There Is a Place

Exodus 32 is one of the most shameful moments in the history of the people of Israel. After Yahweh God had brought them out of the land of Egypt, after he had appeared to them on Mt. Sinai and given them his commandments for holy living, and after he had parted the waters for the people to pass safely through they turned away from him while Moses was on the mountain, and they formed a god of the Egyptian gold they had taken with them. A god more like the ones Yahweh had shown to be inferior than reflecting anything of the glory, mercy, patience, and omnipotence Yahweh possessed.

In the very next chapter Moses makes a bold request. SHOW ME YOUR GLORY. This is what he asks of God. Maybe he thought he had earned it for all he had put up with in leading the people. Maybe he had his own doubts and wanted some sense of conformation. Maybe he just wanted to be closer to the God who had performed all these miracles in the presence of the people of Israel. The Scripture does not give us a reason for Moses making this request. It simply records the request.

It records God’s answer as well. NO ONE CAN SEE ME AND LIVE. The glory of the Lord is simply too awesome for finite humanity to endure. We simply fall, and maybe quite literally, fall apart in its presence.

What God says next is tremendous. THERE IS A PLACE NEAR ME WHERE YOU MAY STAND ON A ROCK. I am still exploring all that sentence may mean. Sure, it could be something as simple as identifying a specific spot of ground. But, somehow, I don’t think so. You see Moses’ request was prefaced by a concern about whether to move on from Mt. Sinai or not. His comments included telling God that it would be pointless for the people to leave this place and journey on towards the Promised Land if Yahweh would not journey with them. God assures Moses that his presence will indeed go with him and with the people of Israel. Then he does the most amazing thing ever. He grants Moses’ request.

God puts Moses on that symbol of stability and foundation and passes ALL  his glory in front of Moses only allowing Moses to actually see the most remote part, something like the sunset at the end of the bright and glorious day.

Have you been in turmoil? Has life itself almost beaten you down flat? Jesus Christ says, THERE IS A PLACE NEAR ME WHERE YOU MAY STAND ON A ROCK. There is a place where solid footing may be found, a place where the currents of shifting opinions cannot reach and erode. Christ calls you to come near to him. He will allow his glory to pass in front of you. You may only see the most remote parts. You may not comprehend all that you see, but though the sunset at the end of the day may not be as bright as the sun directly overhead at noon, those sunsets are among some of the most glorious and beautiful sights you will ever see. Come unto the Rock that is higher.

Pastor Craig

Contentment

This past week I was studying Philippians 4:11-13. For those who (almost all of us) don’t have those verses branded into your memory:

. . . I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who give me strength.

Contentment seems to be a vanishing commodity in our society. People are always on the move looking for something higher, better, more this or less of that. The most compelling purchase tag for a product is “New & Improved!”

Now, I’m not advocating stagnation. There is certainly something to be said for “making something of yourself.” We should strive for excellence, but excellence is not what I’m talking about here. What this is about is the constant search for something new. It is simply motivated by boredom and not a striving for excellence.

It seems that Paul has learned something most of us have not, how to be satisfied in any and every situation. Paul’s life was not easy, not by a long shot. He was arrested and imprisoned for trying to tell people something as simple as God loved them. He was shipwrecked. He was beaten by those who did not want him to preach his message and left alongside the road for dead. He had been hungry and in need, and he had been well fed and cared for. He was well aware of both extremes.

It was not a situation where everything was comfortable for him. Contentment in the midst of extravagance and comfort doesn’t really count as contentment, does it? Many of us wish for even a few of life’s finer things. Paul says, “I have had them, and I’ve done without them. I can take ‘em or leave ‘em.” Most of us would choose to take them.

But what about this Paul? What is the secret to contentment in the midst of poverty, unemployment, loneliness, and upheaval? Unfortunately, he doesn’t give us a simple multi-step program to achieving contentment. He does give us a clue though. I HAVE LEARNED.

It wasn’t easy. It took lots of work. The road to contentment is not an interstate highway, complete with rest stops and lots of bathroom breaks. No, the road to contentment is an uphill struggle, recognizing what is of true importance. What Paul learned was there was something so much more important in life than things. Paul had a mission to carry the Gospel to a lost world. Once Paul had his life purpose revealed to him everything else fell into place.

God has a mission for you as well. It may not seem as grand or glorious as Paul’s calling to travel the world as a missionary, but it is just as important because it is yours. You may not find it easily, but when you do – you will find contentment as well.

Pastor Craig

KISS

I would think that all of us are familiar with the simple acronym KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). There are so many things in life that would be a lot less frustrating if we would follow that one rule. We do often try to complicate things. One of the clearest and best examples is in our prayer life.

Think about it for a minute. Sometimes people are terrified of praying in public. Others are quite comfortable with it. Usually, those who find this difficult have some aspect of worry regarding sounding stupid, not knowing what to say, or just plain “doing it wrong.” How could we possibly pray wrong?!

Jean-Nicholas Grou says, Be simple in your piety. Do not rely upon your intellect or upon subtlety and depth of your reasonings. Real piety is not concerned with thoughts but with the affections. Let your heart tell you what you wish to say to God and say it simply without bothering too much about the words; it is ridiculous to be eloquent in His presence and take pride in prayers that are well composed. We are simply talking to our friend. We spend very little time planning our conversations with our loved ones; they just happen. They flow out of the concerns and feelings within our heart. This should be how we pray to our God as well.

When it comes to our encounter with the Almighty it is difficult to do better than the type of prayer Jesus taught – secret and solitary. It is in the entering into our private moments that all else is stripped away and we stand totally transparent before our God, the one who knows all the things we want to cover up and keep hidden, the one who knows our sins before we can confess them, the one who sees beyond the formality of our composed and rehearsed prayers and simply wants to commune with us as we are. Praying in private centers our mind and heart on the object of prayer alone. It strips away all pretenses. Our dramatic words are futile with God; we cannot make him think we are more pious than we really are. When we go into a room and shut the door to pray, we face our own naked souls in all of their sin and beauty, and gradually our focus shifts from ourselves to God.

This is how our Lord wants us to appear before him. Whether we are praying in public or private, He wants us to come to him in our true nature, recognizing that He is constantly forming and reforming that nature, that He is fully aware of all our flaws and failings. In each and every prayer, we come before God, not to impress Him but to communicate with Him. It is in that transparent time that we know and are known. It is in that time that we are allowed brief glimpses of ourselves as God sees us. In these brief glimpses are see the sin-filled soul, but we see it transformed into a child of the King, holy and set apart, commissioned to carry the Gospel to the oppressed and downtrodden, messengers of light traveling in a world of darkness.

Pastor Craig

The Armor of God

Put on the whole armor of God, so that you may be able to stand (Ephesians 6:11).

I recently read an article talking about the creation of “the warrior spirit” in the minds and hearts of our military men and women. It said, in part, “They must live fully in body and mind, aggressively engaged in the particular cause of defense.”

We too are called to be warriors. However, there is one very important item of which to take note. The purpose of armor is not offensive. The whole purpose of armor is defensive. You and I as soldiers of the cross are, or will be, under attack. We are not allowed to sit on the sidelines! If we are indeed involved with living out the call of Christ in the world around us, the Scriptures inform us that WE WILL INDEED ENCOUTER  OPPOSITION! We are called to preach justice in an unjust world. We are called to forgive our enemies when conventional wisdoms cries for us to destroy them. We are called to give to the ungrateful. We are called to do great things even when it seems impossible with the resources we have. We are called to push through the comments of the author of lies who tells us that we are too weak, too small, too ill equipped, too old, too young, too. . .Well, I think you get the idea. We are told to prepare ourselves to stand firm when all sorts of doubts and fears assail us. We are called to be ready. After you have done everything to stand. Stand firm then. . .(Ephesians 6:13).

The only offensive weapon given to us is a sword, The Sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. With all this armor to protect us we will survive, but if we are to win the day we must become acquainted with our offensive weapon. Is your sword more than an antique hung over the fireplace for display, kind of like your great grandfather’s favorite shotgun? Do you know how to use it? Are you familiar with how to clean it, how to load it, how to aim it for maximum efficiency? If you aren’t, you will survive because your defensive armor is strong, but do you want to do more with your Christian life than just survive the beatings the world can inflict on your faith? What soldier worth anything to his captain would run into the battle with ONLY his defensive armor in place, carrying no weapon to win the day for his commander? It is time to do weapons training. It is time to get to know that book that is in the drawer of the nightstand next to your bed, or on the coffee table, or up on the shelf in your library. It is time to open to read something other than the family tree that is posted in the front, to do something more with it than to add a baptism, a marriage, or a passing to the list already there.

In the year ahead, we will not be standing on the sidelines. We will take an active part in the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ on this earth. There are no reserves in God’s army. We are all active duty.

Pastor Craig

Reconnect, Recommit, Rejoice

This last week the Committee on Ministry of Grace Presbytery called and asked me to moderate the session of Central Presbyterian Church in Waxahachie. Their pastor, Rev. Anna Whitehead, is leaving to move to Alabama and they need someone to step in until such time as an interim can be found. It doesn’t take much, just one extra meeting per month, and it does give me the blessing of getting to see how another church works and conducts its business.

The first meeting I attended was Thursday evening. I was privileged to see a church dream. The session has been asked to create a vision statement, something that says what they feel God is calling them to do and be in the corner of the world where God calls them to minister.

Unfortunately, most times these statements are written simply to meet the requirements to get the church’s Church Information Form (CIF) circulated through the denominational channels. It rarely sees the light of day and is not generally implemented when the new pastor arrives on site.

How sad! To wrestle with the Almighty as Jacob did beside the river and to finally catch a glimpse of ultimate glory, only to leave it sitting in a filing cabinet along with old financial statements, meetings notes, letters of transfer, and previously paid utility bills.

All of us are the people of God trying to understand the vision and mission intended by the work of God to minister to the world God created. Once we find that vision, when we have a word from the Lord, we should move forward with determination. This isn’t true only for churches going through the process of filling out forms to find a new pastor. This should be the goal for each and every church each and every day.

This Sunday of Reconnect, Recommit, and Rejoice is something that we should pursue as a vision beyond a program for a single Sunday. We should be about seeking continual connection, transformational commitment, and enthusiastic rejoicing. As we are striving to do that we live out the call of Christ in our lives.

It is back to church, back to basics, restart Sunday. It is the time we ask ourselves, “If we could transform our church into anything we want, what would it be?” It is also the time we ask the follow up question, “Realizing that God gives us the grace and power to transform ourselves and our church into that which we dream it to be, why haven’t we already done it?”

It is time to heed the command to the Israelites and get up and move forward. They almost chose to stay still, cursing the darkness but refusing to light the candle of God’s grace. May we move more quickly to respond!

Pastor Craig

What I Miss About 9/12

None of us would ever wish anything bad to happen, even though great good may be seen in the aftermath of the evil. I get the privilege of writing to you on the anniversary of 9/11, arguably one of the darkest days in the history of our country. All of us were changed on that day. Some of us lost loved ones. Almost all of us knew someone who knew someone who lost someone dear to them. In the aftermath, we have endured 10 years of war.

In between 9/11 and the years of war was 9/12, one of the highlights in all of our nation’s history. It was a day when people poured forth from their homes to respond to the needs of their fellow citizens. Thousands upon thousands stood for hours to donate blood. Tons of food and clothing were taken in drives across the country. Hundreds marched immediately to their local recruiter’s office, some even lying about their age, to enlist in the defense of our country and see those who had planned such an evil upon our country brought to justice.

The best of all was the outpouring of people seeking meaning and purpose. Who could have done such a thing, and why? If there is a God up in heaven, and if He is God of the entire universe, what was He doing on that awful morning? Those are questions we will never fully understand. We have probably come to our own personal answers and that is the best we can do.

The important thing was that we gathered to the one place where we might possibly find meaning, purpose, and answers – the Church. In ten years since, we have gotten comfortable again. We have stopped looking for answers. We have stopped praying for country and countrymen, or at least the intensity of our prayers has greatly diminished. We have gone back to being Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Tea Partiers, or whatever else we may claim to be instead of being brothers and sisters. Our fellow countrymen in need have again become an inconvenience. Church is something that takes up our Sunday mornings. I would never want to go through another 9/11, but I sure do miss the positive aspects of 9/12.

Yet, God is still there. He still waits for your questions even if He doesn’t always give the answer you want in the detail for which you were looking. He wants to heal your hurts and pains. He has never left you, and never will. He has been faithful in His waiting for you. The question is, “What have you and I done with our relationship with Him over the same time?”

Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O Lord, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. (Psalm 36:5-7 NIV)

Pastor Craig

Living With God

Do you believe that people can experience the presence of God as our Bible heroes did in the stories we love so much? I do. However, at the same time, I must say that I find those experiences rare. I think they were rare back in Bible times as well. We need to remember that the Bible tends to be a book ABOUT and FOR such encounters as opposed to everyday life, go to the store, pick up kids up from school encounters.

I think we are meant to live in an ongoing conversation with God, speaking and being spoken to. Rightly understood I believe that this can be seen in God’s visits to Adam and Eve in the Garden, Enoch’s walks with God, and the face-to-face conversations between Yahweh and Moses.  We see these times as highly exceptional moments in the religious history of humanity. Aside from their obviously unique historical role, however, they are not meant to be exceptional at all. Rather they are examples of the normal human life God intended for us: God’s indwelling his people through personal presence and fellowship. Given who we are by basic nature, we live only through God’s regular speaking in our souls and this “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

While we no longer literally live with God in the garden, we have available to us many other methods of conversing with him. We communicate with God through worship, Bible study, communion, and prayer, to name only a few. You may have other ways you hear the voice of God. Take some time and list those many ways God has spoken to you and recognize how close he really is.

There are also hindrances to hearing God speak to us. We may have preconceived notions God has to fight his way past before we can hear the still small voice whispering his will and work to us. Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-13) found all sorts of ways to block God after their initial sin. Rather than admit their guilt and ask for forgiveness they immediately proceeded to the blame game, finally even blaming God for their failure.

The conversation God had with Adam and Eve hardly represents humankind’s proudest moment. They had just deliberately disobeyed the only rule God had given them. How would you have reacted if you were there? It is easy to think from a distance that we would have rejected that temptation. They had everything – companionship, food, meaningful work, face-to-face conversations with God. Before you are too hard on them, picture God coming to look for you after your sins, knowing all your flaws and failures. How far do you think you would run? The key is that God still came looking, wanting to be in relationship with them, wanting that personal and intimate relationship with them even more than they wanted it with him! Amazing!

Pastor Craig