A Fool

08 Monday Apr 2013

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a fool, cash, fruits of our labor, God's resources, lack of spiritual discernment, leave God out, Luke 12:20, Mark Twain Quote, Martin Luther quote, material blessings, Panama, Psalm 14:1, remove all doubt, Sears catalog, spiritual discernment

“But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?” Luke 12:20

The last thing you ever want God to call you is “a fool“. The Lord was not attempting to ascertain this man’s intellect but his lack of spiritual discernment. According to Scripture a fool is any person who leaves God out of life’s calculations. For example, “The fool has said in his heart there is no God.” Psalm 14:1

The man in Jesus’ story was a fool not because of what he said, but because of how he lived his life. He did not recognize his material blessings came from heaven. Fools leave God out of their lives.

Many years ago, a major American company had trouble keeping employees working in their assembly plant in Panama. The laborers lived in a generally agrarian, barter economy, but the company paid them in cash. After a week or two of work, the average employee had more cash in their pockets than ever before–so many of the workers quit! They were completely satisfied with what they had already made.

What was the solution? Company executives gave all their employees a Sears catalog. They brought a little bit of lust into their lives. No one quit then, because they all wanted the previously unimagined things they saw inside that book. Their focus changed – and so did their priorities.

When I was a kid, I always longed to see the Christmas edition of the Sears catalog. Every toy imaginable was in that book. I reviewed the contents for hours. Like the Panamanian workers, I saw things in that book which were previous unimaginable to me.

Without real spiritual discernment we all will act foolishly with our resources. Our hearts will lead us astray. As Martin Luther once said, “The Lord commonly gives riches to foolish people, to whom he gives nothing else.” In the end, someone else will enjoy the fruits our labor.

Blessings,

Pastor

Pray Until Peace Comes… Within

15 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Living In Uncertain Times

≈ 2 Comments

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2 Chronicles 32:20-22, crisis, getting naked before God, guard, helping God, Isaiah, King Hezekiah, Martin Luther quote, motives, not my will but Your will be done, peace of god, petition, Philippians 4:6-7, prayer, praying wrong, Present, reveal, stand watch over, the answer is God, the answer to your prayer is not the solution, the peace of God, wrestling in prayer

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

Testing the Blessing (3) – To Make us Deeper and More Productive

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by eisakouo in Abraham: Life of Faith

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Abraham, Chuck Swindol illustration, Does your personal faith need testing?, Encourage Me, file, furnace, Genesis 22:2, James, James 1:4, Jesus, Martin Luther quote, metal, nail and hammer, Paul, Romans 5:3-5

If I were to take a survey among Christians asking, “Does your personal faith need testing and trials?” Most would tell me their personal faith is in good shape. Yep, most believe they are in very good shape. James, Paul and Jesus paint a different picture for the average believer. In James we are told…

the testing of our faith … produces endurance, and endurance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:4 )

Paul tells us that

suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us.” (Romans 5:3-5)

Jesus paints a picture so clear, it cannot be ignored.

every branch (or believer) that bears fruit “he prunes so that it may be more fruitful”.

In reality, most of us are like a nail in search of a hammer. A nail would certainly question the value of a hammer. To the nail, the hammer is a cruel instrument. But what it doesn’t see is that each blow forces the nail to bite deeper and hold more effectively. Without the hammer, the nail would have no purpose in life.

If metal had feelings it probably would question being scrapped by a file and being thrown in furnace. Metal doesn’t want to be shaped and is quite comfortable remaining the same shape. The rough scraping of the file would seem tortuous, but it is necessary to fit the metal for its part. The furnace would be met with screams and dread, but the furnace is necessary to purify and strengthen the metal.

Chuck Swindoll has some great words concerning this illustration.

Heartaches and disappointments are like the hammer, the file, and the furnace. They come in all shapes and sizes: unfulfilled romance, a lingering illness, and untimely death, an unachieved goal in life, a broken home or marriage, a severed friendship, a wayward and rebellious child, a personal medical report that advised immediate surgery, a falling grade at school, a depression that simply won’t go away, a habit you can’t seem to break. Sometimes heartaches come suddenly . . . other times they appear over the passing of many months, slowly as the erosion of earth. Do I write to a “nail” that has begun to resent the blows of the hammer? Are you at the brink of despair, thinking that you cannot bear another day of heartache? Is that what’s gotten you down? As difficult as it may be for you to believe this today, the Master knows what He’s doing. Your Savior knows your breaking point. The bruising and the crushing and melting process is designed to reshape you, not ruin you. Your value is increasing the longer He lingers over you. [Encourage Me p. 36]

Abraham certainly wondered “why”. “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” (Genesis 22:2) Perhaps he felt like a nail being attacked by a hammer. But Abraham also understood that the nail and the hammer were both held by the hand of the Lord. He knew that God knew what He was doing and so he trusted him.

Blessings,

Pastor