Hammer on Anvil '

A man (we’ll call him Bob) is homeless and starving. So starving, in fact, that he is on the brink of death. A rich man sees Bob’s trouble and offers him $50, which Bob gratefully accepts. You’d think that Bob would go and buy some food, right? Wrong! Bob wants to have some fun! Life is too short. So, even though he’s starving, Bob spends the entire $50 on a ticket to an amusement park. He has a great time, riding the roller coasters and bumper cars, going to the shows, and watching the fireworks. But inevitably, the park finally closes and Bob has to leave. He’s right back where he started. Sadly, he’ll probably even die soon since he’s gone yet another day without food.

This story seems far-fetched and ridiculous, right? But is it really much different than what the human race is doing on a regular basis? We’ve been given this gift – life – and we’re wasting it away because…well…we want to have fun.

Last week I wrote about a similar concept. I talked about how we all have to choose whether to live for today or tomorrow. I then talked about how much longer tomorrow (aka Heaven or Hell) will be than today. That was an issue of quantity. This week I’d like to talk about quality, or how much better tomorrow will be than today if we choose Jesus Christ.

C.S. Lewis writes about this issue in the preface to his book The Great Divorce. He says, “I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in ‘the High Countries’.”

What do you want more than anything? It’ll be there, in Heaven, and it’ll be better than what you can even imagine. Don’t misunderstand me. That doesn’t mean that sin of any kind will be there. But what are we really seeking when we sin? Generally, pleasure. And we will have more pleasure in Heaven than we can imagine.

I seem to remember a verse in the Bible (but I can’t locate it, sorry) that told of angels who fly around God and cry out “Holy! Holy! Holy!” Now I don’t know about you, but that seems like a goofy picture if you think about it. I picture God sitting there and two or three bird-sized angels flying circles around his head and squawking “Holy!” every few seconds. Kind of ridiculous.

But remember that God is infinite. There’s no way the angels could just circle around him. In actuality, they are flying along and every so often they see something new and totally amazing. When looked at in that light, I picture myself as one of the angels and I think my cry of “Holy!” could be loosely translated as “Ohmigosh! That’s flippin’ awesome!” How great would that be? Endless awesomeness.

I leave you with a Jesus quote from Matthew 13:44 and a question,
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.”

Where is your treasure?

This week's guest blogger is Jessica Fine.  Welcome Jessica!

Disclaimer: I am not a good writer, but I will share my heart and thoughts with you. You may take them or leave them.

You might think that this title doesn’t really make sense, who would really choose not to pray? Most people would not actively choose not to pray but they might not consciously choose to pray. I was recently at a Village church in Texas and the pastor did a sermon on the average prayerlessness of Christians, I found this quite intriguing and most of this will be borrowed from that sermon. I found myself sitting, listening to the sermon, feeling quite convicted. I get into bad habits of only praying before meals or at bedtime instead of praying throughout the whole day, as I should. 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “Pray continually.” That sounds much easier than it actually is, there is always so much going on that it is easy to get distracted and forget how much we need God, or how badly we need to be praying.

One question that might be worth answering is why do people not pray? One answer could be they do not see the good in praying or they feel like their prayers are not answered, so why pray. Another answer is a lack of self-discipline. In addition, another answer could be that they do not get that sweet hour of prayer. They start to pray and then are suddenly distracted about something else and eventually they don’t even remember what they were doing in the first place. Whatever the case may be, prayer is vital to our walk with the Lord and it is time that we start praying. The pastor talked about how breathing is instinctive, most of us do not have to remind ourselves to breathe, it just happens. He said like breathing, prayer needs to become instinctive in our lives; it needs to be something that is pouring out of us all the time.

He mentioned four points to remember when it comes to prayer:

1) Prayer actually changes things. James 5:17-18, “Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crop.” God listened and answered Elijah’s prayer, praying made the difference. We have to believe in what we are asking for and know that God is big enough to change things. The passage said that Elijah was a man just like us, if God listened to him, he will surely listen to us. Mark 11:24 says, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours”. We have to believe that prayer can change things and it will.

2) Be desperate. Cry out to God, make your requests known, do not give up, and let God see how badly you need Him.

3) Believe that the mercy of God is abundant. We don’t deserve His love and we don’t deserve forgiveness but God sent Jesus to live and die as a man to take away our sins. His mercy never fails.

4) Pray trustingly like a child. Children have this amazing sense of confidence in love, they might ask their parent for something and if they say no, they will ask again and again. But eventually they will give up and believe that the parent knows best because they are older and wiser. That is how we should be with God, His wisdom is definitely greater than ours, and therefore we should trust Him like a child. God sometimes answers our prayers by answering them how we would if we had the knowledge God has. 1 John 5:14-15, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us-whatever we ask-we know that we have what we asked of him.”

I challenge all of you to pray continually. Invite God to join you throughout your whole day instead of at meals and bedtime.

Heb 5:11-14 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. (12) For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, (13) for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. (14) But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Heb 6:1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God

A few weeks ago at a bible camp, I challenged a chapel full of with these verses in Hebrews. The author of this letter to some persecuted Jewish Christians was attempting to rekindle a flame of faith in Christ, where there was apparently some wavering and falling back of some believers. We all know Christians who were once zealous for the Lord, and then watched them fall away. In trying to spur these believers on to continue pursuing Christ, the author begins to wag his finger at them a little about being such stubborn simpletons in the faith. It wasn’t that they were ignorant about the things of Christ, it’s that they just… stopped growing. They were becoming spiritual dwarfs. They grew so far, and then… stopped.

One of the most subtle and common dangers of Christian living is not falling into blatant sin, or even departing from the faith… it’s becoming dull of hearing. We rarely notice it happen. When you were young in the faith, you might have noticed that you were hungry to get into the word, to learn all you could, to take in knowledge and information, and then turn that new knowledge into application and obedience to God. But when we are not diligent and careful, something can begin to happen… over time, you can begin to cease taking in biblical truth for the purpose of life application, and instead, take it in as more information to store away. We can become what James calls “hearers only”, and we cease to become “doers of the word”.

Do a quick check on yourself. Examine your life in the last few weeks, months (maybe even years.) Can you see a noticeable change in maturity in your walk with Christ, or do you seem like nothing has changed much lately? Can you recall, in detail, the last time that, in your bible reading or in being taught from the bible, you were confronted with a biblical command and you were moved to begin walking in obedience to that command? Do you recall the last time that you were confronted by the Holy Spirit about a sinful behavior or attitude and began taking active steps of confession and repentance? Have you noticed a particular selfish or unChristlike attitude begin to disappear in your heart in some area, and be replaced with fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, etc.)? If your answer is “no” to most (or all) of these questions, chances are, this passage was written for you. To the reader, it says “you have become dull of hearing.” This doesn’t mean that you have stopped taking in bible information. You may be drinking it up like a sponge. But to be “dull of hearing” means that you have stopped applying, your heart has become hard, and that tenderness that once dwelled in your heart has become calloused.

If that’s you, and it bothers you, that’s good. Let it bother you. James says this to those believers who have recognized their own hardness of heart:

"Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. (10) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you." (James 4:9-10).

Next week, we’ll dig a little further into this challenging passage, to see how we can overcome “spiritual dwarfism”.

This week, I read a story about Harry Truman. Not the Harry Truman we all read about in history books as the former President of the United States; this Harry Truman lived in Washington State. Sometime in 1980, geologists and government representatives came to his home to convince him to leave. You see, a volcano very near his homestead in the woods had shown signs of becoming active. Unfortunately, he turned them away, convinced they had no clue what they were talking about. Harry Truman paid for rejecting counsel with his life when the volcano erupted and wiped out him and his home.

Solomon's son Rehoboam suffered the consequences of a similar choice. When he was named king after his father's death, he had an opportunity to regain the loyalty of his people for his family's reign. However, instead of listening to the wise counsel of the elders, he chose to place his faith in his friends. When he gave his response to the people's request to lighten their load, the country of Israel was split--most of them choosing to follow Jereboam, who had been chosen by God to lead the people through this troubled time of division.

Life decisions are often tough to make alone. We don't always have the wisdom it takes to determine the more far-reaching repercussions of a decision that seems easy today. When we turn to the wrong people to help us make those choices, the consequences can be very disastrous. Jesus wants us to surround ourselves with people wiser than us for the purpose of getting us through those tough decisions. So although we may not want to admit that our parents, grandparents, and elders know more than us, it is counted to us as wisdom when we put down our pride and take good counsel.

Proverbs 11:14-Where there is no guidance, the people fall, but in abundance of counselors, there is victory.

Proverbs 15:22-Without consultation, plans are frustrated. But with many counselors, they succeed.