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Taken Home after a valiant bout with Lou Gehrig's disease, a riveting story of how God used Paul Lanier before calling him Home. I attended the Men's Gathering at Chuck Swindoll's church and heard the testimonies of his friends. Wonderful. |
Hope Restored Along
the Way What would it take to
restore your hope? The first would be a person. Not just any person. You don't need someone equally confused. You need someone who knows the way out. And from him you need some vision. You need someone to lift your spirits. You need someone to look you in the face and say, "This isn't the end. Don't give up. There is a better place than this. And I'll lead you there." And, perhaps most important, you need direction. If you have only a person but no renewed vision, all you have is company. If he has a vision but no direction, you have a dreamer for company. But if you have a person with direction--who can take you from this place to the right place--ah, then you have one who can restore your hope. Or, to use David's words, "He restores my soul." Our Shepherd majors in restoring hope to the soul. Whether you are a lamb lost on a craggy ledge or a city slicker alone in a deep jungle, everything changes when your rescuer appears. Your loneliness
diminishes, because you have fellowship. Please note: You haven't left the jungle. The trees still eclipse the sky, and the thorns still cut the skin. Animals lurk and rodents scurry. The jungle is still a jungle. It hasn't changed, but you have. You have changed because you have hope. And you have hope because you have met someone who can lead you out. Your Shepherd knows that
you were not made for this place. He knows you are not equipped for
this place. So he has come to guide you out.
Take
the Initiative "Add to your
faith, virtue ..." Add means that we have to do something. We are in danger of forgetting that we cannot do what God does, and that God will not do what we can do. We cannot save nor sanctify ourselves— God does that. But God will not give us good habits or character, and He will not force us to walk correctly before Him. We have to do all that ourselves. We must "work out" our "own salvation" which God has worked in us ( Philippians 2:12 ). Add means that we must get into the habit of doing things, and in the initial stages that is difficult. To take the initiative is to make a beginning— to instruct yourself in the way you must go. Beware of the tendency to ask the way when you know it perfectly well. Take the initiative— stop hesitating— take the first step. Be determined to act immediately in faith on what God says to you when He speaks, and never reconsider or change your initial decisions. If you hesitate when God tells you to do something, you are being careless, spurning the grace in which you stand. Take the initiative yourself, make a decision of your will right now, and make it impossible to go back. Burn your bridges behind you, saying, "I will write that letter," or "I will pay that debt"; and then do it! Make it irrevocable. We have to get into the habit of carefully listening to God about everything, forming the habit of finding out what He says and heeding it. If, when a crisis comes, we instinctively turn to God, we will know that the habit has been formed in us. We have to take the initiative where we are, not where we have not yet been.
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Abraham's Life of Faith "He went out,
not knowing where he was going" In the Old Testament, a person’s relationship with God was seen by the degree of separation in that person’s life. This separation is exhibited in the life of Abraham by his separation from his country and his family. When we think of separation today, we do not mean to be literally separated from those family members who do not have a personal relationship with God, but to be separated mentally and morally from their viewpoints. This is what Jesus Christ was referring to in Luke 14:26. Living a life of faith means never knowing where you are being led. But it does mean loving and knowing the One who is leading. It is literally a life of faith, not of understanding and reason—a life of knowing Him who calls us to go. Faith is rooted in the knowledge of a Person, and one of the biggest traps we fall into is the belief that if we have faith, God will surely lead us to success in the world. The final stage in the life of faith is the attainment of character, and we encounter many changes in the process. We feel the presence of God around us when we pray, yet we are only momentarily changed. We tend to keep going back to our everyday ways and the glory vanishes. A life of faith is not a life of one glorious mountaintop experience after another, like soaring on eagles’ wings, but is a life of day—in and day—out consistency; a life of walking without fainting (see Isaiah 40:31). It is not even a question of the holiness of sanctification, but of something which comes much farther down the road. It is a faith that has been tried and proved and has withstood the test. Abraham is not a type or an example of the holiness of sanctification, but a type of the life of faith—a faith, tested and true, built on the true God. "Abraham believed God. . ." (Romans 4:3).
"Thine
is the Kingdom..." There are certain mountains only God can climb. Ascend them and you'll end up bruised and embarrassed. Stay away from them and you'll sidestep a lot of stress. These mountains are described in the final phrase of the Lord's prayer, "Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." A trio of peaks mantled by the clouds. Admire them, applaud them, but don't climb them. It's not that you aren't welcome to try, it's just that you aren't able. The pronoun is thine, not mine; thine is the kingdom, not mine is the kingdom. If the word Savior is in your job description, it's because you put it there. Your role is to help the world, not save it. Mount Messiah is one mountain you weren't made to climb. Nor is Mount Self-Sufficient. You aren't able to run the world, nor are you able to sustain it. Some of you think you can. You are self-made. You don't bow your knees, you just roll up your sleeves and put in another twelve-hour day ... which may be enough when it comes to making a living or building a business. But when you face your own grave or your own guilt, your power will not do the trick. You were not made to run a kingdom, nor are you expected to be all-powerful. And you certainly can't handle all the glory. Mount Applause is the most seductive of the three peaks. The higher you climb the more people applaud, but the thinner the air becomes. More than one person has stood at the top and shouted, "Mine is the glory!" only to lose their balance and fall. "Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." What protection this final phrase affords. As you confess that God is in charge, you admit that you aren't. As you proclaim that God has power, you admit that you don't. And as you give God all the applause, there is none left to dizzy your brain. From
Small is Beautiful "Who has
despised the day of small things?" Just the other day someone said of a friend, “This man is destined for a great ministry,” by which he meant he was headed for the big time—a high-profile church with a big budget. It made me wonder: Why do we think that God’s call is necessarily upwardly mobile? Why wouldn’t He send His best workers to labor for a lifetime in some small place? Aren’t there people in obscure places who need to be evangelized and taught? God is not willing that any perish. Jesus cared about the individual as well as the masses. He taught large crowds if they appeared, but it never bothered Him that His audience grew smaller every day. Many left Him, John said (John 6:66), a fickle attrition that would have thrown most of us into high panic. Yet Jesus pressed on with those the Father gave Him. We live in a culture where bigger is better, where size is the measure of success. It takes a strong person to resist that trend, especially if he or she is laboring in a small place. But size is nothing; substance is everything. Whether you’re pastoring a small church or leading a small Bible study or Sunday school class, serve them with all your heart. Pray, love, teach by word and example. Your little place is not a steppingstone to greatness. It is greatness. — David H. Roper The Lord will give
you help and strength Little is much
when God is in it. Discovering
Divine Designs "As for me
being on the way, the Lord led me..." We should be so one with God that we don’t need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child’s life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in the spirit of our mind to discern God’s will (see Romans 12:2 ). If we are born again by the Spirit of God, our devotion to Him is hindered, or even stopped, by continually asking Him to guide us here and there. ". . . the Lord led me . . ." and on looking back we see the presence of an amazing design. If we are born of God we will see His guiding hand and give Him the credit. We can all see God in exceptional things, but it requires the growth of spiritual discipline to see God in every detail. Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere. Beware of being obsessed
with consistency to your own convictions instead of being devoted to
God. If you are a saint and say, "I will never do this or
that," in all probability this will be exactly what God will
require of you. There was never a more inconsistent being on this
earth than our Lord, but He was never inconsistent with His Father.
The important consistency in a saint is not to a principle but to the
divine life. It is the divine life that continually makes more and
more discoveries about the divine mind. It is easier to be an
excessive fanatic than it is to be consistently faithful, because God
causes an amazing humbling of our religious conceit when we are
faithful to Him.
Partakers of
His Sufferings "Rejoice,
inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a number of experiences that are not meant for you personally at all. They are designed to make you useful in His hands, and to enable you to understand what takes place in the lives of others. Because of this process, you will never be surprised by what comes your way. You say, "Oh, I can’t deal with that person." Why can’t you? God gave you sufficient opportunities to learn from Him about that problem; but you turned away, not heeding the lesson, because it seemed foolish to spend your time that way. The sufferings of Christ were not those of ordinary people. He suffered "according to the will of God" ( 1 Peter 4:19 ), having a different point of view of suffering from ours. It is only through our relationship with Jesus Christ that we can understand what God is after in His dealings with us. When it comes to suffering, it is part of our Christian culture to want to know God’s purpose beforehand. In the history of the Christian church, the tendency has been to avoid being identified with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. People have sought to carry out God’s orders through a shortcut of their own. God’s way is always the way of suffering— the way of the "long road home." Are we partakers of
Christ’s sufferings? Are we prepared for God to stamp out our
personal ambitions? Are we prepared for God to destroy our individual
decisions by supernaturally transforming them? It will mean not
knowing why God is taking us that way, because knowing would make us
spiritually proud. We never realize at the time what God is putting us
through— we go through it more or less without understanding. Then
suddenly we come to a place of enlightenment, and realize— "God
has strengthened me and I didn’t even know it!"
Perspective "Who has
measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,..." Question: When is a bird bigger than a mountain? Answer: When the bird is closer than the mountain. In reality, the bird is not bigger than the mountain, but it sure looks that way when the feathery fellow is perched on my window ledge and the mountain is far away in the distance. Sometimes we perceive God this way in relationship to our problems. The troubles facing us seem huge because they are so close - like a big black bird with beady eyes and a sharp beak waiting for a smaller animal's weariness to turn into helplessness so it can devour it. At such times, God seems as far always as a distant mountain, and we perceive Him as being small and unreachable. The prophet Isaiah changes our perspective by asking these rhetorical questions: "Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, measured heavens with a span and calculated the dust of the earth in a measure? Weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance?" (Isaiah 40:12) The Lord "gives power to the weak and to those who have no might, He increases strength" (v. 29). Just as a bird is never bigger than a mountain, no problem is ever bigger than God. It's all a matter of changing our perspective. — Julie Ackerman Link
The Assigning of the Call From My Utmost For His Highest - September 30 I now rejoice
in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in
the afflictions of Christ, We take our own spiritual consecration and try to make it into a call of God, but when we get right with Him He brushes all this aside. Then He gives us a tremendous, riveting pain to fasten our attention on something that we never even dreamed could be His call for us. And for one radiant, flashing moment we see His purpose, and we say, "Here am I! Send me" ( Isaiah 6:8 ). This call has nothing to do with personal sanctification, but with being made broken bread and poured-out wine. Yet God can never make us into wine if we object to the fingers He chooses to use to crush us. We say, "If God would only use His own fingers, and make me broken bread and poured-out wine in a special way, then I wouldn’t object!" But when He uses someone we dislike, or some set of circumstances to which we said we would never submit, to crush us, then we object. Yet we must never try to choose the place of our own martyrdom. If we are ever going to be made into wine, we will have to be crushed— you cannot drink grapes. Grapes become wine only when they have been squeezed. I wonder what finger and thumb God has been using to squeeze you? Have you been as hard as a marble and escaped? If you are not ripe yet, and if God had squeezed you anyway, the wine produced would have been remarkably bitter. To be a holy person means that the elements of our natural life experience the very presence of God as they are providentially broken in His service. We have to be placed into God and brought into agreement with Him before we can be broken bread in His hands. Stay right with God and let Him do as He likes, and you will find that He is producing the kind of bread and wine that will benefit His other children.
Having
then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let
us use them. In September 2001, Lisa Jefferson had an unexpected opportunity to be used by God. Her now well-known 15-minute conversation with a passenger on United Flight 93 forever changed the direction of her life. In her book Called, she emphasizes that her listening skills and her ability to take charge and stay calm in a crisis were used to encourage fellow believer Todd Beamer in the last moments of his life. She didn’t ask to be used that way. But God saw a woman who was available and matched her with someone who was in need. Lisa now shares her story with whomever she can to encourage believers to always be ready to serve. Not only has God given us natural abilities, He also equips every believer with spiritual gifts for the purpose of ministry. God doesn’t use the unwilling—He won’t force us to serve Him. His part is to equip us (Eph. 4:11-13) and empower and prepare us for service. Our part is to be faithful and available and aware of opportunities to use our gifts (Rom. 12:6). When you feel impelled to help fill a need, when you are inwardly driven to serve—listen to those thoughts. You don’t want to miss God’s call. — Cindy Hess Kasper
In
the Matter of Drudgery Peter said in this passage that we have become "partakers of the divine nature" and that we should now be "giving all diligence," concentrating on forming godly habits (2 Peter 1:4-5 ). We are to "add" to our lives all that character means. No one is born either naturally or supernaturally with character; it must be developed. Nor are we born with habits— we have to form godly habits on the basis of the new life God has placed within us. We are not meant to be seen as God’s perfect, bright-shining examples, but to be seen as the everyday essence of ordinary life exhibiting the miracle of His grace. Drudgery is the test of genuine character. The greatest hindrance in our spiritual life is that we will only look for big things to do. Yet, "Jesus . . . took a towel and . . . began to wash the disciples’ feet . . ." ( John 13:3-5 ). We all have those times when there are no flashes of light and no apparent thrill to life, where we experience nothing but the daily routine with its common everyday tasks. The routine of life is actually God’s way of saving us between our times of great inspiration which come from Him. Don’t always expect God to give you His thrilling moments, but learn to live in those common times of the drudgery of life by the power of God. It is difficult for us to do the "adding" that Peter mentioned here. We say we do not expect God to take us to heaven on flowery beds of ease, and yet we act as if we do! I must realize that my obedience even in the smallest detail of life has all of the omnipotent power of the grace of God behind it. If I will do my duty, not for duty’s sake but because I believe God is engineering my circumstances, then at the very point of my obedience all of the magnificent grace of God is mine through the glorious atonement by the Cross of Christ.
Leave
Room For God As servants of God, we must learn to make room for Him-to give God "elbow room." We plan and figure and predict that this or that will happen, but we forget to make room for God to come in as He chooses. Would we be surprised if God came into our meeting or into our preaching in a way we had never expected Him to come? Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly— God meets our life ". . . when it pleased God . . . ." Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides. Do
You Worship The Work? Beware of any work for God that causes or allows you to avoid concentrating on Him. A great number of Christian workers worship their work. The only concern of Christian workers should be their concentration on God. This will mean that all the other boundaries of life, whether they are mental, moral, or spiritual limits, are completely free with the freedom God gives His child; that is, a worshiping child, not a wayward one. A worker who lacks this serious controlling emphasis of concentration on God is apt to become overly burdened by his work. He is a slave to his own limits, having no freedom of his body, mind, or spirit. Consequently, he becomes burned out and defeated. There is no freedom and no delight in life at all. His nerves, mind, and heart are so overwhelmed that God’s blessing cannot rest on him.
A higher state of mind and spiritual vision can only be achieved through the higher practice of personal character. If you live up to the highest and best that you know in the outer level of your life, God will continually say to you, "Friend, come up even higher." There is also a continuing rule in temptation which calls you to go higher; but when you do, you only encounter other temptations and character traits. Both God and Satan use the strategy of elevation, but Satan uses it in temptation, and the effect is quite different. When the devil elevates you to a certain place, he causes you to fasten your idea of what holiness is far beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear or achieve. Your life becomes a spiritual acrobatic performance high atop a steeple. You cling to it, trying to maintain your balance and daring not to move. But when God elevates you by His grace into heavenly places, you find a vast plateau where you can move about with ease.
Don't Slack
Off! "Whatsoever ye shalt ask in My name, that will I do." John 14:13 The
Flight of Geese Also
in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity of mind
to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following
the word of the Lord. - 2 Chronicles 30:12 TGIF Today God Is First by Os Hillman © 2006. TGIF Today God Is FirstTM is a registered trademark of Os Hillman/www.marketplaceleaders.org For reprint permission, click here. Church Growth Institute, PO Box 7, Elkton MD USA 21922-0007 Sign up for the emailed daily devotional here... http://www.churchgrowthmail.org/pages.asp?pageid=30781
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Take
a look at the Radio Bible Class "10 Reasons to Believe" series Why this user group? The Christian AutoCAD Users Group: His Team (CAUGHT) has been created for those of us who claim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior … and just happen to use AutoCAD. Understanding that we are united in the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:1-6), our purpose is to glorify God in all we do. But
we don’t live and work in a vacuum and sometimes work can be a pig, life gets
hard, and we need a brother or sister to pray for us, lift us up. There are also times when we need to ask someone about something
that’s driving us batty in AutoCAD. Then maybe someone else in CAUGHT
can help. And sometimes
it’s just nice to know there are more of us out there. Our belief in Christ brings us all to common
ground at the foot of the cross;
whether you are the IT person for a corporate empire responsible for
forty-eleven AutoCAD users or a lone AutoCAD user struggling in a new
job, we are equal in the sight of our Lord Jesus Christ. I recently heard Chuck Swindoll say, “Even if you are the
only Christian in that company, God has set that company apart.”
As such, be encouraged that the Lord has His hand upon you. Equally important is our witness to our co-workers and
fellow believers. Dr.
Michael Yousef has
commented, “God has blessed you so that you might be a blessing to
others.” Isn’t it great to know that He has His hand upon us!?
And yet there are entire days and even weeks when our schedule
and workload is just overwhelming. That’s another reason why this user
group is being developed. That as Christians, we have a resource that
can hopefully serve as a wellspring of support, both spiritually and
professionally In the end, let us pray that we would be a true witness for
Christ and that others would come to know Him as we continue to seek His
face in our professional lives. For it is
only by His grace, Michael E. Beall If
you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, please contact me.
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