The Woman doth protest too much!

If asked whom I resembled in the Bible, likely the least person I would mention would be Saul. But recently as the Holy Spirit has been dealing with me, I recognize that there is some of Saul in me. 1st Samuel 15 tells the story of God asking Saul to destroy the Amalekites. In 1^st Samuel 15:3 to go to attacks and destroy everything to that belongs to them,  do not spare them, put to death men, women, and children and cattle sheep, camels, and donkeys. However, Saul did not follow instructions; instead he captured, rather than destroyed God’s enemies. Instead of killing the terrorist king Agog, he spared his life and saved the best of the livestock to sacrifice to God.

 

 He believed that his ideas were somehow better than God’s. But God rebukes him in verses 22, “Do I delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices in as much as obeying my voice. To obey is better than sacrifice and to heed is better than the fat of rams.” I have been guilty of this kind of misguidance, to say the least. Unfortunately, I have cared more about what people have thought, put a greater impact of being a people-pleaser.

Now, I have followed instructions; I have been obedient. I have done what I was told, but in my heart of hearts, I am like Saul. These people that you gave me- they wanted- that was always Saul’s excuse for not following instructions. The people, the people, the people.  And, that’s me. What do people say? What do the people think? And God is saying, I am more concerned about what I think, what I say, what I require of you.

Hmm. If I am listening to God’s voice, He has made it clear that what He has asked for is obedience. He didn’t ask for my opinion. He asked me to live beyond whatever is rooted wound in me that makes people’s opinions far more inflated and valuable than his command to simply follow instructions. See, man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart, and that becomes particularly frightening because my  motivations are revealed for the crass, base things that they sometimes are- the need for man’s approval.

Scrutinizing,
MJ

On the Other Side

Some of us wonder, when, if ever, we will receive a reward. First, we must understand that there are those of us who received their reward on this side and then there are the other-siders. Yes, I know that other-siders is not a real word.  But I use it to express the idea that some people spend all their lives without ever seeing the fruit of their efforts.  It is easy to get discouraged if you're one of these people. Luckily, Jesus makes a promise to those of us who have to wait to see the reward of their labor. Jesus promises that although some people's good works are apparent while they are still living, He reminds us that some people's good works and deeds will not be revealed until Judgment Day. Paul also reminds us that "the sins of some people are obvious, leading them to certain judgment. But there are others whose sins will not be revealed until later.  In the same way, the good deeds of some people are obvious. And the good deeds done in secret will someday come to light. (I Timothy 5:24-25).

So what does one do if you are one of the other-siders? Will one continue to work joyfully when one doesn't see one's reward? Well, it's really about focus: focus on the reward or the Rewarder?
Why I am doing what I am doing? Is it for the praise of man or the praise of God? In the end, "we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad" (I Corinthians 5:10).

Galatians 1:10 says if I'm serving man then I could not be a servant of God When we do not understand this principle, we easily become disillusioned and disappointed with God in life. We ask questions such as: why do bad things happen to good people? But the real question is about payout. Some people get paid in advance in this life and others get paid in eternity. This truthful enigma answers the same dilemma about why some people get punished for evil while others seem to go unpunished? Again, the principal of the other-side provides the answer. In the end, we must trust God's ultimate sovereignty and wisdom in how He metes our both punishment and reward. We can only do so if we trust in the inherent goodness of God's nature.

Jesus told us plainly that there would be those who would be rewarded for both good or evil in this life and others who would not see their recompense, except in the life to come. So, why are we so stressed? Do we really think that God would defraud us? That God is not fair? Did He really is asleep at the wheel? He is simply a Divine watchmaker who started everything, but won't take care of us till the end?

Great news. God is not asleep at the wheel. Every tear we shed has been saved and written in His book (Psalm 56;8), so how can He forget everything we have done for Him?  Hebrews 6:10 says God is not just; he will not forget our work and the love we have shown as we continue to help his people.

I want to end with Jesus' own words as an encouragement:

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.“ So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,  so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matt. 6:1-4).

 

Holding on for the Other Side,

MJ

 

Jesus said, “I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener… Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me” John15:1-4

What does it mean to be an ornamental grapevine? It means that one has had all the life bred out of it. One is merely decorative. No birds to feast upon its ripe fruit. It is stately, a pretty adornment, but little more. Little to no maintenance is needed to maintain its respectful pose, but there is no life. Yes, the messiness of dropping grapes, the sour smell of rotten fruit, and the nasty poo of those pesky birds all averted. But, something more important and precious is also lost.

Jesus made a promise of bearing fruit, just looking good is not enough. Imagine a bowl of juicy ripe- looking fruit. Oops, it is made of wax. How disappointing. So the poser vine is the same way. It looks beautiful but it has no fruit- see that comes from living in a world of messy birds which poach, steal, and peck at one’s soul. It requires wrestling, struggle, transparency, vulnerability, and confrontation . To be real.

Here is a down-to-earth example- one that I understand from over twenty years of teaching in a variety of educational settings: you see a twenty-veteran teacher and you think:  Ah, I will benefit from the accumulated wisdom and life experience that this sage one possesses. Then, one day you enter this person’s classroom to find that the quiet and order you believed were the skills of a well-managed environment, were merely a result of a no-contest fight with the students; you discover the students are asleep, heads atop desks; others are making out; the rest are blissfully comforted by social media. So much for the lesson. 

This teacher has decided not to enter the fray. The teacher remains unaffected by life. The teacher remains stoic in the midst of the pain and misery and burdens of his charges. No attempt to discipline, mentor, redirect, or challenge is discharged. This disaffected teacher is content to poise and appear engaged- all the while dead. There is no grasping and pulling firebrands from the pit of hell where they are tumbling; no vicious tears and cries of desperation escape his lips in intercession.

But by remaining outside the fight, no growth can happen. No pruning can be done, for there is nothing to prune. One only prunes a vine to bear more fruit, and this one is bearing no fruit.  It matters not where this vine is planted: concrete, sand, or moist soil, it will produce no fruit. It will command no harvest. So, today, I must ask myself which do I prefer: to merely look beautiful or to be effective.

Blessed is the teacher who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.  That one will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. That one does not fear when heat comes; that one’s leaves are always green. That one has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7)

Confession: My delight is in God’s word and upon it I meditate constantly. I trust and have confidence in God. Therefore, I do not fear hardship. I am resilient, during troubles, storms, and calamities. I continue to bear fruit that remains and yield the fruit of the Holy Spirit (i.e., peace, joy, gentleness, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, and longsuffering- Galatians 5:22-23)

 I am planted in the moist soil system of a praying group of family, friends, ministry partners, and a stable church family to help me remain balanced and sold as my roots  gather life from the river of life which provides joy and peace in God’s presence.

Bearing Fruit,
MJ

Sneaky Thief

The Sneaky Thief

It has been awhile since I have seen with the eyes of the Spirit. I feel rather sad to admit that, but it is the truth. A few days ago, as I travelling into Worcester from a farming community, I witnessed a very agile young man climb the equivalent of a two-story truck in order to retrieve some green apples. In actuality, he was stealing them. As the truck driver drove on, completely unaware of his uninvited visitor, the young man proceeded to throw the apples out on to the street corners to the passersby who readily accepted them and asked for more. At first, I was a bit flummoxed by it all. I thought:  my goodness that’s a rather dangerous, albeit bold move, and all for some green apples.

How is he going to get down? was my next thought. The drivers in South Africa, at least in my understanding, are notoriously bad about not considering a stop sign, a stop sign; it is more of a hesitation, pregnant pause, or perhaps even not that.  And even the best drivers of those big wheelers find it difficult to come to a complete stop, without lurching back. In fact, that is what a complete stop represents-one has to stop, and the forward motion is contradicted by a backwards lurch. I begin to wonder what would be the outcome of the surreptitious thief.

When I first related the story to a friend of mine, a white South Afrikaner, she put into words my initial thought: only in Africa would something like this happen. But, let me end the story. Miraculously, the driver stopped  at the stop sign, all without lurching back, and the agile young man got out of the truck, all while holding a bag of apples with which he had absconded. Amazing!

At first, my thoughts were simply- he’s blatant enough, and really pretty foolish, to try such a stunt.  But later at night, I began to reflect that the supernatural had to really have occurred for the young man to leave the site without injury or incident.

First of all, the truck driver stopped – almost unheard of in South Africa. Second, of all, he stopped at the stop sign, not beyond it. Third of all, he stopped completely still and no lurching. Fourth of all, he stopped long enough so that although the young man had problems getting all of his stolen loot, the apples, in his bag , (they were literally dropping them back into the cart in his haste to exit the moving vehicle), he somehow managed to get his stolen wares clumsily into his bag and was still able to descend the two- story truck, climb down its sides, all without injury.

 The miracioulous. Then the supernatural.

Part II

 Wait a minute.  What if God showed me this whole farcical scene so that I could pray? So, I began to take my spiritual authority and declared just as he, the thief, had surreptitiously entered that truck, that God would use this self-same stealth weapon, this thief, to surreptitiously enter closed- nations. God would use this young man to steal souls’ from the devil’s kingdom. I begin to declare God’s will and purposes for his life. You might wonder why you haven’t been doing this before. I have been seeing things in the natural, which admittedly is rather sad.

 Back when I did my DTs in 1998, I was given the worst DTS of all times- I had to pick up used condoms, unopened bottles of beer, cigarettes, and other horridly disgusting items. During that season, Holy Spirit instructed to pray over every lip, every body part that had touched those items. Including dirty diapers. Somewhere between those beginning years in missions to this last stint, I had a bit of spiritual anemia- I forgot that God has a calling and purpose on people’s lives even while they’re being used by the enemy mightily.

I am sure that my frustration with the way South Africa does not work blinded my ability to see that God’ has a plan and destiny for the ne’er-do-wells, vagrants, and the infidels that camp out on the streets. But I bless God that He opened my eyes again, and I felt the strength of the anointing, power, and authority as I prayed for this young man. And I am certain that I will see that thief in heaven. He will no longer be known as the thief of green apples, but the thief of millions of souls, in Jesus name.

Days of Our Lives

Everyone wants to be remembered. No one wants to think of their live as  a story that is merely written in the dust of time simply to be forgotten. However, Jeremiah 17: 13 says that those who do not trust in their Lord are ultimately writing a story that will soon be forgotten: one that is written in the dust and sands of times.

LORD, you are the hope of Israel; all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust.

In order to have a memorable a story, a story that leaves an inheritance for others, one simply can not afford to live for one's self. One must live beyond the pages of the banality and mundaneness of life. To escape the meager offerings of everyday existence, one must collaborate with a Being with a higher purpose and greater initiative. We must leave off the writing to God. We must surrender the pen to His hand, to His plan, to His foresight; in other words, we leave our story to His divine script and rest in the promise that what He does with the pages of our lives will have  meaningful value in the present and eternal value after we die.

Who best to write our story than the author of our lives? God writes every day of our lives, from the moment of conception to our dying breath: "Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be" (Psalm 139:16).   Psalm 56:8 testifies that "You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."

No one wants to think that their existence has no value- that they are simply dis-remembered once they are placed into the ground, once dust has returned to dust. One wants to believe that one's days have had significance and worth and value, but how can one be sure that is the case, how can one leave a lasting legacy? Simply, by resting and trusting in the truth that God's plan and hope for a future which He promises in Jeremiah 29:11 is a reality.  It  is not a bogus promise on which He has no intention of keeping.

My heart overfloweth with a goodly matter; I speak the things which I have made touching the king: My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. (Psalm 45:1). The psalmist is able to proclaim that God's praises are the only things he needs to inscribe, for he truly believes that goodness and mercy shall follow him all the days of his life as He dwells in His King's presence (Psalm45:1).

The psalmist is not in denial: Indeed, You have made my days as hand breadths, And my age is as nothing before You; Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah.(Psalm 39:50. Selah means pause and think on these things. He is inviting the reader to recognize the brevity of life and its indeterminate length. All that remains of consequence is what we have done for others and our God.

A striking story of Jesus finds him stooping low one day to write in the dust (John 8:6). Some people think that He was cataloguing a list of the offender's sins- those hypocrites who dared stoned a woman for committing adultery, but who conveniently left the man alone. But what if Jesus was writing done all the hopes and dreams that the Creator had for these men, for that solitary woman; what if He were chronicling the story of their lives in the dust?

Adam in the Hebrew means earth. From the earth we have come and to earth our bodies return for  awhile, but our souls, the eternal parts of us live on. Our lives can tell a precious story if we surrender the pen to our Creator.

Still Being Written,

MJ

The Miserable Glorious Donkey

The Tale of the Miserable Glorious Donkey

We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what’s enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the longer we become” (Romans 8:25).

We continue to shout our praises even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate p[patience in us and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do net” (Romans 5:3-4)

A story is told about a pitiful donkey that one day fell into an open well. The donkey was merely traipsing about as was its routine until one hoof connected with a large stone, and tumble after tumble it landed in a deep well.

When his master, the farmer, came upon the downtrodden creature held captive in the well’s mouth, he tried immediately to free him, but after numerous hours without success, he decided to call his neighbors and friends for additional assistance in the hopes of freeing the miserable unfortunate creatures, all without success.,

Seeing that the donkey was old and almost infirm, he reckoned that making the well his tomb was his only option. He could always get another donkey and dig another well, but another back, one simply couldn’t get.  So he now decided to enlist the help of his neighbors and friends as cohorts in the sad burial and funeral of the poor animal.

After hours of listening to it piteous moans and braying, it seemed cruel not to put the animal out of its torturous existence. So, one by one, shovels of dirt fell upon the broken animal’s back. At first, the creature knew not what to make of the earth landing in clods and lumps upon it, but soon realized that the dirt was meant to harm, not, help its estate.

Brought back to his senses, the donkey began to shake the dirt from its dusty coat.  Still, more and more gravel landed upon its already injured body and soiled his coat. This too, it shook off again and again. Bit by bit the dirt began to fill the well, and with each shovel-full, the donkey would take a step up and closer to the well’s mouth. Eventually, he emerged triumphant from his make-shift tomb while the stupefied neighbors and his master shook their heads in utter disbelief.

I fully understand and commiserate with the plight of that donkey. I admit that at times I must shake off disappointments and disillusionments hourly, certainly, every day like the donkey.  Yet, like the donkey, I refuse to give up, to merely play dead and roll over. Life will attempt to suffocate you with deferred dreams, broken promises, and failed and relationships and commitments. It is up to us to shake of the fistful of debris, even when the next second, your back is once again covered in grime. It becomes wearying, but shake we must if we are not to be overwhelmed with despair and simply collapse under the weight of disappointments.

 

Faith is not simply a patience that passively suffers until the storm is past. Rather, it is a spirit that bears things- with resignation, yes, but above all, with blazing, serene hope- Corazon Aquino

 

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken form you- Oscar Wilde

 

I've got life on a string

Some people appear to be simply stringing it together, life that is, as they go alone. They have no plan or course set. Instead, they merely amble through their days.  God promises that a man plans his way, but God directs his path (Proverbs 16:9). The Bible declares that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is death (Proverbs 14:21).

Some people seem to take great joy in stringing others along, like collecting fish on the end of  a line, they collect mates, kids, and possessions with little thought to the effect that they have on these persons. They merely focus on meeting their needs in the present moment.

You have heard the expression, stringing people on; it means to cheat, lie, and feed people false hope. Thank goodness God never does that to us. He doe not see us as a list of possessions that proves His value and worth. He doesn't make promises which He has no intention of ever keeping. No, He pulls us tight and draws us with the strings of love kindness: "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love!" (Hosea 11:4.). He declares,"The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness" (Jeremiah 31:3).

Instead God considers us pearls, a treasured possession, which He places lovingly around His neck to display His glorious splendor to the world: "For you are a people holy onto the Lord our God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the nations" Deut.7:6). We are his treasured possession" (Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:12; 26:18; Psalm 135:3; Malachi 3:7).


Some people seem to have a string of hits in their live versus the one-hit wonder. No matter, in the end, what counts is to whom you have attached the end of your rope.


Held by Ties of Love,
MJ