Good enough - Soul Searching

And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ (Matthew 22:37)  It is not enough to love God with all of our heart, but also our soul.  Our life for Him is more than just physical, it is a life where even the very core of who we are, is a life desiring to be lived for Him.  Our purpose and being should be a constant commitment to His way and His word.  Love is not content with just being good enough.  Love strives to be the best in everything we are and everything we do.  To love God with all of our soul leaves no room for our fleshly and selfish desires.  It is not what we want, it is what God wants for our lives which we seek and that is what loving God with all of our soul is.  A true test of where our commitment lies is simple: are we willing to give up anything for the One who created us?  Can we commit ourselves a few hours a week to dedicate in the gathering in His house of worship, not only because He commanded it, but because we want to?  It was not the substance of Cain’s offering that was being rejected; it was the sentiment in which he gave.  The very emotions of the motivation and the reasoning behind our living for God and giving to God should be that of joy.  Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (II Corinthians 9:7)  Not because He commands us to, but because we want to.  If we can change our attitude and make our service and giving our own and let is be done with a spirit of joy and willingness, our Christian perspective will radically change.  To think of His immeasurable grace and His invaluable goodness in our lives should be reason enough to give back to Him and to live wholeheartedly for Him..  Our love for Him should consume our very soul and being that we want only to live for Him and please Him and serve Him.  Yes He commands it, but until we want it, then it has no purpose or meaning.  Love for Him because of a requirement is a vain and shallow love.  It is certainly not the love He had for us.  His love for us was so deep that He left His throne in glory and entered into the physical realm of this world only to allow His life to be taken by the hands of His creation.  In Exodus 21, we see a strikingly beautiful picture of a deep abiding commitment to a slave to His master.  If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,’ then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently. (Exodus 21:4-6) He loved his master and the gifts bestowed upon him by his master that he did not want to leave.  He wanted to serve the master and he wanted to continue to enjoy the rewards of his master that we was willing to endure a painful process to establish to those around him that he was in fact accounted for and was already owned.  That is true commitment.  That is love with all your heart and soul.  How far would you go?  True love for God ignores the comforts of self and the desires of flesh and willingly gives it up for the one who gave His all and freely gives us all.  Daily, we must search within our soul to discover how committed we truly are and constantly remind ourselves how far God went for us.  Our soul must not be satisfied with simple living for God, just enough to slide by as a Christian in the eyes of this world, our soul must be committed to showing God outright surrounded by the watchful eyes of society that we truly are His people and our lives truly belongs to Him.  We can’t do this and hold to some wanton desire of the world’s offerings.  That is not love for God.  Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. – (I John 2:15, 16)  Yes we are to reach the world, but we do not reach the world by living the way the world wants us to live or even by our own idea of what we think.  To be more than just good enough, we must do more than hear His word, but we must also…do them.  But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. (James 1:22-24)  Don’t forget who you are, take His word in which you hear and read and allow it to take root deep into your soul and obey and follow it to allow yourself to be molded into the person He wants you to be.  Are you good enough?  If you are content with good enough, then you need to do a little soul searching.  We must love Him with all of our heart and soul.  With everything we are and do, it must be a direct reflection of where we are in life.  How far would you go for God?

Good Enough - The Heart of the Matter

Blogger's Note - This is a continuation from January 24 blog entitled "Good Enough".  I challenge you to read that one then proceed to read this one. Please pray that God will open your heart and your mind to the true perspective of what Christ is teaching, lay aside your thoughts and feelings and ideas and really look into the way Christ is teaching here.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  And He said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’  It was an answer so simple, yet it’s meaning so lofty.  It is not enough to love God; our love must be more defined and transcendent.  We are to love Him with all of our heart, and all of our soul, and all of our mind.  Our love must be deeper than just an expression; our love must also be an engagement of everything we are.  Why are so content on good enough, when Christ explicitly asks for more in answering the question, “What is the greatest commandment in the law?” 

Our heart, the center and the seat of our physical and spiritual life is the fountain of our thoughts, our desires, our emotions, our passions and our appetites.  Everything about our life, both spiritual and physical is a representation of that which we love and is revealed by the heart.  It is an expression that cannot be hid. Jesus teaches that our spoken word reveals who we are and where we are in our heart.  The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. (Luke 6:45)  How deep and how convicting that is.  The literal meaning of the word heart means thoughts and feelings.  Our speech reveals our true feelings.  Unholy words reveal an unholy alliance.  As a Christian, our speech should be reflective of God and not related to this world.  Everything we allow to represent us shows where we are in our heart.  Our heart belongs to God and our life and our lips should reflect that. What fills your heart?  Is what you want or is it truly what God wants?  Some of us are content with allowing the wisdom and instructions of God to fill our hearts to a certain point.  Simply being good enough, but Jesus reveals to us that the greatest commandment shows that ideology to be a disobedience to what God really wants and expects, we must love Him with ALL of our heart.

There is a legend of Constantine and his army after making Christianity an official religion in the Roman Empire after a supposed vision.  He required every soldier in the Roman army to become baptized.  The baptism came with an ordinance attached.  They must lay aside their weapons.  The weapons of a Roman soldier were a mark of pride.  They refused to lay aside their weapons.  As they marched into the water to be baptized, they held their weapons high above their heads and were baptized except for the hand that held their weapon which remained dry while the rest of their body was submerged.  How guilty are we, much like the Roman soldiers, we will commit our hearts to God but only to a point.  To give even a little space to our fleshly thoughts, ideas, and feelings is setting us up for a trap.  The Apostle Paul warns us: Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts.  (Romans 6:12).  Is our relationship good enough?  As we get to the heart of the matter, in the eyes of God (and Christ, after all they are one and the same), that is not enough.  He does not want just a portion or majority of it.  He does not want good enough, He wants all of it.  That is total and complete and absolute surrender.  It is what He expects, it is what He commands.  Our love for Him should motivate us to please, trust, and obey Him.  He has every right to ask that of us considering the fact that what He has done for us.  Our thoughts, our feelings, our speech is a reflection of who we are and where we are spiritually.  Our heart should be centered on God and His word and His expectations for us.  That is the heart of the matter.  Don’t be content with just good enough, strive to give all of who you are to Him.

Good Enough?

There is a character on television whose favorite phrase was “I’m good enough”.  A week ago, my wife and I watched the challenging and inspiring movie “Courageous”.  In that movie, the main character questioned his ability as a father.  His questioning was centered on the phrase “good enough”.  He determined the good enough was not good enough and resolved to spend more time in the Scriptures to really grasp what was expected of him.  What he discovered was that the expectations of the Scriptures set for him as a father, husband, and friend were more than he actually knew and practiced.  As the phrase “good enough” bounced around within the intricate walls of my mind, I reflected on the words of Jesus to the Pharisees when they questioned His knowledge of the law, specifically a question asked by a lawyer.  What is the greatest commandment of the law?  The question was given to the one who established the law to His creation.  The answer given was two-fold.  Upon that two-fold answer rest every expectation God has of us.  And He said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’  This is the great and foremost commandment.  The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ (Matthew 22:37-39).  Did you know the 10 commandments focuses on our relationship with God and others?  Here Jesus in 2 simple sentences profoundly explained the true meaning of all the laws of the Old Testament.  The laws established were to help define our relationship with God and our relationship with others.  Are we good enough or have we fallen short of the expectation that Jesus has established in the single greatest law originally quoted in Deuteronomy 6:5.  A commandment in which God explicitly commands in Deuteronomy 6:6, “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart.”  Are we good enough?  Our unfortunate generation has lost the emphasis of striving for the best.  Now they are taught to just be good enough.  They no longer want the struggles, the efforts, and the work of being the best; they are content with being good enough.  Just sliding by on minimal merits and hoping that they can get the best. In the Christian life, to be content on being a good enough Christian misses the mark of Jesus teaching concerning our relationship with God.  In doing so, we also miss the mark on God’s commandment to us in Deuteronomy 6:5.  Many people in our churches today only allow the first part of the commandment to take root but seemingly ignore or unwillingly take into account the second portion which holds an equal significant importance of the our relationship with God.  Love Him with “ALL your heart, and ALL your soul, and ALL your mind”.  According to Christ, it is not enough to just love God, we must love Him with our entire being.  He is to be the focus of our heart, our soul, and our mind.  Ask yourself this question: How far would you go for God?  Now consider this question: How far did God go for you?  In answering the second question, we should be able to find the motivation and the reason necessary to love God with ALL of us.  Not just portions, but ALL.  One of the characteristics of love as defined in I Corinthians 13 is that love does not seek its own.  To love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind is to leave no room for self.  Our self is and should be a total and complete and undivided devotion to God.  This same being who left the comfort of His throne and allowed Himself to be born in a feeding trough, then suffered, bled, and died upon a tree in which He planted at the hands of men He created deserves our total devotion, service, and life.  He has every right to command and to expect it for the very thing He has done for us.  Too often when searching Scriptures, we search looking for our own twist and meanings, but yet it disrupts the original intent of what God intended.  Are you good enough?  Or do you truly find yourself heeding the greatest commandment as spoken by Christ.  Love the Lord your God……….. WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.

If Only I Could See

Florence Chadwich, at the age of 34, on July 4, 1952 waded into the water off Catalina Island and began her 21 mile swim toward California. If she completed her journey, she would be the first woman ever to accomplish this feat. The water was ice cold, and the fog was so heavy, that Florence could hardly see the boats in her own party. Sharks often began to attack Florence as she swam and men armed with rifles in the boats surrounding her had to drive them off with carefully aimed shots. But the constant numbing cold of the water was her toughest problem. Fifteen hours after she began, she asked to be taken out, her muscles sluggish and unresponsive due to the frigid water.  Her mother and trainer, alongside in the boat, told her they were near land. They encouraged her not to quit. But as she looked ahead, all she could see was the dense fog.....so she gave up and asked to be taken out of the water. When they pulled her out, she was only a half mile from the California cost! Only a small fraction of her journey was incomplete....she almost did it. Later, when Florence’s body began to thaw, the shock of failure finally hit her.  To a reporter she blurted out, "Look, I’m not excusing myself. But if I could have SEEN the land, I might have made it."  Two months after her failure, Florence Chadwick walked off the same beach into the same channel and swam the distance, setting a new speed record, because she could see the land. 

     Wouldn’t life be easier if we could just see the big picture?  As we venture through this journey in following God’s plan and purpose, sometimes we wish we can just get a glimpse of what God has in store for us.       Aren’t we often like Florence Chadwich in the midst of her swim?  We just churn along through the choppy waters of life, swimming blindly to whatever is ahead, at times it seems. Surrounded by preachers, friends, and family barking along their encouragement, we struggle to prevent weariness and fatigue from taking over.  If only we could see the land, even if just a glimpse, it will give us a little more motivation.  Then we read a verse such as this: For we walk by faith, not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7).  Faith, that same inexplicable word, used over and over in pews and pulpits and pages to explain the Christian life, has now shown itself as our excuse to press on.  That same faith which nominated men and women of the Old Testament to a chapter devoted solely on those heroes, rightfully named because of it.  It was that faith that allowed them to see what their human eyes could not and to comprehend what their finite minds could not.  By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8)  Abraham could not see nor did he know where he was going, but faith in the One who was leading the charge served as His motivation.  I may not see God physically, but I have seen what He has done.  It is enough to help me see that in the days and steps ahead, He is leading.  Though the fogs of doubt will forever try to dampen my spirit, I know the One who is in control.  I will keep churning through the choppy waters of life because His presence and promises give me a glimpse of His glory.  Too often we give more weight to our circumstances than we do to God.  Instead of looking to our situation, look into His promises.  It is in His word and in His work that we can see enough to give us that extra burst of motivation to finish the course.  As we seek God’s purpose in life, allow your faith to serve as your vision to the coming days ahead.  Don’t look at the uncertainties, look to Him.  You may not know, but He does.

Is the grass greener?

Lot lifted up his eyes and saw all the valley of the Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere—this was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah—like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go to Zoar. (Genesis 13:10)

The LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, “Now lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land which you see, I will give it to you and to your descendants forever.” (Genesis 13:14-15)

What a contrast between two different looks.  In the first we see the look through desires and what they see in their own mind and knowledge.  In the second, we see a look that is guided by God.  Which look suffered the more serious consequences?  We know all too well the end result of Sodom and Gomorrah.  In life, our mistake is imagining what we believe in our mind to be best and once we see it, we venture down that path.  To make a decision with our finite minds is to set a course for failure.  Just because the grass looks greener does not mean the future is brighter.  Our decisions not only affect us individually, but it also affects others, especially those of us with family.  You sometimes have to wonder what would have been the outcome had Lot not chosen what he thought in his mind looked better.  His wife would have been spared.  How about his reputation as a father when he was put in a position when he offered up his daughters to the evil despicable men who wanted him to offer up his visitors so they could have their way with them?  There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12)  We must be careful in looking ahead.  We must ensure that our vision, goals, ambitions, and directions are guided by God.  When God guides our vision and our paths, it leads to promises.  When God showed Abraham all that we was receiving, he also attached a promise.  In the last part of verse 15, God said that the land would also be given to the descendants of Abraham forever.  Faith is resting our future in the hands of God.  Faith moves us to claim, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3:5,6), as our standard in seeking life’s direction for ourselves.  The first part of Proverbs 3:7 even commands us “Do not be wise in your own eyes”.  That was Lot’s first mistake.  We must let God decide our paths.  We must let God open our doors.  We must let God guide our visions.  What do you see ahead?  Are you letting God guide or are you trusting your own imagination, knowledge, and desires.  Do you have the vision of Lot or are you having the vision of Abraham.  What are you looking at?  A better question may be, how are you looking?

Comfort in the Cemetary

It’s hard to believe how much my father’s passing still affects me today.  During my extended stay in North Carolina, I took my 9 month old son to visit his graveside.  When the tombstone came into view, tears began to well into my eyes, much like it does every time I visit.  I clutched my son tightly to my chest and gazed at the ground before the tombstone where the casket lies beneath the brown dormant grass underneath the bright midday winter’s sun.  The memories of that eventful day that occurred over fourteen years ago is relived in vivid details like a movie screen in continuous play my mind.  The emotions of my soul were just as raw and real as they were that day on October 5^th, the day he passed, and on October 9^th, the day we was laid to rest in his final resting place also the day of his birthday.  He was my hero, my mentor, my fishing partner, my coach, my tutor, among many things and above all, he was my best friend.  I kissed my son on the cheek and he looked at me with his bright hazel blue eyes wide with curiosity.  As I gazed into his face, he flashed a goofy grin and buried his head into my shoulder.  My son.  I remembered fondly the last words of my father to me, two days before he passed:  “I am proud of you my son”.  Oh how I miss him after all these years.  The following day I returned to the cemetery alone.  My mother manages that cemetery and gave me permission for the usage of her office to study for the upcoming Sunday in the peace and quiet of her office alone.  As I began to read, I came across a verse.  After I read the verse, I gazed out onto the row of tombstones.  I could not see my father’s tomb but I knew it was there in the front corner on the far end of that cemetery.  The sun was still shining as bright as ever.  I reread the verses.  I closed the Bible and walked the distance to my father’s tomb with the Bible in hand.  I passed by the tombstones of many other people that I knew.  Some of them, the finest Christians I have known.  There was a little skip in my step as I quickened my pace to my father’s graveside.  I opened the Bible and read those verses to him aloud – “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore comfort one another with these words.” (I Thessalonians 4:16-18)  No, I was not comforting my father.  For you see, he is already comforted in the eternal presence of the Savior.  I was comforting myself.  Reread those words closely.  Did you see what I see?  Oh what a sweet comforting thought those words offer to us.  “Together with them”.  Who are “them” that is being referred to here?  The ones who have passed on before us!  My hope!  My anticipation!  What a future to look forward to!  I will be reunited with my father!  But what makes that reunion even more special is that together we will meet the Lord and forever be in His glorious and wonderful presence!  How exciting!  Is there someone who has passed on before you?  A saint?  Someone who is near and dear to you?  A child of God?  Spouse?  Parent?  Children?  Friend?  There is hope in knowing that one day soon, we will reunite with them as we are caught up together to meet the Lord and forever be in His presence.  These are not just mere words mind you, but an assuring promise of God for you and I who may still be grieving or struggling with the loss of a loved one.  Comfort each other with these words.