A Word In Season

“The Lord God has given Me The tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak A word in season to him who is weary."  Isa. 50:4 (NKJV)

How wonderful it is to hear a word when we are in crisis that lifts us up!  It is also more difficult than we might first think to bring that encouraging word.  Human nature is basically very negative and judgmental.  We see it throughout the Scripture as well.  It is very poignant in the life of Job when his so called friends come to him with words, not to lift him but to drive him deeper into distress. I have come to believe that those rare people who can lift and strengthen a person when they are in trouble have learned this art.  Oh, there are personality types that are naturally more positive but it seems to me that the real ability to lift a soul from despair and get them back on their feet is a cultivated skill.   

Notice in this verse the writer says "the Lord has given me the tongue of the learned".  The word "given" here means "assigned".  Then the word "learned" means a disciple or a learner.  We begin to get the picture that we aren't talking about a person that has a gift and they just go around giving encouraging words to people as a supernatural right.  It is a very deliberate and honed action of love and compassion.  Then the verse says, "that I should know how", here's that learned skill again.  Learned how to "speak a word in season to him who is weary."  In contrast to this, these people are not flatterers.  They are seeing this as a ministry of the Holy Spirit through them. Just as a surgeon uses his skills and experience to bring healing to a sick soul, may we give thought and reflection on honing our healing skills of delivering lifting words to those cast down.  Remember, sowing and reaping is an absolute principle of the Kingdom of God. You never know when you will need to reap some of those seeds for yourself.

Excuses

When confronted with Truth that is new to me I often find myself making excuses to why I haven't already obeyed. Notice I said, "Truth that is new to me", other than New Truth.  New Truth would speak of new revelation that hasn't been seen before.  After over 2,000 years of church life and deep searching of the Scripture I am very nervous about "New Truth".  Yet, it is a part of discipleship to be confronted with Truth that is new to me.  After over 40 years of seriously following Jesus and studying His Word, I still find new revelation even in the most familiar of verses.  The Bible is different from any other book in history because unlike, "War and Peace", it is a living book.  Some have read the Bible with a motive to find error or contradiction only to become converted by the life within it's pages.  

There is Truth that we have seen intellectually and spiritually to a certain level.  Then there comes a day when the Holy Spirit releases an explosion of illumination within our heart and soul.  This revelation is a living adjustment in that process of conforming us into the image of Jesus.  As a preacher I can tell you that I have walked in Truth and preached that same understanding of Truth.  Then I to come to a day when Heaven's plow penetrates deeper into the shallow, crusty abode of former Truth.  It reveals the lack maturity in my former habitation of Truth. It brings embarrassment! Yet, that feeling is not from any condemnation of God.  It is like youth discovering that some of their childhood beliefs were incomplete.  Parents only told them what they could comprehend at the time.  The same is true with our loving heavenly Father who releases Truth as we are ready to apply it.  Yet, even when it comes in the timing of God, it is still difficult to embrace immediately.  It feels like shame and we try to avoid admitting that we have missed the deeper Truth by dismissing it.  However, Heavenly Truth cannot be dismissed by the earthly.  Truth, once it knocks on the door of the heart continues to knock until the heart opens the door with the intent to embrace and obey.  

I'm not certain that there are three steps to help you with this lesson.  I believe simply knowing that this process exists will help us all get to the point of embracing and obeying quicker.  We all have a new plow in our future.

Veteran’s Day:  Remembrance, Honor and Humble Gratitude

There are wars that must be fought.  History tells us that when tyranny arises it can only be quieted with force.  There have been righteous wars where the oppressed have been set free and satanic regimes have been defeated to stop their domination of the helpless.  Yes, there are wars that are inescapable. As unavoidable as they are, no one wants to send their sons and daughters into battle.  Yet, it seems that every generation requires it.  

War should never be glorified.  It reveals the lowest nature of humanity usually on the part of friend and foe.  I have spent time among those just returning from combat.  At the time I was in uniform as well, and so there was an atmosphere of safety and transparency among comrades, among brothers.  Talk of their experiences flowed freely.  I have heard of great bravery, valor and honor.  I have also heard stories that made me ashamed and sickened.  Yet, they were all experiences of our own soldiers during the terrible stress of war.  The civilian world is not without their shame either.  I have known people who became rich because of war and I have known those who buried their young son just weeks after sending him off to the same war.  War is a horrible, horrible thing.  It is evidence of the failure mankind.  If fighting is thrust upon us, then fight we must, but let us never celebrate it or glamorize events that still cause nightmares and trauma decades after the last shot was fired.  

On this Veteran's Day rather than celebrate, may be pause and honor those who have served and may we be thankful.  On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, was declared between the Allied nations and Germany in the First World War, then known as "the Great War." Commemorated as Armistice Day beginning the following year, November 11th became a legal federal holiday in the United States in 1938. In the aftermath of World War II and the Korean War, Armistice Day became Veterans Day, a holiday dedicated to American veterans of all wars.

I join you in saluting and thanking our veterans for their service.  Above all, we thank those that have lost family members to war.  We are greatly indebted to their sacrifice.  

The Need For The Teacher

 The ministry gift of the teacher is probably undervalued in the Kingdom of God.  In the contemporary church we magnify, almost glorify other spiritual gifts more.  We hold entire conferences around apostles and prophets.  If a person is truly gifted as an evangelist, their calendar is always full.  Yet, the teacher often remains in relative obscurity.  Some connect the teacher with the pastor and they only see 4 ascension gifts as apostle, prophet, evangelist and pastor/teacher.  Certainly a pastor must be a teacher because most of their job involves teaching in the pulpit and one on one.  However, not all teachers are pastors.  The teacher who is not a pastor may be the loneliest of all.  They are often relegated to occasional opportunities to teach Sunday School or possibly now and then in a home group.  Yet, they are store houses of information and life giving impartation.  When we think of discipleship, and we need to think about it daily, we must see the need for the teacher in the process of making disciples. Paul wrote to Timothy and said in 2 
Timothy 2:2, "2And the things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."  Paul was obviously teaching people principles that he called upon to teach others who might teach others also.  As a matter of fact it seems to me that there is a mandate that those we choose to teach must agree that they are going to teach those learned truths to others.  Let me share a very interesting insight from  the New Living Translation regarding Titus 1:1-2. 
 1"This letter is from Paul, a slave of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I have been sent to proclaim faith to those God has chosen and to teach them to know the truth that shows them how to live godly lives. 2This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God—who does not lie—promised them before the world began. 
I love this translation.  Paul says first that he was called by God to "teach" them to know the truth that shows them how to live Godly lives".  Teaching Bible Truth to teach them how to live Godly lives.  Nice lessons from natural experience or practical methods of life may all be good.  However, it is only the living TRUTH of the Word of God that will enable those who hear it and apply it to "live Godly lives".  
It also, more than teaching them "how" to live Godly lives, gives them an internal HOPE or CONFIDENCE that they are saved and have eternal life.  That is a mooring of steadfastness.  Teachers who are allowed to teach the principles of TRUTH from Scripture impact the hearers by teaching them how to live the Christian life as God intends and also reinforces their very foundation of knowing they are saved!
May we rethink the value and place of the gifted and called teachers among us and work to make a place for them at the table.