The Answer = You

“The Israelites did evil in the LORD's sight. So the LORD handed them over to the Midianites for seven years. The Midianites were so cruel that the Israelites made hiding places for themselves in the mountains, caves, and strongholds. Whenever the Israelites planted their crops, marauders from Midian, Amalek, and the people of the east would attack Israel, camping in the land and destroying crops as far away as Gaza. They left the Israelites with nothing to eat, taking all the sheep, goats, cattle, and donkeys. These enemy hordes, coming with their livestock and tents, were as thick as locusts; they arrived on droves of camels too numerous to count. And they stayed until the land was stripped bare. So Israel was reduced to starvation by the Midianites. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help.” (Judges 6:1-6)

If this story happened in modern times it would, perhaps, look like this...

A culture plagued with problems like materialism, entertainment, immorality, teen pregnancy, murder, injustice in government systems, lost generations of young people…
It would look like a church that forgot the power they possessed, and so became oppressed by society and had their freedoms taken one-by-one…

Sound familiar?
Yes, because it is where we live.

I personally have seen too much of the American church living in oppression, and going into hiding.
Oh, it did not start in my generation. No it started long ago. We did once live in a godly nation, but slowly the enemy began to creep into our culture.
First, he took the entertainment – and the church withdrew.
Then he grabbed music industry too – and the church acted as if nothing happened.
He took over our businesses – and the church lost the fathers, so the mothers took over.
He stole into our families and homes – and the church gave him the spare room.
Then he began to steal our youth – and the church labeled them as needing to find themselves, so we left them to themselves.
Then he crept into our education system – and the church bought into the lies.
He broke our marriages – and the church acquiesced because it was “easier that way”.
He began to kill the unborn – and we turned our faces away. Yes, we made an outcry, but it was too faint and too late.
He set out to ruin the definition of marriage – and the church shrugged its shoulders and said “What is this world coming to?”

He took over the world and we shook our heads in pity and did nothing.
So, when he came knocking on the door of the Church we shrunk back in fear and let him in to plunder what he would.

Now we hear of legislation that puts a gag in the mouth of the church, and the church gets mad…for a moment…then we are lulled back into passivity out of fear.

Yes, some radicals run to the hills to become weird activists, scared of every bump in the night. They have bunkers, pantries stocked with beans and ammo. They hide their children away from the prying eyes of “the government”, and cry wolf every time a “liberal” opens their mouth…but they don’t really DO anything.
Most of us, though, hide in plain view in our well manicured subdivisions, keeping to ourselves because we are afraid to be the only one to speak out…or perhaps we have just forgotten what we were called to.

We’ve become reactionaries. We were called to be people of action.
We struggle on the best we can. We were called to thrive in our promised land.
We thresh our wheat in a winepress. We were called to be a city set on a hill, not hidden.

I know we have all been disturbed by the state of things in our nation. We have prayed, we have cried to the Lord.
What is the answer?

“Then the Angel of the LORD came and sat beneath the great tree at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash of the clan of Abiezer. Gideon son of Joash was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The Angel of the LORD appeared to him and said, "Mighty hero, the LORD is with you!" "Sir," Gideon replied, "if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us? And where are all the miracles our ancestors told us about? Didn't they say, 'The LORD brought us up out of Egypt'? But now the LORD has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites." Then the LORD turned to him and said, "Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!" (Judges 6:11-14)

Here is the answer.

The first thing Gideon did was start pouring out his complaint to the Lord and his frustration at all that was happening. He asked for a solution, someone strong to come and save them.

The Lord’s answer was simple. He didn’t answer by raising up someone else, he responded by sending Gideon.
“You see the problem, you go take of it. You are tired of your lack of freedom? YOU go be the deliverer.”
This passion that you feel because your inheritance has been stolen is the might that will propel you forward. The hand of the Lord works through you…you are His weapon of choice.

God did it with Gideon, with Moses, with Esther…what would have happened if Martin Luther had waited for another person to stand up?

YOU are the answer to the problems of your culture! If you see a problem, it is your call to go and take care of it. Don’t wait for someone else, don’t look at another person to volunteer.
Don’t wait for some deliverer to rise up from another quarter. Yes, the Lord may raise someone up, but will your generation die in the meantime?

If you are sick of a corrupt political system, get involved in politics. TODAY, before it gets worse. If you are concerned with the welfare programs. Get involved. If you have a passion for the youth of the city, YOU start dreaming up ideas and knocking on the doors of city officials. If you are worried about the state of the church, YOU raise the standard of holiness. You learn how to teach and preach! If you are sick of movies that make immorality and death and violence the norm get out into the movie industry and learn your trade well. If you want to see good Christian artists in the music industry, quit dreaming and start training.

Yes, you can dream all you want, you can even plan all you want, but in order to affect a change you are going to have to wake up and start DOING something, PREPARING for something.


“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt

What are you passionate about?

Love

My Lesson for Today:
Give everything
Expect nothing
Let forgiveness know no bounds


In the Bible I read that if I don’t love the Body of Christ I cannot say I love Christ. It sounds so easy, this loving the Church.
It is easy until there is a breach in relationship with one person and I find it easier to withdraw my heart than to willingly sacrifice it on the altar of forgiveness.

1John 2:7-11
“ Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.
Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of this commandment, and you also are living it. For the darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.
If anyone claims, "I am living in the light," but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is still living in darkness.
Anyone who loves another brother or sister is living in the light and does not cause others to stumble.
But anyone who hates another brother or sister is still living and walking in darkness. Such a person does not know the way to go, having been blinded by the darkness."

If I love part of the Body, I have to love the whole and not exclude any member. If I love the whole that must be unfailingly else it is not really love at all because “love never fails”.

Who am I to withhold my love? Was it ever mine to monopolize? Did I originate it? Is my love not just borrowed from the One who loved me first? How selfish I am to grasp the gift of God so tightly in my fists! How ignorant I am to refuse to share it as He commanded.

To love is never easy…see, the thing about love is that it must consume. The thing that fuels love is the offering of my selfish desires to be burned. Love and selfishness are a sorry pair – they can never coexist. Love will always be determined to consume the selfishness and selfishness always desires to quench the fire of love. Love, true love, requires me to die that God might live His love through me.

One Thing To Know

This one thing I know
This one thing I’ve learned...

God is God and I am nothing
But His mercy’s faithful as the morning
While all this world is passing
There’s a love that’s everlasting
In a God who's God for I am not

That anything worth having is worth the wait it cost
And waiting’s not complaining but trust
Though the end is lovely
The journey was planned for my gain
By a God who’s God while I am not

That love is never easy but it's more than I can know
And that sometimes to love best, we have to let go
Though I think I’ve been forgotten here
He remembers every tear
For He is God...but I am not

That every seed must die before it comes to life
So that’s why He requires a sacrifice
But then there's times He stays my hand...And provides Himself a Lamb
That's why God is God and I am not

Letter To An Apostle

Dear Peter,
I am writing because I was reading my Bible the other day and I think we have a lot in common. So I have a few questions for you…
What was it like to be a disciple of Jesus? What was it like to be one of His closest friends? It must have changed your life. I wish I could have been friends with Him like that.
How close were you standing when He touched the blind man’s eyes, or when Jairus’ daughter was raised from the dead? That must have been the experience of a lifetime. I wish He could’ve come in this century. I have family that desperately needs healed.
What was it like to hear Him silence the arguments of the Pharisees, were His words different than any other man’s? What were His techniques? Did He carry with Him a Presence of power and authority? I bet that when you were with Him you learned much…maybe you had more courage, too. I think I would have.
You, see, Peter, I hear many arguments against Him in my workplace, and I wish I could have been taught by Him how to answer.
I can imagine what it would have been like to be right there every time He opened His mouth to teach. I know I would’ve listened with everything in me.
It must have been so nice to have Him there to counsel you before you talked with someone so He could tell you what to say that would help them. Or to debrief with Him in the evenings and have Him tell you what things you said that were silly and how they could’ve been said right…or He could tell you when He was proud of you for acting like He would have. I wish I could have walked with Him every day and talked everything over with Him.
You see it’s harder here. So many times I feel like I’m going on a wing and a prayer. Often I get confused and I don’t know what to say and I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten in trouble when I should’ve known better. I do stupid things a lot, and always regret it later. If I just had Jesus here with me, I’m sure it would be different….

Oh well, I guess that’s just how things are.
Do you have any advice though?

Yours truly.



.......and the response..................



Dear Believer,

In response to your letter, I admit I was a bit confused at first. Apparently we are alike in many ways. Apparently you too don’t recognize God when He’s standing right next to you.
You say you do not have Jesus living with you in your day-to-day life, but…think harder…don’t you?
I supposed you to have a Helper, a Counselor, a Divine Teacher, one who is God, just as much as Jesus was…The reason I say that is that once Jesus told us that He would send us One who would be in all ways like Him. He said it was to our advantage that He went away, so that He could send us the Helper. Have you not met the Helper and formed a partnership with Him?
Do you not have the Holy Spirit?
See, yes we had Jesus living with us for a time, but YOU, beloved, have Jesus living WITHIN you.

You say you don’t know right from wrong? He said the Holy Spirit would convict us of sin and righteousness.
You say you don’t know what decision to make? The Holy Spirit was sent to guide you in all truth.
You say you don’t know the will of God? The Holy Spirit declares and bears witness in you the will of God.
You say you have no one to be with you to keep you from making a fool of yourself? As I remember, you too received the promise that He would never leave you or forsake you.
You say you can’t have the same friendship relationship? He said that He is a friend to those that fear Him.
You say that you wished you could’ve seen the lame walk, the sick healed, the blind made to see? He said TO YOU that you would do even greater things than He Himself did as soon as the power of the Spirit dwelt in you.

DO YOU REALIZE the resources at your fingertips? DO YOU REALIZE the power that you could tap into if you only would? Do you even understand?!?!

The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead now quickens you. The same Spirit by which we prophesied is ready to speak through you. The same Spirit that filled us on the day of Pentecost is at hand waiting to give you your DAILY Pentecost.
The fire the touched me that day when I preached to the multitude with a boldness I had never possessed is still burning. The same power at work when 3,000 were added to the church in one day has not lost its potency.
The same - the exact same Spirit - by whose wisdom and authority James, and John, and Andrew, and Matthew, and Barnabas, and Philip, and Stephen, and Paul, and the rest of the Early Church walked and talked and prayed and preached and evangelized and prophesied and healed still lives and works and moves mightily through you!!!

Oh yes, we may have walked with Him and observed His power, but when we walk IN Him the world will observe His power at work in us!

So, remind me again what excuse you have.

You asked for my advice? Start talking to Him as you would to Jesus. Recognize His wisdom. Seek it out and pursue it, because it will be a crown of glory to your head and a grace to your actions. Listen to His words and receive them. Walk in His ways and let Him be the power at work in you.
Who knows…perhaps someday you too will raise the dead. If you don’t it won’t be for lack of the Divine power available to you.
If you live an ineffective life it will only be for lack of pursuit of the Divine on your part.
So, learn the art of pursuit...LIVE in the Presence of the Holy Spirit.

Sincerely,

Peter