Cats and Dogs

John 13:34 (NIV)  “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

            In a recent scientific study it was determined that cats do not love their owners – at least not like dogs love their owners. The study - reported in Discover magazine October 1 – concluded…         

 “We’re pretty sure this post is going to be hated by all the feline fanciers out there, but this study is just too good not to share. Here, researchers applied a test developed for use with children to investigate the relationships between cats and their humans. The test can determine whether children, and apparently animals, view their caregivers as a source of safety in a threatening environment. It turns out that using this metric, dogs are “securely attached” to their owners, but cats are “not necessarily dependent on others to provide a sense of security and safety.” But that doesn’t mean their owners aren’t dependent on their cats for warm fuzzies in a crazy world!”

            This is probably not news to pet owners. Most of the cats I’ve known have a certain independent attitude and don’t mind isolation. Most dogs, I’ve observed, thrive on companionship and don’t seem to care much for isolation. They can get lonely, whereas cats don’t seem to mind being left alone. I don’t care to take a position on whether “cats rule and dogs drool” – or vice versa, but the difference is interesting.

            Some Christians are like cats: aloof and isolated. They think they don’t need community. In extreme cases they avoid church altogether. I believe such persons may actually be a different species than Christian. I do not think it is possible to be a Christian and isolate yourself from the people Jesus has made to be your brothers and sisters. Forced isolation can’t take the faith from you, but a self-imposed one communicates what you think of a Savior who created and loves His church.

            And some Christians are like dogs: hungry to share affection, loving, faithful, interactive, social, and not wanting to miss anything. In some cases they may come on too strong or be a bit insecure in themselves – perhaps even somewhat clingy. But the companionship drive is very strong and rewarding to both the owner and the dog, and the companionship drive, or fellowship, in Christ is very rewarding to believers.

            Human beings need both – alone time and fellowship. Married couples need both. And Christians need both. If you are isolating too much, and you have little or no interaction with other believers, give some attention to the red flag raised by that. You were made for community and saved to be part of the family of God in Christ. “Family” requires and offers relationship that is healthy. But God also is at work in your inner life, which may be nurtured by His Word and prayer, along with times of worship when it’s “just me and God”. And, by the way, that’s as isolated as you can possibly get. Because of God’s existence and His presence, you can never be truly alone. You may shut Him out, but you cannot “shoo Him” away or dismiss Him from your presence. But it can feel great to get away from people and busyness and stress to care for your soul in a quiet place. May the Lord renew you in both dimensions of your life.

Colossians 3:12-17 (NIV) ¹²  Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. ¹⁵  Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. ¹⁶  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. ¹⁷  And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Luke 5:16 (NIV)  But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Matthew 6:6 (NIV)  But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Psalm 46:10 (NIV)  "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

PRAYER:  Father, thank you for both the privilege and joy of fellowship, and for time to be by myself. Help me to not get out of balance.  In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”

Jesus Christ is Lord!    

Scott

Lost

Luke 19:10 (NIV)   For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

            Last Saturday Joanne and I and Barbara MacPike took a group of eight Junior High youth to Levant to Treworgy Orchards. The main object of the trip was to “do” the corn maze. Each year the folks at this farm plant corn to be turned into a maze of some design. This year’s maze was a mother and baby elephant. A story is developed and travelers through the maze are given a map indicating six stations to discover. I have never been in a three dimensional maze before. The corn is high, and there are many paths not indicated on the map. In time you can find your way around, but there are moments when you feel disoriented and surprised – that you’re one place when you thought you were in another. Because all of this happens in safety, it ends up being fun. Hence the attraction. The illusion of lostness and finding your way out or through is appealing. Perhaps it is like watching a horror movie in a theater or a living room. People enjoy the emotional rise of being scared, but only from a place of safety. Few people would claim to enjoy being truly afraid. Fear is a brutal emotion and experience that leaves one debilitated and out of control if unchecked. So, too, people can enjoy being lost in a controlled environment whereas being truly lost generates great fear and anxiety.

            Of course, you can be lost and not know it. We sometimes think of the work of the Church as bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to lost people. This idea is generated by Jesus’ words in Luke 19:10. His self-described mission was to search out and save lost people. Were they groping around in their world, displaced, and not knowing where they were? No. They were living their lives in relative security with a sense of place and belonging. Most of them grew up in families and through their lives maintained connections that gave meaning and significance. If you asked them if they were lost they would have quickly responded, “No, are you crazy or something?” They did not feel lost. And no one they knew would say they were lost.

            So when Jesus says He came for a search and rescue mission for the lost, to whom is He referring? There must be another kind of lostness – very important if it led to the eternal Son of God exiting heaven and entering human flesh. Had God lost track of some people as if He were in a maze and couldn’t find them? No. I think what Jesus was getting at was that there are those who are lost to Him in their sin in the sense that they are relationally disconnected from Him on a pathway to hell. If He doesn’t do something… if He doesn’t go after them, they will remain lost to Him. But Jesus never fails in His search and rescue missions. He will later say, “I have not lost one of those you gave me.” (John 18:9). Could God be God if He loses track of people? Not much of a God. This lost condition is one of being lost in sin. When Jesus speaks of His search and rescue mission, it was at the end of a visit to the home of Zacchaeus, a tax collector who was considered an outsider to the house of Israel. He was hated and considered to be a traitor and worse than a Gentile. When Jesus pays attention to him people got mad. That’s when Jesus describes His mission – a mission to the lost. Zacchaeus’ position of lostness is not unique. We’re all there. And it’s a good thing for us that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost, because that’s where we are,… or were. “Found” people have no right to mock, hate, belittle, or think themselves better than lost people. We all start in lostness and were it not for Christ’s success in finding and rescuing us, we would still be lost. Once we’re found we can see no attraction in being lost. That condition has lost any appeal. We understand just how bad – how serious – it was.

            So now, like Jesus, we care about lost people. We care because God cares. If we do not care, can we really consider ourselves to be in tune with Christ’s ongoing mission in the world? Can we belong to God without caring for lost people? I don’t know how that could be possible. How can I not care about what God cares about and say that I love God? The condition of being lost – while the culture around us may take it lightly and in some cases even laugh it off – is a desperate place to be, especially when eternity is in view. Our great hope is that Jesus both knew and now knows what He is doing. His search and rescue mission never fails. No one can remain hidden and unfindable to Him. Nor can they remain unsave-able to Him. He will not be thwarted, beaten, or frustrated. He will not fail.

Luke 15:1-11 (NIV)   ¹  Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. ²  But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." ³  Then Jesus told them this parable: ⁴  "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? ⁵  And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶  and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' ⁷  I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. ⁸  "Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹  And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' ¹⁰  In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." ¹¹  Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons… (read the rest in Luke 15:11-32)

PRAYER:  Father, thank you for the persistence and faithfulness of Jesus to find me. He found me in my sin and took upon Himself what was deserved by me. May my memory of my own lostness ever lead me to praise you, to be appropriately grateful, and to care about others who are still lost – as you care about them.  In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”

Jesus Christ is Lord!    

Scott

The Right Direction

1 Thessalonians 1:8-10 (NIV) ⁸  The Lord's message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia--your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, ⁹  for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, ¹⁰  and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead--Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.

            As I read this passage this morning, the words “turned to God from idols” began to roll around in my mind. John Calvin called the human heart an idol factory, and it seems to me we are always moving in one of two directions: to God from idols or to idols from God. Jesus told the Pharisees that people were either with Him or against Him – either gathering with him or scattering. (Matthew 12:30) There was no neutral ground. This can certainly be frustrating to anyone who knows who Jesus is, but does not want to commit to him. The person who knows who Christ is, but wishes to “have fun” or “do my own thing for a while”, is making some significant assumptions. First of all, he is assuming he will have an opportunity at some future point to turn to God. The Scripture tells us not to boast about tomorrow, for we do not know what a day will bring forth (Proverbs 27:1). And Jesus called the rich man who built his barns a fool, because that very night his life would be required of him. (Luke 12:16-21) It is foolish to assume that we will have time to turn to God before we die. And then, secondly, he is presuming he is innocent of being against Christ. His assumption is that he has never intentionally or willfully said a bad word about Jesus or done anything to offend Him or “harm” Him. Therefore Jesus should be “okay” with him. The problem is that Jesus perceives “neutrality” to be opposition. That person who is supposedly neutral regarding Jesus is “moving to idols” just as much as a person who hates Jesus Christ is. And usually it’s not a matter of overt hate. It’s more a matter of simply loving the idols more.

What are the idols? The things we trust more than God. The things we look to for comfort and help instead of looking to God. The things that are more important to us than God. The things we spend more time with, more money on, and use more energy for – with no thought for or regard to God. Idols can even be good things in our lives – even some of God’s own gifts to us: like a relationship, a job, or a material blessing of some kind. Whenever we come to love the “goodies” more than the good Giver, we are in danger of moving toward idols. On several occasions Jesus spoke of following Him. He said once that it is impossible to follow Him without “hating” one’s father, mother… (family). Jesus does not promote hate-filled relationships here. But He does require a love for Him that supersedes all other loves. We are either moving to God from idols or to idols from God.

            In his sermon, The Great Polarizer, Kent Hughes said, “Jesus is the great polarizer. It's as if all of humanity were iron filings laid out on a sheet of paper, and Jesus is the magnet. Every single filing lines up either with the North Pole or the South Pole. Every person is either attracted to or repelled by the person of Jesus Christ, because he's a magnet. The power and influence of his very being cannot be ignored.” Wherever a person is in life, whatever he or she believes, our time here will come to an end. It may come when Jesus comes again or when we die, but it will come. And we will face Him – with nothing but the truth of who and what we are, and what we have loved the most. As C. S. Lewis warned, "That will not be the time for choosing. It will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it or not."

            Each day in our life in Christ affords an opportunity to step away from idols. We do this because we are a new creation in Christ. We do this because He first loved us. We do this for the joy that awaits those who love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. We do this because we’re family (with God) now, because we have been adopted as His children who have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ. We do this by and because of God’s grace, which gives us a hope and a future that no idol – as wonderful as it could seem to be – can give. May the Lord deliver us daily – hourly – moment by moment if need be, from the idols we would create apart from His presence and grace. AMEN!

2 Corinthians 6:1-2 (NIV) ¹  As God's fellow workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain. ²  For he says, "In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you." I tell you, now is the time of God's favor, now is the day of salvation.

Isaiah 42:8 (NIV)  "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.

PRAYER:  Father, show me the subtlety of how things in this world want my worship. Keep my heart pure, and may I be singularly and wholeheartedly devoted to you in love. In the choices that lay before me today, may I move toward you, and not toward an idol of any kind. To your glory.  In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”

Jesus Christ is Lord!    

Scott

Welcoming Revival

            You cannot command sleep. Yet how many of us have tried! Many a mom has grown weary of telling her child, “Go to sleep now.” And many a dad just as weary of adding, “Go to sleep or else.” Yet we cannot say the word – as if we were hypnotists – and put someone to sleep with just that word. We wish we could. How nice it would be if sleep came with the turning of a switch – especially on those nights when we toss and turn and roll and have our minds filled with racing thoughts. But sleep doesn’t work like that.

            In His book Imagining the Kingdom, James A. K. Smith compares revival to falling asleep. He describes how you can only be its object and not its producer. He writes…

“I cannot choose to fall asleep. The best I can do is choose to put myself in a posture and rhythm that welcomes sleep. I lie down in bed, on my left side, with my knees drawn up; I close my eyes and breathe slowly, putting my plans out of my mind. But the power of my will or consciousness stops there. I want to go to sleep, and I've chosen to climb into bed—but in another sense sleep is not something under my control or at my beckoned call. I call up the visitation of sleep by imitating the breathing and posture of a sleeper. There is a moment when sleep "comes" settling on this imitation of itself which I have been offering to it, and I succeed in becoming what I was trying to be. Sleep is a gift to be received, not a decision to be made. And yet it is a gift that requires a posture of reception—a kind of active welcome.”

“A posture and rhythm that welcomes sleep…” In other words, do everything I would do as if I were sleeping (darken the room, make it quiet, lie down on the bed, put my head on a pillow, etc.). Sleep then “happens”if I have created a good environment for it to happen. But it happens – it always happens – quite apart from my command.

What a good analogy for God’s work in revival when He sends His Spirit on us in power. It’s not that we are not looking for Him (though we may, in fact, not be). We are practicing repentance, humbling our hearts, recognizing our brokenness, recognizing it’s about me and not others (not pointing the finger at them, but at myself), softening our hearts, letting God know of our desire for the filling of the Spirit, and spending much time in prayer seeking God’s transforming work in our hearts and minds and attitudes. We are waiting on the Lord patiently and seeking to be faithful day by day. We are doers of the Word and not hearers only. All of these things (and others like them) are ways we put ourselves in the “posture of reception”. We are trusting the sovereignty of God to give grace in the time of His favor.

How else might you put yourself in the posture of reception? Think about your daily words and actions and attitudes. Do they reflect a readiness for revival… for a work of God’s glory and power in your inner being? If you wanted to get into this posture, where would you begin? Would it be to put out of your life a “love” that is competing against your love for Christ? Would it be to find a faithful brother or sister who would help you confess a sin and more openly declare what it has been doing to you? Would it be to fast… to set aside a deeper and more intentional time for prayer? Where would you begin? If you can identify that place, I encourage you to “go there” and do that and wait on the Lord… and continue to wait. I can’t command you to be revived. But I can encourage you “turn out the light” or “pull up the covers”, if you know what I mean.

            Let us seek the Lord and His work in our lives, whether it is in the form of revival or in the everyday-ness of life. Really seek. He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Psalm 85:1-7 (NIV) ¹ You showed favor to your land, O LORD; you restored the fortunes of Jacob. ²  You forgave the iniquity of your people and covered all their sins. Selah ³  You set aside all your wrath and turned from your fierce anger. ⁴  Restore us again, O God our Savior, and put away your displeasure toward us. ⁵  Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations? ⁶  Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? ⁷  Show us your unfailing love, O LORD, and grant us your salvation.

Hosea 10:12 (NIV)  Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.

Jeremiah 29:10-14 (NIV) ¹⁰  This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. ¹¹  For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹²  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. ¹⁴  I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

PRAYER:  Father, may I live each day in expectancy, with a hunger and thirst for you that delights to anticipate the filling of your Spirit and the revival of my soul. Thank you for such outpourings of your grace. Return me to my first love and restore my passion for you.  In Jesus’ name, AMEN.”

Jesus Christ is Lord!    

Scott