January 2, 2002
Financial problems? Relational problems? Health issues?
Our disposition (attitude) is a reflection of who we BELIEVE.
For instance, if your 8 year-old said there was a fire-breathing dragon in the front yard... you WOULDN'T believe him and so you wouldn't take any action based on his imaginative testimony. Nor would you have ANY fear based on his testimony. But... if someone you trusted said the same thing (and you sensed they weren't joking) you would respond differently.
I'm starting to see (or re-see) that WHAT we believe has a HUGE impact on how we act, think, & feel.
You plan to go to work tomorrow because you believe the building is still there and because you believe that Bill is still planning to keep paying you. He has demonstrated a degree of faithfulness in paying you and so you TRUST that he will continue to do so.
But... you do NOT live in fear of working for nothing. Nowhere in the back of your mind is there this thing that says... "I wonder if this jerk is going to really pay me or not."
So, what's my point?
Well, our King (Master) has specifically asked us to NOT be anxious about our financial/physical needs. He said that was a problem the Gentiles had, but that His followers were NOT to live like that. How were they to live instead? Put God's business first and that other stuff will be just fine.
So... how we respond from there is a reflection of WHAT we believe. We either believe the world that has been pulled over our eyes to blind us to the Truth... or we believe Jesus. We either believe in the circumstances of this manipulated shadow world... or we believe Jesus. We either believe the LIES of the devil... or we believe Jesus.
And, WHO or WHAT we believe... is the guiding, protecting, and enveloping plumbline of ALL our actions, thoughts, and attitudes.
We cannot believe God and worry at the same time. They are mutually exclusive.
To worry is to CALL GOD A LIAR. It's an attitude of heart that says... "I know about that poetry you gave us... but my situation is different. You don't understand how much debt I have... You don't understand how bad I am at managing money..... You don't understand the expectations that have been placed upon me by my wife & others... You don't understand the expectations I have placed on myself (I want to be such & such type of provider.).... add infinitum.
To Worry at ALL we must either believe that:
1) God has lied and will not really take care of me. OR..
2) He'll probably feed me, but He won't take care of all my other bills, needs, wants, and expectations.
To Believe we must declare in our hearts that: I have given my life to Jesus and I WILL have every single thing He wants me to have and not one thing less that what He wants me to have. He is God! No set of circumstances can keep me from having exactly what He wants me to Have! It's a settled fact!
AND if my "wants" do not match "His wants" then I GLADLY yield my wants on the altar--not because I'm strong or tough--but because I TRUST that IF My Abba has ANY reason to not want me to have something then I trust Him COMPLETELY and I am delighted to NOT have it. DELIGHTED!
No regrets! No second thoughts! No Anxious thoughts. No mid-life crises. No fears of the future. No daydreams of the past. Not duped for a minute by the shifter of shadows. My anchor and Hope ARE in a world that HE CAN'T TOUCH! He can't get to any of my stuff... It's not HERE! God has ALL my stuff; and it's very well protected! And He cannot Keep my Dad from giving me anything He wants to give me anytime He wants to give it to me. Try to starve me and He'll send the ravens to feed me...
And that snake CAN'T take anything from me! Because I'm not holding onto Anything.... My Father keeps all of my stuff. NONE of my heartstrings or hopes or emotional security lies in the SHADOWLANDS... and that's the ONLY stuff he can touch. He can only shift the shadows... He cannot disturb anything REAL... UNLESS I let Him through UNBELIEF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All my hopes, all my trust, all my security, all my peace, all my expectations.... are protected by the host of Heaven and buried deep in the fortress of my Father's loving heart...
If God is for me... Who can be against me?
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Written by Mike Peters
January 9, 2002
"Tasting the Powers of the Coming Age" - Part 1
By Mike Peters
A Christian: a Taster of Heaven
Ephesians 1 says a person that believes the Good News of Jesus becomes a sharer of the Holy Spirit. There are numerous other places (Galatians 3, etc.) where the assumption is made that if you have really given your life to Jesus, you are now automatically, by definition, sharing the Good things of the Holy Spirit. That's the gift. That's the deposit that guarantees the inheritance. In Hebrews 6 we find a whole list of some very basic descriptions of a Christian. "...who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God (like newborn babes, every Christian craves the pure spiritual milk of the word) and the powers of the coming age..." They have tasted the goodness of the Word of God, and they have tasted the power of the age to come. That expression is listed amongst a whole list of expressions that are just very basic, common descriptive words of a Christian. A Christian is a person that has tasted the word of God and found it to be good. A person that is a Christian is a person who is enlightened. Jesus said that His church would be built out of people who have a revelation that flesh and blood did not reveal to them, but the Father from heaven revealed. So, obviously, a Christian, a person that is part of Jesus' church, is someone who is enlightened, and who has come to share in the Holy Spirit because they believe God. They love God; they love the word of God; they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them, and they have tasted the powers of the coming age. Tasting the powers of the coming age is just one of many things that describes what a Christian is.
So, the assumption is that when this expression is used in the Bible, it is used to describe the common experience of every believer. That's the assumption the Hebrews writer makes: tasting the powers of the coming age is for every believer. It's just as common as sharing in the Holy Spirit. And anyone that doesn't share in the Holy Spirit, it says in Romans 8, isn't even part of Him. Sharing in the Holy Spirit, loving God, loving the Word of God, tasting the powers of the coming age--these are just basic fundamental things that the Hebrews writer assumed they would have an understanding and experience of.
A Gift: Entrance Into the Eternal
Titus 1 talks about the eternal life, and "before there was time, God created...." When you think of eternal life you normally think of salvation--a person that is saved receives the gift of eternal life and that "whoever believes in Him shall not perish but shall receive everlasting life." You normally think of eternal life as being salvation. But there is a broader way to look at that. A person that is saved (that is washed in the blood of Jesus) receives a gift of entrance into the eternal realm--seated with Christ in heavenly realms. It's an invitation into the Real world where everything is eternal. "Everything that can be shaken will be shaken." "What is seen is temporary, what is unseen is eternal." Eternal Life. The Unseen. You are being invited into the unseen world that is eternal when you receive eternal life. Now, something inside of you always was and always will be, and now you can relate to the unseen realm.
I was thinking about the video 'In Remembrance' when Judas was reflecting about why he made the choice he did. He said, "This is the only world I know. I want something I can touch, something I can taste. This is the only reality I know; the only world I can prove and grab onto." You can see what happens when you decide to live for the seen world. You begin to invest your priorities in what can be seen and touched and tasted. You want to hedge your bet on the seen world with your comfort, reputation, friendships in the world, possessions, man pleasing, and making sure everyone likes you. We certainly don't want to rock any boats too much. We don't want to lose our job because we stand for something so we milk toast our convictions; we water life down. That's what Judas did. That's how Judas ended up hanging himself and spending eternity in the abyss--because he chose to live in the seen realm.
A Choice: Priorities
Eternal life is to choose to live in what can't be seen. What is seen is temporary; what is unseen is eternal--whoever believes in Him shall receive eternal life. The process of salvation itself is to live in the unseen world with a priority system that reflects the fact that we know this is temporary. This seen world is a mirage, a shadow. This is not where my allegiance is going. It's not where my heart is going, and it's not where my loyalties are. I fear nothing here. I embrace nothing here. I'm obsessed with nothing here. I use the things in the seen realm, but I'm not used by them, Paul said. He went through this list to the Corinthians saying, "We are here, but so what." They are only tools, temporary tools. We have possessions, but we will not be possessed by them. They will not influence our decisions, decide what we say, decide what we do, or decide who we will confront or challenge. The seen realm won't decide anything about our decisions because what is seen is temporary, and what is unseen is eternal. Whoever believes in Him shall receive and live in the eternal, the unseen, and that's where his priority system is.
All of this is really as basic as salvation itself. It's a different priority system because it is based on the real and not the temporal. It's based on the reality and not the shadow. It's a fool who tries to eat a shadow. It's a fool who tries to buy a shadow; it's a fool who falls in love with a shadow. It's a fool who decides to befriend a shadow and have a relationship with a shadow. You are just not going to do that if you are wise, if you understand what all this really is. Your priority system is not going to be in any way controlled by, or influenced by, whether or not your boss is mad at you because you decided to stand for something. You're not going to be controlled by whether or not you have to say something to a co-worker, or someone in line at the grocery store, or at a restaurant, or at a religious facility or etc. Those things are just not issues because there is nothing of this realm that is going to control or influence our decisions. What is seen is temporary; what is unseen is eternal. And the gift of God is eternal life. That's where we live now, and those are the choices we make. Our choices are reflected not by the shadows that control everyone who lives in the Matrix, but by the reality of what's really true: who Jesus really is, and what He really stands for.
Mike Peters
January 16, 2002
"Tasting the Powers of the Coming Age" - Part 2
By Mike Peters
The Real World
It ought to be very clearly on your mind that it is incumbent upon you to make sure that every one of the children understands that this world we are living in is not the real world. It's not the real thing. It's not what we live for, it's not what we put our energy in, and it's not what we care about. The REAL world is a world that is UNSEEN. All the unseen issues of Authority, Love, Grace, Prayer, Worship, Forgiveness, Angels, Freedom, Wisdom, True Relationship, Light--THESE things are the REAL and tangible things from God's View of planet earth. And the reality of all of those things is in the unseen world--NOT the seen world.
"Mere humans" (as God called those that can ONLY see temporary and 3-dimensional objects) are BLIND to the only things that are REAL, and controlled by things that are only "shadows" and "object lessons" in the visible world. I think it is so important to see that our job is to raise up a generation that can see these things and comprehend what this planet is for. They need to see their place in the world, and need to learn how to see through the image into the reality. We want them to see through the shadow to find what the shadow points to. They need to run with all their might after the real things and not after the shadows.
Tell Them
Take this seriously. These things have to be so much a part of you that you could actually, in turn, help others to see something in this present age that is beyond the end of their nose. Teaching others to taste the powers of the coming age is a responsibility you can't neglect. "I'm going to show these people something that you, satan, don't want them to see." That's your job with co-workers, neighbors, relatives, and your children. Show them something the enemy does not want them to see. Show them that the world has been pulled over their eyes to blind them to the truth. Teach them to see what is real--that they are prisoners, slaves in this present dying, decaying age.
YET, they were born to live and to have abundant life. They were born to have true life--to taste the powers of the coming age and to be seated with Christ in heavenly realms. They are not meant to be slaves bound to this decaying, fallen world. They are not meant to be slaves to their lustful pursuits and the futility of their thinking. They are not to be bound by the empty darkness of their hearts and understanding--being slaves pushed around by hormones and moods and selfish desires that have enslaved the present age and those that have lived for pleasure.
Those people are dead even while they live. No matter how nice they are, no matter how talented they are, no matter how intelligent they are, no matter how accomplished they are in a fallen world--what difference does it make? "I'm an expert shadow maker." So what? "I'm an expert at manipulating shadows." So what? The real issue is what are you going to do in the real world, in the unseen world, which is eternal? Is that where you will live and will that be where you make your mark? Will you just push around little piles of sand your whole life and allow everyone else around you to do the same? Are you going to pat them on the back? "Oh, you did such a good job when you did basketball, or soccer, or your job so well. You pushed that pile of sand from here to there. Congratulations! You should feel really good about that. You should just drool all over yourself about how wonderful it is to push a pile of sand from point A to point B."
See Through the Mirage
We can't let our children grow up thinking that this present age has any meaning in and of itself. This life is an opportunity to stand tall and say, "I'm going to show everyone around me what you don't want them to see satan. I'm going to show them that this world has been pulled over the eyes of the whole population. Satan wants us to be a whole race of slaves that think we are having fun, that think we are free, that think our lives have meaning. Then, "Poof! Flush!" down everyone that lived for themselves, religious or not, goes into the abyss with nothing left to show for it all. Let's make sure there is a clear focus in our own hearts day-to-day and with any job that we have. The vendors, the employees, the co-workers--whoever they are, it's just an opportunity to say, "You've had a world pulled over your eyes to blind you to the truth. And I want to tell you about something that the enemy doesn't want you to know. This world is a mirage. That's a sand castle that you have just spent your life building, and it's going to blow away! It's going to dry up and blow away. It doesn't mean a thing. You need to understand there are heavenly realms. There is a whole unseen universe that you can't see because you are dead in your transgressions and sins. You are darkened in your heart and mind in the futility of your thinking. You are darkened because you have decided to worship the created thing rather than the Creator, who is ever to be praised. You've been given over to a depraved mind, and yet Jesus is extending His hand to pull you into the real world. THE ONE raised from the dead, can see things as they really are and can pull you into the real world where you are not a slave anymore."
Time is Short: Use it Wisely
That is the opportunity that lies in front of us with these children who live among us as students. They are here to be raised as a tribe, as a race. They are not here so that we can simply feed them and educate them in math, science and handwriting. This is not just another one of our jobs. We do the laundry, we go to work, we mow the lawn, we piddle in the yard, we paint the walls (and paint them again and then we paint them again), and we also educate our children. That's not really what children are for. Our responsibility is to take our live-in students and show them what life really is. Not what everybody else thinks it is, but what it really is. They are live-in students. We want to use our opportunities wisely. The days are both short and evil.
The phrase, "say a little prayer for me" has made me sick to my stomach long before I was a Christian, except back then I didn't know why. "Say a little prayer for me." What does that mean? That is so pathetic. That is so sickening--so much of a fallen world and superstition. It's disgusting. We don't teach our children to "pray," we teach our children to commune with the Godhead. That is very different. We don't teach them to say "little prayers." We teach them that this world means nothing. We teach them that this world is an illusion. And we teach them to speak to the author of the unseen realm and the conqueror of everything that is in the seen world. This little papier-m�ch� world that you can stick your hand right through is so meaningless, so trivial. We teach our children to go past that. We teach them to see past that and to talk to the God who created all of this illusion, this cardboard world that we live in. We teach them to talk to, communicate with, and present requests before the One who made all of this--the One that lives in the unseen realm. We don't teach them to say their "prayers." We teach them to look past the seen world--and THAT is what this thing called "prayer" is!
Mike Peters
January 23, 2002
Tasting the Powers of the Coming Age - Part 3
By Mike Peters
QUESTION: When you see weaknesses in your life and you want to live in that unseen realm, is it a thing that will come as you have faith in Jesus and grow in your relationship with Him? How do you position yourself other than begging God to free you from those weaknesses?
Abandonment--Letting Go
There are a couple of primary issues: One is, unless you forsake your life, you can't find it. One of the things that holds people back is that there are things they still want. They don't renounce their right to A, B, C or D. They think they have the right to A, B, C or D. "I expect and demand and have a right to be happy." "I expect and demand a right to be successful, or my right to provide a good living for my family. I will not be poor. I refuse to be poor." Someone I know that has gone the way of the abyss, a very prominent thing on his mind always was, "I WILL provide for my family... I will be successful in business... I will. I will." He didn't abandon that, and it rotted him like a cancer. Then other things began to show up later on, but it was an incredibly excessive thing. You could see a grain of insanity in him come through whenever that area came to the forefront. There was a kind of insanity. He would not let go of his right to be successful. Maybe when he was a little boy his daddy didn't do very well in business and he was so ashamed that he didn't have everything all the other little boys in school had. I don't know what the history was, but I know that was an obsession for him. Being successful and demanding the right to provide a good living was something he would not let go of based perhaps on something he grew up in, and he wouldn't repent of it.
Perhaps my favorite relative died young when I was a five-year old. She was my favorite auntie and I just loved to go to her house every summer--and then she dies at age 45 of a heart attack because she was obese. So, from that point on, I'm obsessed with health food, or obsessed with exercise because I was hurt and I had a priority system that I refused to repent of. I am grabbing onto this thing, hedging my bet, and making my world the way I want it to be. I pray about these other things, I ask God, beg God about these other things because there is something I want that I won't forsake. I won't die to it. There is some right that I have, some area of my life that I have to protect myself in. I have to be God and know good and evil and control my destiny.
Maybe there is one seemingly small area--"I always wanted to have five children, and I will have five children" or "I never wanted to have very many children. I will not have very many children because I grew up in a big family and it was a mess. I will not do that." " I don't want to be a blue-collar worker. I will be a white-collar worker because my dad embarrassed me. He was a blue-collar worker. I'm going to be a white-collar worker. I will not quit this job because then that will mean...." If you are obsessed with any area of your life, no matter what it is, it will rise up to kill you.
There was a sister that was so afraid to take her baby to watch the brothers play basketball because a ball might hit the baby or something "could" happen. That's a kind of obsession that will rob a person of their inheritance. That's why it was so important that she go and take the baby to the basketball game. Guess what happened the first time she took the baby? Her baby got hit with a ball, but she was okay. Everyone lived. The point is: God has this sense of humor in it all, but He is also absolutely totally committed to us that if we hold on to things and demand our right to anything, then all the other areas of our life will lie in ruin. We will be corrupted, decayed, and unfulfilled because He will only give us little glimpses of His blessing. It won't be the supernatural highway He longs to give, but only little glimpses of His blessing.
There are a lot of people that defy God in this. "I will too find it because I will try so hard, and I will do so many good deeds, and I will learn so much, and I will do this and that. I will defy You, God. I won't forsake this one thing, but I will do so many other things that You will have to receive me. You will have to bless me. You will have to give me a highway into the realm of eternity and reality. You will have to receive me because I won't forsake it. I have the right to this. I can expect this. I can demand this. I'm too afraid to give this up. I want this too bad, and You ought to understand that I can't give this up. I won't let go of that. You need to understand that about me, because after all, you know about my hurts and fears. But meanwhile, I will not forsake this thing, but You have to give me life. You have to free me from bondage and slavery and fear and emotion, etc. But, No, I'm not going to trust You enough to let go."
Abandonment is essential in order to see supernatural realms and in order to experience supernatural freedoms in these other areas of your life. Abandonment is an incredibly important part. I've seen again and again how a lack of abandonment has kept people earth-bound and limited and shallow. The futility of back and forth, in the storm, out of the storm, unstable living comes oftentimes from this refusal to abandon some thread of life that is almost unspeakably small, and indescribably subtle. But they know in their heart that they are too afraid or unwilling or untrusting, and that they won't let go of this one thing. Like the rich young ruler, "one thing you lack." They are hamstrung.
If you want to defeat a cavalry, just cut the hamstring on the horses because they can't do anything. They are still alive, but they can't do anything anymore. They have no energy, no power, and no thrust left. That's how a lot of people live their whole lives. They are hamstrung. They are alive and breathing, but there is no thrust, no power. They can't gallop through the meadow. They can't jump over the creek. They can't live the kind of life God intended them to. They're hamstrung. They are breathing, their brainwaves are still there, but they can't be all that God wants them to be because "one thing they lack." They will not forsake their life. They have to hold onto it and protect themselves in one area or other.
Faith--Fixing Your Eyes
There is another issue here that is so dependent upon this heavenly seeing and living: all things are possible to those who believe. You have to believe in the other realm. You have to have your eyes fixed on things that are eternal and not temporary. Your eyes have to be fixed there. Seeing Him who is invisible, Moses forsook the riches of Pharaoh. He saw into the other realm and believed that was reality and therefore could let the other stuff pass by without taking his attention, or controlling his emotions, his feelings or his thoughts. A lot of this, as it says in Romans 6, is reckoning yourself dead to sin but alive to Christ. Why? Because the nature is that the Son of God was manifest to destroy the works of the devil. I feel tempted, but am I really obsessed with it? Do I have to be controlled by this? Or can I have weapons of righteousness in my left hand and my right, supernatural weapons for the tearing down of strongholds? Not that we won't be opposed by the enemy, but we have to believe with all of our heart that the prince of this world has come, but he has nothing in me. We should be able to drive right past that temptation and say, "That is not me. I don't need that. That is not who I am. I am not a slave to food. I am not a slave to fear or paranoia. I am not a slave to my children or being afraid for their health or afraid for my health. I am not a slave to those things. Nothing is impossible for those who believe. Nothing is impossible for those who believe.
The people who believe are the people who are so connected with the unseen realm that they don't do anything apart from God. They are so dependent upon the things the Father says and the things the Father does, that they don't do or say anything that HE is not doing and saying. As they live watching Him they bind on earth what has been bound in Heaven. Those who believe are watching what is happening in Heaven. They are binding on earth what has been bound in Heaven. When people live truly believing that heaven reigns and that the unseen world dominates the seen world, then they are able to believe that "all things work together for the good to those who love Him and are called according to His Purposes." They are able to live without being tossed to and fro by every wind because they believe, and live in, and see, and are dependent upon, and totally confident in, the unseen realm. We are to live by faith and not by sight. To really, honestly, with every fiber of our being believe that we are not limited. Walking on water is not impossible for you any more than it was for Peter. Okay?
The things that we are seeing and experiencing? God can infiltrate the seen world and manipulate what we call "reality" in the human existence because it is truly just a shadow. He can manipulate the seen world for His purposes. He rules everything, the scriptures say, for the Church. He rules everything for His Church. So part of being able to see the miracles of God and to overcome temptations is to absolutely, totally, be convinced of God's Sovereignty over these things. In other words...Faith.
Faith is what allows us to overcome the world. This is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Not "even our willpower," but even our faith. It's believing that He is and that He rewards those who diligently seek Him. "The work of God is this: to believe on the One He has sent." This whole thing isn't about the battle of willpower and fleshly substance and hormones. This is a battle of truth and light. "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by Me." There is but one way to overcome the shadow world: to believe what is really Real. Abandoning ourselves to the Truths of God in the unseen realm--therein lies the power to experience what mortal man cannot. "Reckon yourselves dead to sin." That is believing that just as He died to sin, and as we submerge ourselves in Him, we too then are dead to sin. The temptations? The prince of this world has nothing in us.
So, part one of the answer to your question is abandonment. Part two is absolute total faith and confidence in God and living in that confidence that says, "I know it seems this way, but that can't be right. That can't be so. I refuse to accept that." You must believe truth rather than believe the lie. We have these supernatural weapons to tear down strongholds. What strongholds are we tearing down? Those things that exalt themselves against the Truth. The things that exalt themselves against Jesus and against His authority. That's what the supernatural weapons are for-- the tearing down of strongholds. The strongholds are built by lies. They are built by things that aren't true. They are built by what seem to be natural laws, habits, past histories and weaknesses we have, but in Reality we don't have those weaknesses. We don't have those limitations. We don't have that frailty. Those things are lies based on the shadow world. The reality is in Christ, Christ in you. What is "Christ in you"? What is that? That's the hope of Glory! That's not the hope of weakness and failure. Christ in you is the exploration of a world that is without fear, that is without sin, that is without weakness, and that is without failure. It is without selfishness, without pride and loneliness and all that other junk. We are not afraid anymore of giving everything to God. We believe that every spiritual blessing, everything that ever could be and ever will be, is in fact in Christ Jesus. And we are in Him, if we've abandoned ourselves. Those are the two things: abandonment and faith. The prince of this world has nothing in us with those two things lying there at the altar in front of us.
Can we fail in spite of those? Yes, but only when we lose sight of those things. Will we fail? Probably. Why? Because we probably will take our eyes off of those things for any number of reasons. Do we have to fail? Absolutely not. Have I? Have you? Absolutely. Do we "have to" anymore? It's not possible that we "have to." Expecting to fail defies everything in the Scriptures. You can go back and look at testimony after testimony in the written record of the scriptures and see the men like Moses and Elijah and David and Paul. Go right down the list and you will see those two things in their lives--abandonment and seeing the unseen world and putting all of their confidence there. Those two things are what sustained them. Those two things are what catapulted and propelled them, not the fact that they never failed or never had temptations. Those two things are beyond question. You can't look at those men and say they never sinned, never made any mistakes, and at every point in time were pillars of strength and perfect execution. You can't say that. But you can say the substance and essence of their lives were those two things--Abandonment to God and Absolute Confidence in Faith.
You see the substance that was in David's heart when he said, "Give me a sling shot. That's all I need. You will die, big guy." That wasn't something he mustered up reading a few bible verses, and then stammering out there to see if he could maybe pull it off. There wasn't any doubt in his mind. Because he was abandoned, and because he saw into the unseen realm and trusted, he went right into it. That's what created David. That's what formed Moses. That's what gave substance to Abraham. An abandonment and total trust in the unseen and not the seen. What was seen wasn't important to them. What was unseen was what they were about. That was God's measuring rod of those men, and that will be God's measuring rod for us too. The things men judge by--even as Samuel was selecting David--that's not how God makes these decisions. God makes His decisions by abandonment and faith.
QUESTION: If you want to know what you have not yet abandoned to God, He will show you if you truly want to know, won't He? If there are things left in your life and you are honest with God that you want Him to tell you, there is no way that you will be deceived, right?
Yes, but you definitely won't like what He shows you or it wouldn't be an issue. You will not like what He shows you, and you probably won't like how He brings it about either. But anytime you want to know, anytime you want to be tested to the limit so that you can explore the depths of the riches, He will take you there. In the meantime, you don't have to sweat it. The abandonment isn't that you have already faced everything you could ever face. Abandonment is that you are willing to face anything that would ever come up... whenever, if ever. So, you don't have to sweat the now. Just because the new thing, whatever it is, hasn't come up yet.
I don't know what the next thing is that God is going to test me in, but I have to lay it all at His feet in trust and abandonment. Whatever that may be, I must face that when the day comes. I'm not waiting for some big new test and some big new event. Things will come as they come, but I need to be postured as abandoned. In the meantime, everything that I do know about I have to lay at His feet. I'm not sweating it... because in the meantime, I'm His child. It's not a game; it's a relationship. I'm forever His, and He loves me.
Mike Peters
January 30, 2002
How Great Thou Aren't
By Steve Tomkins
I was having a bad day in church on Sunday. I have to say, I've enjoyed worshiping in all kinds of churches in my time, but this wasn't one of them.
The worship leader started with the kind of grin you need cosmetic surgery to achieve at this time on a Sunday morning, strummed a cheery chord on his guitar and called out, "Are you happy?"
The congregation mumbled something non-committal. The worship leader hitched his genetically modified smile up a notch, gave us another jolly strummity-strum on his guitar and cried, "I said, are you happy?"
"Yes," replied the flock, putting some effort into sounding convincing this time. But not enough. "That's not good enough!" he chuckled. "Come on, we're in church! So. Are you happy?"
"YES!!!"
At which point I stood up and called out, "I'm not happy. And the only thing I can think of that would make me happy is ramming that guitar down your throat." Actually, I didn't. I just sat there with my arms folded, looking sulky. But the thought was there.
It wasn't a good start for me, and as the service progressed it just wasn't working. I found myself listening to the words that I was singing and wondering what they had to do with my life.
The problem was, like coat-hanger mouth at the front, these songs were all so... well, happy. There were gung-ho marching songs full of confidence and victory, hymns of thankfulness and joy, choruses of serenity and delight.
Anything about feeling miserable or worried was in very short supply. The only time they mentioned any of life's problems was to say that Jesus has sorted them all out.
"How true is this to my life?" I wanted to know. Not that I felt I was at the end of my rope and about to start blubbing, or even that I was particularly grumpy. But there was enough on my mind to make the impulse to dance as David danced pretty easy to resist. So why are there no songs saying...When I stand in your presence today, I feel just about OK.
At this point you may be saying, "Hold on there one doggone, cotton-pickin', chicken-lickin' minute" - or something like that. "Church isn't about feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing in your own problems. It's about focusing on God, on who he is and what he's done, and in his presence our problems disappear. So pull yourself together, you moaning minnie."
But I disagree. I think there's something wrong with our worship, and here's why. When the sermon came, it was one of those preachers that perform the miracle of making the notice sheet suddenly seem interesting. That wore off soon enough, and I picked up a Bible and found myself leafing through the Psalms. The contrast with what we had been doing for the last 40 minutes couldn't have been more startling.
Yes, the Psalms are full of gung-ho marching songs, hymns of joy and all the rest. But there is also a whole different and darker side. There are songs of depression, bitterness and despair. Songs that accuse and complain to God. It's stuff worthy of Leonard Cohen with a bad case of Seasonally Adjusted Disorder.
Lord I call to you for help;
Every morning I pray to you.
Why do you reject me, Lord?
Why do you turn away from me?
(Psalm 88:13-18, Good News Bible)
The point is not just that this is in the Bible, but that it is - believe it or not � a worship song. The book of Psalms is the hymn book of the Bible, and these things were sung in worship. This is the Songs of Fellowship of the Old Testament. Hymns for Yesterday's Church.
In the case of Psalm 88, quoted above, we're even told the name of the tune: "Mahalath Leannoth". We don't know how it went, but as it translates, "The Suffering of Affliction", you can't imagine it was particularly upbeat. It also says it is a psalm of The Sons of Korah, who may or may not be the group who had a hit with it.
And there are plenty more where this came from.
So why have these songs of complaint, or anything like them, failed so comprehensively to make it into our own worship? Why does our worship only reflect half of our experience? I can think of a bundle of possible reasons. (Watch me shoot 'em down.)
Rotten things don't happen to Christians. Yeah, right.
When rotten things happen to Christians, we're so spiritual that we don't let them get us down. I suspect that's even further from the truth.
Rotten things do get us down, but we don't think they should, so our songs pretend that they don't. I think this is getting warmer. Surely our worship should be honest if nothing else is.
Church is seen as a pick-me-up, an escape from the problems of life. I hope not. This is not a good way to deal with problems or a good way of relating to God.
We don't want to sing songs about feeling bad and far from God, because half the people in church are happy and don't feel like that. But if that's the case, why do we sing songs about feeling really blessed and knowing that Jesus has got everything in hand, when half of us don't feel like that?
We believe doubt and complaining have no part in worship because they are not honouring to God. But whoever wrote the unhappy psalms knew that worship is bringing our real selves to God, our whole selves. It seems that he can take it.
The fact is that Old Testament worship shows up a startling deficiency in our own, and someone ought to do something about it. Such as?
For one thing, we could be a bit less scared of reading from the Psalms in church. Churches which follow a lectionary are doing this already, and others could follow their lead. Then worship leaders could lead us in prayers of complaint and questioning, using the Psalms as a model. If we really can't find anything to complain about, we can do it on behalf of someone else. In a world where hunger kills, that shouldn't be too hard.
Lastly, songwriters could try getting some songs from the angry Psalms. And as most of them have a happy ending, they wouldn't have to be quite as depressing as Leonard Cohen.
Steve Tomkins
www.ship-of-fools.com