Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
1 Timothy 6:12 (NIV)

Clearly, taking hold of our eternal life means more than accepting Christ and looking forward to an eternity with Him. Paul exhorted Timothy, the pastor in Ephesus at the time the letter was written, to “take hold” of his eternal life. This series looks at the fuller application of that exhortation.

Last week’s blog addressed the complete forgiveness of sins that comes with our eternal life. If the Creator of the Universe has fully forgiven our sins, and he has, we ought to walk in complete freedom from condemnation. To accept condemnation from the enemy is to be deceived. To accept it from ourselves is to call Jesus a liar. Scripture is clear that

But if we confess our sins to him, he [Jesus] is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.
1 John 1:9 (NLT)

When we fully grasp that Christ has forgiven our sins, we can walk in the liberating freedom of being without condemnation. Such freedom is a wonderful thing, and it leads to a walk that carries with it a lightness of heart and spirit. Conversely, walking under condemnation is truly walking under condemnation. It’s like there is always a heavy weight on our heads and hearts.

Two analogies:

• You’ve seen the pictures of men and women in third world countries carrying their wares to market or purchases from the market in baskets on their heads. What a difference they must immediately feel when the heavy basket is put down and they can walk without the weight and without fear of causing the basket to become unbalanced and fall to the ground. That’s what it is like when we are set free from condemnation. We no longer walk under the heavy weight of accusations and we no longer fear that every misstep will lead to more guilt being piled in our baskets.

• My mom had a pacemaker put in last night. After surgery, they had a heavy, cold compress on her chest to stop any bleeding, reduce swelling and limit her movement. The cold, heavy compress reminds me of the weight of condemnation always pressing down on our hearts and spirits. Its coldness saps us of our passion for God and our strength. Its weight limits on our movement in ways that Christ has not limited us.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
Galatians 5:1 (NIV)

Christ has set us free from condemnation by forgiving our sins and declaring us righteous. The Galatians had forgotten this and Paul calls them “foolish.” The Galatians had forgotten the powerful grace that led them to repentance and faith in Christ. They had fallen back to relying on their own works for eternal life. Read what Paul wrote to them:

¹You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. ²I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law, or by believing what you heard? ³Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? ⁴Have you suffered so much for nothing—if it really was for nothing? ⁵Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?

⁶Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” ⁷Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham.
Galatians 3:1-7 (NIV)

When we carry a spirit of condemnation on our heads and on our hearts, we are truly not believing that we are forgiven. We fall back, as the Galatians had, to believing we must do better, look better, or be better for Christ to truly accept us and forgive us. Foolishness! God gives you His Spirit because you believed that Christ died for your sins. “Believed” in the biblical sense means you accept it as truth and you rely on it – you trust it even more than you trust the chair you are sitting in to hold you without breaking. God gives you His spirit because you believed that Christ died for your sins.

¹Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, ²because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. ³For what the [Old Testament] law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, ⁴in order that the righteous requirements of the [Old Testament] law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-4 (NIV)

The conditions for your righteousness have been met if you believe in Christ. “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:1, NLT) And because there is no condemnation, there is no need to accept any heavy baskets on your head or cold compresses on your heart.

Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, he gives freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17 (NLT)

The Spirit of the Lord gives freedom. Friends, receive God’s gift of freedom and walk in it. Or skip and jump in it! Or dance in it! Or shout “hallelujah” in it! But most of all, receive it and do not receive any condemnation that comes from external or internal sources. Condemnation be GONE in the Name of Jesus. And daughter or son of God, be encouraged and set free in the Name of Jesus.

Well, I thought this blog was going to be about being willing to take risks for Christ because He has set us free. I guess we needed to hear the message of freedom again. I’m certain a message about risk taking is coming, but I think God may have even another blog on freedom from condemnation first! Thank You, Lord, for directing my pen (computer keyboard) in Your direction, not in mine.

I attend a business networking meeting weekly. This week, the conference room in which we meet was decorated in a fun, tiki-island theme for a children’s program that was to begin shortly after we left. I arrived early to find strings of shells serving as a curtain at the doorway, a tiki-bar just past the shell curtain (used as a registration booth, no doubt), lots of netting, and colorful posters and table cloths. Arriving early also afforded me the opportunity to watch as others arrived. Reactions varied considerably from “How fun!” to “What the…..?” There was the woman who saw the theme and started dancing and the man whose sour expression showed his disapproval. (I wonder – was his disapproval at the foolishness of the decorations, at our use of the room while it was decorated for the children’s program, or something I wouldn’t imagine. Or perhaps his expression was simply revealing his insecurity at walking into the transformed room and I interpreted it as disapproval. Perhaps I should have asked him.)

It was fascinating to watch each person arrive at the meeting, and God used it to reinforce a theme he seems to be hammering into me lately: It’s all about our perspective, and our perspective is affected by and affects our attitude.

Perspective has a lot to do with what lens through which we’re viewing life.

Most of the time I need to use the super-wide angle lens. When looking through this lens, I can see the bigger picture and I often ask the question “in light of eternity, what does it matter?” Most of life’s little annoyances melt into the background when eternity is in the foreground.

When things get really tough, I have to switch to the more focused lens – the one that allows me to see only one thing, and that Thing must be Jesus. If I focus on the issues at hand, my world dissolves into chaos of one sort or another – questions that begin with “how” and “when” and “who” and “why,” and statements that begin with “if” can quickly turn my mind and emotions into a chaotic jungle of twisted vines and branches. That’s when the single lens is needed – the one that looks at the single, true Vine.

If you’re Resting at the River’s Edge with us, you read the following verses this week:

          ¹⁶Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. ¹⁸So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
                    2 Corinthians 4:16-18

What a wonderful passage! “Therefore, we do not lose heart!” It can be easy to lose heart when we focus on the world around us. Paul gives the secret for not losing heart – “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Lord, help me to see the unseen, to capture it in my spirit, and to let it serve always as the lens through which I walk through life. Yes, I maybe wasting away inwardly, whether from the stresses of life or simply from growing older, but let me always be renewed day by day as I focus on You and not on the circumstances of my life.

I want to be one of the people who walks through the door and says “How fun!” I want to be one of the people who sees the unexpected changes in my surroundings and enjoys them! I want to experience my life as part of the great adventure God has for me here on earth. That is the perspective, the lens, through which I want to see and live life. Will you join me?

In my last blog in the “Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS). I wrote that we must have a willing heart, allowing God to use us in whatever way He wants. The very exciting thing about serving God is that when we are willing to let Him lead, the paths He takes us lead us into ever increasing freedom. Read on as I look at three ways that the heart of a worshipper is a free heart.

A Free Heart

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
          2 Corinthians 3:17

Regularly worshipping God means regularly entering into His presence – allowing our spirit to encounter the Spirit of God in a stronger and more intimate way. That experience changes us forever. As we learn more about God and who He is, we learn more about the insignificance of this world. And that’s freedom! It unencumbers your heart and mind. It releases you from the bondage of this world. It sets us free.

In what ways has the Lord set us free? Let’s look at just three of them.

Freedom from Condemnation
You probably know Romans 8 verse 1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” But did you realize that verse 1 ends in a comma? The statement is incomplete. Let’s look at the full sentence (verses 1 and 2):

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.
          Romans 8:1-2

There is no condemnation because Christ has set us free from the law of sin and death. When we recognize Him as Savior and receive Him as Lord, we are freed from eternal judgment and given the Spirit of Life. I am not condemned. Period. And if God can forgive whatever I’ve done and all that I’ve done, it seems a bit prideful to me not to forgive myself. When I don’t forgive myself, I am setting myself up as judge above God – I am overriding (or overturning) His “not guilty” decision. I really try not to trump God. I’ve found that it doesn’t work in the long run! God has declared me “not guilty.” I choose to agree with Him (regardless of how I feel on any given day). Again, I choose to agree with Him.

Freedom from Fear
A little further in Romans 8 we find the following verses:

because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
          Romans 8:14-15

These verses tell us that we have been released from a spirit of fear and have been given the opportunity for an intimate relationship with God (“Abba” can be translated “Daddy”) – the Spirit of sonship.

2 Timothy 1:7 is a verse that many people memorize:

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity [or fear], but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline [or a sound mind].
          2 Timothy 1:7

Fear does not come from God. Faith comes from God. Assurance comes from God. Love comes from God. I don’t know what your greatest fear is, but I do know that spending time in God’s presence can give you His perspective on things. His perspective includes, among other things, the following facts:

• That God is good and desires good things for me (Jeremiah 29:11).
• That He knows me and understands me better than I know and understand myself (Psalm 139:1-3, 13)
• That He is the One who controls all that happens to me today (Proverbs 16:9, 24).
• That He will provide all that I need (Philippians 4:19, 2 Corinthians 9:8)
• And that He is the One who has said “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3).

Meditating on these statements and verses pushes fear away. And while you’re meditating, here’s something else to think about: If you look up the verses I referenced in the short list above, you’ll find that you are familiar with nearly all of them. If I can come up with a list like this from the most commonly known Scriptures, imagine how much longer the list could be if you or I were to dig further. If you struggle with fear, let me encourage you to focus on the character of God. As you read your Bible today and tomorrow and the next day, ask God to show you His goodness, compassion and love and His awesome ability to hold you near to His heart. Ask Him to allow you to see yourself, those around you and the world through His eyes.

Freedom to Obey and Serve
There is tremendous freedom in knowing God and being willing to obey Him – to do what He calls you to do. Many years and several states ago, I had a good friend who was afraid to give herself fully to God because she was afraid that God would require too much of her. He’d ask her to become a missionary to Zimbabwe or he’d allow her to become paralyzed so she could have a ministry like Joni Erickson Tada. (Perhaps she’s never heard Joni’s full testimony. I’ve heard Joni say that she’d rather spend the rest of her life in her wheelchair with God at her side than to have spent one minute of her life without Him.) Knowing that you are willing, are doing and have done what God wants you to do is tremendously freeing. Withholding from God, or being outright disobedient to God carries a whole lot of emotional baggage. It’s like a constant nagging in your heart and soul. My friend was never free from the knowledge that she wasn’t living God’s best for her because she wasn’t willing to give herself entirely over to Him. It pulled on her spirit and dragged her down. And perhaps appropriately so – she was grieving God’s heart. But doing His will brings a lightness, a freedom to our hearts. Even the difficult tasks bring with them the peace that comes from knowing that God will enable and supply. And that allows us to be free from worrying about the results.

Let me give you just a couple of verses to meditate on:

But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it-he will be blessed in what he does.
           James 1:25

This verse describes God’s law as “the perfect law that gives freedom.” This seemed strange to me when it first registered with me because I had never thought of God’s law as bringing freedom, but I now understand that obedience brings freedom. When you’re driving on the freeway within the speed limit, you have no fear of who’s around the corner. When your foot is heavy on the gas pedal, there’s a bit of wariness that leads to stress.

I will always obey your law, for ever and ever. I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.
          Psalm 119:44-45

The Psalmist is saying that because He has studied what God wants and has decided to obey, he will walk in freedom. Obedience brings a freedom of spirit that is life-giving. It is a freedom that brings light-heartedness in difficulty.

Freedom Here We Come!
We value freedom very highly in this country. Christ has come to bring a degree of freedom to our lives that is beyond any freedom we can experience at the hands of men. That freedom comes about by getting to know God better. The heart of a worshipper is a heart that is free! Spend some time today in worship!

This blog is the next in our “Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS). You can find all of the blogs that have been published in this series listed here.

A Transparent Heart is…A Vulnerable Heart (Part 2)

Yesterday’s blog focused on the vulnerability that results from having a transparent heart and why that is so very scary. We only dealt with half the equation, though – that is, being vulnerable before God. Today we’ll look at being vulnerable in our relationship with other people.

Vulnerable Toward Others – Christ is Our Example

Having a vulnerable heart doesn’t apply only to our attitude toward God. If Christ is our example, we see that He chose to be vulnerable here on earth. He chose to love first. And it led to His death. To become Christ-like, then, we would also choose to love first and to die to self. We shouldn’t in any way deceive ourselves into thinking that the process of transformation is an easy one. Changing us into the likeness of Christ means methodically killing our flesh and our fleshly desires.

I heard one speaker describe it this way: God and Satan have one goal in common: They both want us dead – Scripture tells us that Satan comes to steal, kill and destroy; it also teaches that one of the Holy Spirit’s primary functions in our lives is to kill our flesh.

Being transformed means being reshaped and remolded; it means changing and most of us kind of like things the way they are. Remember the phrase from William Temple’s definition of worship: Worship is many things, all “gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore [worship is] the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.”

Worship, by its very essence, attacks our selfishness and self-centeredness, working the transformation process in our hearts, making it easier to work the transformation in our actions. Can the transformation happen without worship? Perhaps. But worship makes the transformation so much easier because it changes our heart, making it easier for us to work with the Holy Spirit to change our actions.

In his book A Divine Confrontation, Graham Cooke reminds us that God is not seeking a powerful people to represent Him. Rather, He looks for all those who are weak, foolish, despised, and written off; and He inhabits them with His own strength. He has not come to give strength, but to be strength to us as we relate to Him in weakness. If we do all that we can to NOT be vulnerable (which is our natural response), we quickly disqualify ourselves as people God can use. Keeping a transparent heart in worship allows us to remain vulnerable to God and He teaches and enables us to be vulnerable to others.

We must understand the difference between vulnerability and insecurity. All God’s dealings with us are to create maximum dependence upon Him. He calls us to do the impossible. He demands that we see what is invisible. He thrusts us into situations that overwhelm us. It could be rescuing more than a million people from bondage to the most cruel, occult, and oppressive regime of the day. (Moses managed to do it.) Or it could be…living a Godly life in an ungodly work environment. Either way it requires that we be vulnerable to God and to others.

When we are vulnerable, we see our inadequacies in the light of God’s sovereignty and power, and we discover hope and faith. Like Paul, we rejoice in our weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest upon us (see 2 Cor. 12:9-10). The whole point of vulnerability is to bring us to a place of restful dependence in a powerful and overcoming God. Vulnerability is knowing that God is happy to send us out as lambs amongst wolves because He is hugely confident in His own ability to watch over us and work through our weaknesses.

Graham Cooke concludes his short discussion with this sentence: “Vulnerability is given by God to release His presence, which builds self-esteem and confidence in God’s sovereignty.” Again, we see transformation in worship.

Lord, grant us vulnerability in worship. Give us transparent hearts. Grace us with a confidence in Your sovereignty and ability to use us in our weaknesses.

Reading about Kings and Churches…

If I were to break the Israelites history into major segments, it would look something like this:

• The Years of the Patriarchs: Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph (Genesis)
• The “Moses Years” (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy)
• Moving into the Promised Land (Joshua)
• Period of the Judges (Judges, part of 1 Samuel)
• Period of the Kings (1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, 1 & 2 Chronicles, most of the prophets)
• After the Captivity (Nehemiah, Ezra, Esther, Malachi)

In June our Resting at the River’s Edge reading plan has us leaving the period of the Judges and moving into the period of the kings as we read 1^st and 2^nd Samuel. First Samuel begins with the grief of a woman who has been unable to bear children and ends with the death of Israel’s first king, Saul. Second Samuel begins with David learning of Saul’s death and carries us through most of David’s Kingship.

 A study of the life of David has been rich food for Christians for 2,000 years. There is much we can learn from the life of this key figure of the Old Testament.

Have you ever been to a church that had problems? I mean real problems? The church in Corinth was messed up six ways to Sunday, but Paul still found some good things to say about them. This month in Resting at the River’s Edge, we’ll dive into Paul’s two letters to the Corinthian church. Read along with us as we watch how this master church planter tries to straighten out this can of worms.

Enjoy!

To download a PDF of June’s reading schedule, click here.

Enjoy your time at the river’s edge this month!

In the last two blogs in our “The Heart of a Worshipper” series (HWS) I wrote about the need for our hearts to be hungry for God because the hungry heart gives birth to the pursuing heart, causing us to pursue God more diligently. Pursuing God is the first step toward becoming changed people. In this blog, we continue to look at the qualities of the worshipping heart. May you be blessed and transformed as you grow in your own worship of the King of Kings. 

A Transparent or Unveiled Heart 
If pursuing God is the first step toward becoming a changed person, this next in the process process of allowing God to transform us is having a heart that is transparent or unveiled before God and before others. What does that mean? I looked up the word transparent in the dictionary and absolutely love this portion of the definition: “having the property of transmitting rays of light through…so that [things] situated beyond or behind can be distinctly seen.”

A Transparent Heart Has No Walls
Our hearts must have the property of allowing the Light of Life (Jesus) to shine through it so that He can reveal to us what is hidden in its deepest, darkest corners. Scriptures tells us that God searches our heart, but do we remember that even though He knows all there is to know about us, He doesn’t impose His knowledge on us. He allows us free will.

He says “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” We think of that as an evangelistic verse, but those words were actually spoken to the Christians at Laodocea whom Jesus described as “lukewarm.” He is asking permission to come into their heart and reveal things to them and rekindle the love relationship He once had with them. He would not usurp their will and force himself upon them, and He will not usurp our will and will not change us without our permission. No, He says “If anyone opens the door, I will come in to him” (Revelation 3:20, emphasis mine).

God is asking us to have hearts that are transparent to him; He’s asking you and me to open the doors of our hearts to Him. Don’t put a wall between your heart and God. Don’t keep little recesses that belong only to you.

The similar word, unveil, means “to reveal or disclose, to display.” Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 3:13-18 for a discussion about a transparent or unveiled heart, and the promise it holds.

13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. [That is, the radiance from being in God's presence.]

14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It [the veil] has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. [If we are in Christ, the veil has been removed.]

15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers [or hides] their hearts.

16  But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. [Again, for those of us in Christ, the veil has been taken away - our hearts are displayed before God.]

17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. [Hallelujah!]

18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

          2 Corinthians 3:13-18 (bracketed comments mine]

When we receive the Lord, the veil that blocks our understanding of God and blocks our direct access to Him is taken away. It’s taken away from our face so that the work God is doing in our hearts is revealed for others to see. It’s also taken away from our hearts if we allow it to be, so that God can shine through and reveal to us the areas that need work. This unveiling happened the moment we accepted Christ. A transformation began. Hallelujah!

A Transparent Heart Works to Remain Transparent
But I’ve found that unless I consciously and continually ask the Lord to come in, unless I consciously and continually remove the veil from around my heart, it begins to come back. Sometimes slowly and sometimes with the force of a slamming door, the veil slips back over my eyes and over my heart as I allow things of this world to encourage me to hide myself from God and from others.

All of us have experienced this. Sometimes, a friend says something hurtful…and you say in your heart, “I’ll never let her see the real me again.” Or something you try to do is a complete failure…and you say in your heart, “I’ll never stick my neck out like that again…look, everyone thinks I’m a fool.” Or you’re not obedient and perhaps you don’t say anything in your heart, but you begin to hide a little from God.

Those are the kind of things the enemy uses to encourage us to let the veil fall back into place, to hide our hearts from God and from others. But we read above what the Scripture says: “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” In Christ, we can have freedom from the pain caused by those failures and disappointments, and we can have freedom to live a life that is inencumbered by the need to keep things hidden and secret.

As we continue to reveal our heart to God, He continues to transform us into His likeness with ever-increasing Glory. Notice that Moses wore the veil so that the people wouldn’t see the radiance from being in God’s presence fade away. But the last verse says that our transformation is ever-increasing. I want that ever-increasing transformation. That means that I need to be continually transparent before God.

I need to become more like David, who God described as “a man after my own heart.” In Psalm 38:9 he says:

All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you.

A Transparent Heart is Honest before God
A transparent heart is also honest with God about how it feels. Read through the psalms of David and you’ll see that he wasn’t happy, carefree and sinless throughout his life. Far from it. In his struggles and in his sin, though, you’ll see that he is honest with God. Read Psalm 22:1-2 and you’ll see David crying out to God because he feels forsaken by God. Psalm 38 shows David anguishing because of his sin and guilt. In Psalm 42 you’ll find David encouraging himself to turn to God when his soul is downcast. David isn’t just honest with God in his discouragement and repentance, but also in his triumphs and rejoicing. Psalm 47 and 148 are just two of many psalms of unrestrained praise. Our God is worthy of extravagant praise!

What’s my point? My point is that worship should be a time when we pour out our heart to God and express our greatest sorrow and greatest delight. My point is that honesty before God means not “putting on a happy face” every time we approach him. Having a transparent heart allows God to see into our heart. When I read David’s Psalms, I know that I often have a long way to go if I am to be totally honest with God in my emotions.

A Transparent Heart Uses His/Her Own Words to Worship the King of Kings
God wants us to be transparent before Him. And sometimes that means using your own words to express your devotion to Him. LaMar Boschman, in his book A Heart of Worship says this about worship:

“We worship [God] as the Holy Spirit reveals Him to our seeking hearts. In that way, our worship is Spirit-inspired and Spirit-directed. This often requires launching out in faith beyond our prepared songs and prayers to find the Spirit of God revealing the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable.”

This is something I had to practice quite a bit before I became comfortable doing it in worship. I was much more comfortable with the prepared songs and prayers. But sticking to them seems “too safe” – it seems inconsistent with what I see in Psalms. I’d like to encourage all of us to be transparent before God. Write some of your own psalms. Write some of your own worship songs. God isn’t looking for the best verses or the best melody. He’s looking for the unveiled heart of a person willing to be transformed by Him. I hope you’ll decide to be that person today!

I’ve just been reading in Leviticus about all the offerings the Israelites were to offer to God and what (finally) struck me is that in every case, they use the word “offering.” It might have been a peace offering or a guilt offering or some other kind of offering, but they were always an “offering.” They may have been required offerings, but they were still offerings. That is, the Lord required these offerings as a way for them to receive forgiveness (albeit temporary forgiveness) for their sins or show their devotion to Him. And yet, they are called “offerings.”

What began to sink in was the attitude of humility that the word “offering” carries with it. An offering is something given in hopes that it will be accepted – the husband-to-be offers his hand in marriage to the woman in hopes that she will say “yes” or an offending co-worker brings a cup of coffee or donut in hopes that relationships can be restored and peace can returned to the office. An apology is an offering – it is given in humility and in the hopes that it will be accepted. The attitude of the heart in each case is humility and hopefulness. Of course with hopefulness there is anticipation of good things to come.

When I read in Leviticus 5 that a person is to bring a lamb or a goat, but if he cannot afford that he can bring two young doves or pigeons, and if he cannot afford that he is to bring a tenth of an ephah of fine flour, I am ashamed to admit that the thought that ran across my brain was “who’s to say what he can afford?” Immediately the Lord whispered in my ear – “It’s a heart issue.” In other words, our hearts ought to be so devoted to God and so sorry for our sin that we desire to bring the very best and most we can. It’s not a “how little can we get away with to make up for our sins?” Rather, it’s how much can I offer to the Lord to show Him how sorry I am and how much I love Him?

And that brought me to the question – “How do you view your offerings?” Are they obligations, or are they opportunities to express your love to God? Do you give them as a part of your Sunday morning routine, or with an attitude of humility? When you write out your check or search for the money in your wallet, is it just something you do out of duty, or is an act of worship? Don’t get me wrong. Obedience is a good thing. Bring your tithes into the storehouse (Malachi 3:10). But obedience that is not done with the right heart is its own form of rebellion. Think of the child who spits out his apology in obedience to his parent’s command. The child was being “obedient”, but not making a sincere offering from his heart. No, in his heart there was rebellion – “I’ll say I’m sorry, but I won’t mean it. So there!”

I doubt that you make your offerings with the same blatant attitude as that child, but I know that there are times when I unthinkingly offend God by giving my offerings with a heart that isn’t fully “in the moment” (that is, I’m not even thinking about it, I’m just on autopilot) or has a hidden agenda of expectations from God instead of humble anticipation of His acceptance of my offer. When we are “in the moment” and our attitude is humble anticipation, imagine the joy we can receive when we know that our offer has been accepted!

Scripture teaches that God loves a cheerful giver (2 Corinthians 9:7). That doesn’t mean He loves the giver who is a cheerful person. That means he loves it when we give with a cheerful attitude – and that means we are in the moment – purposefully thinking about what we’re doing and doing it cheerfully.

Lord, forgive me for all the times I have spent the offering time on Sunday morning reading the bulletin instead of making my offering to You in humility and joy. Forgive me for the times I write out my check out of obligation instead of with joyful anticipation of bringing joy to the One I love the most.

The Offering God Gave
Notice that it was in this same attitude that God gave His offering – with His whole heart and in humble anticipation of the joy to come when His offering would be accepted by men and women. That offering, of course, was His Son Jesus, whom God gave as the sacrificial lamb – the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29). Do you see that Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament system of sacrifices and offerings? That He is our sacrificial lamb, offered once for all?

Unlike the other high priests, [Jesus] does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.
                Hebrews 7:27 (NIV)

The question is “will you accept His offering?” It is an offering consistent with those we’ve read about in Leviticus, but of such a higher degree that it issues in a new covenant. The new covenant holds the promise of an eternal inheritance – life forever more – even for those who have not kept the old covenant.

The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance – now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
                Hebrews 9:13-15 (NIV)

Should you have any doubt, let me be clear. God is calling you. He is calling you to serve the living God. He is calling you in love.

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
                1 John 4:9-10 (NIV)

Will you accept his offering? What will you offer back to him in response?

But Sarai, Abram’s wife, had no children. So Sarai took her servant, an Egyptian woman named Hagar, and gave her to Abram so she could bear his children. “The LORD has kept me from having any children,” Sarai said to Abram. “Go and sleep with my servant. Perhaps I can have children through her.” And Abram agreed.
          Genesis 16:1-2 (NIV)

When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.”
          Exodus 32:1 (NIV)

It was out of impatience that Abram and Sarai pursued having a child in an unnatural way.  It was out of impatience that the children of Israel asked for another God to worship. In both cases, the participants were looking at the situation around them not at the Lord. Had they been looking at the Lord, their hearts would have been renewed, their faith and bodies strengthened.

But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
          Isaiah 40:31a (KJV)

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
          Isaiah 40:31a (NIV)

1 Corinthians 13:4 teaches us that “Love is patient” God is everlastingly patient with us, can we be anything else with Him? Let’s wait upon Him, put our hope in Him. Read what Scripture says about the promises of God:

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. 
          2 Corinthians 1:20

God is faithful to His promises – they are “Yes” in Christ – but the “Amen” is spoken by us through Christ to the Glory of God.

Let’s not be tempted to sin during the waiting but instead say “Amen” to the promises of a God who is faithful to fulfill them.

During this Christmas season, it seems that all my prayers look toward Good Friday more than Christmas – toward the death of Jesus on the cross instead of the baby born in a manger. When my husband pointed this out to me, I began to reflect on it. Christmas, the season of rejoicing at the birth of a Savior, is inextricably linked with Good Friday, a day of extreme sorrow. Christmas, the day of the birth of a King, stands next to Easter, the day of the murder of a King. Hmmm.

The more I reflected on it, the more I realized how appropriate this juxtapositioning is – because the entire purpose of Christ’s birth was fulfilled in His death and resurrection. Without Christ’s death and resurrection, His birth would have simply been a footnote in history. Instead, his birth, life, death and resurrection are the turning point of history.

The angel Gabriel declared the purpose of Jesus’ life to Joseph in a dream when he said “And she [Mary] will have a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, NLT).

Jesus’ purpose for being born was to save His people from their sins! What a lofty sounding destiny! Of course, another way of saying it is much less lofty sounding – Jesus was born to die! You see, the payment that is required for our sin is death. Someone must make that payment. Christ was born so that He could make the payment for us. His death enables us to bypass death and experience life forever.

Christ also suffered when He died for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but He died for sinners that He might bring us safely home to God. He suffered physical death, but He was raised to life in the Spirit. 
      1 Peter 3:18, NLT

For the wages of [required payment for] sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.
      Romans 6:23, NLT (bracketed words are my amplification)

Christ was born to die, and it was a destiny that He obviously knew from some very early age. I can’t help but wonder how knowing that His destiny was to die affected the way He lived His life. How would it affect mine? How about yours?

And then it hit me…we do have that destiny! Read this passage:

It is destined for each person to die once, and after that to face judgment.
      Hebrews 9:27, (my paraphrase)

We are also destined to die! After our death comes judgment. For those who have accepted God’s free gift of eternal life, we are raised from the death, just as Jesus was, to live eternally with God. For those who have not accepted God’s free gift of eternal life, death rules in judgment.

I find myself agreeing with Paul who wrote the following to the Corinthians:

¹As God’s partners, we beg you not to reject this marvelous message of God’s great kindness. ²For God says,
    ”At just the right time, I heard you.
    On the day of salvation, I helped you.”
Indeed, God is ready to help you right now. Today is the day of salvation.
      2 Corinthians 6:1-2, NLT

What does it mean to accept God’s free gift? It means to agree with Him and give Him control of your life. Agree first that you have done wrong and need His forgiveness. Believe that Christ died on the cross as the payment required for your wrongdoing. Yield your will to God’s will by determining to live according to His plans for your life instead of your own plans.

Then set about learning more and more about what those plans are. Because although our destiny might be to die and face judgment one day, God also has purposes and plans for our lives that go beyond ourselves.

My [Jesus'] purpose is to give life in all its fullness.
John 10:10b, NLT

¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 
      Jeremiah 29:11, NIV

Accepting God’s free gift of salvation not only brings eternal life, it also enlarges our earthly life. Can you dare miss out on such a “marvelous” opportunity to receive “God’s great kindness?”

This week has been crazy and I haven’t dealt with it well. Wednesday I was working hard to meet a deadline that didn’t get met. (It’s still not met and today’s Saturday.) Not meeting deadlines with customers is rare for us and something I consider highly undesirable. In addition, my computer was doing all kinds of things it had never done before. Working in programs I use every day I learned many new features by accidentally hitting the wrong keys and causing the software to do unwanted things. (Thus requiring much time to figure how to return the screen to its previously unmolested condition.) This is not a good thing when deadlines are looming.

The day was a harried one to say the least. Looking back, I realize that my mind was essentially working on two tracks throughout the day – one track was the project at hand, the other was a constant barrage of what needed to be done, how it wasn’t getting done, how I needed to call the client and how I didn’t want to do that.

Ouch! That’s no way to get through a day victoriously! What I realized late on Wednesday is that if my mind can stay on two tracks at once (and it obviously can), I certainly have the power to choose the second track. Yes, the work at hand must fill the first track, but the second track should have been about the goodness of God and my confidence in Him, not about my anxiety over not finishing the project on time. At any point in the day, I could have switched from the anxiety track to the grace track – you know, the one that grabs hold of my confidence in God. There are any number of things I could have done to arrest my brain and point it in the right direction. I did none of them.

Lord, forgive me. Forgive me for falling into the trap of believing that it all depended on me. Forgive me for stressing. Forgive me for not purposefully bringing you into the center of the situation. Help me to choose Your confidence over the enemy’s anxiety.

Wednesday was a classic example of not taking my thoughts captive. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 says this:

³Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards; ⁴for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments ⁵and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. (NRSV)

I didn’t even try to use my weapons last week. I just let the enemy have a day of victory. But God is greater, and having repented, I want to do better next time. So I’ve been gathering a list of things I might do that would help me jump from the anxiety track to the God track. Here’s my notes. Maybe you can add to them.

• Pray continuously. I know that wasn’t happening last Wednesday. I was fretting instead of praying.
• Take a prayer break – don’t just pray in the background while working, stop working and pray. This might require taking a short walk down the hall. For two or three or ten minutes, stop working and pray.
• Play worship music in the background while working. This often turns my mind toward God in the midst of chaos.
• Play worship music in the foreground – take a worship break. (Pick your song carefully – do you need a soft worship song to mellow you into God’s presence, or do you need a loud victory song?
• I almost always walk away from my desk at lunch. It helps me to gain perspective in the middle of the day. I didn’t do that last week.
• Call a friend. I should have stepped away from my desk to call a friend. My friends would have told me to get over it and trust God. I needed to hear that last week.
• Instant message a friend – it would have had the same results as calling a friend.
• Take a short walk. It would have not only had physical and mental health benefits, it could have turned me toward God.

Now I know that last week I would have strenuously objected to most of the things on this list saying I didn’t have time for them. But that would have been a lie. Everything on this list takes less than ten minutes, some as few as two or three minutes. Unless you’re in the 2-minute countdown for the next space shuttle launch or in a true split-second life and death situation, you can take two to ten minutes to turn your day around. Since I’m not involved in the space shuttle program and I don’t work in the emergency room of my local hospital, so can I.

The point is to use these weapons that are at our disposal, not to keep them on the shelf. I especially like the way the New Living Translation writes the beginning of verse 5: “With these weapons we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God.”

Had I employed my weapons, I would not have fallen into the trap of believing that meeting the deadlines (and thus ultimately the success of our business) all fell on my shoulders (aka, a very proud argument). Had I employed my weapons, I would have seen God victorious in the day – I would have known Him and His mighty power. Instead, I allowed my proud arguments to keep me from knowing Him on Wednesday.

One other idea…I’ve decided to use the ring of the telephone at work as a reminder to praise God. Often when I’m over-busy, the telephone is a source of stress. That’s wrong thinking. Without the telephone I wouldn’t be able to talk to the clients God sends our way. The telephone is a source of blessing, giving us opportunities to meet our customers’ needs in a way that brings glory to God. Sounds like a good reason and opportunity to praise God. Imagine how different my day will be when I thank God every time the phone rings. I’m looking forward to it!