THE LURKING BEAST OF A WEIGHED-DOWN HEART – April 19

“But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighted down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21:34-36

 

There is a beast that roams my small acreage.

I have never seen its shape for it comes out only after I yield to sleep. Yet, the evidence of its presence confronts me at sunrise every morning. I walk into my field and shutter at the thought of an unwanted presence having recently crossed the very path of my footsteps.

I know what it hunts. I see the numerous holes it has dug in pursuit of its prey – gophers. I do not object to that pursuit. However, I wish that it would get its own. This beast has found that it is easier to steal from me. It has discovered that at the bottom of the fluttering location flags is a gopher trap that often, by the time of darkness, contains a dead gopher. It then absconds with the gopher and my trap. I have lost two traps to this beast.

I can tolerate the presence of this beast lurking in the darkness since we have a common nemesis – gophers. However, I know there is a danger that goes beyond the thief of traps and the annoyance of hole digging (this beast does not have the common courtesy of backfilling its holes).

My concern is for my chickens. I know that it is just a matter of time before this beast finds that a roosting chicken is about as easy to catch as a trapped gopher – and much more satisfying. Therefore, this beast has become my enemy before I lose something I value more than a dead gopher.

I am not sure of my success. Therefore, I must stay vigilant to the unseen dangers.

There is a danger to our souls that lurks in the darkness. Our danger is that the day of judgment will come upon us unaware, when we do not expect it, and when we are not prepared for it. The danger is that we are called to meet our Lord, and He is the furthest thing from our hearts and low on the list of that which we love.

We are most vulnerable to this danger when we are unconscious to its presence. That is why we are encouraged to stay awake. We are to stay vigilant against the beast of a heart that is weighted down. We are to watch ourselves from becoming satiated with an inordinate pursuit of the good things of this world and an over-indulgence of the appetites of the body.

Many of us live in an amicable truce with the cares of the world. We fall asleep and allow the beast of our cravings to roam free because we consider them a normal course of our existence. We live with competing loves because it does not appear that they are having an effect upon our spiritual lives beyond an occasional thief of joy and the annoyance of our disrupted façade.

I believe that the danger of a weighed-down heart is far greater than we realize. A weighed-down heart is evidence of misplaced love. Misplaced loves have to be killed before they can burden our hearts, steal our fruitfulness, and even cause us to give up.

From my experience, I rarely get a clean shot at my misplaced loves. They grow in the hidden crevasses of the normal course of my life. I can become so accustomed to these cares, that I fall asleep to their danger.

I have to go to their lair and smoke them out.

There is only one way to smoke out misplaced love. It is by the work of the Spirit in our lives that affections are set upon God and God alone and misplaced love is killed. We have to come to the Spirit in pray and ask the Lord to examine our hearts for anything that we love more than Him. When we feel weighed down by the cares of this world, we must yield all to the Lord and set our eyes upon the things of the Spirit.

We mustn’t fall asleep to the danger. We must not accept a beast prowling in the darkness of our hearts as normal. The danger of a weighed-down heart is nothing to ignore.

PRAYER: Father, I do not want my love to be misplaced.  I do not want to love anything more than you.  Lord, examine my heart.  Show me where I am being weighed down by the cares of this world.  Show me the good things that I pursue more than you.  Show me where my appetites are out of control.  Help me give to you those loves that I have allowed to become too elevated.  Help me keep my eyes on you.  Help me stay awake to that which I am setting my mind upon.  Keep me in your steadfast love.  I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen

“ENTICED BY TOMORROW” – Nov 4

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2

Tomorrow plays an enticing melody.  It is a melody that every person cannot help but hum during the day.  We plan in a chant of tomorrow.  We daydream in the croon of the future.  We fix goals in a serenade to what might become.  The necessity of tomorrow brings us all into the choir.  However, the allure of what is just around the corner can grasp our attention like acrophobia can steal a view.  Tomorrow has a perpetual rhythm whose powerful grasp is difficult to escape.

mendhak / Foter.com / CC BY-SA

My plans, goals, hopes and dreams, all inhabit tomorrow.  A goal intersects with the presence for a preciously short instant where it is either accomplished or not.  A plan evaporates upon implementation.  Hopes and dreams are recast once they are realized.  Tomorrow provides an escape from the physical bounds of the presence to the ethereal possibility of what may come.

It is easy for the promise of tomorrow to eclipse the duty of today.

Waiting for tomorrow is how I have spent the majority of my life.  I have lived preoccupied by planning to make tomorrow better.  I daily make investments of time, money, and energy into tomorrow.  The majority of our lives are spent striving for tomorrow:

Secondary education were years spent in preparing for college or work.
College was spent in preparation for graduate school or a career.
A career was spent in preparation for advancement.
Advancement was spent in preparation of retirement.

Tomorrow provides a consistent rhythm for most of our lives.  We live for the weekend.  We live for the next holiday.  We live for the next vacation.  If we are not careful, we can end up living for tomorrow and miss duties of today.

Garry – www.visionandimagination.com / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

An unhealthy focus on tomorrow can steal our confidence and contentment in the presence.  As we study and learn all that we don’t know, our lack of qualifications can keep us sidelined.  Past failures can cause us to doubt our capabilities in the present.  Our esteem for the mature can lend to prolonged deferment.  Our investments in tomorrow can deprive the profits of today.

Thomas Hawk / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

For a follower of Christ, there is an aspect of tomorrow that will never be improved from today’s reality.  For all who are in Christ, we are children of God, today.  A decade, century, millennium will not improve upon the title that we have, today.  We are children of the most High God.  We are fellow heirs with Christ, today.  The reality that we experience today allows us to cry, “ABBA! FATHER!”, through the Spirit of adoption that we have received.

Beloved, we are God’s children, now. 

The reality of who we are today should change how we view the present.  Who we are today, frees us from the enticing song of tomorrow with all of its promises for a better future that keeps us from being active in the present.

Beloved, we are God’s children.

What we will be tomorrow has not yet appeared but we know that someday we will be like Christ and we shall see Him as He is.  That will be an incredible tomorrow.  The reality of this incredible tomorrow should provide perspective to all of our planning, goals, hopes and dreams for our personal tomorrows.

Beloved, we are going to be like Christ and we shall see Him as He is.

We all have a duty to plan for tomorrow. We all are filled with hopes and dreams for the future.  Who we are should inform all of those plans.  It should shape every hope and dream.

Beloved, we are God’s children.

We are free to accomplish our Father’s business in all its varied forms, today.  No child of God has to wait for tomorrow to do our Father’s will today.

We don’t need a position or permission, degrees or pedigrees, time or dimes, acceptability or civility to:

…love the Lord your God with all of your heart and
with all your soul and with all your mind.

We do not need to wait for tomorrow to love the Lord today.  We can love God regardless of the condition of our today.

…love your neighbor as yourself.

Our neighbor’s heart can be encased with our love today.  Love does not need to wait until tomorrow.

Beloved, love does not need to wait for tomorrow
because we are God’s children today.

PRAYER: Lord, thank you for allowing me to be your child now.  Thank you for allowing me into your family today.  Father, I look forward to the day when I will be like Christ.  I look forward to the day when I will see Christ as He is.  I long for that day.  Lord, you know that I get distracted by all the cares of this word.  You know that I can make an excuse not to be loving out of my addiction to my dreams of tomorrow.  Change my mind to the reality that I do not need anything from tomorrow to do your will today.  I pray this in the precious name of your Son,  Jesus Christ.   Amen.

“WHAT’S UNDER THE HOOD?” – June 14

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”  1 Corinthians 13:1-3

When I was a teenager, I bought myself a sweet ride.  It was black and shiny.  I added chrome rims with wide, low profile tires making speed bumps a hazard.  I bought a stereo that was more for the listening pleasure or displeasure of those outside the car.  I swapped the original steering wheel out for a small custom chrome wheel that made sharp turns a work-out.  I fussed over that car.  I washed it.  I buffed it.  I polished it.

I was so cool cruising the streets of my small,  rural town in my ’69 Camaro.  It was more than a mode of transportation from my home to school.  It served a purpose that was beyond a mechanism to speed the activities of my day.  My car was a representation of how I wanted my little world to see me.

However, there was a problem with my car.  It was a problem that was beyond my financial abilities to fix.  My Camaro rolled off the assembly line with a deficiency that belied its exterior.  My Camaro was powered by only six cylinders.  This is not the standard Camaro.  Chevrolet did not build the Camaro brand on six cylinder cars like mine.

2010 Camaro (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Camaros are known as muscle cars.  The title does not come from having the same amount of horsepower as a family sedan.  Muscle cars have the kind of power that will pin you to your seat with each stomp of the accelerator.  They have an enticing guttural purr that speaks of their latent power even while idling.  A muscle car earns its moniker by what cannot be seen.  My Camaro did not earn any such moniker.  It had no muscle under its hood.  That is probably why my parents allowed me to buy it.  My car was a sham.  It looked the part, but it was not what people thought it was.

I would go on the Friday night cruise and drive really slow.  Often, I would find myself sitting next to real muscle cars.  They would rev the engine of their real muscle car and I would feel horsepower envy through my very being.  I was forced to play a cool indifference in my refusal to race; like they were a contender not worthy of a response from my beast.  All the while, I knew that I had a kitten under the hood.  I hated the appearance of power without anything to back it up.

My car was all show and no go.

I wonder how often I have lived in a manner that my faith is more like a poser for the real thing just as my Camaro was.  How often has my faith been all show and no go?

The Christian life is a response.  All that we have has been given to us.  We were saved despite ourselves while we were yet enemies of God.  There is nothing that we can earn through the practice of our faith.  We walk in a newness of life due to the grace that has been shown to us by our Father in Heaven.  The only appropriate response is love.  All other responses are a jumbled confusion of conflicting motives.  Motivation originating from anything other than love is just another example of our old flesh trying to get back into play.

The power plant that drives the actions of a child of God is a heart in love with their Redeemer. 

It matters greatly what is under our spiritual hood.  We can be motivated by many things but love is the only attitude that unleashes the full power of the Spirit in our lives.

I am hesitant to even suggest the number of Christians who are living under-powered lives.  I know my own heart.  I know that my own selfishness slips into the motivations for many of the activities that I choose to do for the Lord.  I can do all the right things for all the wrong reasons.  I have done that.  I struggle not to do that.

I think this is terribly common among us who are striving to follow Christ:

I have seen teachers whose ministry is contingent upon appreciation.
I have heard indifferent worship given between snippets of the last week’s events.
I have known elders who operated with an ongoing list of  wrongs done to them.
I have seen ministry leaders whose staffs feel beleaguered and taken for granted.
I have watched obedience offered to please a parent.
I have heard offerings being given in order to purchase privilege.
I have known accountability resulting in writing off a person who made a mistake.

Many of us look really good from the outside.  We have all the appearance of power but what we really have under the hood is suspect.  I think that it is very good to check one’s motivation.  I think it is good to listen to what our lives sound like.

Why are you going on that mission trip?
Why are you helping at Church?
Why are you giving your money?
Why are you giving your time to ministry?

If you are doing it for any reason other than out of love for your Redeemer, then you are probably doing it in your own power.  Consider how severely under-powered you will be and it will still gain you nothing.

Power is something that cannot be faked.  At some point, our poser bluff will be called.  Maybe, now is the time to check what you are running under your spiritual hood.  A swap of motivations can be as easy as falling upon our needs in confession and crying out for help to our Father who has been waiting for the right attitude to flood us with the power of His Spirit.

PRAYER: Lord, you know my heart better than I do.  You know that I do so much from the wrong motivations.  I know that I am probably more of a clanging symbol than a beautiful melody to your ear.  Father, help me.  Help me to walk in a love for You and for my neighbors.  Forgive me for allowing my selfishness to get in the way.  Forgive me for all the right things that I have done out of the wrong motivation.  I don’t want to be fake.  I don’t want to pretend to be living in the power of your Spirit.  I want to know the real thing.  I will to live in your love and your power.  Strip me of any motivation that is not pleasing to you. I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ.   Amen.

“MEANS TO AN END” – April 14

“O Israel, hope in the Lord!  For with the Lord there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption.” Psalm 130:7

It is just a means to an end.

That is a saying that I have uttered on many an occasion.  This saying has been applied to countless insignificant, meaningless, or unpleasant activities that are completed in order to obtain a greater purpose.  The greater purpose is the goal and the lesser activities are the means or method by which the goal is obtained.  It is a principle that is used all the time.

Someone may have a goal of being a corporate CEO.  The means to becoming the CEO is working all the various positions on the corporate ladder as they climb up to obtain the primary goal.  Many of those jobs are not very rewarding.  However, the CEO is the end; all the jobs along the way are the means.  That is why they do them.

Someone may have a goal of becoming an elected official.  The means to getting elected is going to all those political party functions, the “meet and greets”, the shaking hands, and the baby kissing.  Campaigning can be exhausting.  However, being elected is the end; the campaigning is the means.  That is why it is done.

Someone may have the goal of becoming fit.  The means to getting fit is eating less and exercising more.  Working out is not that enjoyable.  Eating less and healthy is not very satisfying.  However, being fit is the end; working out and watching what you eat is the means.  That is why it is done.

I think that everyone understands that it takes means to reach desired ends.  However, there is a problem when we allow this mentality to drift into our relationships.

People are never means.  People are always ends.

There is so much heartache that comes from people being treated as means to achieve some other end.  People are often tossed aside when they have served their purpose.

The friend who is no longer called because better ones have been found;

The girlfriend who is dumped after she has given herself;

The boyfriend who is broken off because there are better options;

The colleague who is abandoned since he is no longer of an advantage;

The friendship that is pursued because of connections;

The spouse who is left for a new source of happiness.

It is an unloving attitude to treat another person as a means; to treat them as a pawn in a grand strategy of obtaining a greater purpose.  We are told that the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.  The goal for every person who we engage is to encourage, edify, teach, and train.  The people with whom we interact should be better for that experience.  They should be more joyful, more peaceful, and happier; they should feel like they have experienced kindness, gentleness, and goodness.  They should know that they are loved after they have spent time with us.  That is our end with other people.  Our neighbor’s best is the end; love is the means.

In much the same way, God is never the means. God is always the end.

Many people seek out God to get something.  They come to Him with expectations and when those expectations are not fulfilled they leave Him.

They seek God to make their life better;

They want God to repair their marriage and/or relationships;

They want God to give them wealth and connections;

They want God to make them feel better about themselves;

They want God to keep them out of hell.

They seek God for the purpose of obtaining those other things.  They are not seeking God because He is God.  We are told that the greatest commandment is to love God.  Our primary purpose is to bring glory to God for who He is and what He has done.  We bring God the greatest glory that is possible from us when we love Him with all that we are, think, and do.  Bringing God the glory that He is due is the end; our love is the means.

In God’s plan, I am never the end; I am always the means.

I put myself in a bad place when I make myself an end.  I was never intended to be my own personal end.  I cannot be following the greatest of commandments when I have made myself an end.

We are making ourselves the end when we say things like, “I deserve <fill in the blank>; to be loved, to be happy, to be respected, to be appreciated, to be acknowledged, to be rewarded, to be feared.  The results of not having our blank filled in, the way we want, is often anger, jealousy, envy, gossip, and coveting. Those sins are the fruit of making ourselves the end. We were never intended to be our own personal end; we have always been the means for showing love to God and others.

The good news is that we do not have to feel left out.  One of the blessings of Christian community, as God intended, is that other believers will be interacting with you as their end.  They will be showing you love as their means of encouraging and edifying you. This is one of the reasons that living within the Church, the body of Christ, is so important to our souls.  It is when we pull away from those whose end is our best that we begin to start looking out for ourselves and our own personal ends; only bad results will come from that.  We need to allow the means of other believers to work to their desired ends in our lives.

Now, we all know that the church is imperfect.  Other believers can let us down.  Other Christians often have their ends very confused and do a horrible job of loving their neighbors.  We can come away after interacting with some church folk and be discouraged and feeling unloved.  We need to learn to forget ourselves and understand that they don’t owe us anything.  Their actions are often the result of sin and/or immaturity.  Remember, they are our end; not our means.  We do not need to rely upon them.  We can rest assured that we will never be left abandoned in an emotional wasteland.  God is always for us.

We are God’s end; His love is the means.

We are children of God.  There is nothing that can prevent Him from showing His love to His children.  He knows what we need.  He knows that we need His peace, contentment, encouragement, and love.  He knows how to give His children good gifts.  When we make ourselves our personal ends, we are declaring our unbelief in the sufficiency of God.

We can trust God to fulfill us.

We can trust God to sustain our self-esteem.

We can trust God to give us happiness.

We are in the hands God.  He is merciful and gracious; slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  He is faithful and can be trusted with our emotional well-being.  It is a small thing for the creator of the universe to fill you and me with joy.

We just need to trust Him with our hearts.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for showing me your steadfast love.  Thank you for not leaving me to rely upon myself.  Thank you for being sufficient in all ways.  Lord, help be to show your love to my neighbors.  Forgive me for being manipulative of other people and not loving them like I should.  Lord, I pray that I will be a blessing to all those I meet and that they will feel loved by your steadfast love flowing through me. Amen.