Hammer on Anvil '

A lot of us are familiar with this story in chapter 9 of Mark's gospel. A frantic father asks the disciples to cast an "impure spirit" out of his son, but they fail.

Jesus, having just returned from the mount of transfiguration, hears people arguing, and walks over to find out what the fuss is about.

The boy's father responds: "Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not."

Jesus plainly expresses exasperation, as if He can't believe the disciples could have failed at such a simple task. Upon merely SEEING Jesus, the spirit convulses the boy.  When Jesus commands it to leave, it does. Period.

By now the disciples are flummoxed, and I would imagine a bit embarrassed. After Jesus goes indoors, they follow Him and ask Him privately why they couldn't drive out the unclean spirit. Jesus responds simply, "This kind can come out only by prayer" (later manuscripts add "and fasting").

This seems like a straightforward answer, but what does it mean for us as followers of Jesus?

I think this passage points to the critical truth that we must constantly abide in Christ if we hope to be productive children in the kingdom of God. Maybe the disciples thought that since they simply walked with Jesus, they could touch whomever they wanted, and healing or deliverance would come instantly. I imagine when they first started out, this gave them a bit of a rush. 

What Jesus seems to be stressing to His disciples here is their responsibility to maintain constant communication with the Father. Jesus himself on more than one occasion rose in the middle of the night to pray. He knew He must be prepared for whatever God might ask Him to do. He knew that the business of healing and casting out demons required gaining a certain POSITION with God. Even though He was God's Son, He zealously guarded this time of communion with His Father. 

If our Savior needed protracted times of prayer in order to live and move in His Father's will, can you imagine how much greater OUR need is to do the same? It is not enough to simply say you are a Christ follower. The question is, do you produce fruit in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8)? That's what John the Baptist asked the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to the place John was baptizing. He knew their hearts; he knew they were only coming to check him out to see if he was adhering to all their rules. Never known for his social skills, John began the conversation by calling them a brood of vipers.

Are we like the Pharisees and Sadducees? Are appearances more important to us than the condition of our hearts? We can pretend all day long that we're great Christians who do and say all the "right things," but we mustn't be deceived -- our Father in heaven knows the condition of our hearts. We may as well come clean with Him in genuine repentance, and "do the things that show you have really changed your hearts and lives" (that's how the New Century Version translates it).

Dear brothers and sisters, it is not enough to attend church regularly and teach kids' church or play in the worship band. Our entire lives are to be living sacrifices unto God every day. We must deny our flesh daily. We must stop entertaining ourselves to death with television and video games and Facebook and sports, and instead cry out to God on behalf of the people in this world who desperately need Him, and desperately need us to be the followers He wants us to be. 

Jesus commissioned us to not only preach the gospel, but to heal the sick and cast out demons and raise the dead. The time is now.

Two Friday nights ago my family and I were leaving the high school football game. It was passed the point in the day when I function well around people....8pm.

As we walked through the parking lot I saw I had a shadow. Then I saw I had another...and another. As I mentioned before, it was late and my brain wasn't functioning so I wondered how that happened. Then I realized there were several light sources, all helping me to cast a shadow.

I've been thinking about that for these two weeks and thinking about shadows. Our stories are full of shadows. Peter Pan loses his shadow (or in the case of the show Once Upon a Time, sends it to do his bidding). In Doctor Who, the Vashta Nerada lurk in the shadows and you know they have targeted you when you have more than one shadow. Now that Halloween is right around the corner, shadows and dark places are held in high regard. People like to hide in the shadows to jump out and scare others.

The Bible contrasts God to a shadow. In James 1:17 we read, "Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shadow." You see, shadows change. As the sun moves across the sky, shadows shrink and grow. They can distort. We can make shadow puppets on the wall by changing the way we cast a shadow.

God is not like that. He is the same as He has always been and He will not change. The same God who sent Jesus to take each of our places, still loves us. The same God who sent the Holy Spirit to guide us is still that same God.

He still looks after us. He still loves us. He still wants us to follow Him. Nothing has changed. That's a very reassuring thought in a world where nothing is constant. God is, and we can rely on Him.

The other thought I've been throwing around in my head is we are to be like God. So we should not be shadows. God has called us to live a life following after Him. This is true life, when we leave the darkness and come into the light.

My shadow isn't me. It can sometimes look like me, but it's not me. I need to make sure that I'm living the life God has called me to live, and that I'm not living a shadow of the life He desires. Real is always better than a shadow.

God has called us each to live an awesome life for Him. He has a plan for all of us and we can accomplish a lot. Why would we cast away the real, the awesome, or the light, for nothing but an imitation.

Live the life God has called you to live. It's awesome and you don't want to pass up the opportunity.

"When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the LORD" (Exodus 34:29).

This passage of Scripture was highlighted in an Andrew Murray devotional that I read last week. It was about unbroken fellowship with God through prayer, and how people should be able to sense God's presence in us.

Moses, of course, didn't know his face was "ablaze with light" (International Standard Version) when he came down from the mountain. We, too, will be unaware that God's light is shining from us. But to others, it should be evident.

The question, then, is this: Does YOUR face glow with the presence of God? Or does your countenance reflect a sourness and negativity?

Recently my husband and I went into a Christian bookstore where we trade in books we no longer want, and sometimes purchase others. This particular time, we bought some great used DVDs for our granddaughters.

When we took our sacks of books to the man (I'll call him Bruce) who decides what they're worth, he was pitifully morose. But this is "normal" for him, unfortunately. He works in a Christian bookstore, and he exudes not joy but a spirit of sullen dissatisfaction. He hardly makes eye contact, and can be snippy and unpleasant. I was saddened last year when a friend of mine who is not yet a Christian went in there to look for a Bible. She said the staff there didn't seem to care if they helped her or not, and she turned around and walked out.

This particular visit, I was determined to make Bruce smile. I ducked into the restroom to pray. I asked God to help me view Bruce with compassion, and to put words in  my mouth that would put a smile on Bruce's face.

It took Bruce a while to sort through all our books, during which time we found our DVDs and some other books we wanted to purchase. When we were checking out, I joked with Bruce that he deliberately takes a long time so that we'll buy more of his merchandise. And he DID it! He smiled and even chuckled!

Friends, please don't profess to be followers of Jesus if your countenance says otherwise. How can we hope to attract non-believers and share the hope of the gospel with them if they see nothing attractive about us? I can count on one hand the number of people I know who genuinely exude the joy of the Lord. People are drawn to them like a moth to a flame, because they sense something extraordinary and are curious to find out what that "something" is.

So how do we GET this glowing exterior? It's simple, yet requires a great deal of discipline. It's called 24/7 communion with our Father. Murray explains it like this:

Close and continued prayer fellowship with God will in due time leave its mark and be evident to those around us. When the abiding presence of God's presence has become the aim of the morning hour, then with deep humility and in loving conversation with those around us, we will pass on into the day's duties with the continuity of unbroken fellowship. This continuance of the morning watch can be maintained by quiet self-restraint, by not giving the reins of our lives over to our natural impulses.

It is vital that we begin each day in His presence, brothers and sisters. Remember that in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28), and that without Him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you afresh and anew each morning, so you will be empowered to do whatever God asks of you. Pray for divine appointments, and opportunities to share the hope of the gospel with others. Take time to quiet yourself before God, and pray for your ears to be attuned to hear His voice throughout the day.

This image made me think of Romans 8:37, where Paul tells us we are more than conquerors "through Him who loved us."

Chocolate fanatics may be viewing this image now and thinking, I can sure relate to that! I'm sure it will generate some chuckles. But the subject I want to address today is not funny. It is something a great many of us struggle with, yet something we rarely hear about in a sermon. Why? Because it has become one of the "acceptable" sins.

By now you may have figured out the subject I am addressing is gluttony. We live in a country where the rate of obesity is mind-boggling, yet too many of us still sing the praises of our favorite fast food restaurants. We feed the high-fat/low nutrition food to our children, thereby training their bodies to crave it from an early age. Child obesity and type 2 diabetes are on the rise, yet we keep perpetuating the cycle.

Those of you who know me realize I am preaching to myself today as much as anyone. I have struggled with being overweight for most of my adult life. With the exception of my upper arms, I am more fit now than I have been in a long time. I generally eat very healthy, yet food can still be a source of temptation. 

Have we forgotten that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit of the living God? For decades I tried to ignore the wonderful truth of 1 Corinthians 6:19,20: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

Does your body glorify God? Are you fastidious in the care you provide for the temple of the Holy Spirit? Paul admonishes us in Romans 13:14, "Make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires," yet we do little to crucify our flesh when it comes to eating.

I remember vividly a time when the church we were attending was preparing for what they called a "revival." When the deacons gathered for a planning meeting, my husband and I suggested we all fast in preparation. We sensed that this could be an important turning point in our church, and we knew the value of fasting.

We were not prepared for what came next. One of the deacon's wives roared with laughter at the suggestion, and said, "Give me a break! I can barely stick to Weight Watchers!" It makes me cringe even now to think of her response, and it's been some 30 years. Friends, if the thought of fasting makes you hyperventilate or become very agitated, that means food has a hold on you that it shouldn't have. And it probably means you SHOULD fast as soon as possible, to break that hold.

We may joke about our lack of control when it comes to food, but God takes it very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that Proverbs 23:2 says to "Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony." That doesn't sound like a laughing matter to God, does it?

It's always amusing to hear someone boast about how holy they are because they don't smoke or drink or commit adultery or (list your pet sin here) -- yet the person pontificating is 5 foot 2 and weighs 300 pounds. That's a serious disconnect, friends. God doesn't even tell us not to smoke or drink, but He DOES address our eating habits.

Failure to control our fleshly appetites is serious because it compromises our spiritual lives. When we use food like a prescription drug to fill some void in our lives rather than to meet our body's need for nourishment, we are leaving God out of the equation. When fleshly desires are in the ascendancy, the spirit life in us is squelched.

I leave you with 1 Corinthians 10:31: "Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." That needs to be our standard.

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you. These are the ways of the world: wanting to please our sinful selves, wanting the sinful things we see, and being too proud of what we have. None of these come from the Father, but all of them come from the world (John 2:15,16, NCV). 

This Scripture seems to mess with people's minds sometimes. In fact, when I first got saved, I went to a church whose members thought that if they associated with anyone who was not from THEIR church, they were "loving the world." I didn't stick around there for long.

Apparently this uber-legalistic independent church chose to be entrenched in Scriptures they conveniently removed from context to suit their personal prejudices, while ignoring example after example of how our Lord deliberately SOUGHT OUT messy situations and placed himself smack dab in the middle of them. Remember the Pharisee in Luke 7 who got huffy when Jesus allowed "a sinful woman" to wet His feet with her tears and dry them with her hair? And when He dined at Matthew's house after calling him to be a disciple, the Pharisees got bent out of shape and asked the disciples, "Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinners?" (Matthew 9:11). Jesus' response cut like a knife to the core of their problem: "But go
and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." 

Mike Yaconelli, in his book Messy Spirituality, astutely points out that "what drove Jesus' enemies crazy were His criticisms of the 'perfect' religious people and His acceptance of the imperfect nonreligious people." It is still true today. The majority of us prefer the neat and tidy, "act like you've got it all together" spirituality to "messy spirituality." Why? Because, as Yaconelli says, "When you and I stop pretending, we expose the pretending of everyone else. The bubble of the perfect Christian life is burst, and we must all face the reality of our brokenness."

Ouch. How true! It is very hard to be open and real with people who always put on a facade of having it all together. With people who readily admit their brokenness, however, you feel like you can tell them your whole life story and they won't run away in horror.

"Love not the world" is not an excuse to avoid being around sinful, messy people. As the rest of the passage indicates, it is about US and our selfishness and greed. Wanting to please ourselves, lusting after material wealth, and being boastful and prideful about our possessions -- these are the things Jesus warns about. Instead, we are to prefer one another in love (Philippians 2:3) and bear one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2).

I don't know that I ever claimed John 2:15 as an excuse to not be around "messy" people, but I have avoided them nonetheless. I have harshly judged those who didn't seem to have their lives as together as I did. I have avoided homeless people and judged them for their lack of initiative. Not very Christ-like, I know.

If you can fess up to behaving as I have in the past, I challenge you this week to ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart. Are you perhaps missing an opportunity to share Jesus with someone because you don't want to be seen in their "neck of the woods"? A friend of mine is becoming involved in a ministry in which she and other women will be going into strip joints so they can love on the women who work there. What sort of opportunity would she have if she said "Ewww!" to herself and refused to become involved?

If we profess to follow Jesus, we must be willing to roll up our sleeves and get dirty as He did. Let these words of Paul spur you on to more effective ministry:

I have become all things to all people, so that by all possible means I might save some.

Has anyone besides me ever seen the expression illustrated here? Yes, I've heard "nom nom" -- my son and daughter-in-law use that expression quite frequently, usually when referring to their puppy who is just now learning not to devour everything in his path.

When shopping a few days ago, I purchased a healthy popcorn snack -- you know, the kind made only with sunflower oil, popcorn and sea salt. As I was loading my groceries into the trunk of my car, I noticed these words at the very top of the popcorn bag. "Nom Nom Now." Beside the words was a tiny slit, which makes opening the bag easy.

Oh, I get it now. The manufacturers intend that we not wait even until we get the snack out of the grocery store; we can tear it open right then and begin noshing, as if we have absolutely no self-control.

Manufacturers are on to the sad truth that Americans are very impatient people. We want instant everything, and many of us exude an obnoxious air of entitlement, as if the world owes us something.

Unfortunately that sense of entitlement and instant gratification permeates the church as well. We want everything to go our way, and when it doesn't, we gripe. We disagree with decisions the pastor or elders make. The songs we sing are not modern enough, or they're too loud. Why doesn't the pastor use my favorite Bible translation? And God help the unsuspecting visitor who sits in "our seat."

Folks, this isn't what I see demonstrated in the life of our Savior. For starters, Jesus was never in a hurry. Even when He was told Lazarus was sick to the point of death, He tarried longer where He was, so that a higher purpose could be realized. Jesus didn't buy into "nom nom now," even when He had been fasting for 40 days and was very hungry. Every aspect of His life revolved around one thing: His Father's will.

Being in a constant state of hurry is the bane of today's church, and probably the biggest reason that we don't take the time to sit at the feet of Jesus and learn from Him. Instant gratification, too, is a sinister trap that we all do well to avoid.  I love how The Message phrases 1 John 2:15-17:

Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

There you have it in black and white. When we want things in a hurry, want things our way or no way, and selfishly desire things we can't have, we get further and further away from God. He does not want you to go into debt because you can't handle waiting. He doesn't want you to be at odds with brothers and sisters because you are determined to be right at all costs.

We all want to be noticed, and want to feel important. But notoriety from the world generally means enmity with God (James 4:4). Don't look to other people for your sense of identity, or allow your wealth of material possessions to define you. Instead, "fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).