"...Faster Than Others."

Well, some may know, and some may not,  that an ideal relaxing vacation, from my point of view, is to go some place far away from cities, where I can see the stars, where trucks don't release their air breaks, and cars don't honk their horns... somewhere where life is simple and I'm surrounded by unsullied natural beauty.  That's not to say I hate cities.  I certainly do enjoy visiting them and being surrounded by their pulsating life.  But when I think, "How would I like to spend a relaxing vacation," I think of getting away from all the hustle and bustle.

I love the Smokey Mountains and the Rockies, and I love wide open spaces.  I've always thought I would love to go and spend a few weeks on a ranch out west or go sailing and whale watching on the ocean.

But I got to thinking the other day.  What if I only had a short time to live?  What would I do?  My initial thought, as it relates to travel and vacation, was: Go all the places I want to go.  Travel the world.

But then I thought again.  What would I REALLY do if I only had a short time to live?  How would I live?  What would I do?  Where would I go?

I decided my first priority wouldn't be those trips I'd like to take.  In fact, they ended up pretty low on the list.

Relationships were high on the list.  Sharing my faith was, too.  The biggest thing was leaving something of value behind.

I ask you - what would you do if you weren't going to be here on this earth long?  How would you live if you were going to face your Maker and Judge very soon?

The question isn't irrelevant.  I'm not dying soon (that I know of) and it's likely you aren't either.  But we can't count on that.

I'll never forget the time I first heard a quote (which has been attributed to several different sources) along these lines:

"We're all dying . . . some of us are just doing it faster than others."

And so I ask again, how would you live if you knew your life was short?  Really, the question should be: How WILL we live since our lives are short?

~M.

Knowing Him

When I was little, my dad used to sing to my brother and me before bed.  Sometimes he would have his guitar, too, but not always.  The songs he played and sang are still songs I love to hear, even the goofy ones.  He often played/sang "Amazing Grace," "I Come to the Garden Alone (In the Garden)," "Matthew (John Denver)," "Country Roads (John Denver)," "Rocky Mountain High (John Denver)," part of "Feeling Groovy," "Blind Man (Sat By the Road)," "Jesus Loves Me," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," and "I Want to Know You, Lord."

Yesterday, for the first time, though I'd always liked the song, I added "I Want to Know You, Lord" to my list of favorite songs.

I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
Learn to seek Your face
And the knowledge of Your grace
I want to know You more

It wasn't because I heard it again.  It was because of Matthew 24:23-27 which warns about false Christs.

I got to thinking about how to identify false Christs.  I thought of John 10:1-18 which is all about Jesus, the Good Shepherd vs. False Shepherds.  I flipped over there and found this:

“1 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. 5 A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”

I realized it all comes down to knowing Jesus.  It comes down to knowing His voice so well that no imitation can fool us.  It also comes down to knowing His ways and His teaching so well that anything not in harmony with them just seems wrong.  That is what the next section of John 10 was about:

"7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and [a]have it abundantly.

11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17 For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

It's all about knowing Him.  Jeremiah 9 says that no one should boast of their might or riches or wisdom, but that, if anyone is going to boast, he should boast in the fact that he knows God and His ways.  Second Peter 1 says that we have everything we need for life and Godliness THROUGH the knowledge of Him Who called us by His own glory and grace.  Jesus, while praying to His Father, in John 17, says that the Father gave Him power to give eternal life to those He chose - and that eternal life is to know God.

Friends, WE MUST KNOW HIM!

This modern church of ours is asleep, seemingly unaware of God's priorities and not caring that the world around them is perishing in sin or that false teaching is creeping into the church.  Why?  It doesn't KNOW HIM to the extent that it makes a change in the lives of its people.  If you don't know someone, you don't know how they think or what they care about.  If you don't love them enough, even if you do know what they want, you don't care.  But if you know this Jesus, this Shepherd that laid down His life for the sheep, you WILL love Him and it WILL change you.

Know Jesus!  Know Him!  Know His voice!  Know His truth!  Know His love!  Know His priorities!  Don't be content with life as always.  Know Him enough that you really love Him.  Know Him enough that it changes you.  Love Him enough that you live for His priorities.

Yes, that will make you look weird to the rest of the world and much of the church.  But does it matter?  This life we live here is a tiny blip on the face of eternity.  We have eternity with God to look forward to.  Can't we stand being different and getting weird looks since we look toward a heavenly city?  Hasn't He called us to that?

Heb. 11:13-16
13 All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. 15 And indeed if they had been [l]thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not [m]ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

Heb. 13:13-14
13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. 14 For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.

Paul believed nothing was worth as much as knowing God.  He said in Philippians 3:

"7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of [d]knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead."

Is anything worth missing that?  Please, please, please - don't miss out on knowing Him - really knowing Him - so that you know His voice and aren't deceived, so that you have eternal life, so that you live for His heavenly Kingdom.

Make that old song my dad sang to me the prayer of your heart.


I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
I want to know You, Lord
Much more than I do
Learn to seek Your face
And the knowledge of Your grace
I want to know You more

~M.

Who Will It Be?

“Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.  If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” ~Joshua 24:14-15

We are in a battle.  We are being warred over and we are, like it or not, to be engaged in the war.  But in order to do that, we have to choose a side.

As Christians, we owe our loyalty to Christ.  But the question is whether that is merely a philosophical loyalty or a loyalty proclaimed by our actions.  You see, I once heard someone say that if the devil can’t have our soul, he will try to steal our witness. 

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.  Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” ~1 Peter 5:8

Who do your actions say you are serving?  God?  Yourself?  The devil?

“…for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.” ~2 Peter 2:19

It is your choice.  But here’s what God has to say:

“For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.  Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Therefore, DO NOT LET SIN REIGN in your mortal body that you obey its lusts, and DO NOT GO ON PRESENTING the members of YOUR BODY AS INSTRUMENTS OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you…” ~Romans 6:10-14

Now, it’s easy to give philosophical assent to something.  To mentally subscribe to a cause, yet live in a way that shows that our loyalty, in all practicality, lies elsewhere.

So I ask you: where do your actions say your loyalty lies?  Do they show a complete loyalty to Christ or to your own desires or habits?

Yes, habits.  A habit can be a master.  Remember, you are a slave, giving your loyalty, to whatever you allow to overcome you.  And habits are perhaps the most dangerous of potential masters because we serve them unconsciously.

In terms of the devil’s strategies, doing his best to blind us to sinful habits seems to be effective.  As long as we are serving something other than Christ, he is happy.  As Christians, we are called to be God’s bondservants.  But living in bondage to a sinful habit makes us slaves to sin once again.

What is to be done?

“Submit therefore to God.  Resist the devil and he will flee from you.  Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.  Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double minded.” ~James 4:7-8

Resist.  I wish it was easier.  Resistance is hard, partly because it is on-going.  It’s not a “do-it-once-and-be-done” kind of thing.  But the first step in resistance is to realize that there is someone and something that needs to be resisted.  We need to take a close look at our own lives and see where we are living with misplaced loyalty, what, besides Christ, we are serving.  It might be conscious sin or it might be unconscious habits. 

The next step is to make a choice.  These other loyalties need to go.  Make a conscious choice to serve God in whatever area of life you find is enslaved to sin.  As the Israelites started a new life in Canaan, Joshua issued a challenge.  The people had recently left an official bondage and slavery in Egypt.  Now they faced a new issue. Another potential slavery.  Joshua realized this.  He told them they had to choose who they would serve – God or the false gods of the nations around them.

Now, even when we aren’t fully serving Christ, we don’t usually think of ourselves as serving the gods of the people around us.  But think about it.  If the people around you, who have not declared an allegiance to Christ, are serving their own sinful desires and habits and are putting those things first in their lives, those things have, in a sense become their gods.  And if you are serving those same things, you are essentially serving the gods of the people around you.

So I issue Joshua’s challenge to you:  Choose today who you will serve.  Your choices are the God who sacrificed Himself to redeem you or, if you aren’t willing to fully become His servant, the sinful desires and habits of those around you.

You will serve someone.  Now who will it be?

“…for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved.” ~2 Peter 2:19

“Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.  Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  But resist him, firm in your faith…” ~1 Peter 5:8-9a