Christian Practitioner

2 Tim. 2:2 "A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people."

What a tormenting verse!  The more we try to arrive, the farther the destination seems to be.  There is a sternness or harshness deep within us that can be  all too easily aroused.  I don't want to manifest this hardness but it can present itself just seconds after tenderness and understanding have been shown.  Deep inside this temperament is an abiding competition.  A desire to be "right" and to win.  This is not of the spirit of Jesus, yet it lurks alive and well just below the surface of the average Christian persona.   While I am not obsessed with introspection I do try to observe less than Jesus qualities that surface in my life.  I then seek to invite the Holy Spirit to bring about the change I need.  Personal sanctification requires our invitation to the Holy Spirit to release the cleansing blood of Jesus within us.  It requires a willingness to live in ongoing death to personal desires in order to experience the release of Jesus in and through us.  How we hate it and how we resist it and yet when it is done what genuine fulfillment is found.  There is a superficial Christian Gospel preached that requires little if any personal change.  This is not the discipleship that Jesus modeled and taught.  May we leave the bright lights of the modern church doctrine that pursues comfort and willingly enter the crucible of taking up our cross daily and following Him.  It will be here that we will become the patient servant that the Lord can use for His Kingdom.  I am presently on a journey to be less of a preacher and more of a practitioner. Will you consider joining me on this venture of faith?

Seasons Produce Seasoning

I have never copied a another devotional reading for my blog before but today I will do just that.  This particular writing by L. B. Cowan struck me for it's beauty, meaning and depth.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I am enjoying it.  LAJ

You will come to your grave in a full age, As stacks of grain are harvested in their season. (Job 5:26) A gentleman, writing about the breaking up of old ships, recently said that it is not the age alone which improves the quality of the fiber in the wood of an old vessel, but the straining and wrenching of the vessel by the sea, the chemical action of the bilge water, and of many kinds of cargoes. Some planks and veneers made from an oak beam which had been part of a ship eighty years old were exhibited a few years ago at a fashionable furniture store on Broadway, New York, and attracted general notice for the exquisite coloring and beautiful grain. Equally striking were some beams of mahogany taken from a bark which sailed the seas sixty years ago. The years and the traffic had contracted the pores and deepened the color, until it looked as superb in its chromatic intensity as an antique Chinese vase. It was made into a cabinet, and has today a place of honor in the drawing-room of a wealthy New York family. So there is a vast difference between the quality of old people who have lived flabby, self-indulgent, useless lives, and the fiber of those who have sailed all seas and carried all cargoes as the servants of God and the helpers of their fellow men. Not only the wrenching and straining of life, but also something of the sweetness of the cargoes carried get into the very pores and fiber of character. —Louis Albert Banks When the sun goes below the horizon he is not set; the heavens glow for a full hour after his departure. And when a great and good man sets, the sky of this world is luminous long after he is out of sight. Such a man cannot die out of this world. When he goes he leaves behind him much of himself. Being dead, he speaks. —Beecher When Victor Hugo was past eighty years of age he gave expression to his religious faith in these sublime sentences: "I feel in myself the future life. I am like a forest which has been more than once cut down. The new shoots are livelier than ever. I am rising toward the sky. The sunshine is on my head. The earth gives me its generous sap, but Heaven lights me with its unknown worlds. “You say the soul is nothing but the resultant of the bodily powers. Why, then, is my soul more luminous when my bodily powers begin to fail? Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. I breathe at this hour the fragrance of the lilacs, the violets, and the roses as at twenty years. The nearer I approach the end the plainer I hear around me the immortal symphonies of the worlds which invite me. It is marvelous, yet simple.”

"Bring them to me."

Matthew 14:17And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.”

          18He said, “Bring them here to Me.”
As you read this story in its entirety you can feel the anxiety of the disciples when Jesus told them to feed the 5,000.  They saw the great need, they looked at their resources and they felt helpless and maybe hopeless.  This is a critical point in the life of faith.  We have all been confronted with a great need.  If you haven’t, give it time, you will!  We have held inventory of our supplies and realized the need was too great for us and we were tempted to despair.  Maybe we did despair!  It is such an interesting story because it sounds like Jesus, knowing the disciples could not meet the need of the multitude, asked them to meet the need anyway.  He wasn't being cruel; He wanted them to see the uselessness of trying to meet an impossible need with only human supply.  There is nothing wrong with meeting a need when we have enough provision to do it.  As a matter of fact, that is what the Christian heart is supposed to do.  We aren't supposed to ask the Lord to meet a need when we have it within our ability to meet that need.  "But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (I John 3:17)  But what about when we see a need and we can't fix it?  That is our dilemma and it is also a portal to a miracle.  How we approach the overpowering crisis of impossibility is a key to our walk with the Lord.  Coming to Jesus without answers is never a sin.  Coming to Jesus with unbelief is always a sin.  We must come to the end of ourselves and the end of the known road and after assessing the situation we come to Jesus in faith.  We must cry out to God, as did Jehoshaphat when overpowered by his enemies, "For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon you.”  There is a direct connection between faith-filled desperation before God and a miracle.
Are you there yet?  Have you made the inventory and seen the bankruptcy of your situation?  Now what?  Hand wringing, complaining and frustration are all only delays to your miracle.  Jesus is saying to all of us in this situation, "Bring them here to me!"

God's Non-Negotiable Principles

Part II  Anything that contradicts God’s Ways

God’s ways reflect his nature and character.  He made man in his image.  Gen. 1:26 tells us man was made in the image of God.  He says it 3 times to draw attention to our distinction from all the other living things of creation.  Two things stand out.
1. We are created in his image: unlike other the beasts man stands upright in an elevated position both intellectually and spiritually.  Think about the fact that God created man in His image.  He looks like God, he thinks like God and he acts like God.  The inclination toward sin and the struggle with lust, greed or pride didn't appear until after creation.   God's way is designed to be our way.
2. He has sexual distinction.  Sexual distinction("male and female") means that there was an attraction toward that distinction.  God has a culture and we must be culturally relevant to God.  In the early days of creation there was no struggle with living within the God culture.  Then Lucifer introduced the great rebellion with only one little question… “has God said”.  That question carried with it the culture of “anti-God”, or Lucifer's ways.   Satan was saying to man, “It’s a different culture now and we must adapt.”   This is an ancient lie that has found a contemporary audience.  We must remain alert in mind and spirit and keep a sharp edge on our sword of Truth.  We will be most fulfilled when we are living within that culture and nature of God.  We were designed to live in sync with the Culture of Heaven.

• I Peter 5:8 (NKJV)

  "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."

God's Non-Negotiable Principles
Part I

A few years ago there was a very popular Christian chorus that said, "I am a friend of God."  People loved to sing it an think about how wonderful it was to be in such a close friendship with God almighty!  I believe it was a healthy revelation for most believers to understand, removing the image of God ruling over lives as a stern taskmaster.  Yet, as is always the case, there is a balance here.  If our shovel breaks and we need to use one and we see our neighbor's shovel, we may just get it and use it.  If they are good friends we will justify our actions by saying, "we are such good friends that they won't mind."  That is where the old adage, "familiarity breeds contempt" is derived. When King Saul was sent by God to destroy the Amalekites and every living thing there he kept back the sheep.  It cost him his throne.  I believe his relationship with God caused him to reason that God wouldn't mind.  Obedience is a non-negotiable with God.  Present Church culture seems to be changing church doctrine.  There is such a desire to see the Gospel easily embraced that there are times when it would seem that the thinking is, "Jesus is such a cool guy that he won't mind!"  There are a number of non-negotiables with God and there is a reckoning for all who try to lead others on a short cut to the Promised Land.

Our first non-negotiable principle is:

I.  Nothing may contradict God’s Words
God and His Word are one, inseparable and never changing.  About 40 years ago I heard Billy Graham say, "The standard of God's righteousness today is the same as it was 2,000 years ago." His concern was obviously a perspective that people in his day were moving away from the Biblical standard.  Today there is a not so subtle attitude seeping into the church that believes the Bible is a good book but it is not absolute.  As a matter of fact it is alarming how many people today see a person who takes the Bible literally as an uneducated narrow bigot.  Some of the greatest minds in our history believed the Bible to be the infallible and the complete Word of God.  You can sense in conversations this placating attitude that tolerates those holding steadfast faith in the Bible as The Truth and the only Way.  You know that if something doesn't change once the stalwarts are removed from the scene, the standard will be lowered.  We must remember that while God is merciful and loving He is also never changing in his Word.  He cannot change nor can He deviate from His Truth. Friendship with God does not give us freedom to tamper with His Word.  The cost of such activity is a dangerous exercise in futility.