Stronghold

The LORD of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our stronghold. –Psalm 46:7

A stronghold is a place that provides protection from attack.  Being firm within a stronghold gives us comfort in that we are protected from the assault that occurs outside of stronghold.  Jacob eventually found his protection in the stronghold being offered to him by Jehovah God after God was able to break Jacob of his past.

Jacob had lived his life as a deceiver by trying to manipulate God’s favor.  Jacob deceived his brother, his father and his father in-law in his attempt to manipulate God’s blessing.  God continued to work on Jacob and brought Jacob to the point at which he had to accept who he was.  God had broken Jacob of his past and it was at this point that He was finally able to use Jacob for His glory.  Jacob was given his new God given name of Israel and God’s promise continued through his seed.

What is Jehovah God trying to break you of?  What is it that He is asking you to leave behind and live for His promises?  That which God is asking us to give up in His name will be returned to us a thousand fold. 

The Look

Peter replied, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!”  Just as he was speaking, the rooster crowed.  The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.  Then Peter remembered the word the Lord had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows today, you will disown me three times.”  And he went outside and wept bitterly.  –Luke 22:60-62

Each time is read this account of Peter’s denial of Christ; it brings into clarity the frailty of our humanness.  As followers of Christ, we can profess our devotion to His deity but it is in times of crisis when the true character of our faith is revealed.  I repeatedly ask myself that if Christ were next to me at any given time, would that which I am currently doing deny His deity?  Would I be able to look Christ in the eye and show my devotion to His leading of my life?  Sadly at times, the answer is no.

What I find most intense about Peter’s denial is that he denied who Christ was to His face.  I have often wondered just what the look was that Christ gave to Peter at this moment and what the look was on Peter’s face as he stood face to face with Christ.  At this point, Peter was thoroughly broken as he ran away while weeping bitterly. 

I have had those moments of bitter weeping.  Your entire body clenches and you are not able to control your emotions but at the end of bitter weeping, you feel a complete burden being lifted.  It has been said that Jehovah God is only able to use once you have been broken.  The history of Peter after this brokenness reveals that he was the cornerstone for the Church and it was upon this cornerstone that Christ built His church.

When we break a bone in our body, the point at which the bone heals is always the strongest point on that bone.  When we allow the areas in our life in which we have been broken to be used by Jehovah God for His glory, we soon realize that it is through our brokenness that we are made strong. 

The Lie of the American Dream

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.  So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth.  Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.” And you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. –Revelation 3:15-17

Christ gives this stern rebuke to the church of Laodicea.  This church so repulsed Christ that they made Him want to vomit.  His revulsion was that they were a fence sitter as they saw no need to make a difference in His name.  Too many in this country have deluded themselves into believing the great lie of the American Dream as we have allowed this dream to be defined.  We have taken this dream and allowed ourselves to believe that we should be in want for nothing and we live a life in such a way that we deprive ourselves of nothing.  We have made it our goal to build bigger and bigger barns as we accumulate more stuff and we need a bigger barn to store this stuff.  We force ourselves to go to jobs that we care little about for no other reason than we need some more money to pay for our bigger barn and our stuff.  We are blinded in our abundance and we then wonder why God does not hear our prayers.

We live in a time, in which the church is the most affluent in its history, yet each day, 26,000 children in this world die of starvation and preventable disease yet we allow our finances to go to such things that are only for our entertainment.  There is indeed coming a day and time in which each of us will stand before Jehovah God and have to account for what we did and did not do in this lifetime.  He has given to us great blessing but far too many self-proclaimed Christians in this country are not unlike the one talent servant who hid his talent as he was fearful of the one who gave it to him.  The master threw that servant out to where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Christ has commanded each of His followers to go into all the nations and make disciples.  This command was not for the select few but for all.  We, as a body of believers, are to unite and minister to those who are in need.  We are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, tend to the sick and visit those in prison.  We are not to make our comfort and our excess our god but rather Christ is calling us out of that comfort zone and to fully rely upon Jehovah God’s perfect blessing for our life.  He will sustain each of us and give to each of us that which we need in order to execute His will for our life. 

The Great Divide

Between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us. –Luke 16:26

We have allowed ourselves in this country to create a faith in which we marginalize those things that Christ is calling us to do in His name.  We feel justified in our faith when we build bigger barns that we cannot afford and proclaim it as a blessing from God while ignoring those in true need in our midst.  We turn a blind eye and say to ourselves that they have always been that way and will never change.  We make no effort to make a difference as we have kept Christ at an arms’ length as we are fearful of being truly transformed into His image.  We delude ourselves and fail to realize that we have allowed the lie of the American dream as it is currently defined to enslave us.    

There is enough food produced in this world to feed every person in it a 2,500 calorie per day diet yet thousands upon thousands of children starve to death each day.  I believe this to be a true stench in the nostrils of God.  We have allowed ourselves to become the church of Laodicea.  The church of Laodicea so disgusted Christ that it made Him vomit.  (Revelation 3:16)

We are being called into something deeper.  We are being called to abandon self and to live for His glory.  We are to be our brothers’ keeper and lift one another up.  We are to be that reflection of Christ.  When one looks into our face, they are to see the face of Christ. 

Open your heart to that which Christ is calling to you.  Allow His urgings to lead you upon His path.  His promise is that His path is straight and narrow but He will shine that light before us and guide our steps. 

Catalyst

To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough. –Luke 13:20-21

We are each called to be an active catalyst in this life. Our purpose is to bring glory to Jehovah God through the work of our hands and feet. Through the exercise of our faith via our actions, His glory will indeed rise. We are called upon to be the yeast of this world. Yeast when introduced into the proper environment creates change. Yeast is the active component in the making of bread.

Christ is the bread of life. When we partake in His communion, we eat of that bread which represents His body that is His church. His church is His bride and His church is wedded to Him in a holy matrimony. For that bread to be made, we as His church need to be an active catalyst to making a change in this world. We are to minister to those in our society regardless of how uncomfortable it may make us feel. To be that true catalyst, we need to be willing to step away from our comfort and do so in His name.

There are those in upon the fringes of our society that are often times overlooked and discarded. This world would have you to believe their existence has little meaning. Christ turns this worldly belief upon its head. His ministry directly impacts those who would be considered the least of those amongst us. Regardless of our position in life, the clarion call of Jesus Christ is to serve those that the world would neglect and to do so in a manner of true love.

When we live this type of life, we are indeed being yeast. We are that catalyst that makes a difference for the glory of God. We are displaying our faith through the work of our hands because if we hear the word of God and fail to act upon it, we are no better than those who perpetuate the lie that the lives of many are inconsequential.

Perfected

Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; depart from Me, all you evildoers.’ –Luke 13:24-27

The promise is that those who truly know Christ will be invited to enter through that narrow door. That narrow door is upon the narrow path that Christ has asked us to tread upon. It is narrow as we are commanded, “Do not turn from it to the right or to the left.” (Joshua 1:7) Treading upon this narrow path is the best thing that we can do in this mortal life that we have been blessed to partake.

On that day, there indeed will be many who will claim that they have lived a “good” life. They believe the lie of all lies that all one needs to do is lead a “good” life and they will receive their reward. Nowhere does Jehovah God tell us that we just need to be “good” and that is enough to come into His presence. It is the desire of Jehovah God that each of us live our life for His glory. He truly wants us to come into His presence but in order to do so; we must perfect in order to stand before the Great I Am. As much as we may try, we can never achieve perfection.

We may use the word perfect to describe something in this life, but even that falls short. It is celebrated by fans of baseball when a pitcher throws a “perfect” game but even that fails to meet the mark of true perfection. Would not a true perfect game thrown by a pitcher be one in which he threw 81 pitches that were all strikes and none of the batters were able to make any contact with the pitched ball? I have also heard it described that a golfer shot the “perfect” round of golf. If that were indeed the case, would he have not shot an 18? We all have had those “perfect” moments in our life but they too vanish like a mist.

Jehovah God desires that each of us spend an eternity with Him but in order to do so, we must spend time in this life relationship with Him and His son. There exists between us and God, a great chasm that we are unable to bridge. He gave us His son, Jesus Christ, to be that perfection and to be that bridge that enables us to come into His presence. He is calling each of us to take that step through that narrow door that Christ has revealed the path that we are to tread that will lead of us to that door. Let this be the day in which you tread upon that path and stand firm without going to the right or to the left.

Anxiety

Anxiety in a man’s heart weighs it down, but a good word make it glad. –Proverbs 12:25

As I anxiously wait for the direction I am to go, I have allowed myself to become crippled by the fear of the unknown. I find myself wondering aloud, what is it that I have done to create this situation? I know that my failure to trust in the Great I Am to lead me in the direction that He would have me to go is a sin in the sense that I have failed to rely upon His direction for my life. He has laid upon my heart some fantastic dreams. There is indeed a reason those dreams exist. I need to let go and understand that if He is laying it upon my heart, He will certainly provide a way in which these dreams will be reality.

Make this the day in which you give it all to God. He will not disappoint.