Gotta Stand Pt. 2

     The tree was huge, in full leaf. It certainly wasn’t the one I picked as a potential fall risk during the hurricane. It still fell. It wasn’t that the tree wasn’t strong. It’s roots were just in a bad place. It had grown along the muddy bank of our vernal brook and when that began to wash away in the flood…well there just wasn’t anything left to hold onto. Strength means nothing if what your hanging onto has no substance.

“that isn’t what you learned about Christ. Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth, for we are all parts of the same body. And “don’t sin by letting anger control you.”  Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil. If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others in need. Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own,  guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:20-32 NLT

     Paul gets specific here. He doesn’t pull any punches.  If we want to have God’s power to stand through the storms of life we need to change specific things we used to do before we were born again. In other words we have to find a new place to put our roots.

     Before we were  Christians we couldn’t help the way we lived. We were  sinners and sinners by definition sin. But Christians aren’t sinners; We are saints, people who have the power to stop sinning and who are learning to use that power.

    Just a note, God doesn’t expect us to be perfect. He knows we won’t be; But He does expect us to start using the strength He has put inside to start changing who we are.  He says here in these verses it starts with thoughts and attitudes not just actions. If we change the way we think, the way we behave will take care of itself.

Tomorrow we get down to the nitty-gritty! Are you ready to do some spiritual root transplanting?

Irene and the Seven-Fold Hedge

     Let me start by thanking all of you who prayed: for me, my family, and the church here in New England through Hurricane Irene. God was merciful to us! 

    Y’know, I believe that when we pray, our starting place is not requesting but abiding. For Jesus said,  “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. ” John 15:7

    For this reason I seldom ask God for something, until I have what I sense is His mind on the situation. I must first spend time in His presence and get His command for the particular situation that concerns me. Then and only then can I pray in faith believing.

    When I knew Irene was coming up the East Coast I was mindful of the fact that perhaps our turn had come to experience the wrath of God. I don’t mean to sound bleak but I do believe our nation, as disobedient as it has been, is beginning to experience God’s judgment.  Massachusetts certainly has no ground to stand on to say we should be exempt from what the rest of the country is experiencing. So as the storm approached I knew we could really be in for it.

     I began by asking God what He wanted for me out of this situation. Was He saying this was it? Was He saying to me “Head for the hills?”

     I didn’t get the sense that this was going to bring about destruction for me or my household. I felt the Spirit telling me to pray around the borders of my house seven times in the Spirit, a seven-fold hedge. On Friday I did just that. I started by the blackberry hedge and began to sing around my mother’s property in tongues. The first time around I sensed I was praying for the trees to stand. The second, I was praying for the ground to drink deeply of the rising waters. I prayed over a dead tree that if it fell it would fall straight down and not come near the house. I prayed that no flood would come to destroy. I asked that the gardens would be spared. I prayed over the transformer at the corner of our property. I prayed a shield of Holy Ghost protection over the walls of the house and the vehicles. I asked God to use the storm to cleanse the land of pestilence. I asked God to prosper us. On Saturday a group of us prayed over the church.

      Early Sunday morning the storm arrived. The rains fell thick and heavy as I walked the dogs at 6 A.M.. We were soaked to the skin in under a minute. The vernal brook that wraps around our house quickly swelled . Debris washed down from the upper pond. By 7 A.M. the brook had swollen to the top of its banks.  By 8 it had risen out of its borders and had taken command of the woods and back yard. It poured over the culvert below our house and into the street flooding our basement and those of our neighbors around the corner. By 9 we had eight inches of water in our cellar and could swim in our backyard. My mother, my sister and I headed to the cellar and began to bail in order to keep the furnace from being submerged. We bailed for a while and then called the town barn to ask them to come clean the culvert.

       A  beech tree loosened by the swelling waters fell over directly between the apple and plum-tree and didn’t break either! 

    The storm winds blew through the night and knocked over one more tree by the brook. The waters receded quickly once the town came and cleared the debris out of the culvert.

    As I watched the news this morning, I realized how blessed we truly were here in Winchendon. God chose to spare us and answer our prayers. Not one of our fruit trees was damaged. The waters are gone and left no sign of the flood.  We now have wood down for next winter and all we have to do is cut it up! And my mother has decided after a decade of haggling with her it is time to get a sump pump! As I see the footage of New York, New Jersey, and Carolina I realize His answer to me when I sought Him could have been far different. The pathway of protection was mine to walk in this instance. For that I am grateful. But I am also mindful that should my pathway have been different God would still have been with me and He would still have provided even if it had been through loss.

You Choose the View Pt.5

“How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. ” James 4:14 NLT

      At some point we all tumble to the truth that Keith Ward Wrote about in his famous hymn, “The Solid Rock”,

      “On Christ the solid rock I stand all other ground is sinking sand.”

      Nothing in this life, except Jesus, is exempt from change…NOTHING and NO ONE!  I used to think differently. I used to believe that there were some things some relationships which would remain unchanged forever. I was wrong.

      I think change is most painful when it affects our intimacies. We were made for community and fellowship, but that created purpose is hard to achieve when all around us the people we know and love are going through life-change just like we are. Circumstance takes the ability to control our relationships out of our hands. The happenings of life take our connections and turn them into fluid things that run in and out of existence like rushing waterfalls: children grow up and move away, jobs change, friends get busy, people die, passions cool,divorce breaks up, babies are born, relationships blossom, new co-workers edge their way into our lives, people marry and the process starts all over!

      So what do we do? Give up on relationship? Hide in our closet for the rest of our mortal lives? Well that’s a choice…one I sometimes make; But it’s not the best choice; It’s not the God choice!

     The way to live successfully in a world where everything and everyone can change by tomorrow morning is not to hide; It is to find solid ground in a relationship with Jesus and address the rest of your changing relationships from that stand point. So many of us have pinned our hope, our joy and our faithfulness on a fallible person rather than on Jesus. Unfortunately, when that person falters in the process of their own changes we are blown to psychological bits. I can promise you no man woman or child will ever be able to meet all your personal needs. At some point people are going to come up short and turn into the “sinking sand” that Keith Ward talked about.

       This isn’t a blog about ending relationships; It’s a blog about keeping your relationships in proper perspective: Trust Jesus and love people! 

Maybe just maybe that is the point of some change you are going through right now. Maybe Jesus wants you to make Him the solid rock so that you can love someone else through their difficulty!

What do you think?

You Choose the View Pt. 3

     What did the deep black waters see

      Before they found me?

       Were they sent?

       Did they decide to melt

       From some mountainside

       To come tumbling down into my life?

       Am I just the lucky one?

       Maybe it’s all three.

     

       What did the deep black waters see

       Which made them come to me? 

     Did they flow

     To the call of God above?

     Did they choose to help my cause?

     Will they wash away the black

     Deep in me?

     Every change gives us an opportunity to check what’s going on inside. With God the internal trumps the external every time. God’s more interested in our holiness than He is our comfort. In fact, He will often arrange a little discomfort to bring out the attitudes which really dwell inside us…the ones we try so hard to deny until they pop out in some moment of stress and become undeniable.

     Our circumstances are not our main problem. How we respond on the inside to our circumstances, that is the primary issue at hand.

    In your current set of life-changes ask yourself:

 

1. Is my attitude through this change pleasing to God?
2. Do I blame my attitude on my life? If so that has to change. You not your circumstances should control your attitude.
3. What is the real reason I feel the way I do? Most circumstances only bring an already existing attitude to light; Where did yours start?
4. What are some steps I could take to change my attitude even before I change my circumstances?

Here’s to change!

You Choose the View Pt. 2

“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten…” Joel 2:25 KJV  

 Life seldom asks our advice; It just sort of decides what’s next for us. Some things are beyond our control. We don’t begin them and we will not be the ones to make them stop. We can only decide how we will respond as we are forced to take the ride.

     What is it you’re facing right now? a deadly diagnosis, the death of a loved one, divorce, the empty nest, a chronic illness, financial ruin, job promotion, recovery after surgery, a child’s return home, a new marriage, a new course of treatment: All change can be daunting because it requires something of us. So often we wish the change away. We forget that God would use it to hone who we are. We don’t control life’s twists and turns, but we do control our responses to them. Our responses determine what we become: Godly responses reinvent us into the image of God; Ungodly responses reinvent us into something less than we were to begin with. Either way we are reinvented.

      God’s point in change is to restore what has been taken from us by the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have to let Him in if that restoration is to begin.

     One area He would right and restore within us is our ability to commit. Every change is an opportunity for us to examine our commitments. 

     I’ve taken many opportunities in this blog to talk about the crazy, complicated lives we Americans live. God did not invent or intend the 24/7 lifestyle; That was all us.

    At the root of this life of complicated rush is a problem with commitment. Somewhere along the line someone told us we could do anything if we were just committed enough. That’s a lie. God can do anything. You can successfully do what God has made you to do. The problem is that some of us have confused ourselves with God. We’ve begun to think that we have an infinite source of commitment; So we just keep committing to more and more, complicating our lives until we are half mad with weariness.

     Sometimes change is God trying to make us realize we need to detach from some of our commitments so that we can become what He really intended for us. Such change is never welcomed at first. It requires us to admit that we can’t do it all. We have to tumble to the fact we aren’t God!

    If you are in a major life-change now why don’t you take some time and reevaluate your commitments to see if they are in line with what the King wants. Ask yourself:

1. Am I over-committed in any area of my life?

2. Is there something I am doing which I was not called to be committed to?

3. Are my current commitments keeping me from something else God really wants me to be doing?

Here’s to letting the Lord restore us in the area of our commitments! May you find the path of peace!

1,000!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrVmW-pWdv4

     So I know today the next installment of “Pastor Wrinkle’s Chapter Charts” is due. But I just had to take a post to celebrate breaking the 1,000 comment barrier.

     When I started “Reinventing the We’ll” I was a much different person. I hardly recognize the guy writing this blog today. So much has changed. Yet I can honestly say, I have learned that no change (even a negative change) spells the end for a follower of Christ. For those of us who walk the way of immortality each situation of reinvention becomes a new beginning drawing us closer to that ultimate beginning!

    Thank you to all of you who have been so kind with your thoughts and words over these last two years. I remind you, “When God is in it, there are no limits. When God is in it, it’s not over!”

JE

“Futurtude”

     “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.  I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. ” John 17:20-22 NLT

        The little girl stood in the middle of the grocery aisle, arms on hips, staring up at her mother with a frown big enough to encompass a rainbow. “I want it, Mommy! I want it now!”

      When Mommy said “no dear it’s not on our list.”  the child went into histrionics right there in the grocery store. The mother looked at me apologetically as she took the child by the hand and led her from the store still screaming the blues. I went on shopping, barely phased by the incident, after all it happens all the time and not just with children. Adults who ought to know better get derailed and pouty in life all the time because things don’t go their way. I do it for Heaven’s sake!

      BUT WHY?  That is the $25,000.00 question  today.

     A part of the answer lies in our cultural proclivity to look only at the moment when we should be looking to the future…our future…and the future of the ones who come behind us. Too often we are willing to trade a solid future for the “quick-fix” alternative, because the solid future is approached by a harder road.

     Jesus looked not just at himself or even at his twelve disciples when He prayed in John 17.  He looked to all the generations ahead who would believe the message his disciples would preach. It was this attitude of futurtude that gave him the fortitude to endure the solitude of the cross.

      The writer to the Hebrews encourages us to this same  “futurtude” when he says“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb. 12:2 NIV

      We have choices in life. We can be like Veruca, the character in Willy Wonka.  saying “I want an OomaLoompa Daddy! And I want it now!”

OR

    We can be like Jesus thinking not of ourselves or what our current circumstances will do for us. We can choose to ask God how where we are right now will bless others.

Jesus prayed that what He was about to walk through would bless people on the Earth yet unborn. It did!

 Why not follow suit?Ask yourself how what you face right now might be used by God to bless others and pray that into being!

Fits and Starts

     Life is sort of like learning to drive a standard. If you can get  the transmission from neutral into first gear, momentum will make the next shifts easier.

     I remember my first week driving a stick. Tina and I were on our way to the grocery store. We made it just fine from home to City Hall Avenue. As we slid up to the bump between City Hall Ave and Pleasant Street (you couldn’t really call it a hill), I shifted into neutral and came to the stop. Then with a line of traffic behind me, I proceeded to stall out for the next five minutes.

     A knock on my window brought me out of my frantic litany: “Brake…clutch…key…shift…tac…release brake…stall…AUGHHH!!!”

     “Problem buddy?” the guy at my window said none too pleasantly.

     “Just learning to drive a standard.” I replied sheepishly.

    He rolled his eyes,” Why don’t you get out and let me help you?”

     I moved to the back. He slid into the driver’s seat and moved us around the corner.

     “Think you’ve got it from here, or should I drive you home?” He jabbed. 

     “Thanks! I think I’ve got it from here.”  Honestly, though, I wasn’t too sure about that.

     I had just been defeated by a three-inch square hunk of plastic and metal. It was just a stupid little pedal, but until I mastered it I realized, I wasn’t going anywhere. Until I figured it out my entire driving experience was going to be nothing more than fits and starts.

     I remember the day I finally felt the clutch. I can’t tell you exactly what made it click. It just did, and I started driving.

      Maybe you’ve got a “little pedal” hanging you up today. It’s probably causing you some big stress. It probably seems like a really big deal. But it’s really only a small thing to our God.

     Yep! Life is a lot like learning to drive a standard… lots of fits and starts. Hey! turn your little pedals over to Jesus and just keep practicing at them. They will click! Soon enough you will be driving off down the road smooth as sailing! 😉

 

Passion:Glorify

     “After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you.” John 17:1 NLT

     In our walk through the passion narrative in the Gospel of John we have now come to the “High Priestly prayer of Jesus” in John 17. As the Great High Priest of the church Jesus first prays that the Father would “glorify” him.

    Jesus asks God to:

doxazō-to honour, do honour to, hold in honour to make glorious, adorn with lustre, clothe with splendoura) to impart glory to something, render it excellent b) to make renowned, render illustrious.

    Did God answer this prayer? If He did the ramifications for us are enormous, because it means Jesus’ glorification started with crucifixion.

     If we accept that Jesus was glorified through crucifixion then our obvious question is: “Does all glorification come through crucifixion in some form?”

     Now the answer to that meditation sure informs our Christianity. Maybe that understanding was the reason behind the disciples’ rejoicing every time they got beaten. If instead of viewing trials as trouble they viewed them as the pathway to glory well then why not rejoice?

Chew on these awhile and let me know your thoughts!

“Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. ” Romans 6: 5-7 NLT

“So then, since Christ suffered physical pain, you must arm yourselves with the same attitude he had, and be ready to suffer, too. For if you have suffered physically for Christ, you have finished with sin.” I Pet. 4:1 NLT

 

Passion: Holding The Fort!

      “I have told you these things so that you won’t abandon your faith. For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God. This is because they have never known the Father or me. Yes, I’m telling you these things now, so that when they happen, you will remember my warning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer. ” John 16:1-4 NLT

         My Dad was none too happy when I started going to church with my Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom was and is a dyed in the wool Pentecostal, blood bought, Spirit baptized, Holy Ghost sanctified Christian. In Dad’s estimation a nice nut but a nut none the less.

     When I decided to become a Christian and was born again Dad threatened to forbid me from church if I didn’t start thinking through my philosophies in life. From that point on Dad and I had lots of “lively discussions” about faith. I never considered it persecution really but it was definitely opposition. Dad made room for my Christianity but was sure to point out it was only because he was free thinking enough to let me make my own mistakes in life. He was sure it was all just a phase I would grow out of.

      As I reflect on my situation I am so thankful my Dad was a free-thinker.  The extent of my persecution has been some jocular ribbing from family members who think me the next generation of “nice nut”. Meanwhile brothers and sisters around the world are giving their lives for the cause of Christ.

      This week we received word that Christians in Laos were raped and murdered while their families were forced to watch. Churches in India were burned to the ground and our denominational headquarters in the Ivory Coast was pillaged.

     Paul in writing his second letter to Timothy said “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. ” II Tim 3:12 NLT

      As the church in America faces these last days we need to recognize that we are in a blessed position that is not guaranteed to continue. In fact Scripture pretty much assures us that if we do our job of sharing Jesus it will not continue. It is an oddity that a gospel of love and hope should elicit a reaction of violence but that’s the way our world operates.

     We used to sing a song in the church called “Hold the Fort” The chorus says ““Hold the fort, for I am coming,” Jesus signals still;
Wave the answer back to Heaven, “By Thy grace we will.” (Hold The Fort, Philip Bliss)

      These are good words for the church to grasp hold of in these days. It’s time to trust in God’s grace to help us endure and more than that to powerfully spread the Good News that Jesus has died and risen again to save the lost! Any price we might pay will be made up as souls are added to the kingdom!

How do you think persecution will come to American Christians?