Category Archives: Living In Uncertain Times

Which Window Do You Look Through?

22 Sunday Jul 2012

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Catherine Marshall wrote:

“My friend Marge had an experience aboard a plane bound for Cleveland, waiting for takeoff. As she settled into her seat, Marge noticed a strange phenomenon. On one side of the airplane a sunset suffused the entire sky with glorious color. But out of the window next to her seat, all Marge could see was a sky dark and threatening, with no sign of the sunset.

“As the plane’s engines began to roar, a gentle Voice spoke within her. ‘You have noticed the windows,’ He murmured beneath the roar and thrust of the takeoff. ‘Your life, too, will contain some happy, beautiful times, but also some dark shadows. Here’s a lesson I want to teach you to save you much heartache and allow you to abide in Me with continual peace and joy.

“‘You see, it doesn’t matter which window you look through; this plane is still going to Cleveland. So it is in your life. You have a choice. You can dwell on the gloomy picture. Or you can focus on the bright things and leave the dark, ominous situations to Me. I alone can handle them anyway.

“‘And the final destination is not influenced by what you see or feel along the way. Learn this, act on it and you will be released, able to experience the peace that passes understanding.'”

 

Be Blessed,

Pastor

 

Pray Until Peace Comes… Within

15 Sunday Jul 2012

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Hezekiah did just about everything he could to prepare his nation for conflict both physically and spiritually. After this, he turned to his old friend and counselor, Isaiah. Together they committed themselves to God in prayer and God answered.

 

20 But King Hezekiah and Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos, prayed about this and cried out to heaven. 21 And the Lord sent an angel who destroyed every mighty warrior, commander and officer in the camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned in shame to his own land. And when he had entered the temple of his god, some of his own children killed him there with the sword. 22 So the Lord saved Hezekiah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem from the hand of Sennacherib the king of Assyria and from the hand of all others, and guided them on every side.  2 Chronicles 32:20-22

 

I like reading and studying prayers of the Bible. In this case, we are not given the particulars… I wish we were. The King did what he could, then he trusted God to do what only God could do. When this happens, all you can do is wait for the peace of God to fill your heart. How we pray and what we can expect in a crisis is really important. The word reminds us:

 

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7

 

This is God’s promise to us. So if it is not happening, then we are praying wrong.  “Present” in this verse means we are to reveal not simply our request, but what is driving our prayers. When we seek the Lord, we must pray honestly and openly. God already knows what is on our hearts, so therefore, we must reveal everything, even our motives. The saints of old called this “wrestling in prayer.” Wrestling should accompany our petitions, especially when there is uncertainty. This type of travail takes us beyond our simple requests to understanding the motives behind our petitions. We come to understand why we desire what we want from heaven. Sometimes I call this “getting naked” before the Lord.

In times of crisis I have found myself trusting in the answer, in the increased finances, in the mended relationship, in the opportunity, rather than trusting God, to whom I am praying. I know this sounds strange, but the answer to your prayer is not the solution. The answer is God.

I have had God tell me He will answer my request. I thought to myself, “well that was easy.”  As I went on my way the Lord did answer my request. On some of these occasions, I thought the answer was going to kill me.  I have had to learn the hard way if I would look to the Lord and only the Lord, I will find the peace I need in Him. The answer arrives in due season.  My focus should remain on the Lord…not the “answers” to my prayers.

In addition, this passage tells us to allow the peace of God to “guard or stand watch/ watch over” our hearts and minds. I find myself wanting God to guard my request, not my heart. I want Him to make sure my request gets answered. I mistakenly believe I can take care of myself. We are anxiety ridden people because we have God standing over our request and not over our hearts.

I have had to wrestle with those requests until I arrived at the place where I said, “This is what I want, but not my will, but Your will be done.” All prayer must get into those places where we are trusting and believing God. Have you gotten to that point in your prayers? This means we trust God’s “peace process.” Prayer works the “meddling” out of you. Peace replaces our tendency to meddle and be a part of God’s solution.

So I must choose to pray, not until the answer comes, not until the circumstances change, not until things go my way. But I must pray until my faith is in God and not my request. I should pray until my trust changes. This is when real peace comes and guards my heart. If peace cannot be found, I usually discover I have “peace” issues. You will find that you are not okay because the world has changed, you are okay because you have changed. In these places our personal view of God becomes much bigger. Our peace comes not from the absence of problems, but the presence of God.

Do you remember that prayer issue you wrote down two blogs ago? Have you found God’s peace yet?  We must learn to operate like King Hezekiah. You can only do what you can do and trust God to do what only He can do. Even if things do not turn out the way you want…you can still have peace… the Lord’s peace.

There is an old saying that goes… “If we keep doing the same old things, we will keep getting the same old results.” If you want to change the outcome, you have to change the income. This is what we put into the prayer process.

A man, after 25 years with one company, was still doing the same old job and drawing the same salary. Finally he went to his boss and told him he felt he had been neglected. “After all,” he said, “I’ve had a quarter of a century of experience.”
“My dear fellow,” sighed the boss, “you haven’t had a quarter of a century of experience; you’ve had one experience for a quarter of a century.”

 
Blessings,

Pastor

 

 

Surviving a Spiritual Heart-Attack

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

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I have been blogging about what Hezekiah did to prepare his nation for invasion.  So far, I have dealt with the physical issues.  More important than the physical issues are the spiritual concerns of life.  Many have survived a physical attack only to discover subsequently, their spiritual life was in shambles.  In wisdom, Hezekiah prepared the people’s hearts for the onslaught of Sennacherib’s verbal assaults about God, the King, and the nation.  The King didn’t want his people having a spiritual heart attack in the middle of a crisis.

 

He appointed military officers over the people and assembled them before him in the square at the city gate and encouraged them with these words: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.” And the people gained confidence from what Hezekiah the king of Judah said. 2 Chron. 32:6-8

 

The number one crippling emotion in crisis is fear.  Fear rules the day. Fear is not reality. It is our emotional response to what we think we know… real or imagined. Fear is an acrostic for False Evidence Appearing Real.  There are 365 “fear not’s” in the Bible.  There is one for each day of the week. Why?  Fear is an enormous problem for God’s people. I am sure you have heard all this.

It is interesting.  If I hear the Lord tell me, “I love you,” it is a sure guarantee I am going to be attacked in the near future….. to the point I question myself, “Does God really love me?”  If I hear the Lord say something like, “Get ready!” rest assured, I am about to navigate some troubling waters, which will make me feel exhausted and not quite up to the challenges.  If I hear the Lord reassure me about life, my family, or ministry, it is a sure bet I am going to be assaulted in these same areas.  If you pay close attention to the Lord’s words to you, it will tip-you-off to the enemy’s attacks against you.  In ignorance, I used to tell the Lord, “Lord, no need in telling me these types of encouraging words… I am good in those areas.”  (Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve had a few pride issues.) Now I receive and  believe these words from the Lord wholeheartedly.  If He is encouraging me in whatever area, I need it or I am going to need it! The order and condition of our hearts is always of importance, but during a crisis, it is of extreme importance.  A crisis is a bad time to begin having heart problems.

Hezekiah encourages his people with “be strong and courageous…”  The enemy will soon be at the gate with an all-out, frontal assault on their belief system.  As a whole, they will stand together or separately be torn apart.  The invading army didn’t want to endure a long siege.  They wanted this battle to be relatively quick. The easiest way for Sennacherib to conquer God’s people was for them to simply open the gates themselves and let give up without a fuss. Fear causes people to submit to the enemy. Hezekiah’s words bolstered the people’s resolve, quelled their fears, and helped them to stay the course.

A few years ago America almost shut down in places because of the Swine Flu.  There wasn’t an epidemic.  No, it shut down in certain places because of the perception the flu was going to bad.  This message kept going out in the media.  Do you remember this?  For instance, in some areas like Texas, they cancelled athletics for the remainder of the year. Other schools closed for over a week because they feared their students might contract the disease. The Swine Flu was contagious, but the story was even more contagious.

One pastor told the story of having to go to the emergency room for a real emergency only to find the emergency room filled with over 200 people, all concerned they had contracted the Swine Flu. You might guess how many actually had the flu.  Absolutely Nobody. Fear keeps people captive….whether real or imagined.  The problem for him was that fear was occupying all the medical resources.

The media played a big part in all this.  They are in business to inform the public. They also have another mission…to sell.  In order to sell, they must keep their audience interested and ratings up.  Fear sells.  This is why news organizations thrive in bad circumstances like a flu outbreak or serial killer on the loose.

Sennacherib attempted to do the same thing in Hezekiah’s day. He sent a letter to the people inside the walls of Jerusalem communicating how feeble and weak Judah was compared to his vast army. He reminded them that all the other nations, along with their gods, were unable to stand against him. Sennacherib even had his soldiers yell over the wall in Hebrew to scare the people. His plan, divide and conquer.  He used psychological warfare!  Fear sells.  He did what EVIL did in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  They chopped off the heads of warriors and catapulted them over the wall to create fear.

What wise people do in times of uncertainty is limit the voices of influence. They decide who they will and will not listen to before a crisis.  Wise people stick to what they do know, not speculate about what they don’t know.

I am amazed at what people STOP doing in times of difficulty or trials.

Many stop reading God’s word.  They stop ingesting the very words of God that brought them to the present.  Why?  If you needed God’s word last year, then you need it this year.  If you needed God’s word last month, you need it this month.  Many start listening to foreign voices…even bad voices during difficult circumstances.  If a voice was bad for you 3 years ago, then it is bad for you now.  In addition, others stop praying and seeking God’s face when problems arise.  No encouragement there!  If you needed prayer 10 years ago, then you need it all the more now.

 

 

Fear can only reach us when we have forgotten or lost our truths and words from the Lord.  There will always be Sennacheribs who yell and scream the polar opposite of God’s word.   If you don’t know your sources and voices, you will be prompted to follow the wrong influences. If your heart is not in order, then you will probably be one of those people who actually vote to open the gates, let the enemy into your kingdom, and hope against hope he will treat you fairly. When the Northern Kingdom was taken away into bondage, the Persians put grappling hooks in some of them and carried them away into exile.  The threat was real….but so were the Words from the Lord.  We all have a choice today.  We can order our hearts and listen to the Lord or we can continue to allow the disinformation to create dysfunction in our hearts and guarantee a spiritual heart attack.

 

Blessings,

 

Pastor

 

Putting Your House In Order

08 Sunday Jul 2012

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Difficult times and difficult circumstances eventually come to everyone’s life.  The important issue is to know the Lord and follow His voice.  After this is settled, what should we do next? King Hezekiah took a personal inventory and got his house in order. He blocked off the bad, mended the broken, bolstered the weak.  Whatever you wrote down yesterday as the most uncertain issue in your life, apply these three points to it.

 

Now when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come and that he intended to make war on Jerusalem, 3 he decided with his officers and his warriors to cut off the supply of water from the springs which were outside the city, and they helped him. 4 So many people assembled and stopped up all the springs and the stream which flowed through the region, saying, ‘Why should the kings of Assyria come and find abundant water?’     2 Chronicles 32:2-4

 

The King was wise.  He determined, “I don’t want the enemy to have access to anything which would cause him to linger longer than necessary.” In other words, the King didn’t want his enemies’ life to be easy.  He didn’t want the enemy gaining and keeping a foothold in the land.

I am sure you have realized it by now, there are some things in our lives that supply strength to your enemy. The enemy of our soul feeds off our own bad habits, attitudes, and patterns of thinking.  These negatives strengthen his resolve to keep fighting. Many people believe the devil can read our minds.  Listen, he doesn’t have to do this.  All he really has to do is listen to the negative garbage coming from your own lips to know what is going on in your life. Your countenance also speaks volumes about what is going on inside you. Many people think they need a “faith lift.” What they really need is to lift their eyes, ears, and hearts towards heaven and gain strength.  If you walk around looking rejected and forlorn all the time, you are going to continue to get beat up by your enemy. The devil operates like a pack of wild dogs. It doesn’t make any difference which dog starts the fight, the dog on the bottom of the pile is the one which gets beat up.  He looks for the easiest victim to conquer.  I didn’t say it was fair.  If you go around looking like you are rejected and defeated… he will oblige you.

You have heard me say Satan doesn’t want to attack you in some new and unproven way.  No, he wants to attack you using the same old paths that are proven and well-worn.  Expect the enemy to gain strength and encouragement from your previous defeats.  He always thinks he can conquer using the same old areas.  This is why we must dam the creek beds and streams, so he has no hope.

In addition, the scripture says in verse six, Hezekiah worked hard repairing all the broken sections of the wall.  Sometimes mending or repairing what was formerly broken in our life is the most difficult task.  These are personal and sensitive areas because battles have been fought in these places. The fact is, these things were once healthy, but now only scars remain. I don’t know what this means for you personally, but I do know this… the passage says they “worked hard” in repairing the breached areas.  Hard work is sometimes necessary!

 

Do you know what is broken or the soft areas of your life? I am not a big believer in spending a lot of time on past issues, but sometimes we need to go back… not to rehash old issues, but to fortify.  Broken bones and scars can become the strongest areas of our life.

Verse five says “He built another wall outside that one and reinforced the supporting terraces.”

We know from history that the King didn’t wait until the last-minute to do this work, but had been reinforcing it for years.  There are some things in your life that are doing okay right now, but you know if the enemy concentrated on that point, he might be able to break through. Just to make sure, you make the precautionary decision to reinforce those areas of your life. Do you know your weak spots? Everybody has weak spots or vulnerabilities.  These areas over a long siege could be trouble. What are you doing to reinforce it?

Ernst Schroder said, “The optimist already sees the scar over the wound; the pessimist still sees the wound underneath the scar.”  Which do you see… the wound or the scar?  Don’t let your wounds dissuade you from erecting stronger walls.

The Bible says, “Samson loved women.”  It was a fact.  Guess what Samson kept running into over and over again.  Yep…women.  Someone said, “Samson was a He-Man with a She-Problem.” He never took any precautions…he didn’t want anything to change. He was a “player”.  It ultimately destroyed him.  He could have shored up these weak areas anytime he wanted.  He didn’t want to do any work in these areas because he wanted to keep falling into this type of sin. Difficult times are on the horizon.  The time to get our own house in order is now.

 

Blessings,

Pastor

 

 

Living In Uncertain Times

07 Saturday Jul 2012

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We do live in uncertain times.  I don’t think you need me to tell you this fact.  I am sure you have been watching the news or catching blimps here and there.  It seems here lately there has only been BAD NEWS. I want you to ask and answer yourself this question.

  • Do you feel safe and secure?
  • Do you feel like the Hand of God is upon this nation?
  • Do you feel like the grace and blessing of God is continuing to protect us, even from ourselves? Or have you noticed lately, no matter how hard we try every effort is like wadding through quicksand…. everything turns into an effort of futility.

Now, if you believe we are living in uncertain times, be of good courage. A lot of people lived in uncertain times and learned to trust God through difficult circumstances. And now we live in uncertain times too and this means the Bible should be more relevant today than any other time in our life. We should be looking to it for answers to the difficulties we face. II Chronicles 32 speaks to this very issue and I am going to spend four or five blogs talking about what King Hezekiah did to face the same uncertainties we face.

 

 Take moment and find a sheet of paper or pull up the notepad on your computer or phone.  Write down or type in the thing or things you are most worried about in your life right now. Set it aside, because we will come back it later.

 

There is a core principle which must be established in our lives before any of us can even attempt to trust and know God more intimately in difficult circumstances.  It goes like this… Life Is Uncertain, but God Is Not. Life will throw a lot of uncertain people, things and events at you.  But, it must be settled in your heart and spirit… life is totally uncertain, but God is not.  No matter what happens you will always be the apple of God’s eye and kept in the center of His hand. God loves you.  He is not trying to make life more difficult for you. He seeks only the very best for you.  As Christians, knowing God is in control, should dictate how we respond to crisis.

Now listen to what I am about to say… Most Christians are not going to fare well in these future difficult times.  Why?  The truth is not in them and the difficult times will bear that reality. Just because some believers will be exposed shouldn’t dissuade you from pursuing the Lord with all your heart. Real believers are planters.  They plant truth in their lives in good times and bad.  Bad circumstances only causes them to plant more vigorously.

This is why Hezekiah is a good example for us today.  When he became king, corruption abounded.  Yet, he pursued the Lord with all his heart.  After 11 years of reform, you would have thought he would have blessed with peace and tranquility, but no.

 

After these acts of faithfulness Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah and besieged the fortified cities, and thought to break into them for himself.  2 Chronicles 32:1

 

Does anyone have a problem with this? For 11 years, Hezekiah has done everything right, but trouble still came his way. Now most people would say something like this “God, I don’t understand…I was doing everything right, why did You let this happen? God I thought if I followed You, I wouldn’t have these types of problems!” Have you ever question God like this?

Here’s what Hezekiah knows: Life is uncertain, but God is not. This young king is more familiar with God than the difficult circumstances he faces.  So rather than shaking his fist at God and blaming Him or pouting, because God is not fair.  He simply concludes, “that’s life.  It rains on the just and unjust“.  Hezekiah didn’t turn to Prosaic to fight off depression.  He moved forward by taking steps to ensure he had done all he is supposed to do. In times of uncertainty, we still have responsibility.

This is important. Let me explain. Suppose you knew a farmer and visited his farm one day. There you saw him sitting on his tractor, pouting.  You ask, “what’s wrong?”  The farmer quickly retorts, “Well I’m mad with God, because the harvest isn’t what I thought it would be.”   You look out at the fields and sure enough there is nothing growing. Out of curiosity, you start to ask questions, “What’s wrong? Did it not rain enough?” He confesses, “It rained plenty.”  You further inquire, “Is the soil not fertile?”  He says, “No, it’s great. That’s why I am so mad. I’ve got good soil, I’ve had good rains. It should have been a good harvest.”  So you inquire,  “Well what kind of seed did you plant?” “Well I didn’t plant any,” he asserts.

What are you going to concude from a situation like this?  If you don’t sow the seed, how can you expect a harvest?  Yet, this is precisely what people do in difficult circumstances.  They stop praying.  They stop giving.  They stop putting the word of God inside their heart. They stop fighting for right and wrong.  Even in difficult and uncertain times we must be planters, knowing we cannot harvest if there is NO SEED in the ground.

When uncertainty comes and it always does… There are some things we are responsible to do.  God will always do His part.  We have God’s promise in His word. This is what Hezekiah knew…Life is uncertain but God is not.  Hezekiah knew he could count on God, but he also knew his responsibility.

Stay with me… next we will see what Hezekiah did next to assure Sennachrib didn’t defeat him.

 

Blessings,

Pastor