What do you Expect?

This past week, I had the opportunity to hang out with our Middle and High School Students at camp.  It was an incredible experience.  Yes, I have been to camps before, but this week was very special.  I witnessed God move in both of our groups in a way that only He is capable.  Several of our students gave their lives to Christ this week and even more deepened their relationships with Him.

Before we left on Monday, I challenged some of the students to go to camp expecting something of God in their lives.  Many of them were struggling with ideas and questions about God, personal issues, home issues and other stuff.  I reminded them that God is capable of anything and everything, no matter how large or insurmountable the walls may seem.  Many of those students took that challenge and their lives and eternal destinies are forever changed because they opened their hearts to the idea that God can do the impossible.

This morning, I have been in my office at home just basquing in what happened in our students this week when a thought hit me:  “How low the expectations man has of his God?”  When was the last time you expected God to move in ways that only He could?  When was the last time you dug in and begged Heaven for a miracle fully expecting it to happen?  When was the last time you prayed for something to happen and lived as though it already has while waiting?  This is how it is to be.

Scripture tells us that with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26,  Mark 9:23, 10:27 & 14:36).  We know the words of God are true and that His power is infinite, but why don’t we live as though it really is?  Acts tells us that the early church turned the world upside down for Christ.  We read those words sometimes as though they are the glory days that can never be attained again.  Is it not still possible for God to ignite men and women to change the world for His glory?  The missing link is the earnest, faithful expectation of His followers.  We are, after all, called “Believers.”  Sure, we believe in Christ for salvation and Heaven, but why do we fall short of believing in Him for the needs of this world?

Possibly it is because we don’t expect the things which line up with His will.  The concept is that WITH GOD, all things are possible.  It must be an expectation that God is willing to meet.  All of us are guilty of spending too much time praying for selfish endeavors – those things that are not in line with the plan God has for our lives.  Could it be that we are wasting our expectations on things God is not interested in.  When we pray, we are to pray in accordance to and in submission to God’s agenda, not ours.

Amazing things happen when we want what God wants; and what God wants is simple.  God wants to be glorified.  God wants mankind to come to salvation.  God wants mankind to have a relationship with Him.  Are those your expectations as well?

I have to admit that I have expected far too little of God.  My expectations of Him are many times reduced to what He can do for me, rather than what I will let Him do through me.  The extent of our expectations of Him will be defined by the level of openness we have to His leading in our lives.  If I have no reservations as to His leading in my life, my expectations of His abilities will be limitless.

Ephesians 3:20 tells us that our God is perfectly capable to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we ask or think; and He wants to do it through His power that works in us.  Are you willing to have great expectations of Him?  All it requires is an openness to let it happen.

May we expect great things of our great God!

Offering Worship

In the 90’s, modern worship music began to take off.  A lot of churches began to use full bands and increased technology in their worship / music ministries.  Many new songs were written and produced at this time (and still continue to be today).  The modern worship music movement began to add diversity to what many churches did in their worship services.  One sustaining negative about this was the strife it produced because of the lack of understanding of true worship.  Many people began obsessessing over the styles of the music and instrumentation more than the meaning of the music or the words of the songs they were singing.

At a church in Watford, England one morning, the Pastor of the church had gotten so sick of the people in his church complaining and focusing on the style and the instruments of the music, that he decided to fire the band and remove the entire sound system from the church until the church returned to what worship was really about.  He told the church that they had started looking at the music (powerful as it was) as a performance instead of what it is supposed to be – an offering to the King of Kings.

For a long time, Soul Survivor Church had no instruments with their music.  Pastor Mike Pilavachi said the church had lost their way in worship and that the way they would get back to worshipping with their hearts would be to strip everything away.  The pastor asked a question that day – “When you come through these doors, what are you bringing as your offering to God?

What are you bringing as your offering to God?  That is a question we all must answer.  When we begin our times of musical worship (whatever style it may be), we are to be doing more than filling time or singing some “catchy” songs.  We are to sing for the sole purpose of  WORSHIPPING God.  The Bible tells us that He wants to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth.  He wants our heart in it.

The truth is that God doesn’t care if the song is sung to a piano and organ or to a guitar and full band.  God cares about the heart we sing with and whether we mean the words of praise and worship we are uttering from the lips which He created for that very purpose.  He cares if we sing at all.  He does want to hear a song – a heartfelt song of worship offered up from His people.

What are we bringing as our offering to God?  Are we worshipping Him and offering Him our heartfelt worship, or going through the motions and making light of our opportunity to praise our Creator?  Where is your heart when you sing to the Lord?

After the instruments were brought back at the church in England, Worship Minister, Matt Redman stepped up with an acoustic guitar and began to play a song he wrote during the silent experience.  This was the song he sang, which has since become a worldwide worship anthem in just about every church…

When the music fades, all is stripped away, and I simply come.
Longing just to bring something that’s of worth that will bless Your heart.
I’ll bring you more than a song, for a song in itself is not what You have required.
You search much deeper within, through the way things appear,
You’re looking into my heart….

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about You, all about You, Jesus
I’m sorry Lord for the thing I’ve made it,
When it’s all about You, it’s all about You, Jesus.

May we all be mindful of the desperate need for a genuine heart of worship!

Strong on The Rock

Right now, at the church where I pastor, the building is going through some construction to reinforce a weak foundation along the entire back portion.  The foundation was set over a weak area and over the past decade, the soil has given way, causing the back to sink or settle in a little too much.  It is a very extensive and expensive process, but once the construction is finished, the building will be stabilized by numerous steel rods and piers which have been driven all the way down to bedrock, providing lasting stability.

This whole process has refreshed Christ’s parable of the builders in my heart and mind.  You probably remember the story and the Sunday School song about the wise man who built his house on the rock and the foolish man who built his on the sand.  Both houses were built and looked great, but over the course of time and weather, the foolish man’s house began to fall as the sand washed away while the wise man’s house stood straight and tall, being built on the rock.  Christ allegorized this story to comment on the spiritual foundation of mankind.  We can either build our lives on the rock (Jesus and the Word of God) or we can build it on the sand (humanism and the secular philosophy).  The choice is ours, but the outcome of that choice is clearly forecasted in Scripture.

In the final analysis, the only thing that will matter is how firmly we are founded on Christ.  We can live a great life in many standards and achieve much success and numerous accolades, but a life lived apart from Christ will always be empty, shallow and shaky.  No one has ever been able to hold it all together without Christ and His saving grace.  Some may be able to live their whole lives on the sandy foundation, but the ultimate test of that foundation comes at death when we will all be faced with the question from our Creator, “What did you do with my Son?”  How we answer that question will determine the foundation on which we built our lives and eternal destiny.  The only acceptable answer will be that we have received Him as our personal Savior and trusted in Him for heaven.

In a physical sense, our church had been built on a shaky foundation.  We are fixing that by resetting it on solid rock.  In a spiritual sense, we can do the very same thing by accepting Christ and His merciful gift of salvation.  How will you and your house stand in the final analysis?

“My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frain,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
On Christ the Solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand.
All other ground is sinking sand.”
(Hymn by Edward Mote, 1797-1874)

The Hard Way or the Easy Way?

I truly believe that God has created us and provided salvation to us for the purpose of His glorification.  I have heard countless preachers, and have even preached myself, that God wants His children to bring glory to His name and to spread the matchless name and fame of Jesus to a lost and dying world.  In short, if we are His, we should have a testimony of being His.

In my personal devotion time this morning, I began reading through the book of Jonah.  Many are familiar with the story of the reluctant prophet and leader who ran in the opposite direction from where God had sent him.  If you note the reason why God wanted Jonah to go to Ninevah, it was for the purpose of warning these people of the dangers of living in opposition to God.  He was called to preach for the cause of national revival – a revival which would bring God’s glorification at Ninevah.  This was Jonah’s purpose.

But Jonah decided that he didn’t want this purpose, so he jumped on a boat and headed toward Tarshish, a land in complete geographical and spiritual opposition to God’s direction (can anyone other than me identify with this?).

We know the story well.  While on the boat a storm came and the crew of the ship wondered if a supernatural power had something to do with this.  When Jonah notified the men that the storm was an act of his God because of the prophet’s disobedience, the crew reluctantly agreed to throw him overboard to save their own lives.  Their pleading words with God were not to make them “…perish for the sake of this man’s (Jonah’s) life.”

What I found interesting in all of this was what was recorded in the sixteenth verse of chapter one.  After casting Jonah overboard and the storm ceased, it is stated that, “Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and offered a sacrifice… and took vows.”  These otherwise “pagan” sailors had been turned to God through this experience – an experience brought on by the disobedience of God’s man.

When we talk of God wanting the glory from our lives, we must remember that if God wants the glory, He will get the glory.  Sometimes this means that He will even seek His glory through our chastisement.  Countless souls have seen their need for salvation through circumstances brought about by the chastisement of God’s people.

Scholars have speculated that after spending three days in the belly of the fish, that Jonah was probably scared for life by the digestion process to which he was exposed.  We are not certain as to whether God protected him from these natural elements or not.  He most certainly could have.  But I can just see it now as Jonah arrives at the gates of Ninevah, reiking of dead fish, covered in seaweed and fish bile warning Ninevah to turn to God and escape His wrath.  I can just imagine Him pointing to himself and saying, “Look at me.  I tried to ignore God and failed miserably.  Don’t you do the same.”  What an amazing object lesson that must have been!

God will get the glory.  We can either be instruments of His glorification the easy way or the hard way.  Perhaps that was the title of Jonah’s message to Ninevah – “Do You Want to do this the Easy Way or the Hard Way?”

Floodproof

My friends have begun a joke, “Stay away from Derek if you want to stay dry.”  This is because of the many recent occurrences of flooding in buildings under my watch.  During my tenure as Pastor, our church basement has flooded a total of four times.  A sprinkler pipe burst in the attic at the church one day flooding the back corner of both stories of the building.  In the past month my home has flooded twice due to having our carpets cleaned and tying into a spicket that burst.  It seems that I am the “Floodstarter.”

In each flood, damage assessment must be made.  It is a process with which I am becoming ever so familiar.  The damage most always goes beyond the floor as water soaks into the drywall and wood studs leaving possibilities of mold and mildew and damage to structural integrity.  Water extraction involves many fans and dehumidifiers which are designed to extract the water you can’t see and then replacing any carpet or padding touched by the water as those materials are never the same once flooded.

This past week, we have been extracting water from half of our house after the recent flood and I have had considerable time to ponder the spiritual implications or message in all of this.  Water damage is much like sin.  It comes into our lives in a flood of temptation and soon overwhelms us with damage that can sometimes be seen right away, but most of the time leaves damage which appears for long after the incident.  The only real way to deal with the flooding of sin is to fully extract the sin – hence the need for forgiveness and ultimately, Salvation.  When we trust Christ, the Bible tells us that He forgives us for our sin as far as east is from the west.  Our sinful nature is replaced with a new nature in Christ and the old man is shed and the new man is born.  In essence, all sin is extracted, removing the ultimate damage of sin – eternity in Hell.

As a Christian, I will be the first to tell you that I have not been nor will I be perfect in my life.  I am a sinner, which is why I trust Christ.  I need Him to extract the sin and make me suitable for Heaven.  In essence, He made me “floodproof.”  Because I still struggle with sin every day, forgiveness and constant protection by Christ are wonderful benefits I should never take for granted.  When I allow the floods of temptation to take over and sin enters in, I can call upon my Savior, the Great Sin Extractor, to remove the guilt and restore me to a right relationship with Him.  That is a wonderful truth.

The greatest aspect of being a Christian is that because I am a child of God, I now have the ability to stand up to the “floods” of temptation which come my way, whereas before salvation, I could not stop the sin from entering in.  I was at sin’s mercy (which is an oxymoron because there is nothing merciful about sin).  Now, because of Christ, I can stand against those temptations in His power.  In Him I am spiritually “Floodproof” (now, if I can just figure out how to be physically floodproof)!

Get A Grip

I love the verse in John which reminds us that no man can pluck a child of God out of His hand.  This truth spells out the eternal security of the believer; and thank God for this wonderful aspect of His grace!  I have come to find in my life that eternal security is one of the most swelling motivations toward grateful service to Christ in my life.  Without the promise that I am in God’s family and will be in His family forever, I believe I would spend the rest of my life in fear of falling out of His grace.  But thank God His grip is tighter than my squirming!

…And squirm I do!  When you think about it, life is a constant struggle to get the best grip.  We strive to get a tight grip on the reigns of control – at work, at home, with the kids, over our weight, over our emotions… and over our Creator.  Sin comes as a result of mankind grasping for what we were never meant to have and only God should possess – control.  Adam and Eve’s greatest temptation to sin in the garden came from the enticing notion that if they ate the fruit, they would know as much as God, or be like Him.  Their desire to have a “grip on the reigns” pushed them over the edge into sin and ushered in pain and suffering for all mankind (to which we can all utter a collective, “Thanks alot!”).

We struggle to have the “grip” on our lives as well and direct in the way we think we should go. Most of the time it leads us down roads we shouldn’t be travelling.  This is why we are reminded so many times by our Creator that it is He who desires and deserves to have the reigns of control over our lives.  We are promised that if we would acknowledge God in all our ways, He would direct our paths (Proverbs).  Oh, but this is just so hard to do (especially if you are a control-freak like me).

One thing which helps me to willingly (but most of the time grudgingly, if I’m being honest – which I have to be), is to remember the “grip” Christ already has on me that I enjoy.  Most definitely I enjoy the fact that I am saved by the grace of God.  I enjoy that forgiveness is mine when I genuinely ask.  I enjoy that I am going to Heaven when my work on earth is over.  I enjoy the ever-abiding presence and ministry of the Holy Spirit in my life.  I enjoy the fact that nothing I could ever do will change God’s love or saving protection over me.  All of these things I enjoy because I rest in the “grip” of His saving grace.  How much more would I (and should I) enjoy offering myself to rest in the “grip” of His loving plan and control of my life?

That is the reason for the title of this blog.  “Gripped” encompasses my position in Christ (security), my goal in service to Him (submission), and hopefully, my motivation for life  in and with my Savior (relationship).  I want to be a man completely “gripped” by Christ.

Forever in His Grip,
Derek

Have they Seen Jesus Lately?

It never fails.  Easter comes and Easter goes with all the usual hype and celebration, but the morning after Resurrection Day, it seems like most of Christendom recedes back into hiding as though Christ’s resurrection was only for a 24 hour period of time.

According to Scripture, Christ remained on earth in His resurrected and glorified body for about 40 days appearing to believers encouraging them and igniting a passion inside of them so strong that it “turned the world upside-down.”  When Christ appeared to the men on the road to Emmaus, they remarked that while they were in Christ’s presence, their hearts burned within them.  There were many others who were strengthened by seeing Christ with their own eyes after the reported resurrection.

Some 2,000 plus years later, the world needs to see the evidence of the resurrection is just as needed.  Just as these believers were given reason to believe, the world needs that very same appearance of Christ to believe.  These lucky people saw Christ in bodily form, but the world today will see proof of the resurrection by viewing the “body” of Christ (the church).  We, the church are to be the proof of His resurrection.  Our ministry is to breathe life into a dead world.  Our worship is to proclaim a living Saviour and an offering of life everlasting and freedom to a world oppressed by the deadly chains of sin.  Are we showing by our passion, ministry and operation that we serve a risen Savior, or are we relaying the message to a lost world that Jesus is still dead?

Christianity is separate and set apart from every other religion and faith system in the world because we have a resurrected Lord.  Unfortunately, many who are lost do not believe there is a difference.  Maybe the reason people doubt that Jesus is alive is that they can’t get past constant sight of His dead “body”.

May we continually be mindful of the resurrection of our Saviour and the uniqueness of Christianity.  May we live in the power of His resurrection and embody that life to the world.

Party like it’s the day before Easter!

Have you ever stopped to wonder what things must have been like in the courts of Satan during the short time Jesus was in the grave?  Talk about feeling like you’re “King of the World”!  Leonardo DiCaprio must have had nothing on Satan and his minions that weekend.

Think about it… If you are Satan, you have just watched your influence take hold in the “religious” leaders (of all people) and seen humanity sink to its darkest hour as they followed the lead you placed in the jealous hearts of the Pharisees and cried out in bloodthirsty lust, “Crucify Him.”  You hear the mocking of the crowd at your immortal enemy as they spit on His ravaged body during His agonizing trip up the hill to execution.  You swell with pride as  the earthly onlookers taunt the object of your hatred while He is nailed to the cross and hoisted up in naked shame before the world.  As the final breaths of Jesus slip in and out, you get a flutter in your stomach, knowing that apparent victory is only moments away.  And then it happens – the skies darken, and earthquake tears through the earth.  The temple veil rips as the final buzzer sounds.  The final words of your opponent are weakly uttered – “It is finished.”  But you must wait a few more seconds for the confirmation of victory.  Everyone waits with fainted breath as the soldier picks up the spear and plunges it into the side of the “Defeated”.  As the water trickles out, a large burst of “Hurrah’s” and applause echo through the corridors of Hell sounding this great victory!  Jesus is dead!  Satan has won!  Satan has prevailed!  Let the victory party begin!

What a party it must have been for that weekend in Hell.

Now, stop to imagine what it must have been like the morning the party ended.  I can just picture it now… dawn is beginning to break and all the inhabitants of the demonic realm are sleeping off their revellings of the night before, when all of a sudden, everyone is awakened with a strange, loud, roaring sound and a flash of light like never seen before.  As Satan begins to stumble to his feet an ovewhelming knot starts to form in the pit of his stomach as the horrific realization begins to sweep through the throng.  The sound is the sound of the stone being rolled from the door and the light is the bright light of Heaven emminating through the opening of the EMPTY tomb!  The angel of God announces what all of Hell already knows – Jesus is alive!  He has risen from the dead just as He said!  Satan has been defeated just as was promised!  His days, not Christ’s, are now numbered!…

…GAME OVER… PARTY OVER… THE REIGN OF SIN AND DEATH OVER!!!!

Praise God for His amazing love and grace for humanity.  May we  never forget the disgrace of the cross.  May we forever live in the glory of His resurrection.

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!