The Great Unknown

So I read Genesis 19 this morning.  The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Why was Lot so hesitant to leave?

Here's a short paraphrase:  The angels told him to leave the city but he lingered.  The angels took him and his family outside the city and told him to escape to the mountains.  He said "The mountains are too far.  How about Zoar?"  They said OK and he took his family to Zoar.  And after Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed he took his family to the mountains.  Was Sodom that nice of a place for Lot that he was that hesitant to leave?  Or is it just hard to leave what he knew, however bad a situation, and head off into the unknown?

I don't know whether you can consider Lot a man of God.  He was a good enough man to take two strangers into his home to keep them safe when they entered Sodom.  Then when a mob demand he turn out the two men so that they could "get to know them" he refused.  He even offered up his daughters to the mob instead of the two men(that's a whole other issue I don't think I want to get into).  Yet when given direct instruction that would save his life and the lives of his family he hesitated.

What is your reaction when God speaks in your life? How hesitant are you to leave what you know and move into what God is telling you to do?  Is your faith so invested in God that as soon as he tells you to do something you move to action?  Or do you hem and haw, waiting and praying, making sure that it's really God that you're listening to.  Do you really need to verify that it is God speaking to you or are you hesitating because the course God has laid out for you is not where you want to go?

That's the key.  It all depends upon whether you want to take the actions God has told you to take.  Lot didn't want to leave Sodom.  Yes it was a city of great sin.  Yes it was going to be destroyed in a rain of fire.  But it was what he knew.  He didn't know the mountains.  In the mountains he didn't know where he would live.  He didn't know how he would provide for his family.  It was unknown.  And the unknown is frightening.


But that's why God directs us to the unknown.  It takes faith.  We show our love and trust in Him by leaving what we know and following His direction.  Yes we can choose to not follow that guidance.  We can choose to stay.  But it's not like He will lead us into a trap.  He's taking you to a place where you will grow closer to Him.  Where your faith will increase.  It may be a struggle, difficult.  But with faith all things are possible.


Besides, I'm pretty sure life will be more of struggle by choosing to stay.  Because by choosing to stay you're choosing to leave God's perfect will for your life.

Amplify Your Belief

I love the Amplified Bible.  Friends at a bible study would make fun of me because when it was my turn to read it would take twice as long, but I love that the translators went to the trouble to make absolutely sure you knew what the writers were trying to say.  In reading this morning a couple of words stuck out to me.

"And He brought him outside [his tent into the starlight] and said, Look now toward the heavens and count the stars--if you are able to number them. Then He said to him, So shall your descendants be.  And he [Abram] believed in (trusted in, relied on, remained steadfast to) the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness (right standing with God)."

Genesis  15:5-6 (Amplified Bible) 

Abram's belief in God's Word was so much more than just being persuaded of the truth of a statement.  He trusted in that truth and made decisions based upon it.  He relied upon God standing behind those words and he took actions.  And he remained steadfast to that truth in the face of waiting years from God's promise to come to pass.  Abrams belief wasn't a mental click.   His life lived out his belief because he trusted in, relied on, and remained steadfast to God and His promise.

And this lead to Abram's righteousness with God.  What does right standing mean?  Think of the end of the movie "US Marshals."  Marshal Gerard asks Sheridan how it feels to be exonerated and he replies, "Righteous!"  He's been on the run and outside of the law.  He could never relax and be comfortable.  The next person to turn the corner could be someone arresting him.  But now he was righteous.  He was in right standing with the law.  And he was at peace.  He could smile, relax, and enjoy his life.

Our right standing with God gives us peace.  Sin puts us on the run.  Sin requires punishment and that punishment is death.  So we try to run from punishment and end up going nowhere.  But why run?  God has said that His Son took the punishment for us.  Christ died for the sins that we commit.  All we have to do is believe what God told us to be true.  And then trust, rely on and remain steadfast to that truth.  And you'll be in right standing with God.

Jump Start

Genesis 9-10

Have you ever thought about why God put the rainbow in the sky as a reminder of his covenant?  I remember the Sunday School stories and being told it was to remind us of God's promise to never flood the earth again.  But that's not what God said it was for.

"And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh."

Genesis 9:14 - 15

God put the rainbow there to remind Himself of His promise!  He knew that we would again become wicked and His heart would again become grieved.  He would again want to flood the earth.  But He loved us so much to make a vow that He would not break with a constant reminder to Himself of that vow.  And I'm certain it's constant.  

Somewhere on the planet Earth the rain has just finished and the sun is shining through the mist.  Somewhere a beautiful rainbow is stretching across the sky.  Somewhere, God is reminding Himself of His Love for us!

Momentum

Most people think of momentum and they think of keeping in motion.  If you're riding you bike and you stop pedaling you'll still be moving.  But you will slow down.  If you don't start pedaling again you'll come to a stop.  And once you've stopped you're going to experience a whole new type of momentum.  The tendency of an object to stay at rest.  From experience, it's easier to start pedaling again if your bike is still moving than if you've come to a stop.

I bring this up because the momentum of my blog has definitely been the tendency to stay at rest.  I got distracted and got away from writing and expressing myself.  With two toddlers at home it can be easy to get distracted.  And the longer I stayed in my lack of motion the harder it was to get moving again.  I needed a push...

Enter Finding True Balance  Nothing like your wife starting her own blog to give a push :-)

So how does this apply to my spiritual life?  I am trying to keep that the focus of this blog, right?  Well, how often have you woken up for the day and said to yourself "I'm going to skip reading the Bible today and get an extra 20-30 minutes of sleep."  Then you get up the next day and say the same thing.  And the next day... and the next day...  Let's just say that my bible ready has been more inconsistent than my blog writing.  

So where do I go from here?  It's time to make a commitment.  A jumpstart in two parts.  For the next two weeks I'm going to read my bible every morning and then write a post on what I read that morning.  Depending upon the time I have left before I leave for work I may have to just say "I read Genesis Chapter 7-8.  Tell you about it later."  But I hope to have a little more than that each day.  Hopefully after those two weeks I'll be able to keep pedaling.  So until tomorrow.

Remembering A Man of God

I went to a funeral last night.  He was a Man of God.  The father of my friend.  The friend of my father.  My friend.  And he was fearless.

Last night I heard story after story of a man who was not afraid to do anything God asked him to do.  He wanted to do everything he could to take as many people to heaven with him.  From quieting a restaurant with a heartfelt prayer.  To striking up a conversation while standing at the urinal.  To finish interviewing for a job and asking the interviewer, "How's your relationship with the Lord?"  He was fearless.

I want to live a fearless life.  I don't want to make decisions based upon how I think people will perceive my actions.  Whether they will look at me with scorn.  Whether they will think of me as foolish.  I don't want to live my life fearful of man.  I want to live my life concerned only with God's thoughts of me.  Whether I am obeying him with no concern for the foolish thoughts of man.

When the judgment day comes and we each stand before our Father God, I want to hear the words "Well done!"  I know that's what Jack will hear...

"...and He who wins souls is wise."

Proverbs 11:30

The Right Way to Get Promoted

There are few people who are satisfied with the job that they have and don't want to be promoted.  Most of us want to keep moving to the next level.  To take on more responsibility and make more money.  And we'll do our utmost to make sure that any time there's a new position open, everyone in the company from the CEO to the janitor know that WE are the best person for the promotion.  But if a large portion of time on your job is spent on self-promotion, you may not be as ready for that next step as you think you are... 

After college I was living in Tulsa and working as a shuttle bus driver at Fine Airport Parking.  It actually was a much better job than it sounds.  Most of the employees were attending or had attended the ministry training school I was attending.  The pay was minimum wage plus tips, and you usually got around $40 in tips a shift.  You could work almost as much overtime as you could handle.  After a year at the job one of the shift leaders was moving so his job was open.  Shift leaders had a little more pay and responsibility and I wanted the job.  So I told my boss.  My boss knew I had the potential to be a good shift leader.  But he also wasn't sure if I was ready to be a shift leader.  So he took a risk while taking steps to minimize the damage.  He promoted me to shift leader but only for a couple of shifts.  Then he split up the other shifts between other "part-time" shift leaders.

"And he spake a parable unto those that were bidden, when he marked how they chose out the chief seats; saying unto them, when thou art bidden of any man to a marriage feast, sit not down in the chief seat; lest haply a more honorable man than thou be bidden of him, and he that bade thee and him shall come and say to thee, Give this man place; and then thou shalt begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest place; that when he that hath bidden thee comes, he may say to thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have glory in the presence of all that sit at meat with thee. 
For everyone that exalts himself shall be humbled; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted."

Luke 14:7-11

I'd like to say that I lived up to my potential.  That every shift ran like a well-oiled machine and every person I was leading respected me and the job I was doing.  Nope...  I wasn't a good shift leader.  I knew the job, but I didn't know people.  I was full of pride.  I could never be wrong.  I couldn't take correction from anyone that wasn't "my equal," a shift leader.  I wasn't ready to be promoted.  Lucky for me I didn't stay at the parking lot long enough to be humbled.  I was only there for another year before I moved back to Indy.

You may think it is in your best interest to promote yourself at work.  Otherwise how will your bosses know that you want something more out of your career?  But while you may excel at the work you are currently doing you likely have no idea how well you perform at the next level.  It would be something completely different.  You don't know how your co-workers will react, especially if you become their boss.  And will the increase in pay be worth the extra stress and time spent at work?

Are your truly ready for a promotion?  You are not the best person to evaluate whether you are ready to be promoted.  Your boss is.  Think about it if God was your boss.  Do you think that God would promote you to a position that you wouldn't be able to handle?  A good boss will have the same consideration.  They will want you to succeed.  A promotion when you're not ready will be more harmful to your career than helpful.

Just be patient.  Know that God will take care of your career.  It's easy to say, but a difficult thing to accept.  But by waiting on God's timing you know that you will be in the best position to succeed.  Even if that position is the one that you're in right now.

Small Decisions

"So since Christ suffered in the flesh for us, for you, arm ourselves with the same thought and purpose, patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God.  For whoever has suffered in the flesh, having the mind of Christ, is done with intentional sin, has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God.  So that he can no longer spend the rest of his natural life living by his human appetites and desires, but he lives for what God wills."
1 Peter 4:1-2

I know I have made choices that don't please God.  And why do I do that?  Because it pleases my flesh.  It make me feel good.  Do I need to stop for coffee and doughnuts on my way to work?  No.  I need to lose weight.  But the doughnuts taste so good.  If I don't get up early to study God's Word before work I can get 30-45 extra minutes of sleep.  Saying the sarcastic comment that's on the tip of my tongue will sure make me feel good.  But will it help my Christian witness with my unsaved co-worker?  No matter how great or small the choice we come to a point where we have to decide between our will and God's will, and your flesh battles against what God is asking you to do.

It always seems easier in the big questions.  When I finished my degree I could have started the job hunt, but I felt like God was calling me to got to Rhema Bible Training Center.  So I moved to Tulsa and lived as a poor student for a couple more years rather than finding a job and "getting started with my life."  It was hard, but I know that I pleased God with that decision.  It's the daily small decisions that I constantly find myself choosing to please my flesh instead of pleasing God.

Getting up early to study God's Word is the perfect example.  I already get up early for work.  During the week I'm rarely in bed at 5:00 AM.  The sleep I lose by getting up 30 minutes early is valuable.  But how valuable?  Is it worth failing to please God?  To be honest, I've been valuing sleep more than pleasing God.  I've used the argument that I could study later in the day, at work, or before bed.  But that never happens.  It's too easy to get distracted at work.  And when I get home I need to spend time with family.  Then it's time to eat.  Then I need to relax with my wife.  Then it's time for bed.  At some point I must sacrifice.  And I won't sacrifice necessary time with my wife and kids.  But I will sacrifice 30 minutes of  sleep because I want to please God.  But that is just one of the many small choices.  I need to start making more decision like getting out of bed early this morning.

So today I start with a question for myself, "Will you please yourself or please God?"  And today I make this commitment and confession.  "I will patiently suffer rather than fail to please God.  I will stop pleasing myself.  I will please God."