the day of miracle famine! God does not get glory in those days. When will we read God’s word like we believe it to be true, stand on His precious promises without wavering, and longingly gaze into the Heavens at the throne of grace to obtain miraculous help and miraculous mercy in our times of need? Unbelief is a plague in most of our churches; may it not be so in FBC Paradise. May we live, pray, serve, labor, worship, and give sacrificially to promote the glory of God. May our example be a catalyst all over this region and this world to promote, advance, exalt, honor, and move the glory of God forward in one heart at a time.
Jesus said that all things we ask and pray while believing would be granted to us. I know they will only be granted to us if they are in His will for us, but I am convinced we have been living like paupers rather than children of the King of Kings. No longer for this slave of Christ - I asked God this morning that He would allow me to live to promote His glory until my last breath. Even as I write this I am moved to tears for people everywhere to be captivated by the greatness and the power of God to save the lost, to heal the sick, to reclaim the backslidden, to revive the church, to expand His kingdom in nations around the globe, to give birth to miracle provision for those in need, to explode churches with unprecedented growth, to bless the confused with wisdom, and to work Himself to promote His own glory.
But it is neither our praying nor our faith that is the focus, it is the greatness of God that matters. He is mighty to save. He is Our Glorious and greater than we know. Oh how I plead that you would join me in living the rest of your days from this one to your last to believe and attempt impossible feats in prayer that when answered will promote the glory of God like a tidal wave on unbelieving pastors, churches, and ordinary people like you and me until they too live to promote His glory. I wish I could cut my heart open and let you feel what I feel as I write this, but alas I am left to trust the Sovereign Lord to take the ramblings of this pitiful preacher and sear them into your hearts and minds so deeply you cannot shake them no matter how hard you try.
Great Father, King of all Kings, my Great I Am, I come to you with fearless faith today. I ask You to forgive me for hiding behind the sin of unbelief for far too long. Today my heart is aflame with faith in You. What is impossible to You? Nothing. I lift up all those who will read these words and beg of You to capture their hearts and wills and stir them to greater faith and larger exploits than they have ever believed You for before. I weep for them now. I beg of You to remove doubts and help their unbelief. I ask You to enlarge all our faith to believe You when You say that nothing is impossible with You. I ask You to char the fragrance of the miraculous into our nostrils until we are nauseated with stench of unbelief and miracle famine but intoxicated with Your power to do anything. I ask You to give us courage to run to the cutting edge and leap into believing prayer defying the skeptics, experts, and the odds of failure. Lord of the Universe, I plead with You to leave a lifetime of miracles in the wake of our lives and let not only this generation but each generation to follow take this same adventure journey of living to promote Your glory. We will leave the results of such living up to You. I ask You to annihilate selfish ambition and self-glorification. May You consume us from head to toe until no other passion is left but to live to promote Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
[Mark 11:23-24] Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be taken up and cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted to him. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them and they will be granted you.
I was seated at my desk early this morning seeking the Lord in prayer and was captured by Jesus’ words in Mark 11:23-24. I felt Him tugging and stretching my heart to believe Him for greater things. Soon tears began to trickle down my cheeks as I cried out to the Lord for miracle after miracle, mostly related to expanding His kingdom. I begged and pleaded with God to intervene in the affairs of life and ministry all around me and in missions work.
Soon my heart felt aflame with Jesus’ words that if I would not doubt but believe I could have the things for which I had been asking Him. Impossible things. Unattainable things. Impractical things. Unfeasible things. That’s when it really hit me right between the eyes, that if I really devote myself to a life of believing prayer I will also be devoting my life to promoting the glory of God. That revelation only served to intensify the flame burning in my heart and my desire to see the Lord do the impossible. I prayed as fervently as I ever have at any time in my life for anything.
One by one I brought both ministry and personal mountains before Him and asked that each one be removed out of the way so that His glory could be promoted further. I want to be one who lives on the cutting edge of faith and who lives daily to promote God’s glory through answered prayer. I know full well what I am yearning for - I am asking for God to continually push my life and ministry toward risk, attempting the impossible, facing challenge after challenge, inviting open criticism for presuming upon God, and enduring ridicule mixed with skepticism when the miracles are delayed. I have experienced all of this before on numerous occasions, but when God comes through and I get the privilege of testifying about His faithfulness it is worth it! Praise God, it is worth the delays, the hours spent in solitude with the Father, and all the skepticism just to watch God come through and bring greater heaps of grandeur on Himself. I live to see that happen!
I love to hear the gasps in the crowd when a miracle is detailed. I love to watch the stunned faces as people hear about how the Lord turned the impossible into something possible. I am deeply moved when I see faith growing slowly in the hearts of those who were once filled with fear and doubt as they hear what their God has done for someone else, encouraging them to hope again for God’s help in their situation. I live for that. I live for God to be glorified over and over again through miraculous, astounding, extraordinary, and phenomenal acts that defy logic and explanation.
I cannot tell you how many times I felt alone in this pursuit, but I can tell you that I have found solace and comfort by reading the biographies of Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, John Hyde, Rees Howells, David Brainerd, and E.M. Bounds. They forged the trails of faith and blazed a path to demonstrate that miracles were not just intended for the days of Acts. It has been a lonely pilgrimage but I have sought to bring others along with me. God longs to work in our day as well and I for one intend to live so that His name, His power, His mighty acts, and His glory will be promoted in this generation and in the generations to come.
What mountains are you facing right now? What impossible thing is intimidating you into cowardly unbelief? What stands in the way between you and the dream God planted in your heart? What looms so large over you that it causes you to hesitate and withdraw to safety and comfort? I plead with you to stop retreating and look your mountain square in the eye. In faith I exhort you to tell your mountain to get out of your way in the name of our valiant and strong Lord. Gather those who will believe with you and pray to promote the glory of the Lord.
How long will we live in the shadow lands of complacency and comfort when the fragrance of the miraculous is floating on the breeze? Where are the pastors who will charge ahead on their knees and watch the Lord shove open doors that have been closed too long? Where are the intercessors who will give themselves no rest and the Lord no rest as they plead for the salvation of souls without ceasing? Where are the churches that will bend their ears to Heaven and follow the Lord’s promptings by faith into grandiose kingdom expansion projects, regardless of the risk or the cost? Who will shirk fear and personal security and run toward the risk of promoting the glory of God in your corner of this world?
Do we really believe? I asked myself that same question over and over again in my prayer time this morning. I looked at two very large mountains that I have been facing for a long time, one of which I have been battling for over eight years. It is the mountain that stands in the way of me getting my books published. Doors have been repeatedly shut and prayers have gone unanswered but I hammered away at that mountain this morning in prayer until there is nothing left but a mole hill. My books will be published and distributed around this world. It is the will of God to publish my books and I pledged to give all the sales of my book Behold the Faithfulness of God to our church’s building fund for the expansion of our facilities.
I have been laboring in prayer over the other mountain for going on three and half years now. It is time for me to dismiss unbelief and doubt and watch the glory of God shine brilliantly through His miracles again, even though I have been told that believing God for a miracle house for my family without going into debt is impossible. Why is it impossible? Are God’s resources limited? Does He not provide for His own? Is the miracle of a house any more taxing for God than making provision for a house payment? Is God glorified by my going into debt? Would the glory of God be promoted around the world through my family receiving a miracle house? Would others be encouraged to believe God in their situations? Would ministry take place in that house? As the answers to those questions rise in my heart they crowd out any remaining doubt and fear, and I am able to boldly lift my request to my mighty God.
The reason so many live in doubt and unbelief while making excuse after excuse is simply because we live in a day of miracle famine. I hate the day of miracle famine! God does not get glory in those days. When will we read God’s word like we believe it to be true, stand on His precious promises without wavering, and longingly gaze into the Heavens at the throne of grace to obtain miraculous help and miraculous mercy in our times of need? Unbelief is a plague in most of our churches; may it not be so in FBC Paradise. May we live, pray, serve, labor, worship, and give sacrificially to promote the glory of God. May our example be a catalyst all over this region and this world to promote, advance, exalt, honor, and move the glory of God forward in one heart at a time.
Jesus said that all things we ask and pray while believing would be granted to us. I know they will only be granted to us if they are in His will for us, but I am convinced we have been living like paupers rather than children of the King of Kings. No longer for this slave of Christ - I asked God this morning that He would allow me to live to promote His glory until my last breath. Even as I write this I am moved to tears for people everywhere to be captivated by the greatness and the power of God to save the lost, to heal the sick, to reclaim the backslidden, to revive the church, to expand His kingdom in nations around the globe, to give birth to miracle provision for those in need, to explode churches with unprecedented growth, to bless the confused with wisdom, and to work Himself to promote His own glory.
But it is neither our praying nor our faith that is the focus, it is the greatness of God that matters. He is mighty to save. He is Our Glorious and greater than we know. Oh how I plead that you would join me in living the rest of your days from this one to your last to believe and attempt impossible feats in prayer that when answered will promote the glory of God like a tidal wave on unbelieving pastors, churches, and ordinary people like you and me until they too live to promote His glory. I wish I could cut my heart open and let you feel what I feel as I write this, but alas I am left to trust the Sovereign Lord to take the ramblings of this pitiful preacher and sear them into your hearts and minds so deeply you cannot shake them no matter how hard you try.
Great Father, King of all Kings, my Great I Am, I come to you with fearless faith today. I ask You to forgive me for hiding behind the sin of unbelief for far too long. Today my heart is aflame with faith in You. What is impossible to You? Nothing. I lift up all those who will read these words and beg of You to capture their hearts and wills and stir them to greater faith and larger exploits than they have ever believed You for before. I weep for them now. I beg of You to remove doubts and help their unbelief. I ask You to enlarge all our faith to believe You when You say that nothing is impossible with You. I ask You to char the fragrance of the miraculous into our nostrils until we are nauseated with stench of unbelief and miracle famine but intoxicated with Your power to do anything. I ask You to give us courage to run to the cutting edge and leap into believing prayer defying the skeptics, experts, and the odds of failure. Lord of the Universe, I plead with You to leave a lifetime of miracles in the wake of our lives and let not only this generation but each generation to follow take this same adventure journey of living to promote Your glory. We will leave the results of such living up to You. I ask You to annihilate selfish ambition and self-glorification. May You consume us from head to toe until no other passion is left but to live to promote Your glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Sitting with the Savior
Meditations For Life
Matt Edwards
Copyright 2007 No Compromise Ministries
Divine Encounter
Chapter One
This summer I was preaching to a group of students with a burning word from the Lord in my heart. It was one of those rare times when you feel the Lord has anointed you and the students are tuned in to what the Lord is saying. The weighty presence of the Lord saturated that meeting room.
After the service I felt the Lord wanted me to continue to seeking him. I found an isolated place and lay prostrate in His presence. Time seemed to stand still as I drew audience with my God. I really can’t tell you why but the tears began to flow and the sense of God’s working deep in my heart was very intense.
Suddenly the Lord began to speak to me. The things He imparted to me are far too personal to tell you but suffice it to say that I had a divine encounter. I learned later this time last well over an hour and a half. To me it seemed only a few minutes.
Profound things happened on that carpeted floor in that room. Prayers were answered, direction was given, hope was renewed, sin was forgiven, the fires of faith were rekindled, and communion with Christ was enjoyed.
I live for those kinds of divine encounters. You never know when and where the Lord will show up and bring you to a whole new place. It can happen in a worship service, in your living room at home, while walking out in a field or in the woods, on an airplane, in a hotel room, in a rural rustic cabin, and yes even in a closet.
I am firmly convinced that the Lord longs to meet more with us than we desire to meet with Him. He yearns to have encounters with us but too often we are busy, distracted, and half hearted in our desires to encounter Him.
Let me give you a few facts about Divine Encounters from [Ex 3:1-10].
1. A Divine Encounter can come at any time at any place and usually they are unexpected. Moses did not go out the pasture to shepherd his flock expecting a life altering encounter with God. It was unexpected. That means that we should live in a state of anticipation that on any given day at any given hour God will show up and blow us away with His presence.
2. A Divine Encounter with wreck your life. For Moses the path seemed pretty clear. He worked as a shepherd and day in and day out for year after year, he pretty much did the same thing. He watched over the sheep, nurtured the sheep, and gave guidance to the sheep. Little did he know this was training ground for his real life’s purpose. God’s encounter with Moses wrecked Moses’ comfortable life with his retirement plans. From this point on, everything would change for this veteran keeper of the flocks.
3. Divine Encounters often lead you into God sized assignments that are bigger than you and your abilities. Moses knew nothing about being a national leader and a deliverer for God’s people. He had to seek and trust God every step of the way. The same is true for you and me. When God speaks and gives you an assignment, it will at times look impossible from your vantage point. This will lead you to depend on Him and serve to exercise and strengthen your faith.
4. A Divine Encounter will come at God’s initiative. Moses did not have to sit around and dream up his own dreams for God to bless. As Moses went about the normal activities of life day in and day out, God came to Moses when He was ready to reveal His purposes and His plans. We can rest in the fact when the Lord is ready to meet with us in a very special way He will find us. We must be ready and willing to respond when that time comes.
So whether your Divine Encounter comes through reading this today or some day in the future, put everything else on the back burner when that time comes. Seek Him as [Jer 29:11-13] exhorts us and trust that those encounters will be life altering.
Dear Lord, please continue to bless us with Divine Encounters with you and speak and show us great and mighty things which we do not know. [Jer 33:3]
The Closet of Brokenness and Repentance
Chapter Two
I can’t really say what triggered it all. I only knew as I sat in my office this past Sunday morning as I was at the end of myself, which is a very good thing. For months I had felt I was going through the motions in worship, public prayers, and preaching. Sundays began to feel more like something to survive than a day set aside as holy unto the Lord. I felt myself trying to survive the next sermon and get through the next set of Sunday activities. I felt ill prepared and less prayed up week after week. I was preaching God’s word but I had lost the passion, the fire, the zeal, and the faith to believe that God’s word was making a difference in people’s lives. On that Sunday morning I had enough. I was determined to get a fresh word for the Lord for the service or preach nothing at all. I refused to go through the motions for another Sunday.
I had one of those encounters with the Lord that in hindsight proves to be a spiritual marker. I have had several of them along the way. There was the spiritual marker at Abe Martin Stadium in Lufkin, TX where I met the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. There was the spiritual marker at Pineywoods Baptist Encampment where I knew the Lord called me to preach. There was the spiritual maker of meeting and talking to Brenda on the campus of Howard Payne University and knowing she was God’s best divinely chosen to be my helpmate. She has been that and so much more over the past sixteen years. There have been several spiritual makers in what I affectionately call my “prayer retreat cabin” located outside of Palestine, TX. I also had numerous such spiritual markers right here in this same office I prayed in this past Sunday morning three days ago.
I did not know it at the time, but my time with the Lord in my office on October 7, 2007 is a time that I will not soon forget. I was convicted and broken and the message the Lord burned in my soul that morning was more for me personally and secondly for our church. It was a message about offering the Lord defiled offerings and blemished sacrifices, or in short giving God our second best.
I prayed through [Malachi 1:6-14] and used that as my text. Sitting on the front pew during the worship service before it was time to preach was agonizing. I knew that my own personal sin in not offering the Lord my very best in study and preaching had hindered our church. It was time to come clean and acknowledge my sin as well as the sin of the rest of our congregation for falling into the same trap during Sunday morning worship. I also knew that many people were falling into the same sin I was and it was time to “shut the gates and quit uselessly kindling fire on God’s altar.” [Malachi 1:10]
After preaching the message I withdrew from the crowd, found a secluded closet to hide in, and lay prostrate on the dirty floor to seek the face of God. What took place in that small dirty little closet will be lived out over the next months and prayerfully for the rest of my life. How do you put into words those intimate encounters with the Lord when He gives you audience with Him and His presence is so very real?
It was pitch dark inside that closet. It was not as dark as my sin riddled heart was before God. .I was broken and for the longest time could only manage one prayer over and over again, “God, I am sorry. God, I am sorry. God, I am so sorry for offering defiled and polluted offerings and sacrifices to You. Please forgive me.” The tears could not be held back as they fell into puddles beneath my face. My heart was broken for the people of Paradise but I was much more broken knowing that I had offended God. Like David, my sin was ever before me and I came to understand in a fresh way that against God I had sinned. [Ps 51:3-4] “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.” It was a painful time filled with brokenness. My heart was contrite and I was humbled in His presence. I could not make any empty promises being reminded of God’s warning in [Eccl 5:2] “Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few.”
I was broken over the lost passion I once had for preaching God’s Word. I recall how I used to rise so early on Sunday mornings to prayerfully get ready to preach. All that changed somewhere. It was not intentional. Somewhere along the way I grew tired of praying and preaching my heart out and seeing so few results. I am not just talking about visible results. I’m talking about not seeing the internal results of a changed and transformed life and congregation over the years. So I began to rationalize that my job was to preach the truth and the listener was responsible to God to respond. On the surface this sounds true but what changed for me was my expectation for God to move. I became calloused in my heart during the invitations and I lost the burning fiery passion to not only preach but to believe God for results. I became the very thing I have abhorred in others. I became a professional preacher with a hard heart.
Each tear represented a dead and lifeless sermon (or rather I should say a speech) I had delivered devoid of power and passion. As painful as that time was, it was needed. It had been a long time since the Lord had held the mirror to my heart and really let me see the sin that had long been rooted there. Uprooting sin is never a pleasant thing. It is painful but for me the pain of not preaching with passion and anointing and offering God my best would be more painful.
I don’t know how long I was in that closet of humiliation and crying tears of repentance. I know when I got up I was a new man. Cleansed. Forgiven. Renewed. Refreshed. Revived. Most importantly I was restored to my Father. Since then I have found a renewed passion to meet with Him for long and sustained unhurried times of prayer. I have felt a new passion rising in me to deliver His word both verbally and through writing. I have been called into a fresh desire to study, to preach and to write all to make much of Him and not me. The truth is the reason I have not sent this newsletter out sooner is that I had no inspiration to write. I was determined that I would not send out something that was inspired from the Lord and I did not feel had his anointing on it. It has been several months but here it is.
I left that closet a new man. I cannot help but feel, if more Christians went into their prayer closets with true repentance and brokenness, what a positive impact this would have on our walks with the Lord and our churches. Day by day we drift a little further away from the Lord, grow a little harder in our hearts, accept the dry and weary conditions of our spiritual lives, begin to allow compromise to uproot former commitments, and grow accustomed and satisfied with offering our great God second rate, polluted, defiled, and half hearted sacrifices. He deserves and demands our very best.
When was the last time you took a real honest look in the spiritual mirror? When was the last time you were moved to tears of repentance because of your sin? When was the last time you felt authentic in your worship and service to the Lord? If you have been giving God your leftovers in time, energy, and devotion maybe you need to withdraw from family and friends and go into the closet of brokenness and repentance. Life, forgiveness, and healing await you on the other side.
Today I was moving some chairs in a room where that same closet is located. The door was left open as I stared into that small isolated dark corner of our church. I was immediately reminded of my encounter with the Lord in that place. I will always remember that as the closet of brokenness and repentance. I am sure I will find my way back there from time to time. I hope you do to.
A Sacred Piece of Dirt
Chapter Three
There is a sacred piece of dirt located in East Texas that means more to me than I can put into words. I do not own this piece of property but have graciously been granted access to it for the past twelve years for private prayer and writing retreats.
I love that small little two bedroom wood framed cabin situated right in the middle of a four hundred acre ranch over looking a scenic private lake. You could drive up and down the nearest highway and most likely never find this cabin. To access it you must leave the highway and traverse the long winding dirt road and pass through three gates before even catching a glimpse of this modest private sanctuary. The house is surrounded by old trees outlined with a large covered back porch outfitted with a row of old rustic rocking chairs. I have spent many an hour sitting in those chairs reading the sacred scriptures and pondering life and ministry.
When you open the door you will find modest furniture in the living room with a sofa and four outdated lounging chairs. It is in the chairs that I have sat and heard the voice of God times without number. It is in these chairs that I have read the pages of hundreds of books and studied hundreds of pages of my favorite book of all; the Word of God.
The small dining area is located off the living area in the open floor plan. That dining table has served as my desk for study, writing books and articles, journaling, and writing letters for ministry. I do most of my praying at that dining room table. I have feasted on the presence of the Lord more at that table than people have eaten the most sumptuous feast at that same place. I have tasted time and time again and seen that the Lord is good and that table and found a satisfaction that no earthly meal has ever provided. [Ps 34:8] [Ps 17:15] The scene out the large back windows off the living room is breath taking. Less than two hundred yards off the back porch is the gorgeous trophy bass lake. Though I have fished in that lake on occasion, it is in that place that I am continually reminded of my main mission to be a fisher of men. Off to the left side of the lake is pine thicket. I have walked through that thicket in prayer and seeking the Lord’s counsel about life and ministry. Directly behind the lake is a beautiful field with rolling hills. Back to the right the lake continues on until it nearly reaches back to the highway.
This place is totally isolated. It is like stepping back into time. Each time I am blessed to make pilgrimage there, all I need is a little food, my books and writing pads (just recently I have been taking my laptop computer), my Bible, and prayer journal and off I go into another amazing adventure with the God of this universe.
That place is holy ground. It was on that sacred piece of dirt the Lord told me not to get a job or ask anyone for money but to trust Him for my needs back when Brenda and I walked through the eighteen months journey of faith where I did not have a salary. It was on that sacred piece of dirt that God gave me inspiration for the books Behold the Faithfulness of God, Only Believe, Swimming in the Bathtub, and Close Encounters. It was in that prayer cabin when the Lord spoke to me about Darrell Fishbeck being the man he had appointed to come and serve along side me at FBC Paradise. Most special to me of all is that in that isolated lodge I have met with and heard the voice of God. If you could only have heard the prayers that have been prayed in that place, your heart would grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord. A few special people have traveled to that cabin with me over the years to pray. The times we have had with the Lord defy description.
There was a time when Joel Perritte and I were praying about missions and praying [Is 6:8]. We were pleading with the Lord to take us, send us, and use us. God has answered that prayer. God has sent me to Cuba once and to Canada numerous times. Joel has gone to Cuba, Brazil, China, and Sudan. That prayer meeting is one of my favorite memories in that cabin as our tears stained the old carpet in that prayer cottage.
Darrell Fishbeck and I have taken a staff retreat in that cabin. It was there we met with the Lord and allowed Him to plant His dreams in our hearts for the future of FBC Paradise.
There is something about that little off the beaten path place that holds sentimental value to my soul. I have heard from the Lord so many times about so many things on that sacred piece of real estate. My faith has been challenged and stretched in that place. I have been inspired to be more for God and to attempt more for His glory right there.
The last time I was there was in September of 2007. I was scheduled to preach a youth rally in Nederland, TX which is about six hours from Paradise. I broke the trip up into two days and had the privilege of staying that cabin the night before I preached in Nederland and the night afterward. My time there was very short but true to recent history I had a wonderful encounter with the Lord and heard some astounding things from Him.
As I was packing to leave to come home later that morning I had mixed feelings. I was enthusiastic about the things the Lord had spoken to me about my future and the future of FBC Paradise. I was also eager to get back to my family and to the flock to minister that Wednesday evening. Yet I also had deep sorrow due to have leaving the solace of that sanctuary. There is no other place like it I have ever experienced on the earth. I have enjoyed times with the Lord in the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. I have sat on the front balcony and had my time with the Lord overlooking the Gulf of Mexico in Galveston, TX. I have enjoyed wonderful times with the Lord in my home and in my office at the church. I worshipped the Lord in the Big Bear Mountainous area in California and basked in the beauty of the Lord in the midst of poverty in Guiness, Cuba. My heart has been made full in the hotel lobby in Portland, Oregon and I have also basked in His presence on jet plane rides to Saskatchewan, Canada. Yet no place I have ever been is a sacred place of dirt in my soul like that little cabin in East Texas. I hope to withdraw from the crowds and go there soon.
My Pastor
Chapter Four
I got off the elevator at the Wise Regional Hospital to find a lady from our church who was having surgery. I found her and her family in the waiting room. I was deeply moved when she introduced me to her mother and father saying, “This is my pastor Matt Edwards.”
What moved me so deeply was her calling me her pastor. This is far cry from how my ministry in Paradise started. At that time I was only the preacher. Even though my title as pastor I had not yet earned the right to be called anyone’s pastor. It was just a job title. I remember all to well the scriptures I read to the church after they voted to me to be the pastor of FBC Paradise. [I Pet 5:2] Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness.
I have been spent my time here earning the right to be trusted, loved, and endeared as a true pastor. That has meant times in hospital rooms, surgery waiting rooms, in ICU’s, praying over people in emergency rooms, loving and ministering people on their death beds in homes, and at funeral homes and cemeteries. As my flock has hurt and suffered I have sought to hurt and walk through the suffering with them. I have loved these sheep sought to prayerfully protect them.
So when that lady introduced me as her pastor, a flood of emotions came to mind. Little by little among this flock, trust has been earned, love has been given and received, encounters with the Lord have been shared, laughter has been enjoyed, tears have been shed, and I have been blessed with great privilege and responsibility to become their pastor and not just their preacher. It is not a role and calling I take lightly.
Many flocks have been wounded and abused by CEO’s in the pulpit whom have forgotten and neglected their shepherding roles. In meetings and strategy sessions about the future of ministry it seems that they have forgotten the most important aspect of ministry and that is to love and care for people. Without people there is no ministry.
In a day and age when preachers are bragging about whose flock is biggest and whose sheep pens are the largest and most ornate, the sheep are often overlooked and neglected. Of course sheep need to be fed but they also need to be nurtured when they are wounded and battered. Sheep need access to their shepherd who can help provide comfort in days of trouble and sorrow.
Show me a preacher who does love and make time for people and I will show you someone who does not understand the shepherding role of being a pastor. Jesus made time for people and ministered to them in every season of life. I am continually challenged that not only am I to minister to the flock but I am to do it with an eager and loving attitude expecting nothing in return.
O that the Lord would raise loving shepherds who determine to love the flock and be accessible to them when needed. I know that even shepherds have to follow the example of Jesus and withdraw from the demands of the crowds at times but these times were not the normal course of everyday life.
Shepherding is not an easy road of ministry. It is a lot easier to hide behind our bookshelves and insulate ourselves from the outside world. Being a pastor means being on call twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. Being a pastor mighty mean providing counseling, visiting in the hospitals, seeking the evangelize the lost, celebrating the miracle of new life with proud new parents as well as grieving over the loss of a spouse with widow or widower.
Recently I performed a wedding one afternoon and received a phone call about a man whom had passed away later that evening. Such is the extreme ministry of a pastor. It is not a profession to be chosen. It is a calling to be heeded.
That is why I can still say after all these years that I still love it. I still love investing in the young sheep who have only recently been added to the fold. I still spending time with the older sheep who have so much wisdom about life. I love laughing fellowshipping with sheep who have become more like spiritual family. I still feel a sense of fulfillment when praying over the sick. I have a high and noble calling and today I wear the mantle of pastor around my neck both proudly and humbly. Humbly because I was hand picked by God. There are thousands of others who were more pleasant to look at, more eloquent, with brilliant minds, and gregarious personalities. Yet, God bypassed them to choose me. It is a humbling experience to know God wanted me to be used for His glory. It is proud thing in that I love my calling and profession. I am not ashamed to be a pastor. I wear the mantle proudly when someone introduces me by saying, “This is my pastor!”
Soul Sweat
Chapter Five
I was reading in one of my favorite books written by the late Leonard Ravenhill entitled Sodom Had No Bible. He used a phrase in that book that has bitten into my mind and I cannot shake it. He talked about one particular pastor who did not enter the pulpit without “soul sweat.” He did not define what soul sweat meant, so I have been pondering the meaning of that phrase off and on all day.
What is soul sweat? We know that sweat is perspiration that usually accompanies toil or labor. I saw a great illustration of this last night. I was watching a championship baseball game on a hot muggy night in Cleveland, OH. The Boston Red Sox were in town playing the Cleveland Indians. I do not remember who the batter was but I do remember the battle he was having with a picture. He fouled one pitch off after another going deeper and deeper into the count. At one point the batter was perspiring so heavily that drops of sweat were rolling off the bill of his batting helmet and streaming into his eyes. He had to call time out at one point and back out of the batter’s box to wipe his face and helmet off. I know sweating in the physical realm but what does it mean in the spiritual realm as it relates to the soul.
Soul sweat I think means agonizing in prayer in hard labor. It is not offering token offerings of faith but rather wrestling with God in prayer until victories are won, confidence is built, and power is endued for life and ministry.
Few of us know much about soul sweat. We know a great deal about popcorn prayers, insincere prayers, and even faithless prayers but to pray until the soul sweats is a whole different form of intercession. I was embarrassed and ashamed when I read that phrase of the number of times I have climbed the steps to mount the pulpit without the least bit of soul sweat. Times without number I have sought in vain to open the sacred scriptures without the precious anointing of the Holy Spirit that only comes through perspiring intercessions. This time of prayer takes time along with mental, emotional, and spiritual concentration.
Has your soul sweat as you have come into the house of God to hear a word from Him? Has your soul dropped puddles of salt water as you have pleaded for the souls of the lost? Has your soul been wearied to exhaustion has you have prayed over your spouse, your children, and those closest to you?
Soul sweat is a foreign concept to most of us. The results of such a lack of praying are evident all around. I just recently heard a message where 23,000 churches reportedly baptized five people or less. Over 10,000 of those churches did not baptize one single soul in a whole year. Was there soul sweat taking place by broken hearted preachers and desperate lay men and women? Only Heaven knows.
How I pray we would lock ourselves in the prayer closets and labor in intercessions and petitions for the glory of God to be manifest in this day and time. May we not shrink back from the hard toil of prayer and refuse to settle for anything less than God’s miraculous and powerful interventions in our lives and families.
Preachers, may we not enter the pulpit flippantly without the sweat from our souls dripping off as stand to proclaim the riches of God’s word. Hearer, may you not casually saunter into the sanctuary without having first prepared your soul with labor to be ready to not only meet with God but to hear from God. Hearer, may you labor with love to pray over your pastor during the week and each Sunday as preaches.
If we are willing to do this, I know the Lord will honor what He promised in the [Ephesians 3:20] “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to power that works within us.”
Fresh Words
Chapter Six
How long has it been since you sat in the presence of the Lord and listened to Him speak to you? He might have spoken through His word, through some prompting of the Holy Spirit, or through some circumstance.
There is much in the scriptures about the Lord speaking to people and giving them fresh words. You do not have look any further than the first book of the Bible to discover this fact. [Genesis 6:13-14] says, “Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch.” I am fascinated with the fact that God spoke to Noah. Over and over again we see this phrase in the scriptures. Not only did God speak to Noah, but He gave Noah details about His impending judgment on the world and He also gave specific directions for God’s redemption through the building of the ark.
The Lord spoke to Moses in [Exodus 3]. In [Exodus 14] God spoke direction to Moses when he was up against impossible odds and his back was against the wall. God showed the way of escape and deliverance. The Lord spoke to Joshua giving detailed directions about how to possess the promised land. The Lord spoke to Samuel in a time when words and visions from the Lord has been infrequent in [I Sam 3].
When David needed to know God’s will on a matter the scriptures tell us he “inquired of the Lord.” [I Sam 30:1-8] [II Samuel 2:1] The Lord responded by showing David exactly what he should do. The Lord spoke fresh words to the fiery prophet Elijah in [ I Kings 17-18].
Jesus spoke to the disciples in the Gospels and then through the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. [Acts 9:10-12, 8:26-27, 16:5-10, 18:9-11, 20:22-23] The point of all of this is that God wants to speak to His children if we will take the time to listen. It is hard to receive a fresh word from the Lord when we do all the talking.
Has God spoken everything that He ever intended to speak in the past? Are there no fresh words for today? Time and time again in my spiritual pilgrimage God has spoken through varied and sundry ways. He has spoken most often to me through His word. That is why I have made a commitment to spend time reading God’s word daily seeking to hear from Him.
Recently I was facing a major decision about God’s will for Brenda and me. I set aside a whole day to seek Him in prayer and reading His word. The Lord did speak to me indeed through two verses that in no way could have been coincidental readings at that particular time in my life. That is why I cannot overstate it enough that reading God’s word must be a high priority in your life. He has so many fresh things to speak to you day in and day out.
I have also had times when the Holy Spirit spoke a word in my heart. I remember a couple of years ago taking a private prayer retreat. I needed the spiritual refreshing and needed to hear God about several things. At the time our church did not have a youth minister or a music minister. I had a man on my heart whom I had known but when I contacted him to see if he was interested he told me he did not feel the Lord releasing him from where he was already at. While on my prayer retreat I kept sensing the Lord telling me to “Listen.” That was it. So I did what I always did and started pouring over page after page of scripture. After a while I did have any word from the Lord but I kept sensing this soft message “Listen.”
I got up from the table where I had been reading my Bible and sat down in an easy chair. I remember my prayer to the Lord. “Lord, I am not good at this listening thing. I don’t know when I hear from you and when I don’t. I am willing to listen. If you have anything to say to me here I am. Please speak for your servant is listening.”
I tried to still my mind and empty my thoughts except to focus on God and be still before Him. All I wanted to do was to hear from Him. I did not care what the message was, I wanted to hear. At first, my thoughts were random as I tried slow everything down. I can’t tell you how it happened, I only know after a while seated before the Savior He spoke. I recorded all of it in a journal. It was November 11, 2005. Here is what I the Lord and I recorded in my journal. “I love you child. Just like you are proud of your boys, I’m proud of you. Lead Paradise to pray and I will do astounding things. Seek me for the future and I reveal it. Teach my people to pray! Lead my people to fast and pray. If you do this I will grant you power like you have never known. Darrell Fishbeck is chosen man for your church but he is comfortable. Fast and pray and I will lead him to you.”
I came back to Paradise and shared this revelation with the search committee. They began fasting and praying for Darrell and his wife Charissa. The Lord led them to FBC Paradise and they officially joined the team January of 2006. I wonder what would have happened if I had not been willing to sit in that chair and listen to God’s specific instructions for me and our church at that time. Darrell very likely would have remained where he was at and our church would have pursued someone else apart from fasting and praying diligently.
Hearing from the Lord is vital if we are going to serve Him in our generation. I am not so concerned with how He speaks but that He speaks and that we have our ears bent toward Heaven to listen. Since that day in November of 2005 I have tried to include listening in my regular spiritual disciplines. Most of the time God speaks to me most consistently and clearly through His scriptures. Every once in a while He speaks to me through the Holy Spirit like He did on that prayer retreat. He recently did this while sitting in “listening chair” in my office. When I need to hear from Him or sense He has something He wants to say to me I get up from my desk and sit in that chair. It is holy ground. It was while sitting there the Lord revealed a direction for our church I had been seeking Him about for two years.
Now it is your turn. Take some time over the next several days to listen. Listen while you are reading His word. Listen while you are praying. Listen while you are driving down the road. Listen while you are in church. Listen and do not be surprised when the Lord speaks and how clearly He instructs you. You too will know the power and purpose of a fresh word from the Lord.
Homesick for Heaven
Chapter Seven
From time to time my ministry requires me to travel. At times I travel to nearby towns and at other times to towns far away to preach. On occasion I even try to other countries for ministry opportunities. I used to travel full time going where the Lord would open a door for me to minister. Each time I have to leave home, I am always a little homesick. I miss Brenda and the boys. I miss the flock at FBC Paradise who have been so very loving and supportive of Brenda, the boys, and me. I miss sleeping in my own bed and eating Brenda’s home cooking. I don’t know who said it but they were certainly right when they said there is no place like home.
There was a time when I was naïve enough to think that life on the road would be exciting and thrilling. I have traveled enough and slept enough hotels to know that is not the case at all.
The same is true for the true saints. The longer we are on this earth we begin to get a homesick for a place like Heaven. We were created for that place and therefore can never really be at home here. We might make shelter and set up camp, but no matter how big our tents are and how ornate down here, all of us will be called to pull up stakes down here to enter into either our eternal reward of punishment depending on what we did with the Lord Jesus. Those who cried out for mercy and salvation in His name will not be disappointed and those who refused to and rebelled against His warnings will suffer the consequences.
At 41 I long for heaven more than I did when I was twenty one. I had not really seen suffering like I have now. In the past twenty four hours I have run head first into suffering all around me. One couple is having marital troubles. One man is in a coma after long years of rebellion against the laws of God. Another person’s house burned and that does not mention the normal course of sickness and disease. It is easy to lose heart down here. Yet, in my heart I can hear the Father saying just a little while longer. It really doesn’t matter if He chooses to come back and get me on a horse of white or if should choose to call me home the way of death. Either way will be fine with me because no matter what I will be going home.
I love that old hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.” I especially love the fourth verse. Each time I sing it I cannot help but grin and sing it as loud as I can.
And Lord haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend,
Even so it is well with my soul.[1]
I want to live in a state of expectation that one day, and it could be very soon, we will be going home. Home is where my Father who has loved me, healed me, redeemed me, giving me purpose in living, sustained me through sufferings, and strengthened me to endure in life and ministry is. I can’t wait to see my Savior whom I have loved and adored but only seen with the eyes of my heart. For the first time I will see with my eyes the one who has made my “life worth the living just because He lives.”
Home is where you can find refuge, shelter, love, support, laughter, and treasured memories. In Heaven we have all of eternity to worship, to adore, to laugh, to relive old times when the faithfulness of God has been on display for all the world to see.
I hate the fact that down here everything is temporary. Right now I am watching a man I love dearly slowly die. We have had many conversations about it and He is spiritually ready. He has lived well and now wants to die well. I just don’t want to let him go. I love him and want to laugh with him more. I want to listen to more of his stories about how he used to go to the movies and get popcorn and candy for fifteen cents and stay all day long. I want to hear him talking about the old days. I hate seeing spouses having to depart with their spouses after decades of marriage. It is heart wrenching. Everything here is temporary. Cars, houses, jobs, possessions. All temporary. Yet in Heaven, all is permanent. Listen to John’s comments about Heaven found in [Rev 21:4], “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold I am making all things new.’ And He said, ‘Write for these words are faithful and true.’” These things are not temporary.
It is okay to be homesick for Heaven. While the Lord gives us life here I believe we should live it to the fullest. When it is time to go home to Heaven, well let’s all be ready and say goodbye to this global ball of crying, pain and mourning in light of the new God has in store for all His chosen children.
Daddy, Feel My Muscles
Chapter Eight
My boys are getting at the age when they are trying to prove how strong they are. They want to wrestle and gang up on me. Four against one are not good odds when they are little but will only get increasingly more difficult as they get older and bigger. They are all the time saying, “Daddy, feel my muscles.” At this point they will flex with all their might and hope that I will ooh and awe how they have grown and how they are getting stronger.
I wish that was our attitude toward the God when He looks down on the muscle of our faith and trust in Him. Do we ever say, “Father, come and look at my muscle. I faced this trial and I trusted You and I saw You come through for me. My faith has grown a lot since the last time I needed to trust You.”
Does the Father ever look down and say, My, your faith has grown. I remember when you could barely trust me to move those small ant hills in your life and now you are trusting me with mountains. Good job. Keep trusting and exercising your faith so you can get stronger and stronger. More trials will await you and along with them more miracles.
I love to work out. I especially enjoy lifting weights and have done so since I was in the sixth grade. I will never forget going to the store and buying those plastic covered weights filled with cement. I used to push and heave those weights for hours on end hoping to develop and grow those muscles. I continued this through junior high, high school, and college football. Now at 41, I have lost a lot of the strength I once had. I still work out. I try to go to the gym three to five times a week where I still push and hoist those waits and try to get in some cardiovascular work out on the elliptical, treadmill, or stationary bike. No matter how I work I cannot regain the strength I had in my younger years. I also have new aches and pains I never used to have before.
I have good news. This is not the case in growing the muscle of your faith. You can grow your faith until the day you die. In your last days you can have the strongest, most mature, more persevering, and undaunted faith you have ever had. Yes, it is possible but in order to have such a faith you will be required to use it and exercise it all the days of your life.
That means when you are and I are in middle age, God will still be desiring us to trusting, attempting, and believing Him for the impossible and the miraculous. When most would rather settle back into comfort and leisure, the person who wants to grow his or her faith will be running toward impossible dreams for the Lord. Each time faith is used and exercised the stronger and bigger it grows.
One day you look back and things you used to think were huge seem so little as grows your prayers and stretches you new levels. The trials and test may increase in regularity and severity but the growth in faith always follows. I believe it is absolutely possible to enter the final lap of your life and have the strongest faith imaginable on the inside while the world only sees a broken and feeble body on the inside.
Maybe some day we should gather our grand kids and great grand kids and flex the muscles of our faith and we begin to testify of the Lord’s enduring faithfulness in our families over the duration of our lives. Maybe we should tell of the mighty exploits the Lord has done in response to our faith filled praying. Maybe we should also tell them of our prayers for their lives and at the very end, maybe we should grin real big and say, “Beloved, come here and feel my faith muscle. It is still getting bigger.”
In this way, hopefully we can pass the baton of faith to the next generations and challenge them to live for the glory of God, to pray for to the glory of God, and believe God to do the impossible for the glory of His name.
Running Hard After God
Chapter Nine
[Ps 63:8] KJV My soul followeth hard after thee; thy right hand upholdeth me.
As I write this 2007 is quickly fading into the rear view mirror of my life with only five days before the start of 2008. In a few days I will began setting goals for the new year but my mind is drawn back in time to a Wednesday night youth service in Lufkin, TX at my home church Denman Avenue Baptist. My friend was teaching and though I cannot remember what he taught on that night I can remember clearly being asked to set a spiritual goal and I recall clearly my response to that goal. I asked the Lord to help me know Him better and making pursuing Him the passionate goal of the remainder of my life.
That probably occurred in 1999 and I still remember it nearly nine years later. What does it mean to follow hard after the living God? I was first introduced to this subject after reading a chapter in A.W. Tozer’s book The Pursuit of God. He begins the chapter by reminding us that desire to pursue God in the first place originates with God and is fleshed out in our lives by our following hard after Him. I picture that following hard after God as a sprint.
Far too many people are contented to meander after God nonchalantly. There is no urgency and little passion to get to know God. We are satisfied with knowing about God but grow uneasy when it comes to getting to know God on a one to one basis. This requires time and more importantly time set aside for soul solitude seated before the God of this universe.
We start this pilgrimage toward intimacy with the Almighty at salvation but it continues on for a lifetime. Sadly, there are many who make precious little progress over the course of their lives getting to know God. God be praised there are still a remnant of believers who’s passion to know God causes them to get up day after day in a dead sprint toward God Himself. He is the object of their greatest affections, their supreme delight and treasure, the purpose for which they live, and the warmth and heat of their hearts has thawed the icy hearted religion of multitudes. A.W. Tozer was one such soul.
In this day of Dr. Phil and Oprah pop-psychology, quick fix, practical solutions, Tozer seems out of place. We think who has the time to sit hour upon hour engaged in strange activities like prolonged prayer, meditation, private worship, and deep reflection on the person and nature of God.
Look around you at the shallow Christianity you see in the market place and in worship services. Do you feel you are surrounded by men, women, teenagers, and children who are running after God day in day out with everything they have? I certainly do not. I see people running after money from can to can’t. I see people running after sports with every spare moment either by following their favorite teams or by believing their child is the next phenomenon to come along. I see people in a passionate pursuit for pleasure and recreation with no holds barred abandon. Yet, when it comes to people running hard after God it appears to be dieing philosophy of life.
We would rather do more and stay busier while remaining in the shallow waters of our faith and relationship with the Lord than to slow down and linger longer in His presence which would lead us into the vast ocean of His person.
What will it take to get us to slow down, to ponder on the Prince of Peace and meditate about the Messiah? What will ever motivate us to slow down longer in the physical realm so that we may run harder in the spiritual realm? Only God Himself.
How I wish in my own life that I would run in a sprint with endurance until I get to the finish line of life which will be God Himself. Until then, I trust that He who began this good work in us will keep working and perfecting that desire for us to sprint after Him. [Phil 1:6] I know if we submit to this leading, we would live the most fulfilled and contented years of our lives. On your mark! Get set! GO! I will meet you at the finish line.
Chapter Ten
Strategies to Defeat Stress
The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord, we have an everlasting rock. [Is 26:3-4]
I was jolted awake last night by a brilliant flash of lightening followed by a detonation of thunder which shook the windows throughout the house. Off and on throughout the night there were other bursts of lightening and thunderous echoes. I am reminded of how stress can come into our lives and awake us from our slumberous routines suddenly also.
The storm clouds of stress can begin gathering before we are fully aware of it. Suddenly our steps seem to be stuck in the mud, our normal routines seem harder than usual, and our minds become overloaded with too much responsibility. We find too many obstacles stand in our way, and on top of all of that we find ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and physically too depleted to press on. Quitting and shirking responsibility begins to look more and more appealing.
Stress comes to all of us regardless of age, spiritual maturity, or economic status. Stress comes in all shapes and forms. The dictionary defines stress as “intense pressure and strain.” As the pressure and the strain mounts we often find our faith shrinking and our vitality waning. If this condition persists you can be assured a spiritual fall will ensue. In our efforts to cope with the stress and find some and any kind of relief, our adversary (Satan) is all too ready to deceive and provide temptation that looks appealing but in the end only produces spiritual death. He offers counterfeits to peace with tantalizing sin but instead of peace we only find shame, degradation, which in the end only adds to our stress. God alone is our only real coping mechanism for intense pressure and strain.
Are there strategies to combat the enemy of stress when it suddenly intrudes unsolicited into our lives? I believe there are strategies to not only combat stress in our lives but also to defeat stress. Here they are.
1. Keep your mind steadfast on God. We tend to do just the opposite. We keep our mind steadfast on the problems we are facing. The word “steadfast” means to lean on for support. Lean on God in our thoughts in stress. Gaze at God and glance at your stressful situations.
2. Trust God to keep (guard and watch over) you in perfect peace. Regardless of the source of your stress you can find complete tranquility and contentment in God. In order to enjoy this peace you must spend adequate time with God and soaking in the scriptures.
3. You must trust in the Lord day by day and stressful event after stressful event. That means that you must have confidence that God will help you through the stress and intervene. He will come to the rescue. He also will be your security when circumstances look gloomy. Trust Him at all times.
4. Lastly, we must place our feet firmly on the rock of the foundation that is God. During stress everything can become disoriented. Up looks down and down looks up. Right seems wrong and wrong seems right. It is during these stressful times that we are apt to make wrong choices. A good rule of thumb is not to make any major decisions when you are feeling stressed. God is our rock and firm foundation in these times and not only that, He is also our refuge. He is a place to get out of the stressful storms of life for awhile to find shelter and relief. If we ever hope to defeat stress in our lives we are going to have lean on God as our rock and refuge.
I hope these strategies will be useful in the days ahead. I know I need them. I am right now staring in the face of close to one dozen impossible situations that can be stressful if I allow them to. Let’s strategically combat stress and see the Lord conquer it in our lives.
His,
Matt
Chapter Eleven
Walking a Long Dirt Road
I recently found myself isolated walking down a lonely dirt road to just get away from the crowds. It was a week where I was given the privilege of preaching eight different times in one week. It was also a week where my study time was continually interrupted by something or someone at various times throughout the week. Two times my children awoke at 5:00 a.m. which distracted my normal quiet times before the Lord. It was a challenging and exhausting week and that slow deliberate prayer walk down that lonely dirt road was refreshing to my soul in ways I could never put onto paper.
To make this walk I had to deliberately leave the company of several men I love dearly who had gathered on a scenic 1,500 acre ranch for a men’s retreat. I had to make that walk alone if my soul was going to be of any benefit to them for the weekend. Those first steps were awkward spiritually as I tried to pray but could hear the conversation and laughter of the other men. Soon I turned a corner both physically as I left sight of the home we were staying in also turned a corner spiritually. As soon as I was totally alone I felt myself exhaling the pressure of a busy week and inhaling the intoxicating presence of God. I walked through a wooded area and headed for the lake. While walking along the shore line of the lake I felt my heart relax and I began to spiritually breathe in tranquility.
The refreshing presence of God on those walks cannot be measured or described with words. Our vocabularies are too restricted to speak of such experiences. Suffice it to say I know just a little of how Adam and Eve must have felt before they sinned as they walked with God in the garden. How they must have relished those walks with God in the garden. Instructions could have been given, love expressed, joy experienced, and the delight of being in perfect communion with the creator defies description. Their sin changed that. Instead of wanting to walk with God after they ate the forbidden fruit they actually began to flee from God and try to hide from His presence. [Gen 3:8-10] That is what I think we do. We don’t walk those lonely dirt roads with God because we know He knows our sin. He knows the secret parts of our lives that no-one else knows and we want to keep them hidden. We unconsciously think if we stay away from His presence we can hide our flaws, moral mishaps, and spiritual blunders from His all seeing eyes. God already knows the truth and wants us to confess the truth in our innermost beings. [Ps 51:6]
There is another story of a man who walked with God found in Genesis. Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. [Gen 5:24] I imagine Enoch daily, sauntering down long dirt roads talking with God. The nature of those talks could have been expressions of love and adoration, confession of sin, pleas for help in impossible circumstances, and just enjoying the presence and the reality of God day in and day out. Just as Enoch enjoyed walking the Lord I believe the Lord enjoyed walking with Enoch. Daily jaunts together became Enoch’s life-long habit. God must have loved those walks far more than we can imagine because one day He just decided to take Enoch to Heaven. No death. No pain. Just eternal bliss and greater intimacy with the Father Enoch had been pursuing to know while walking with Him on those roads for years.
It is kind of like the saying a friend of mine has. He says he imagines as he walks with the Lord that one day the Lord will say to him, “Son, we’re closer to my house than to yours. Why don’t you just come home with me?” God just wanted Enoch all for himself and took Him to Heaven. Enoch is only one of two persons to experience something like that, Elijah being the other.
I want to learn what it really means to walk with God in a way that not only refreshes my life but blesses the Father as well. I want to learn to slow down long enough to meander down the dirt roads of life in delightful conversation and communion with my Father. I know when I try to hide in the bushes from God’s presence my soul shrivels and my faith fades. Some of the most meaningful spiritual experiences I have ever had included walking alone in the mountains, on the beach, out in the woods, down dusty country roads, and out in pastures. There is something very therapeutic and invigorating about walking with God.
I am under no pretenses that I am in any like Enoch. I have not learned the art of cultivating that kind of walk with the Lord. I do enjoy my walks with Him however and hope to ever be cultivating and refining my walks with Him. I encourage you to do the same. Find some isolated dusty trail or road and just go for a walk with God. Pour your soul out to Him and listen to what He has to say to you. I guarantee you will come away from that experience both refreshed and recharged for the demands of relentlessly busy life.
Chapter Twelve
Finishing Strong
I went on a twelve mile bike ride yesterday in between our morning and evening services at church. My ambition was to break my time from the previous day’s ride but I did not take into account the blustery winds blowing in my face for half the ride. There were times when I was riding up hills that I contemplated turning back but I kept focused on my watch. It seemed I was going at a snail’s pace and the extra effort to fight through the head wind only served to produce greater fatigue in my legs.
At the half point I had only twenty five minutes to complete the rest of the ride which seemed impossible. I pedaled hard up and down hills and over bumpy roads. Toward the end of the ride I noticed I only had six minutes to break the time from the day ahead. I found the highest and hardest gear and put my head down to pedal with all my might. It helped that during this last stretch I was actually riding with the wind. I road as fast as I have ever ridden that stretch or road winding up at the elementary school. From there I had a good way to go to make it back to my yard and I was down to three minutes.
I pushed myself but in the end I missed my time by thirty seconds. I did finish strong though but not strong enough.
How are you finishing in life? Are you planning on coasting into eternity or are you planning crossing from life to death at full speed needing to hit the brakes. I am disappointed by the number of people who do not finish strong. David did not finish strong nor did his son Solomon. Many pastors have failed in the twilight years of their lives and ministries. Many high school seniors have quit running for the Lord in their last year of high school and seemingly walked off the track all together.
There are many people who live their spiritual lives like a person who enters a 400 meter race and sprints as hard as they can for 100 meters and then jog to the finish. Few people remember how you start the race but the crowd gathers around the finish line. I wonder how many will limp into Heaven with their heads bowed in shame as God tests their lives and how they ran to the very end with His all consuming fire. Many will suffer loss on that day. [I Cor 3:12-15] Do you want to cross the finish line with that kind effort.
This past week I was at a track meet for our school and was serving as one of the official timers. One of the other timers commented about a girl who trotted across the line and then took one step and came to a complete stand still. He commented that there was no way she could have been giving her best effort to stop that fast. She had no momentum. Other runners who gave it their all could not come to a complete stop for several yards passed the finish line.
What kind of runner, person of the faith, and spiritual athlete are you and I becoming. Quitting is a habit but so is finishing. Running and living with endurance is a joyous journey but it is also a difficult and demanding race as well. Determine now you will finish strong by God’s help. Don’t make excuses for how hard the wind blows or how fast the other runners seem to be around you. Determine that you will plod along and give the best you have and you will not let up until death comes to you. Even in old age we can continue to run spiritually and cross the finish line strong.
That’s what Joe Motsenbocker did. Brother Joe as he was known preached for near eighty years. He started preaching as a young boy and preached up till his death on September 15, 2005. He preached over 1,000 funerals, 450 weddings, and 500 revivals, in addition to serving as a pastor in several churches. He preached the Sunday before he died on a Saturday and was scheduled to preach the next day. He was only a few short weeks from being ninety years old at his death and this man finished strong. May we follow his example.
Chapter Thirteen
Little Prayer Cabin
I have spoken of it often and written about it as well. There is a small two bedroom cabin I often retreat to pray and soak in the scriptures to find spiritual renewal. After all these years I finally have some pictures of this place. You will be able to tell how isolated it is from hustle and bustle of life. What you will not be able to see from those pictures is the powerful presence of God in that tiny rustic cabin located far off the beaten path. Neither will those pictures be able to encapsulate the innumerable encounters I have with God and the life transformation that has ensued from those encounters.
It has been one of the great blessings of my life that the Lord has allowed me to have access to that cabin through a friend who manages the place for over a dozen years. At times I have gone inside those doors and slept for days from shear mental, spiritual, and emotional exhaustion. At other times I have spent my time reading book after book for spiritual refreshment. I have prayed hours on end seeking God’s will in different areas of ministry. I have sat before the Lord to listen to Him without feeling rushed or hurried to get to some other appointment. His voice has been sweet in that “prayer cabin” nestled among the pine trees. I have prayer walked miles around that property allowing the dust to kick up around my feet and the dust of sin and frustrations to exit my soul at the same time. I have read untold chapters of scriptures during my stays in that place. I have written several books seated at the dining room table surrounded by windows in that country cottage. It has become an old familiar home away from home. I know every inch of that place. I have a certain chair for reading. I sleep in the same bed and eat the same dining table chair.
Why has this place become so special to me? Why do enjoy my get a ways there so much? If God is omnipresent, why do I sense His presence so powerfully in that rustic wood framed house? Is that place any more holy than any other place on this planet? Or is my fondness of that place really nothing more than opportunity to meet with my Lord unhurried, with time to linger and take casual walks with Him.
When I’m in the prayer cabin it is like time stands still except for the fact that from time to time I look at my watch and am reminded how precious few hours I have left there before I have to return to reality. I can soak in God like a sponge and then when I go back home the Lord can squeeze Himself out to me to meet the ministry demands all of me.
I have two thoughts to wrap this up. First, taking these retreats is not only necessary but beneficial for the believer. How many ever take the time to do it. Jesus made this a regular habit of His life and ministry. [Luke 1:35] Early in the morning while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place and was praying there. Don’t you need to depart from the throngs of people from time to time and find a lonely place where you can commune with God? That cabin has been a lonely place for me for a long long time. But the truth is I don’t get go there every day or even every month. I am fortunate to make it to that place two or three times in a year. So what do I do the rest of the time. I get up early and meet with God in the lonely place of my living room. I shut the door to my office and meet God in the lonely place of my study to linger with Him. Some times I have to depart my office and meet with Him in the lonely place of a restaurant or find a lonely dirty road to take a “prayer walk.” This habit was a regular part of Jesus’ routine. [Luke 5:16] But He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness to pray.
If Jesus made the time and had the need to “slip away” or to “depart to a lonely place” what about you and me. Life, family, work, and ministry can all do a slow drain on our souls. Those people who make slipping away and departing to a lonely place a regular part of their routines are the ones who have the most sincere and genuine faith.
My second thought is though retreating from demands of life is a great blessing and results in spiritual renewal, we can’t live forever on these retreats. This is illustrated in [Luke 9:28-41]. Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up with Him on one His prayer retreats and they actually see Christ manifested in all of His glory before them. Peter is blown away and says, “Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles one for You, and one for Moses, and for Elijah…”
Yet only a few verses later the scriptures tell us they came down from the mountain and were immediately met with a distraught father looking for help for his son. Going up on the mountains to retreat with God is great but the one of the purposes for doing that is to come back down from the mountain for ministry.
I love that prayer cabin more than I can put into words and I always look forward to my retreats there. The honest truth is that though I love that place I do not want to live there. My ministry is in Paradise, TX and Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada. I retreat to be filled so I can come back and be effective in ministry. I look forward to my next trip to the prayer cabin but I also look forward to coming back and ministering to people in the power of the Spirit.
Chapter Fourteen
Unexpected Days
I awoke up early this cold blustery day with my usual activities. I let our new puppy Annabelle out. I sat down to read the scriptures and spend some time with the Lord before getting the boys up for the morning. After reading in the Psalms I got the boys up and made them waffles for breakfast. The whole time I was eager to get them fed and myself showered so I could hurry and get to the office. Before leaving the house two of the boys asked if I could come and eat lunch with them at school. This was the first unexpected event of the day. Everything in me wanted to say “no” but I know the day will come when they will quit asking so I decided to rearrange my schedule and bring them lunch.
The forecast for the day called for the possibility of a wintry mix but we hear that often here in North Texas and seldom experience it. On my way to get lunch for the boys the wintry mix began. At first I noticed some frozen rain and then I began to see little snow flakes periodically. By the time I was given their food at the drive thru window the flakes were bigger and more steady. When I reached the school it was really snowing. It looked like days I have experienced on mission trips in Saskatchewan, Canada. During both lunches the snow intensified and it began to accumulate. I left the schools to actually eat lunch with Brenda and I had no sooner sat down at the café when another unexpected event turned up. Due to the weather the phones at the schools went down and one of our church members called me to get a message to his children. My only option was to get up from the table and go back to the same campus I had just left. The roads became more slippery and while driving it became obvious the road conditions were only going to worsen as the day went on. Unexpected event number three, I decided to check the boys out early only to find out they were being dismissed early due to the bad weather. When I arrived back at the café to finally eat Brenda and began discussing the fact that neither one of us had considered picking up the little boy we normally pick up from school. His dad usually picks him up on Thursdays but due to the bad weather and the early dismissal he was unable to get to the schools. For the third time I had drove back to the schools to pick this little boy. By this time the snow was nearly a foot in areas and in this part of the state people loose what little sense they had while driving. One lady was headed the wrong way down a one way street. Another lady was turned around in the wrong lane trying to exit the intermediate campus. All I kept thinking was about how frustrated I was that I could not get back to my office. Brenda did not feel comfortable driving to the schools so I drove them and planned on dropping them off at my house and then coming back to the office. All was going according to plan until we were just about home and came up on a truck stuck in the ditch in front of our house. We could not pass, so I parked in the middle of the road and went to help push the truck out with my oldest son Taylor. It took some work but we finally got him out but in the process he had gunned the accelerator so much that he backed into the ditch on the other side of the road. I stepped into well over a foot of snow to get behind his truck in my dress shoes and slacks and tried to position myself where I would be able to avoid the back tires spinning mud and snow on me. It did not work. While I pushed he turned slightly to the left which left me right in the line of fire. Unexpectedly I found myself needing to change clothes. All of this was very frustrating. I had not planned any of these interruptions in my day. I made the comment that Sundays come around whether there are snow storms are not. My plans had included spending the majority of the day studying and heading to the gym to ride a bike or an hour being it was too cold to ride outside. With the road conditions unexpectedly snowed over I could not even go do that.
Now, I am finally back in my office and nearly completed my Sunday morning message preparation. While sitting here and reflecting on the events of the day I recall something my eight year old Tucker said after I picked him up from school. He commented, “Dad, I think God let it snow so we could have some fun today.” From his eight year old imagination the snow was the highlight of his day. It produced abounding joy and delight. None of my boys have seen this much snow in their entire lives. Brenda got home and found the camera and took pictures of all the boys, she and I, and each of the boys and I, and several pictures of the boys with Annabelle. From my grown up perspective the snow was inconvenient, a frustrating distraction in my normally overcrowded life. Instead of joy it produced irritation and impatience.
I am thinking of two verses that are much needed in my life when I have unexpected days. [James 1:2] Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your produces endurance. [Phil 4:4] Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice. Even during those unexpected days and the snow comes and covers your roads, your schedule, and your life.
Lord, I ask you to forgive me not being open and flexible in my everyday life. I ask you to give me the heart of Tucker and the way he looks at life. Thank you for the snow and the blessing of watching children all over the Paradise community light up like Christmas trees. Thank you for bringing opportunities in my day to practice denying myself and putting other people first. May I learn these lessons well and be prepared the next time I have another one of these unexpected days.
Chapter Fifteen
Sold Out to God’s Will
I was listening to a message from one of my favorite preachers today when I phrase he said really jumped out of the message and grabbed my heart. That phrase is about being “sold out to God’s will.”
We use the phrase “sold out” to mean really giving yourself wholly to something or someone. People are sold out to sports and devote massive quantity of time and energy in refining skills and increasing strength and speed. Others devote themselves to endless quest for knowledge found in reading and studying books. There are those who are sold out to thrill seeking through adventure sports. We hear the phrase sold out is many different arenas of life, but when was the last time you heard someone being described as being sold out (or wholly given to and yielded to) God’s will?
Few are courageously and completely submitted to the will of God. It is a risky and uncomfortable thing to totally surrender your will, your aspirations, your future, and your family to the will of God. Isn’t that what Jesus was demanding when he said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” [Matt 16:24]That last part of the verse is really striking. He simply calls us to follow Him. It really doesn’t matter where that might lead. Jesus doesn’t concern us with what personal cost and sacrifice may come to us as we follow Him. He just calls us to follow.
Following Christ is costly. And we know the cost. God calls some families and some individuals to forsake the American dream to pursue God’s dream of making His name famous in the nations of this world. Some who answer this call will follow Jesus into physical suffering and great emotional anguish. Knowing this in the back of our minds we set up safety boundaries where we dare not cross in desiring to know God’s will much less being sold out to it. The tragedy is that we think we are preserving our lives in doing this but what we are actually doing is killing ourselves spiritually. We are sold out to the idea of our comfort and security and fail to realize the very author of that comfort and security is God Himself. Why do we flee the very one who gives our lives purpose and meaning? We are not saving our lives. We are merely marking time, existing, and so very often going through the motions of our faith, families, and functions of everyday living.
I challenge all who read this to summon the spiritual courage to sell out to the will of God. Trust Him. If you cannot trust Him with the details of your life then how can you trust Him with the greater issue of forgiving sin and salvation of your soul? Can anyone read this identify anyone in history who can truthfully say, “God, failed me. He let me down and He is not trustworthy.” If anyone could really say that, we could deduce that God is not trustworthy or faithful. The truth is that God has earned the right generation after generation, life after life, century after century to earn your trust. He is worthy of all the trust you can give Him. Because He over and over again has proven Himself worthy to be trusted, we can confidently sell out to His will.
We are so consumed wanting to know the benefits and how following Him will end. That is really irrelevant. Should selling out to the will of God lead to some suffering, He will be faithful to give enduring faith to get through it. Should selling out to God’s will lead to hard ministry and financial poverty, has He not promised to be provider and to also be our sustainer. Should we follow Christ into great success and prominence is He alone not the source of our contentment and fulfillment. You and I cannot conceive of any scenario where God could lead us and His Sovereign faithfulness would not already be there.
If you would allow faith to surface buoyantly in your heart, ignore fear and abandon yourself into the loving and faithful hands of God, I know your soul would come to life. Faith will become real and knowledge of God will increase and become a present reality rather than a distant theory. Sell out. Abandon yourself to the will of God. At that point, you will come to discover first hand for your own life that you serve a faithful, trustworthy, dependable, constant, reliable, unfailing, and unswerving God.
[1] Horatio Spafford, The Baptist Hymnal (Nashville, Convention Press, 1991) p. 410.
Matt Edwards
Copyright 2007 No Compromise Ministries
Divine Encounter
Chapter One
This summer I was preaching to a group of students with a burning word from the Lord in my heart. It was one of those rare times when you feel the Lord has anointed you and the students are tuned in to what the Lord is saying. The weighty presence of the Lord saturated that meeting room.
After the service I felt the Lord wanted me to continue to seeking him. I found an isolated place and lay prostrate in His presence. Time seemed to stand still as I drew audience with my God. I really can’t tell you why but the tears began to flow and the sense of God’s working deep in my heart was very intense.
Suddenly the Lord began to speak to me. The things He imparted to me are far too personal to tell you but suffice it to say that I had a divine encounter. I learned later this time last well over an hour and a half. To me it seemed only a few minutes.
Profound things happened on that carpeted floor in that room. Prayers were answered, direction was given, hope was renewed, sin was forgiven, the fires of faith were rekindled, and communion with Christ was enjoyed.
I live for those kinds of divine encounters. You never know when and where the Lord will show up and bring you to a whole new place. It can happen in a worship service, in your living room at home, while walking out in a field or in the woods, on an airplane, in a hotel room, in a rural rustic cabin, and yes even in a closet.
I am firmly convinced that the Lord longs to meet more with us than we desire to meet with Him. He yearns to have encounters with us but too often we are busy, distracted, and half hearted in our desires to encounter Him.
Let me give you a few facts about Divine Encounters from [Ex 3:1-10].
1. A Divine Encounter can come at any time at any place and usually they are unexpected. Moses did not go out the pasture to shepherd his flock expecting a life altering encounter with God. It was unexpected. That means that we should live in a state of anticipation that on any given day at any given hour God will show up and blow us away with His presence.
2. A Divine Encounter with wreck your life. For Moses the path seemed pretty clear. He worked as a shepherd and day in and day out for year after year, he pretty much did the same thing. He watched over the sheep, nurtured the sheep, and gave guidance to the sheep. Little did he know this was training ground for his real life’s purpose. God’s encounter with Moses wrecked Moses’ comfortable life with his retirement plans. From this point on, everything would change for this veteran keeper of the flocks.
3. Divine Encounters often lead you into God sized assignments that are bigger than you and your abilities. Moses knew nothing about being a national leader and a deliverer for God’s people. He had to seek and trust God every step of the way. The same is true for you and me. When God speaks and gives you an assignment, it will at times look impossible from your vantage point. This will lead you to depend on Him and serve to exercise and strengthen your faith.
4. A Divine Encounter will come at God’s initiative. Moses did not have to sit around and dream up his own dreams for God to bless. As Moses went about the normal activities of life day in and day out, God came to Moses when He was ready to reveal His purposes and His plans. We can rest in the fact when the Lord is ready to meet with us in a very special way He will find us. We must be ready and willing to respond when that time comes.
So whether your Divine Encounter comes through reading this today or some day in the future, put everything else on the back burner when that time comes. Seek Him as [Jer 29:11-13] exhorts us and trust that those encounters will be life altering.
Dear Lord, please continue to bless us with Divine Encounters with you and speak and show us great and mighty things which we do not know. [Jer 33:3]
The Closet of Brokenness and Repentance
Chapter Two
I can’t really say what triggered it all. I only knew as I sat in my office this past Sunday morning as I was at the end of myself, which is a very good thing. For months I had felt I was going through the motions in worship, public prayers, and preaching. Sundays began to feel more like something to survive than a day set aside as holy unto the Lord. I felt myself trying to survive the next sermon and get through the next set of Sunday activities. I felt ill prepared and less prayed up week after week. I was preaching God’s word but I had lost the passion, the fire, the zeal, and the faith to believe that God’s word was making a difference in people’s lives. On that Sunday morning I had enough. I was determined to get a fresh word for the Lord for the service or preach nothing at all. I refused to go through the motions for another Sunday.
I had one of those encounters with the Lord that in hindsight proves to be a spiritual marker. I have had several of them along the way. There was the spiritual marker at Abe Martin Stadium in Lufkin, TX where I met the Lord Jesus Christ as my Savior. There was the spiritual marker at Pineywoods Baptist Encampment where I knew the Lord called me to preach. There was the spiritual maker of meeting and talking to Brenda on the campus of Howard Payne University and knowing she was God’s best divinely chosen to be my helpmate. She has been that and so much more over the past sixteen years. There have been several spiritual makers in what I affectionately call my “prayer retreat cabin” located outside of Palestine, TX. I also had numerous such spiritual markers right here in this same office I prayed in this past Sunday morning three days ago.
I did not know it at the time, but my time with the Lord in my office on October 7, 2007 is a time that I will not soon forget. I was convicted and broken and the message the Lord burned in my soul that morning was more for me personally and secondly for our church. It was a message about offering the Lord defiled offerings and blemished sacrifices, or in short giving God our second best.
I prayed through [Malachi 1:6-14] and used that as my text. Sitting on the front pew during the worship service before it was time to preach was agonizing. I knew that my own personal sin in not offering the Lord my very best in study and preaching had hindered our church. It was time to come clean and acknowledge my sin as well as the sin of the rest of our congregation for falling into the same trap during Sunday morning worship. I also knew that many people were falling into the same sin I was and it was time to “shut the gates and quit uselessly kindling fire on God’s altar.” [Malachi 1:10]
After preaching the message I withdrew from the crowd, found a secluded closet to hide in, and lay prostrate on the dirty floor to seek the face of God. What took place in that small dirty little closet will be lived out over the next months and prayerfully for the rest of my life. How do you put into words those intimate encounters with the Lord when He gives you audience with Him and His presence is so very real?
It was pitch dark inside that closet. It was not as dark as my sin riddled heart was before God. .I was broken and for the longest time could only manage one prayer over and over again, “God, I am sorry. God, I am sorry. God, I am so sorry for offering defiled and polluted offerings and sacrifices to You. Please forgive me.” The tears could not be held back as they fell into puddles beneath my face. My heart was broken for the people of Paradise but I was much more broken knowing that I had offended God. Like David, my sin was ever before me and I came to understand in a fresh way that against God I had sinned. [Ps 51:3-4] “For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against You, You only, I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight, so that You are justified when You speak and blameless when You judge.” It was a painful time filled with brokenness. My heart was contrite and I was humbled in His presence. I could not make any empty promises being reminded of God’s warning in [Eccl 5:2] “Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few.”
I was broken over the lost passion I once had for preaching God’s Word. I recall how I used to rise so early on Sunday mornings to prayerfully get ready to preach. All that changed somewhere. It was not intentional. Somewhere along the way I grew tired of praying and preaching my heart out and seeing so few results. I am not just talking about visible results. I’m talking about not seeing the internal results of a changed and transformed life and congregation over the years. So I began to rationalize that my job was to preach the truth and the listener was responsible to God to respond. On the surface this sounds true but what changed for me was my expectation for God to move. I became calloused in my heart during the invitations and I lost the burning fiery passion to not only preach but to believe God for results. I became the very thing I have abhorred in others. I became a professional preacher with a hard heart.
Each tear represented a dead and lifeless sermon (or rather I should say a speech) I had delivered devoid of power and passion. As painful as that time was, it was needed. It had been a long time since the Lord had held the mirror to my heart and really let me see the sin that had long been rooted there. Uprooting sin is never a pleasant thing. It is painful but for me the pain of not preaching with passion and anointing and offering God my best would be more painful.
I don’t know how long I was in that closet of humiliation and crying tears of repentance. I know when I got up I was a new man. Cleansed. Forgiven. Renewed. Refreshed. Revived. Most importantly I was restored to my Father. Since then I have found a renewed passion to meet with Him for long and sustained unhurried times of prayer. I have felt a new passion rising in me to deliver His word both verbally and through writing. I have been called into a fresh desire to study, to preach and to write all to make much of Him and not me. The truth is the reason I have not sent this newsletter out sooner is that I had no inspiration to write. I was determined that I would not send out something that was inspired from the Lord and I did not feel had his anointing on it. It has been several months but here it is.
I left that closet a new man. I cannot help but feel, if more Christians went into their prayer closets with true repentance and brokenness, what a positive impact this would have on our walks with the Lord and our churches. Day by day we drift a little further away from the Lord, grow a little harder in our hearts, accept the dry and weary conditions of our spiritual lives, begin to allow compromise to uproot former commitments, and grow accustomed and satisfied with offering our great God second rate, polluted, defiled, and half hearted sacrifices. He deserves and demands our very best.
When was the last time you took a real honest look in the spiritual mirror? When was the last time you were moved to tears of repentance because of your sin? When was the last time you felt authentic in your worship and service to the Lord? If you have been giving God your leftovers in time, energy, and devotion maybe you need to withdraw from family and friends and go into the closet of brokenness and repentance. Life, forgiveness, and healing await you on the other side.
Today I was moving some chairs in a room where that same closet is located. The door was left open as I stared into that small isolated dark corner of our church. I was immediately reminded of my encounter with the Lord in that place. I will always remember that as the closet of brokenness and repentance. I am sure I will find my way back there from time to time. I hope you do to.
A Sacred Piece of Dirt
Chapter Three
There is a sacred piece of dirt located in East Texas that means more to me than I can put into words. I do not own this piece of property but have graciously been granted access to it for the past twelve years for private prayer and writing retreats.
I love that small little two bedroom wood framed cabin situated right in the middle of a four hundred acre ranch over looking a scenic private lake. You could drive up and down the nearest highway and most likely never find this cabin. To access it you must leave the highway and traverse the long winding dirt road and pass through three gates before even catching a glimpse of this modest private sanctuary. The house is surrounded by old trees outlined with a large covered back porch outfitted with a row of old rustic rocking chairs. I have spent many an hour sitting in those chairs reading the sacred scriptures and pondering life and ministry.
When you open the door you will find modest furniture in the living room with a sofa and four outdated lounging chairs. It is in the chairs that I have sat and heard the voice of God times without number. It is in these chairs that I have read the pages of hundreds of books and studied hundreds of pages of my favorite book of all; the Word of God.
The small dining area is located off the living area in the open floor plan. That dining table has served as my desk for study, writing books and articles, journaling, and writing letters for ministry. I do most of my praying at that dining room table. I have feasted on the presence of the Lord more at that table than people have eaten the most sumptuous feast at that same place. I have tasted time and time again and seen that the Lord is good and that table and found a satisfaction that no earthly meal has ever provided. [Ps 34:8] [Ps 17:15] The scene out the large back windows off the living room is breath taking. Less than two hundred yards off the back porch is the gorgeous trophy bass lake. Though I have fished in that lake on occasion, it is in that place that I am continually reminded of my main mission to be a fisher of men. Off to the left side of the lake is pine thicket. I have walked through that thicket in prayer and seeking the Lord’s counsel about life and ministry. Directly behind the lake is a beautiful field with rolling hills. Back to the right the lake continues on until it nearly reaches back to the highway.
This place is totally isolated. It is like stepping back into time. Each time I am blessed to make pilgrimage there, all I need is a little food, my books and writing pads (just recently I have been taking my laptop computer), my Bible, and prayer journal and off I go into another amazing adventure with the God of this universe.
That place is holy ground. It was on that sacred piece of dirt the Lord told me not to get a job or ask anyone for money but to trust Him for my needs back when Brenda and I walked through the eighteen months journey of faith where I did not have a salary. It was on that sacred piece of dirt that God gave me inspiration for the books Behold the Faithfulness of God, Only Believe, Swimming in the Bathtub, and Close Encounters. It was in that prayer cabin when the Lord spoke to me about Darrell Fishbeck being the man he had appointed to come and serve along side me at FBC Paradise. Most special to me of all is that in that isolated lodge I have met with and heard the voice of God. If you could only have heard the prayers that have been prayed in that place, your heart would grow in grace and knowledge of the Lord. A few special people have traveled to that cabin with me over the years to pray. The times we have had with the Lord defy description.
There was a time when Joel Perritte and I were praying about missions and praying [Is 6:8]. We were pleading with the Lord to take us, send us, and use us. God has answered that prayer. God has sent me to Cuba once and to Canada numerous times. Joel has gone to Cuba, Brazil, China, and Sudan. That prayer meeting is one of my favorite memories in that cabin as our tears stained the old carpet in that prayer cottage.
Darrell Fishbeck and I have taken a staff retreat in that cabin. It was there we met with the Lord and allowed Him to plant His dreams in our hearts for the future of FBC Paradise.
There is something about that little off the beaten path place that holds sentimental value to my soul. I have heard from the Lord so many times about so many things on that sacred piece of real estate. My faith has been challenged and stretched in that place. I have been inspired to be more for God and to attempt more for His glory right there.
The last time I was there was in September of 2007. I was scheduled to preach a youth rally in Nederland, TX which is about six hours from Paradise. I broke the trip up into two days and had the privilege of staying that cabin the night before I preached in Nederland and the night afterward. My time there was very short but true to recent history I had a wonderful encounter with the Lord and heard some astounding things from Him.
As I was packing to leave to come home later that morning I had mixed feelings. I was enthusiastic about the things the Lord had spoken to me about my future and the future of FBC Paradise. I was also eager to get back to my family and to the flock to minister that Wednesday evening. Yet I also had deep sorrow due to have leaving the solace of that sanctuary. There is no other place like it I have ever experienced on the earth. I have enjoyed times with the Lord in the mountains of Colorado and New Mexico. I have sat on the front balcony and had my time with the Lord overlooking the Gulf of Mexico in Galveston, TX. I have enjoyed wonderful times with the Lord in my home and in my office at the church. I worshipped the Lord in the Big Bear Mountainous area in California and basked in the beauty of the Lord in the midst of poverty in Guiness, Cuba. My heart has been made full in the hotel lobby in Portland, Oregon and I have also basked in His presence on jet plane rides to Saskatchewan, Canada. Yet no place I have ever been is a sacred place of dirt in my soul like that little cabin in East Texas. I hope to withdraw from the crowds and go there soon.
My Pastor
Chapter Four
I got off the elevator at the Wise Regional Hospital to find a lady from our church who was having surgery. I found her and her family in the waiting room. I was deeply moved when she introduced me to her mother and father saying, “This is my pastor Matt Edwards.”
What moved me so deeply was her calling me her pastor. This is far cry from how my ministry in Paradise started. At that time I was only the preacher. Even though my title as pastor I had not yet earned the right to be called anyone’s pastor. It was just a job title. I remember all to well the scriptures I read to the church after they voted to me to be the pastor of FBC Paradise. [I Pet 5:2] Shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness.
I have been spent my time here earning the right to be trusted, loved, and endeared as a true pastor. That has meant times in hospital rooms, surgery waiting rooms, in ICU’s, praying over people in emergency rooms, loving and ministering people on their death beds in homes, and at funeral homes and cemeteries. As my flock has hurt and suffered I have sought to hurt and walk through the suffering with them. I have loved these sheep sought to prayerfully protect them.
So when that lady introduced me as her pastor, a flood of emotions came to mind. Little by little among this flock, trust has been earned, love has been given and received, encounters with the Lord have been shared, laughter has been enjoyed, tears have been shed, and I have been blessed with great privilege and responsibility to become their pastor and not just their preacher. It is not a role and calling I take lightly.
Many flocks have been wounded and abused by CEO’s in the pulpit whom have forgotten and neglected their shepherding roles. In meetings and strategy sessions about the future of ministry it seems that they have forgotten the most important aspect of ministry and that is to love and care for people. Without people there is no ministry.
In a day and age when preachers are bragging about whose flock is biggest and whose sheep pens are the largest and most ornate, the sheep are often overlooked and neglected. Of course sheep need to be fed but they also need to be nurtured when they are wounded and battered. Sheep need access to their shepherd who can help provide comfort in days of trouble and sorrow.
Show me a preacher who does love and make time for people and I will show you someone who does not understand the shepherding role of being a pastor. Jesus made time for people and ministered to them in every season of life. I am continually challenged that not only am I to minister to the flock but I am to do it with an eager and loving attitude expecting nothing in return.
O that the Lord would raise loving shepherds who determine to love the flock and be accessible to them when needed. I know that even shepherds have to follow the example of Jesus and withdraw from the demands of the crowds at times but these times were not the normal course of everyday life.
Shepherding is not an easy road of ministry. It is a lot easier to hide behind our bookshelves and insulate ourselves from the outside world. Being a pastor means being on call twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. Being a pastor mighty mean providing counseling, visiting in the hospitals, seeking the evangelize the lost, celebrating the miracle of new life with proud new parents as well as grieving over the loss of a spouse with widow or widower.
Recently I performed a wedding one afternoon and received a phone call about a man whom had passed away later that evening. Such is the extreme ministry of a pastor. It is not a profession to be chosen. It is a calling to be heeded.
That is why I can still say after all these years that I still love it. I still love investing in the young sheep who have only recently been added to the fold. I still spending time with the older sheep who have so much wisdom about life. I love laughing fellowshipping with sheep who have become more like spiritual family. I still feel a sense of fulfillment when praying over the sick. I have a high and noble calling and today I wear the mantle of pastor around my neck both proudly and humbly. Humbly because I was hand picked by God. There are thousands of others who were more pleasant to look at, more eloquent, with brilliant minds, and gregarious personalities. Yet, God bypassed them to choose me. It is a humbling experience to know God wanted me to be used for His glory. It is proud thing in that I love my calling and profession. I am not ashamed to be a pastor. I wear the mantle proudly when someone introduces me by saying, “This is my pastor!”
Soul Sweat
Chapter Five
I was reading in one of my favorite books written by the late Leonard Ravenhill entitled Sodom Had No Bible. He used a phrase in that book that has bitten into my mind and I cannot shake it. He talked about one particular pastor who did not enter the pulpit without “soul sweat.” He did not define what soul sweat meant, so I have been pondering the meaning of that phrase off and on all day.
What is soul sweat? We know that sweat is perspiration that usually accompanies toil or labor. I saw a great illustration of this last night. I was watching a championship baseball game on a hot muggy night in Cleveland, OH. The Boston Red Sox were in town playing the Cleveland Indians. I do not remember who the batter was but I do remember the battle he was having with a picture. He fouled one pitch off after another going deeper and deeper into the count. At one point the batter was perspiring so heavily that drops of sweat were rolling off the bill of his batting helmet and streaming into his eyes. He had to call time out at one point and back out of the batter’s box to wipe his face and helmet off. I know sweating in the physical realm but what does it mean in the spiritual realm as it relates to the soul.
Soul sweat I think means agonizing in prayer in hard labor. It is not offering token offerings of faith but rather wrestling with God in prayer until victories are won, confidence is built, and power is endued for life and ministry.
Few of us know much about soul sweat. We know a great deal about popcorn prayers, insincere prayers, and even faithless prayers but to pray until the soul sweats is a whole different form of intercession. I was embarrassed and ashamed when I read that phrase of the number of times I have climbed the steps to mount the pulpit without the least bit of soul sweat. Times without number I have sought in vain to open the sacred scriptures without the precious anointing of the Holy Spirit that only comes through perspiring intercessions. This time of prayer takes time along with mental, emotional, and spiritual concentration.
Has your soul sweat as you have come into the house of God to hear a word from Him? Has your soul dropped puddles of salt water as you have pleaded for the souls of the lost? Has your soul been wearied to exhaustion has you have prayed over your spouse, your children, and those closest to you?
Soul sweat is a foreign concept to most of us. The results of such a lack of praying are evident all around. I just recently heard a message where 23,000 churches reportedly baptized five people or less. Over 10,000 of those churches did not baptize one single soul in a whole year. Was there soul sweat taking place by broken hearted preachers and desperate lay men and women? Only Heaven knows.
How I pray we would lock ourselves in the prayer closets and labor in intercessions and petitions for the glory of God to be manifest in this day and time. May we not shrink back from the hard toil of prayer and refuse to settle for anything less than God’s miraculous and powerful interventions in our lives and families.
Preachers, may we not enter the pulpit flippantly without the sweat from our souls dripping off as stand to proclaim the riches of God’s word. Hearer, may you not casually saunter into the sanctuary without having first prepared your soul with labor to be ready to not only meet with God but to hear from God. Hearer, may you labor with love to pray over your pastor during the week and each Sunday as preaches.
If we are willing to do this, I know the Lord will honor what He promised in the [Ephesians 3:20] “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to power that works within us.”
Fresh Words
Chapter Six
How long has it been since you sat in the presence of the Lord and listened to Him speak to you? He might have spoken through His word, through some prompting of the Holy Spirit, or through some circumstance.
There is much in the scriptures about the Lord speaking to people and giving them fresh words. You do not have look any further than the first book of the Bible to discover this fact. [Genesis 6:13-14] says, “Then God said to Noah, ‘The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold I am about to destroy them with the earth. Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch.” I am fascinated with the fact that God spoke to Noah. Over and over again we see this phrase in the scriptures. Not only did God speak to Noah, but He gave Noah details about His impending judgment on the world and He also gave specific directions for God’s redemption through the building of the ark.
The Lord spoke to Moses in [Exodus 3]. In [Exodus 14] God spoke direction to Moses when he was up against impossible odds and his back was against the wall. God showed the way of escape and deliverance. The Lord spoke to Joshua giving detailed directions about how to possess the promised land. The Lord spoke to Samuel in a time when words and visions from the Lord has been infrequent in [I Sam 3].
When David needed to know God’s will on a matter the scriptures tell us he “inquired of the Lord.” [I Sam 30:1-8] [II Samuel 2:1] The Lord responded by showing David exactly what he should do. The Lord spoke fresh words to the fiery prophet Elijah in [ I Kings 17-18].
Jesus spoke to the disciples in the Gospels and then through the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. [Acts 9:10-12, 8:26-27, 16:5-10, 18:9-11, 20:22-23] The point of all of this is that God wants to speak to His children if we will take the time to listen. It is hard to receive a fresh word from the Lord when we do all the talking.
Has God spoken everything that He ever intended to speak in the past? Are there no fresh words for today? Time and time again in my spiritual pilgrimage God has spoken through varied and sundry ways. He has spoken most often to me through His word. That is why I have made a commitment to spend time reading God’s word daily seeking to hear from Him.
Recently I was facing a major decision about God’s will for Brenda and me. I set aside a whole day to seek Him in prayer and reading His word. The Lord did speak to me indeed through two verses that in no way could have been coincidental readings at that particular time in my life. That is why I cannot overstate it enough that reading God’s word must be a high priority in your life. He has so many fresh things to speak to you day in and day out.
I have also had times when the Holy Spirit spoke a word in my heart. I remember a couple of years ago taking a private prayer retreat. I needed the spiritual refreshing and needed to hear God about several things. At the time our church did not have a youth minister or a music minister. I had a man on my heart whom I had known but when I contacted him to see if he was interested he told me he did not feel the Lord releasing him from where he was already at. While on my prayer retreat I kept sensing the Lord telling me to “Listen.” That was it. So I did what I always did and started pouring over page after page of scripture. After a while I did have any word from the Lord but I kept sensing this soft message “Listen.”
I got up from the table where I had been reading my Bible and sat down in an easy chair. I remember my prayer to the Lord. “Lord, I am not good at this listening thing. I don’t know when I hear from you and when I don’t. I am willing to listen. If you have anything to say to me here I am. Please speak for your servant is listening.”
I tried to still my mind and empty my thoughts except to focus on God and be still before Him. All I wanted to do was to hear from Him. I did not care what the message was, I wanted to hear. At first, my thoughts were random as I tried slow everything down. I can’t tell you how it happened, I only know after a while seated before the Savior He spoke. I recorded all of it in a journal. It was November 11, 2005. Here is what I the Lord and I recorded in my journal. “I love you child. Just like you are proud of your boys, I’m proud of you. Lead Paradise to pray and I will do astounding things. Seek me for the future and I reveal it. Teach my people to pray! Lead my people to fast and pray. If you do this I will grant you power like you have never known. Darrell Fishbeck is chosen man for your church but he is comfortable. Fast and pray and I will lead him to you.”
I came back to Paradise and shared this revelation with the search committee. They began fasting and praying for Darrell and his wife Charissa. The Lord led them to FBC Paradise and they officially joined the team January of 2006. I wonder what would have happened if I had not been willing to sit in that chair and listen to God’s specific instructions for me and our church at that time. Darrell very likely would have remained where he was at and our church would have pursued someone else apart from fasting and praying diligently.
Hearing from the Lord is vital if we are going to serve Him in our generation. I am not so concerned with how He speaks but that He speaks and that we have our ears bent toward Heaven to listen. Since that day in November of 2005 I have tried to include listening in my regular spiritual disciplines. Most of the time God speaks to me most consistently and clearly through His scriptures. Every once in a while He speaks to me through the Holy Spirit like He did on that prayer retreat. He recently did this while sitting in “listening chair” in my office. When I need to hear from Him or sense He has something He wants to say to me I get up from my desk and sit in that chair. It is holy ground. It was while sitting there the Lord revealed a direction for our church I had been seeking Him about for two years.
Now it is your turn. Take some time over the next several days to listen. Listen while you are reading His word. Listen while you are praying. Listen while you are driving down the road. Listen while you are in church. Listen and do not be surprised when the Lord speaks and how clearly He instructs you. You too will know the power and purpose of a fresh word from the Lord.
Homesick for Heaven
Chapter Seven
From time to time my ministry requires me to travel. At times I travel to nearby towns and at other times to towns far away to preach. On occasion I even try to other countries for ministry opportunities. I used to travel full time going where the Lord would open a door for me to minister. Each time I have to leave home, I am always a little homesick. I miss Brenda and the boys. I miss the flock at FBC Paradise who have been so very loving and supportive of Brenda, the boys, and me. I miss sleeping in my own bed and eating Brenda’s home cooking. I don’t know who said it but they were certainly right when they said there is no place like home.
There was a time when I was naïve enough to think that life on the road would be exciting and thrilling. I have traveled enough and slept enough hotels to know that is not the case at all.
The same is true for the true saints. The longer we are on this earth we begin to get a homesick for a place like Heaven. We were created for that place and therefore can never really be at home here. We might make shelter and set up camp, but no matter how big our tents are and how ornate down here, all of us will be called to pull up stakes down here to enter into either our eternal reward of punishment depending on what we did with the Lord Jesus. Those who cried out for mercy and salvation in His name will not be disappointed and those who refused to and rebelled against His warnings will suffer the consequences.
At 41 I long for heaven more than I did when I was twenty one. I had not really seen suffering like I have now. In the past twenty four hours I have run head first into suffering all around me. One couple is having marital troubles. One man is in a coma after long years of rebellion against the laws of God. Another person’s house burned and that does not mention the normal course of sickness and disease. It is easy to lose heart down here. Yet, in my heart I can hear the Father saying just a little while longer. It really doesn’t matter if He chooses to come back and get me on a horse of white or if should choose to call me home the way of death. Either way will be fine with me because no matter what I will be going home.
I love that old hymn “It Is Well with My Soul.” I especially love the fourth verse. Each time I sing it I cannot help but grin and sing it as loud as I can.
And Lord haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll,
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend,
Even so it is well with my soul.[1]
I want to live in a state of expectation that one day, and it could be very soon, we will be going home. Home is where my Father who has loved me, healed me, redeemed me, giving me purpose in living, sustained me through sufferings, and strengthened me to endure in life and ministry is. I can’t wait to see my Savior whom I have loved and adored but only seen with the eyes of my heart. For the first time I will see with my eyes the one who has made my “life worth the living just because He lives.”
Home is where you can find refuge, shelter, love, support, laughter, and treasured memories. In Heaven we have all of eternity to worship, to adore, to laugh, to relive old times when the faithfulness of God has been on display for all the world to see.
I hate the fact that down here everything is temporary. Right now I am watching a man I love dearly slowly die. We have had many conversations about it and He is spiritually ready. He has lived well and now wants to die well. I just don’t want to let him go. I love him and want to laugh with him more. I want to listen to more of his stories about how he used to go to the movies and get popcorn and candy for fifteen cents and stay all day long. I want to hear him talking about the old days. I hate seeing spouses having to depart with their spouses after decades of marriage. It is heart wrenching. Everything here is temporary. Cars, houses, jobs, possessions. All temporary. Yet in Heaven, all is permanent. Listen to John’s comments about Heaven found in [Rev 21:4], “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away. And He who sits on the throne said, ‘Behold I am making all things new.’ And He said, ‘Write for these words are faithful and true.’” These things are not temporary.
It is okay to be homesick for Heaven. While the Lord gives us life here I believe we should live it to the fullest. When it is time to go home to Heaven, well let’s all be ready and say goodbye to this global ball of crying, pain and mourning in light of the new God has in store for all His chosen children.
Daddy, Feel My Muscles
Chapter Eight
My boys are getting at the age when they are trying to prove how strong they are. They want to wrestle and gang up on me. Four against one are not good odds when they are little but will only get increasingly more difficult as they get older and bigger. They are all the time saying, “Daddy, feel my muscles.” At this point they will flex with all their might and hope that I will ooh and awe how they have grown and how they are getting stronger.
I wish that was our attitude toward the God when He looks down on the muscle of our faith and trust in Him. Do we ever say, “Father, come and look at my muscle. I faced this trial and I trusted You and I saw You come through for me. My faith has grown a lot since the last time I needed to trust You.”
Does the Father ever look down and say, My, your faith has grown. I remember when you could barely trust me to move those small ant hills in your life and now you are trusting me with mountains. Good job. Keep trusting and exercising your faith so you can get stronger and stronger. More trials will await you and along with them more miracles.
I love to work out. I especially enjoy lifting weights and have done so since I was in the sixth grade. I will never forget going to the store and buying those plastic covered weights filled with cement. I used to push and heave those weights for hours on end hoping to develop and grow those muscles. I continued this through junior high, high school, and college football. Now at 41, I have lost a lot of the strength I once had. I still work out. I try to go to the gym three to five times a week where I still push and hoist those waits and try to get in some cardiovascular work out on the elliptical, treadmill, or stationary bike. No matter how I work I cannot regain the strength I had in my younger years. I also have new aches and pains I never used to have before.
I have good news. This is not the case in growing the muscle of your faith. You can grow your faith until the day you die. In your last days you can have the strongest, most mature, more persevering, and undaunted faith you have ever had. Yes, it is possible but in order to have such a faith you will be required to use it and exercise it all the days of your life.
That means when you are and I are in middle age, God will still be desiring us to trusting, attempting, and believing Him for the impossible and the miraculous. When most would rather settle back into comfort and leisure, the person who wants to grow his or her faith will be running toward impossible dreams for the Lord. Each time faith is used and exercised the stronger and bigger it grows.
One day you look back and things you used to think were huge seem so little as grows your prayers and stretches you new levels. The trials and test may increase in regularity and severity but the growth in faith always follows. I believe it is absolutely possible to enter the final lap of your life and have the strongest faith imaginable on the inside while the world only sees a broken and feeble body on the inside.
Maybe some day we should gather our grand kids and great grand kids and flex the muscles of our faith and we begin to testify of the Lord’s enduring faithfulness in our families over the duration of our lives. Maybe we should tell of the mighty exploits the Lord has done in response to our faith filled praying. Maybe we should also tell them of our prayers for their lives and at the very end, maybe we should grin real big and say, “Beloved, come here and feel my faith muscle. It is still getting bigger.”
In this way, hopefully we can pass the baton of faith to the next generations and challenge them to live for the glory of God, to pray for to the glory of God, and believe God to do the impossible for the glory of His name.
Running Hard After God
Chapter Nine
[Ps 63:8] KJV My soul followeth hard after thee; thy right hand upholdeth me.
As I write this 2007 is quickly fading into the rear view mirror of my life with only five days before the start of 2008. In a few days I will began setting goals for the new year but my mind is drawn back in time to a Wednesday night youth service in Lufkin, TX at my home church Denman Avenue Baptist. My friend was teaching and though I cannot remember what he taught on that night I can remember clearly being asked to set a spiritual goal and I recall clearly my response to that goal. I asked the Lord to help me know Him better and making pursuing Him the passionate goal of the remainder of my life.
That probably occurred in 1999 and I still remember it nearly nine years later. What does it mean to follow hard after the living God? I was first introduced to this subject after reading a chapter in A.W. Tozer’s book The Pursuit of God. He begins the chapter by reminding us that desire to pursue God in the first place originates with God and is fleshed out in our lives by our following hard after Him. I picture that following hard after God as a sprint.
Far too many people are contented to meander after God nonchalantly. There is no urgency and little passion to get to know God. We are satisfied with knowing about God but grow uneasy when it comes to getting to know God on a one to one basis. This requires time and more importantly time set aside for soul solitude seated before the God of this universe.
We start this pilgrimage toward intimacy with the Almighty at salvation but it continues on for a lifetime. Sadly, there are many who make precious little progress over the course of their lives getting to know God. God be praised there are still a remnant of believers who’s passion to know God causes them to get up day after day in a dead sprint toward God Himself. He is the object of their greatest affections, their supreme delight and treasure, the purpose for which they live, and the warmth and heat of their hearts has thawed the icy hearted religion of multitudes. A.W. Tozer was one such soul.
In this day of Dr. Phil and Oprah pop-psychology, quick fix, practical solutions, Tozer seems out of place. We think who has the time to sit hour upon hour engaged in strange activities like prolonged prayer, meditation, private worship, and deep reflection on the person and nature of God.
Look around you at the shallow Christianity you see in the market place and in worship services. Do you feel you are surrounded by men, women, teenagers, and children who are running after God day in day out with everything they have? I certainly do not. I see people running after money from can to can’t. I see people running after sports with every spare moment either by following their favorite teams or by believing their child is the next phenomenon to come along. I see people in a passionate pursuit for pleasure and recreation with no holds barred abandon. Yet, when it comes to people running hard after God it appears to be dieing philosophy of life.
We would rather do more and stay busier while remaining in the shallow waters of our faith and relationship with the Lord than to slow down and linger longer in His presence which would lead us into the vast ocean of His person.
What will it take to get us to slow down, to ponder on the Prince of Peace and meditate about the Messiah? What will ever motivate us to slow down longer in the physical realm so that we may run harder in the spiritual realm? Only God Himself.
How I wish in my own life that I would run in a sprint with endurance until I get to the finish line of life which will be God Himself. Until then, I trust that He who began this good work in us will keep working and perfecting that desire for us to sprint after Him. [Phil 1:6] I know if we submit to this leading, we would live the most fulfilled and contented years of our lives. On your mark! Get set! GO! I will meet you at the finish line.
Chapter Ten
Strategies to Defeat Stress
The steadfast of mind You will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord, we have an everlasting rock. [Is 26:3-4]
I was jolted awake last night by a brilliant flash of lightening followed by a detonation of thunder which shook the windows throughout the house. Off and on throughout the night there were other bursts of lightening and thunderous echoes. I am reminded of how stress can come into our lives and awake us from our slumberous routines suddenly also.
The storm clouds of stress can begin gathering before we are fully aware of it. Suddenly our steps seem to be stuck in the mud, our normal routines seem harder than usual, and our minds become overloaded with too much responsibility. We find too many obstacles stand in our way, and on top of all of that we find ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and physically too depleted to press on. Quitting and shirking responsibility begins to look more and more appealing.
Stress comes to all of us regardless of age, spiritual maturity, or economic status. Stress comes in all shapes and forms. The dictionary defines stress as “intense pressure and strain.” As the pressure and the strain mounts we often find our faith shrinking and our vitality waning. If this condition persists you can be assured a spiritual fall will ensue. In our efforts to cope with the stress and find some and any kind of relief, our adversary (Satan) is all too ready to deceive and provide temptation that looks appealing but in the end only produces spiritual death. He offers counterfeits to peace with tantalizing sin but instead of peace we only find shame, degradation, which in the end only adds to our stress. God alone is our only real coping mechanism for intense pressure and strain.
Are there strategies to combat the enemy of stress when it suddenly intrudes unsolicited into our lives? I believe there are strategies to not only combat stress in our lives but also to defeat stress. Here they are.
1. Keep your mind steadfast on God. We tend to do just the opposite. We keep our mind steadfast on the problems we are facing. The word “steadfast” means to lean on for support. Lean on God in our thoughts in stress. Gaze at God and glance at your stressful situations.
2. Trust God to keep (guard and watch over) you in perfect peace. Regardless of the source of your stress you can find complete tranquility and contentment in God. In order to enjoy this peace you must spend adequate time with God and soaking in the scriptures.
3. You must trust in the Lord day by day and stressful event after stressful event. That means that you must have confidence that God will help you through the stress and intervene. He will come to the rescue. He also will be your security when circumstances look gloomy. Trust Him at all times.
4. Lastly, we must place our feet firmly on the rock of the foundation that is God. During stress everything can become disoriented. Up looks down and down looks up. Right seems wrong and wrong seems right. It is during these stressful times that we are apt to make wrong choices. A good rule of thumb is not to make any major decisions when you are feeling stressed. God is our rock and firm foundation in these times and not only that, He is also our refuge. He is a place to get out of the stressful storms of life for awhile to find shelter and relief. If we ever hope to defeat stress in our lives we are going to have lean on God as our rock and refuge.
I hope these strategies will be useful in the days ahead. I know I need them. I am right now staring in the face of close to one dozen impossible situations that can be stressful if I allow them to. Let’s strategically combat stress and see the Lord conquer it in our lives.
His,
Matt
Chapter Eleven
Walking a Long Dirt Road
I recently found myself isolated walking down a lonely dirt road to just get away from the crowds. It was a week where I was given the privilege of preaching eight different times in one week. It was also a week where my study time was continually interrupted by something or someone at various times throughout the week. Two times my children awoke at 5:00 a.m. which distracted my normal quiet times before the Lord. It was a challenging and exhausting week and that slow deliberate prayer walk down that lonely dirt road was refreshing to my soul in ways I could never put onto paper.
To make this walk I had to deliberately leave the company of several men I love dearly who had gathered on a scenic 1,500 acre ranch for a men’s retreat. I had to make that walk alone if my soul was going to be of any benefit to them for the weekend. Those first steps were awkward spiritually as I tried to pray but could hear the conversation and laughter of the other men. Soon I turned a corner both physically as I left sight of the home we were staying in also turned a corner spiritually. As soon as I was totally alone I felt myself exhaling the pressure of a busy week and inhaling the intoxicating presence of God. I walked through a wooded area and headed for the lake. While walking along the shore line of the lake I felt my heart relax and I began to spiritually breathe in tranquility.
The refreshing presence of God on those walks cannot be measured or described with words. Our vocabularies are too restricted to speak of such experiences. Suffice it to say I know just a little of how Adam and Eve must have felt before they sinned as they walked with God in the garden. How they must have relished those walks with God in the garden. Instructions could have been given, love expressed, joy experienced, and the delight of being in perfect communion with the creator defies description. Their sin changed that. Instead of wanting to walk with God after they ate the forbidden fruit they actually began to flee from God and try to hide from His presence. [Gen 3:8-10] That is what I think we do. We don’t walk those lonely dirt roads with God because we know He knows our sin. He knows the secret parts of our lives that no-one else knows and we want to keep them hidden. We unconsciously think if we stay away from His presence we can hide our flaws, moral mishaps, and spiritual blunders from His all seeing eyes. God already knows the truth and wants us to confess the truth in our innermost beings. [Ps 51:6]
There is another story of a man who walked with God found in Genesis. Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. [Gen 5:24] I imagine Enoch daily, sauntering down long dirt roads talking with God. The nature of those talks could have been expressions of love and adoration, confession of sin, pleas for help in impossible circumstances, and just enjoying the presence and the reality of God day in and day out. Just as Enoch enjoyed walking the Lord I believe the Lord enjoyed walking with Enoch. Daily jaunts together became Enoch’s life-long habit. God must have loved those walks far more than we can imagine because one day He just decided to take Enoch to Heaven. No death. No pain. Just eternal bliss and greater intimacy with the Father Enoch had been pursuing to know while walking with Him on those roads for years.
It is kind of like the saying a friend of mine has. He says he imagines as he walks with the Lord that one day the Lord will say to him, “Son, we’re closer to my house than to yours. Why don’t you just come home with me?” God just wanted Enoch all for himself and took Him to Heaven. Enoch is only one of two persons to experience something like that, Elijah being the other.
I want to learn what it really means to walk with God in a way that not only refreshes my life but blesses the Father as well. I want to learn to slow down long enough to meander down the dirt roads of life in delightful conversation and communion with my Father. I know when I try to hide in the bushes from God’s presence my soul shrivels and my faith fades. Some of the most meaningful spiritual experiences I have ever had included walking alone in the mountains, on the beach, out in the woods, down dusty country roads, and out in pastures. There is something very therapeutic and invigorating about walking with God.
I am under no pretenses that I am in any like Enoch. I have not learned the art of cultivating that kind of walk with the Lord. I do enjoy my walks with Him however and hope to ever be cultivating and refining my walks with Him. I encourage you to do the same. Find some isolated dusty trail or road and just go for a walk with God. Pour your soul out to Him and listen to what He has to say to you. I guarantee you will come away from that experience both refreshed and recharged for the demands of relentlessly busy life.
Chapter Twelve
Finishing Strong
I went on a twelve mile bike ride yesterday in between our morning and evening services at church. My ambition was to break my time from the previous day’s ride but I did not take into account the blustery winds blowing in my face for half the ride. There were times when I was riding up hills that I contemplated turning back but I kept focused on my watch. It seemed I was going at a snail’s pace and the extra effort to fight through the head wind only served to produce greater fatigue in my legs.
At the half point I had only twenty five minutes to complete the rest of the ride which seemed impossible. I pedaled hard up and down hills and over bumpy roads. Toward the end of the ride I noticed I only had six minutes to break the time from the day ahead. I found the highest and hardest gear and put my head down to pedal with all my might. It helped that during this last stretch I was actually riding with the wind. I road as fast as I have ever ridden that stretch or road winding up at the elementary school. From there I had a good way to go to make it back to my yard and I was down to three minutes.
I pushed myself but in the end I missed my time by thirty seconds. I did finish strong though but not strong enough.
How are you finishing in life? Are you planning on coasting into eternity or are you planning crossing from life to death at full speed needing to hit the brakes. I am disappointed by the number of people who do not finish strong. David did not finish strong nor did his son Solomon. Many pastors have failed in the twilight years of their lives and ministries. Many high school seniors have quit running for the Lord in their last year of high school and seemingly walked off the track all together.
There are many people who live their spiritual lives like a person who enters a 400 meter race and sprints as hard as they can for 100 meters and then jog to the finish. Few people remember how you start the race but the crowd gathers around the finish line. I wonder how many will limp into Heaven with their heads bowed in shame as God tests their lives and how they ran to the very end with His all consuming fire. Many will suffer loss on that day. [I Cor 3:12-15] Do you want to cross the finish line with that kind effort.
This past week I was at a track meet for our school and was serving as one of the official timers. One of the other timers commented about a girl who trotted across the line and then took one step and came to a complete stand still. He commented that there was no way she could have been giving her best effort to stop that fast. She had no momentum. Other runners who gave it their all could not come to a complete stop for several yards passed the finish line.
What kind of runner, person of the faith, and spiritual athlete are you and I becoming. Quitting is a habit but so is finishing. Running and living with endurance is a joyous journey but it is also a difficult and demanding race as well. Determine now you will finish strong by God’s help. Don’t make excuses for how hard the wind blows or how fast the other runners seem to be around you. Determine that you will plod along and give the best you have and you will not let up until death comes to you. Even in old age we can continue to run spiritually and cross the finish line strong.
That’s what Joe Motsenbocker did. Brother Joe as he was known preached for near eighty years. He started preaching as a young boy and preached up till his death on September 15, 2005. He preached over 1,000 funerals, 450 weddings, and 500 revivals, in addition to serving as a pastor in several churches. He preached the Sunday before he died on a Saturday and was scheduled to preach the next day. He was only a few short weeks from being ninety years old at his death and this man finished strong. May we follow his example.
Chapter Thirteen
Little Prayer Cabin
I have spoken of it often and written about it as well. There is a small two bedroom cabin I often retreat to pray and soak in the scriptures to find spiritual renewal. After all these years I finally have some pictures of this place. You will be able to tell how isolated it is from hustle and bustle of life. What you will not be able to see from those pictures is the powerful presence of God in that tiny rustic cabin located far off the beaten path. Neither will those pictures be able to encapsulate the innumerable encounters I have with God and the life transformation that has ensued from those encounters.
It has been one of the great blessings of my life that the Lord has allowed me to have access to that cabin through a friend who manages the place for over a dozen years. At times I have gone inside those doors and slept for days from shear mental, spiritual, and emotional exhaustion. At other times I have spent my time reading book after book for spiritual refreshment. I have prayed hours on end seeking God’s will in different areas of ministry. I have sat before the Lord to listen to Him without feeling rushed or hurried to get to some other appointment. His voice has been sweet in that “prayer cabin” nestled among the pine trees. I have prayer walked miles around that property allowing the dust to kick up around my feet and the dust of sin and frustrations to exit my soul at the same time. I have read untold chapters of scriptures during my stays in that place. I have written several books seated at the dining room table surrounded by windows in that country cottage. It has become an old familiar home away from home. I know every inch of that place. I have a certain chair for reading. I sleep in the same bed and eat the same dining table chair.
Why has this place become so special to me? Why do enjoy my get a ways there so much? If God is omnipresent, why do I sense His presence so powerfully in that rustic wood framed house? Is that place any more holy than any other place on this planet? Or is my fondness of that place really nothing more than opportunity to meet with my Lord unhurried, with time to linger and take casual walks with Him.
When I’m in the prayer cabin it is like time stands still except for the fact that from time to time I look at my watch and am reminded how precious few hours I have left there before I have to return to reality. I can soak in God like a sponge and then when I go back home the Lord can squeeze Himself out to me to meet the ministry demands all of me.
I have two thoughts to wrap this up. First, taking these retreats is not only necessary but beneficial for the believer. How many ever take the time to do it. Jesus made this a regular habit of His life and ministry. [Luke 1:35] Early in the morning while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place and was praying there. Don’t you need to depart from the throngs of people from time to time and find a lonely place where you can commune with God? That cabin has been a lonely place for me for a long long time. But the truth is I don’t get go there every day or even every month. I am fortunate to make it to that place two or three times in a year. So what do I do the rest of the time. I get up early and meet with God in the lonely place of my living room. I shut the door to my office and meet God in the lonely place of my study to linger with Him. Some times I have to depart my office and meet with Him in the lonely place of a restaurant or find a lonely dirty road to take a “prayer walk.” This habit was a regular part of Jesus’ routine. [Luke 5:16] But He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness to pray.
If Jesus made the time and had the need to “slip away” or to “depart to a lonely place” what about you and me. Life, family, work, and ministry can all do a slow drain on our souls. Those people who make slipping away and departing to a lonely place a regular part of their routines are the ones who have the most sincere and genuine faith.
My second thought is though retreating from demands of life is a great blessing and results in spiritual renewal, we can’t live forever on these retreats. This is illustrated in [Luke 9:28-41]. Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up with Him on one His prayer retreats and they actually see Christ manifested in all of His glory before them. Peter is blown away and says, “Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles one for You, and one for Moses, and for Elijah…”
Yet only a few verses later the scriptures tell us they came down from the mountain and were immediately met with a distraught father looking for help for his son. Going up on the mountains to retreat with God is great but the one of the purposes for doing that is to come back down from the mountain for ministry.
I love that prayer cabin more than I can put into words and I always look forward to my retreats there. The honest truth is that though I love that place I do not want to live there. My ministry is in Paradise, TX and Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada. I retreat to be filled so I can come back and be effective in ministry. I look forward to my next trip to the prayer cabin but I also look forward to coming back and ministering to people in the power of the Spirit.
Chapter Fourteen
Unexpected Days
I awoke up early this cold blustery day with my usual activities. I let our new puppy Annabelle out. I sat down to read the scriptures and spend some time with the Lord before getting the boys up for the morning. After reading in the Psalms I got the boys up and made them waffles for breakfast. The whole time I was eager to get them fed and myself showered so I could hurry and get to the office. Before leaving the house two of the boys asked if I could come and eat lunch with them at school. This was the first unexpected event of the day. Everything in me wanted to say “no” but I know the day will come when they will quit asking so I decided to rearrange my schedule and bring them lunch.
The forecast for the day called for the possibility of a wintry mix but we hear that often here in North Texas and seldom experience it. On my way to get lunch for the boys the wintry mix began. At first I noticed some frozen rain and then I began to see little snow flakes periodically. By the time I was given their food at the drive thru window the flakes were bigger and more steady. When I reached the school it was really snowing. It looked like days I have experienced on mission trips in Saskatchewan, Canada. During both lunches the snow intensified and it began to accumulate. I left the schools to actually eat lunch with Brenda and I had no sooner sat down at the café when another unexpected event turned up. Due to the weather the phones at the schools went down and one of our church members called me to get a message to his children. My only option was to get up from the table and go back to the same campus I had just left. The roads became more slippery and while driving it became obvious the road conditions were only going to worsen as the day went on. Unexpected event number three, I decided to check the boys out early only to find out they were being dismissed early due to the bad weather. When I arrived back at the café to finally eat Brenda and began discussing the fact that neither one of us had considered picking up the little boy we normally pick up from school. His dad usually picks him up on Thursdays but due to the bad weather and the early dismissal he was unable to get to the schools. For the third time I had drove back to the schools to pick this little boy. By this time the snow was nearly a foot in areas and in this part of the state people loose what little sense they had while driving. One lady was headed the wrong way down a one way street. Another lady was turned around in the wrong lane trying to exit the intermediate campus. All I kept thinking was about how frustrated I was that I could not get back to my office. Brenda did not feel comfortable driving to the schools so I drove them and planned on dropping them off at my house and then coming back to the office. All was going according to plan until we were just about home and came up on a truck stuck in the ditch in front of our house. We could not pass, so I parked in the middle of the road and went to help push the truck out with my oldest son Taylor. It took some work but we finally got him out but in the process he had gunned the accelerator so much that he backed into the ditch on the other side of the road. I stepped into well over a foot of snow to get behind his truck in my dress shoes and slacks and tried to position myself where I would be able to avoid the back tires spinning mud and snow on me. It did not work. While I pushed he turned slightly to the left which left me right in the line of fire. Unexpectedly I found myself needing to change clothes. All of this was very frustrating. I had not planned any of these interruptions in my day. I made the comment that Sundays come around whether there are snow storms are not. My plans had included spending the majority of the day studying and heading to the gym to ride a bike or an hour being it was too cold to ride outside. With the road conditions unexpectedly snowed over I could not even go do that.
Now, I am finally back in my office and nearly completed my Sunday morning message preparation. While sitting here and reflecting on the events of the day I recall something my eight year old Tucker said after I picked him up from school. He commented, “Dad, I think God let it snow so we could have some fun today.” From his eight year old imagination the snow was the highlight of his day. It produced abounding joy and delight. None of my boys have seen this much snow in their entire lives. Brenda got home and found the camera and took pictures of all the boys, she and I, and each of the boys and I, and several pictures of the boys with Annabelle. From my grown up perspective the snow was inconvenient, a frustrating distraction in my normally overcrowded life. Instead of joy it produced irritation and impatience.
I am thinking of two verses that are much needed in my life when I have unexpected days. [James 1:2] Consider it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials knowing that the testing of your produces endurance. [Phil 4:4] Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice. Even during those unexpected days and the snow comes and covers your roads, your schedule, and your life.
Lord, I ask you to forgive me not being open and flexible in my everyday life. I ask you to give me the heart of Tucker and the way he looks at life. Thank you for the snow and the blessing of watching children all over the Paradise community light up like Christmas trees. Thank you for bringing opportunities in my day to practice denying myself and putting other people first. May I learn these lessons well and be prepared the next time I have another one of these unexpected days.
Chapter Fifteen
Sold Out to God’s Will
I was listening to a message from one of my favorite preachers today when I phrase he said really jumped out of the message and grabbed my heart. That phrase is about being “sold out to God’s will.”
We use the phrase “sold out” to mean really giving yourself wholly to something or someone. People are sold out to sports and devote massive quantity of time and energy in refining skills and increasing strength and speed. Others devote themselves to endless quest for knowledge found in reading and studying books. There are those who are sold out to thrill seeking through adventure sports. We hear the phrase sold out is many different arenas of life, but when was the last time you heard someone being described as being sold out (or wholly given to and yielded to) God’s will?
Few are courageously and completely submitted to the will of God. It is a risky and uncomfortable thing to totally surrender your will, your aspirations, your future, and your family to the will of God. Isn’t that what Jesus was demanding when he said, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” [Matt 16:24]That last part of the verse is really striking. He simply calls us to follow Him. It really doesn’t matter where that might lead. Jesus doesn’t concern us with what personal cost and sacrifice may come to us as we follow Him. He just calls us to follow.
Following Christ is costly. And we know the cost. God calls some families and some individuals to forsake the American dream to pursue God’s dream of making His name famous in the nations of this world. Some who answer this call will follow Jesus into physical suffering and great emotional anguish. Knowing this in the back of our minds we set up safety boundaries where we dare not cross in desiring to know God’s will much less being sold out to it. The tragedy is that we think we are preserving our lives in doing this but what we are actually doing is killing ourselves spiritually. We are sold out to the idea of our comfort and security and fail to realize the very author of that comfort and security is God Himself. Why do we flee the very one who gives our lives purpose and meaning? We are not saving our lives. We are merely marking time, existing, and so very often going through the motions of our faith, families, and functions of everyday living.
I challenge all who read this to summon the spiritual courage to sell out to the will of God. Trust Him. If you cannot trust Him with the details of your life then how can you trust Him with the greater issue of forgiving sin and salvation of your soul? Can anyone read this identify anyone in history who can truthfully say, “God, failed me. He let me down and He is not trustworthy.” If anyone could really say that, we could deduce that God is not trustworthy or faithful. The truth is that God has earned the right generation after generation, life after life, century after century to earn your trust. He is worthy of all the trust you can give Him. Because He over and over again has proven Himself worthy to be trusted, we can confidently sell out to His will.
We are so consumed wanting to know the benefits and how following Him will end. That is really irrelevant. Should selling out to the will of God lead to some suffering, He will be faithful to give enduring faith to get through it. Should selling out to God’s will lead to hard ministry and financial poverty, has He not promised to be provider and to also be our sustainer. Should we follow Christ into great success and prominence is He alone not the source of our contentment and fulfillment. You and I cannot conceive of any scenario where God could lead us and His Sovereign faithfulness would not already be there.
If you would allow faith to surface buoyantly in your heart, ignore fear and abandon yourself into the loving and faithful hands of God, I know your soul would come to life. Faith will become real and knowledge of God will increase and become a present reality rather than a distant theory. Sell out. Abandon yourself to the will of God. At that point, you will come to discover first hand for your own life that you serve a faithful, trustworthy, dependable, constant, reliable, unfailing, and unswerving God.
[1] Horatio Spafford, The Baptist Hymnal (Nashville, Convention Press, 1991) p. 410.
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